Schooling the IT teacher

[RealUnimportant]

Thought of this story while reading http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=85532 & the ensuing amusing replies... I was going to post it as a reply but I think it works better as its own thread; I think this is the best place for it?

In the mid/late 80s, when I was in high school & home computing was really taking off, I chose to study IT for my GCSEs - well, I studied Computing as it wasn't even called IT then. The class was taken by a maths teacher who's idea of a lesson plan was reading directly from the handbook that came with the computers we had (BBC 'B' Microcomputers, for the older Brits on here!) She was lazy, ineffectual, utterly devoid of any relevant knowledge in the field, and claimed to never have even heard the word "fuck" until she started teaching at our school - considering she was nearly 50 and as wide as she was tall (and she was about 5 feet tall) we could all well believe no-one had ever used the term "fuck" before in her presence... She was actually married though, and this was the cruelest part of all - this dumpy planetoid of a woman's life-mate had saddled her with the surname "Lomas"; "low mass" was certainly not an accurate description of her!

But I digress.

Anyway, I was one of a lucky few who had a BBC at home (and had for about 5 years at this point), and she knew that I knew a lot more than her & she resented me for it. Other kids would ask me for assistance well before they'd consider going to her.

One day she couldn't get the teacher's machine to work. This was the machine placed at the front with the biggest monitor you could buy at the time, and as such was highly visible to the rest of the class. She called me over - rather, she yelled at me "what have you done to this machine?!" Accusation was dripping, oozing, writhing across the classroom floor towards the back corner where I sat... Where I'd been all lesson, excepting when I'd walked in from the door on the same wall as my corner; it was about as far from her machine as it was possible to get while remaining in the same room, in fact. I naturally protested my innocence, but went over to look & see if I could solve the problem.

On arriving at her desk, after the most cursory of glances I swiftly leaned over to the back wall & flicked on the power strip. The machine's own power switch was already on, & it bong-beeped into immediate life. Cue 5 minutes going back & forth with her about what I'd just done, with everyone around me of course able to see exactly what I'd done & acting as witnesses in my defence whenever she tried to drag them into the argument.

.....

As the computers represented a significant investment for the school, the classroom was always locked when not in use. This idiot woman's idea of maintaining security was to leave her keys out on the central island in full view & well out of her own reach... I felt this was unacceptably lax behaviour security-wise, and so one day a few weeks after the above events, I managed to not just sneak her keyring away but to remove the key for the door & then replace the main bunch where she'd abandoned them earlier.

The lesson ended. The children began disorderly filing out, heading for lunch. The teacher stayed to sort out a few bits of homework that had just been handed in. I made sure I was the last child to leave, and as I went through the door I turned & locked it behind myself...

I wasn't completely heartless; I left the key in the lock as I ran laughing to my friends up the hallway. She was rescued within 15 minutes, & I was soon called to the carpet by the department head. Yes, I got in trouble but it was treated nowhere near as seriously as I'd feared - and from that day forth, her keys always stayed safely out of sight!

.....

Oh and then there was the time when I had my early afternoon lesson, then stayed behind to join the second shift... They were far worse behaved than my group ever was, even smoking in class - it was this fine upstanding young man that allegedly introduced the teacher to the word "fuck"! I almost made it through the whole lesson without being rumbled, but 3 minutes before the bell my homeroom teacher came looking for me; she'd been reassigned to teach the lesson I'd been skipping, but had only then noticed my lack of attendance!

[emax4]

Yikes! I had gone to a computer trade school to further my education. The first semester had the very basics, and for a select few this was just too elementary for them that they quit. At least you were able to stick with it and help other students out.

I attest to reading a help file to learn about using software, basically MS Excel. I had some training at the trade school but hadn't used Excel in such a long time that I had to re-learn it all, and the help file came in handy.

[protege]

I took a "computers for business" class in college. Boring as hell, since it was mostly Lotus/Excel and Access. I'd get my work done, and spend the rest of the class surfing the web or playing Quake with a couple of the other students. In fact, the professor said that I could skip the class, and just show up for the tests. With a 95% average, why not? But, at the time, I couldn't get online at my grandma's...and Quake didn't always run on the crappy computer I had there

[EricKei]

Yikes! I had gone to a computer trade school to further my education. The first semester had the very basics, and for a select few this was just too elementary for them that they quit.

My HS "computer lit" class (circa 1992) was essentially running MS-DOS and some very very basic stuff in BASIC...which I had taught myself in 4th grade >_< The teacher knew this, and whenever she was busy with one of our less-swift classmates, she would send me around to see who else needed help ^_^

Later, in trade school, we did have some people who just couldn't grasp the basic concepts (I'm talking about needed help getting Word to work)...And they were in their third attempt at the degree...all paid for via scholarships, while I was sinking progressively into debt to pay for this stuff. ARGH

[Dreamstalker]

She didn't know how to unlock a door from the inside? (assuming the door had a way of doing so)

The "principles of the internet" class that I had to take when starting on my certificate was a joke. The professor was slavishly devoted to the textbook which had an amazing amount of outdated or just plain inaccurate info; it also assumed the reader was clueless. I often found different ways of doing the exercises (which would yield the desired result even if the book's instructions were bad) and was called on it and/or penalized because even though the outcome was correct "the book didn't say to do it that way". I passed the class, but wasn't that thrilled with the whole experience; ironically, I should have been allowed to waive that one based on my existing degree.

I found out way too late that there was another section of the class taught by someone who knew the book was garbage.

[RealUnimportant]

I attest to reading a help file to learn about using software, basically MS Excel. I had some training at the trade school but hadn't used Excel in such a long time that I had to re-learn it all, and the help file came in handy.

Teaching yourself from the help files is resourceful. But basing 2 years' worth of lesson plans for teaching a High School or College course on the computer's "Getting Started" handbook?

[SongsOfDragons]

I was made to do this silly qualification thing called the ECDL (European Computer Driver's Licence) in 2009. Passed each test with barely any effort - Word, Excel, email, internet...the only thing that was good about it was that it taught me the virtue of using Access to make a database of my worldbuilding project's imports and exports. It's worthless!! No employer bothers with it - and this was funded by the JobCentre...

[Dreamstalker]

Most if not all of the computer-related 'retraining' courses offered through the state unemployment office--even the ones that charge a fee--are useless for all but the most computer-illiterate.

Case in point: When I first decided to pursue computer forensics, my caseworker at the time tried to steer me toward a 'state approved' program that they would pay for. Further research brought up that the program was designed by people whose only exposure to computer forensics was NCIS and 'hacker' movies/documentaries; it taught what they thought you needed to know and not what you would actually use.