Ok, NOW I'm irritated.

Published on September 20, 2005 By dharmagrl In Misc

One of my son's teachers is pissing me off.

Friday, Davey came home with a homework assignment that involved getting on the internet. I don't agree with that. Not every child has access to a computer and the internet at home. my friend is having problems with her computer and her boy (he's in the same class as Davey) expressed concern about not being able to complete his assignment because of the computer problems. Her response? "Have you mother take you to the library".

The base library is closed on Sundays, leaving Saturday as the only viable option for him to go do his homework there. What is his mother had worked Saturdays? Or had no way to get to the library? In addition, the library only has a few public computers, and as with anything else, active duty take priority. The rest of us have to take a number and wait. So, even if they HAD been able to get to the library, they still might have had to wait hours to get onto a computer. What if his mother was, due to a deployment, trying to single parent a family with smaller children in it? How would she have managed taking those smaller kids to the library and waiting around for who-knows-how long for a computer to come open?

As it turns out, my friend managed to get her home PC working properly long enough to get on the school website. When she tried to access the quiz that the teacher asked the kids to take, she found that said quiz had been archived and was no longer acessible to the public.

She called me, and asked me to try and access it. I did, and I got the same error message.

I decided to email the teacher and explain to her why my child wouldn't be able to complete his homework assignment. I also expressed my concerns about teachers assigning weekend homework that involves internet access, citing the same reasons as I gave here.

That was Sunday. I know she got my email because my son told me that she had mentioned it to him, also saying that she had mistakenly archived the quiz.

I have yet to hear back from her. That irritates the crap out of me. At the very least she could have emailed me back telling ME, the parent, what had happened. My child is NOT a reliable messenger....matter of fact, I don't think that he should be ANY kind of messenger for his teachers, period. I don't tell him to tell his teachers stuff, I contact them directly. I expect the same in return.

I'm going to email her again this evening, asking what the status of the quiz is. I'm going to make like my son never told me anything, and I'm going to sit back and wait for a reply. I aint holding my breath, though.

Am I wrong for thinking that she should have at least sent me a 2 line email explaining what happened and reassuring me that my child won't be penalized for HER mistake? Am I asking too much?

I thought that most teachers wanted parents to be involved in their children's education. How can we do that when their teachers won't communicate with us?

Comments (Page 4)

dharmagrl

on Sep 21, 2005

The point is, you're not going to be able to purchase any new computer for less than a couple hundred bucks

Exactly, and when you're too broke to afford $10 for internet service, three hundred is out of your reach, y'know?

Even a quick phone call to say she received your note and will contact you at a later time, anything!

That's exactly my point! Anything would have been better than the silence I've recieved thus far!

And IMHO I think the teacher is a jerk!

Thanks, I do too!

Dan Kaschel

on Sep 21, 2005

Wow... much has happened.

Sorry but that was the most innane response you could come up with. Try again, when you're ready to actually respond to point.

Bad response. Look at how dharma responded for a "logic-based" response. I feel the urge to get touchy about this, so I'll just move on.

Dude, that has to be one of the most assinine statements I've heard in a looooong time. Maybe in your relatively well-heeled circle of acquaintences EVERYONE has internet, but where I live they don't. They didn't at my last base either. I'd suggest that you go check your stats before you make such claims as 'everybody has it'.

Then you just don't hang around the right people.

When you say, "that has to be one of the most assinine statements I've heard in a looooong time" it's called a colloquialism. Because the truth is you've probable heard a more asinine comment within the last 24 hours. In the same way, when I say "everybody has it," it means either that "most people have it" or "it has the appearance of most people having it." For instance, if I saw 100 people walking down the road and 1/3 of them had red hair, I might say "everybody had red hair," when in fact not even a majority did. Now, should I really have to explain this to you?

56% is a pretty high percentage for a piece of technology as new as the internet/computers. I think you'll find that a far lower percentage of people have copy machines, which are a much more established piece of technology as such things are gauged (i.e. they've been a solid part of the market significantly longer).

But really, all I'm arguing is semantics, since we already agreed on the meat of the issue.

Dan

dharmagrl

on Sep 21, 2005

Then you just don't hang around the right people. When you say, "that has to be one of the most assinine statements I've heard in a looooong time" it's called a colloquialism. Because the truth is you've probable heard a more asinine comment within the last 24 hours. In the same way, when I say "everybody has it," it means either that "most people have it" or "it has the appearance of most people having it." For instance, if I saw 100 people walking down the road and 1/3 of them had red hair, I might say "everybody had red hair," when in fact not even a majority did. Now, should I really have to explain this to you?

Hmm...how 'bout I explain this to YOU?

You're a pompous, arrogant little prick, and you're now on my blacklist.

drmiler

on Sep 22, 2005

That's all I said. It's true as well. Ever use an eMachine?

Actually I have. And they are like any other computer. They are made from some of the exact same parts as your gateway is. And like any other brand of computers you get good ones and you get bad ones. I was in the computer field for the last 15 years most of which were spent as a computer technician and last as an IT manager. What I was taking an exception to was the comment "can't-do-much computer". Which is wrong in itself. Most of even the "basic" computers now a days can handle anything you care to throw at them. With the exception of video editing. But you are correct on the pricing. Which has come down quite a bit from just 5 years ago.

Chaos Manager

on Sep 26, 2005

They are made from some of the exact same parts as your gateway is.

--drmiler

And there's a really good reason for that ...

Gateway recently purchased eMachines ... From the looking I did recently, eMachines have become just rebranded Gateways. The same way that HP and Compaq computers are now indistiquishable.

But you are correct on the pricing. Which has come down quite a bit from just 5 years ago.

5 years? Try last year. We priced systems last summer that were comparable to what we've just purchased (which is an eMachine, btw and me a computer pro at that). By comparable, I mean that they were as far behind the bleeding edged of technology as this machine. Somewhere between midranged and bleeding edge. The equivalent system last summer would have been closer to $1000 before adding in the cost of the monitor.

Zoomba

on Sep 26, 2005

In elementary school it's inexcusable to assign something over the weekend that REQUIRES Internet access. While a simple majority of the US may now have net access at home, that 56% is most definitely NOT evenly spread out. In my home town, almost 100% of the students in the school district now have one computer with net access in the home, 75% have 2 or more PCs. In some other towns there may only be a small handful that have a PC with a dialup AOL connection. And kids that small can't get themselves to the library to access the public computers, they need mom or dad to do that, and that's not always possible on a weekend.

In High School, the situation changes a bit, since the kids should now be able to make their way to the library somehow (with some exceptions of course that should be dealt with by the teacher on a case-by-case basis). Also, unless a kid isn't planning on going to college, computer profeciency and ownership is going to be EXPECTED when they move on from high school. Many schools have moved their entire application process to the web, and I know damned well that if you go to college without a computer, you can be seriously screwed nowadays.

drmiler

on Sep 27, 2005

Don't know where you were looking but you need to look somewhere else. I assisted in a laptop purchase for my neice last year. When I say assisted I mean I did all the leg work. We got her almost a bleeding edge machine from Dell for "well" under $1000. We're talking P4 with 256M, yada, yada, yada!

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