"Communication is only possible between equals"-never whistle while your pissing

"Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager arrested in computer crime scandal", "Hacker arrested after bank tampering"... damn kids. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's techno brain, ever take a look behind the eyes or the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have moulded him? I am a hacker, enter my world... mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... damn underachiever. They're all alike. I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to the teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... or feels threatened by me... or thinks I'm a smart ass... or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addicts veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetence is sought…a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know every one here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... damn kid tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... you bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin colour, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike."

-A hackers manifest / The Mentor- (I really love this quote, it truly describes the situation of the non-brain dead outcast in our society. Mainly that of kids in public school, its a lesson thats been told so many times. Maybe someday somebody will listen.)

"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

-- Thomas Jefferson

HTis is something new, finally. A little rant on the utter STUPIDITY, of the carroll county public school system.

Public school, prehaps the worst project this country has ever undertaken. It certainly has met with the least success. Studies consistently show that American students are far behind those in other countries , especially in the math and science fields. ( i meant to have some impressive stats from a study done by Popular Science magazine here, but i couldn't find the issue. when i do the article will be updated accordingly)THe federal answer to this is of course, "higher standards" which is of course htere way of appearing to be doing something when they really don't know what the hell is going on. They also like the computer solution, that is, throwing out bills that set higher technological standards, hoping htat the voting public will see computers and think something is being done to better schools. This of course is nonsense, there is no actual studies showing that the mere presence of high level computing tools will increase student knowledge by any degree. Yet it seems as though the whole country has been brainwashed into thinking that computers will solve every problem we have. Its absolutly ludicrous.

The local board of education however, has been all to happy to comply to federal demands, because of course, the government knows the right thing to do! THe love the idea of more stnaderdized tests, and more comkputers, because it makes htem look like they are doing something. It gives them a buttload of pretty figures they can make into graphs and show to each other at meetings. In short it gives them a means to justify their own existence.

The result of course is just plain idiotic. My school, Francis Scott Key High, is in the midst of a much needed renovation, both of the building and the equipment. Of course, they wanted to update the computer systems that we had, as they were incredibly out of date. (Computer programming classes were taught on apple 2 e's!)HOwever what we got, as ridiculous, top of the line gateways desk tops, 350 Mhz proccessors, with 64 Mb's of RAM, and 8 Gig Hard drives. THey did of course pay top dollar for these systems, however, htose who know anything about computers know that these are already out of date. THey succeeded on spending stupid amounts of money on systems that would be out of date before they were even networked (the networking still is not complete, who do they haverunning hte wire? Plumbers?), and that we have no rea use for. Considering that every single computer availible for student use has most of its functions blocked off by a programm called fortress (A program I am happy to say, is easier to crack than a rotten egg), the majority of the copmus are used only for internet reserach. This could be accopmlished by much cheaper computers designed speacifically for such a job. On a system where nothing is allowed to be saved, you have no need for 8 Gigabytes! THere is no task in any class in the school that really calls for more than 800 megabytes, hell, you could make do with less than that!

I will go no further describing the stupidity of the board of education its plans for Key other than that they lost an incredible amount of money by trying to build a sewer water treament plant(WHY?!) outside our school without asking some of the neihbors if they wanted several hundered gallons of raw sewage under there noses. They were got their buts sued because they are idiots. Rather, I will concentrate on what could be done to fix the problems we face and how the board of education makes no move to even appear like it acknowledges a problem to begin with.

To start wit, lets adrees the problem of middle school. I attended 6th grade in the Tyler independant school district, in smith county Texas. HTere, even middle schools had sports teams, and there were elective classes that counted toward high school credits. When i moved here to carroll county in 7th grade, I was shocked and appalled, in fact, i am still in shock. Middle shcool does nothing but keep kids somwehre during hte day for three years. Thats it! There are of course no electives (those of you who have attended middle school in this county recently know what I am talking about) Student go through the same classes every year, although prehaps in a differant order. Gym, music, art, home economics, time is spent in each of these classes every year. Iguess htey think it makes for a well rounded individual. BS! Not only do they make no use of these three years to allow students to pursure intrests, but they make hard to advance acedemically at all. IF a student does appear brighter than average, they may be forwarded ot an advaced class, such as spanish (it has been proven that younger children learn languages easier than adults or teenagers, language classes should be a part of the curriculum from day one) Which of course does nothing, since it does not count as a high school credit. In fact no classes no matter how advanced, ever count towards high school, which of course makes them pointless. Even if the classes actually taught any knowledge, it would be pointless, for as we are about to see, in high school, you aren't supposed to learn anything, just do as you are told.

We come know to the single reason why high school is pointless, and will never work in its current state, no matter how many computers every class has. I had always thought, and belieed that most people thought the same, that the purpose of shcool is to educate. to teach knowledge. To take a history class, is to learn history, to take a math class, is to learn math. We will for this example use an expository writing course. Let us assume that every person in the class, does not know how to write an essay, there fore, the teacher would demonstrate how to do so in some form, prehaps thvia a text book, or by example. Then, the student would be told to complete some "work", and excercise designed to teach htem the method of essay writing themsleves. After several excersises, the student would take a test to measure how well the student had learned the material. Id o believe that this is an accepted model of how a classroom should work.

We pause now for a moment so that I may prove a point. Let us take a weightlifter intraing for the oplympics. he lifts wieghts daily and does various "excercises" in order to build his strength and technique for the day when he will compete in the games, and with luck and skill, prehaps win a medal. What I ask of any the readers of this article, is; Does htis lifter get a medal for doing his trianing excerses? Of course his success in compettetion may be directly related to his training, but he gets no medal for it, Conversly, if an athlete never trains a day, but mkaes all the trilas neccessary, and then competes and wins a gold medal, does tha fact that he never trained disqualify him? Of course not!

So, returning to our hypothetical classroom, let us assume that a particualr student alread knew how to write an essay. Let us assume that he never does any of the "excersises" designed to teach him how to write, yet he passes with an acceptable score on his final exam, should he be failed? He knows the material, which is why he did not do any of the excersises. IF we still assume that the purpose of a class is to teach a subject, then this person obviouusly should pass, for he certainly knows the subject.

It becomes apparent quite quickly however, that tbhis is not true. If a student in A high school in carroll county does not do any of the required work for the class, but passes the final exam with an A, they will fail the class. This mkaes no sense of course, unless the purpose of the class is not to educate, but to look good on paper. To show that the students have completed the required "credits". THese of course exist for political resons, so that when the government asks to to seemorew science being taught, the board of education can say "look, will will just require them to take anohter credit" as if simple exposure to science will teach anything. Of course, their is no apprent concern about actual education, just as long as things look good on paper.

It is because of this that educattion suffers in this country, because there is no attempt being made to actually] edcate, only to please ones superiors with statistical evidence of learning. Never actual learning. Before anything can be done to improve education, the board of education needs to pull their heads out of hteir asses, and decide that learning is the prime objective. It doesn't require spending any money, or hiring more teachers, or changing class sizes, it just requires a change in thinking. (You guys on the board of Ed know about thought right? Its something that was once thought to be unique to the human species, but apparently, it is a more unique phenomena than previously thought)

Now of course, while a change in thinking is all that is required to start a change, it is not all. The truly funny thing is, that the changes that would make hte most difference cost the least, and require very little change of anything, except for thinking. While many people over hte years have supported a change, htey have always asked for more computers, or more teachers, or smaller classrooms, this is crap. The single most change that could be made in education for better is the changeing on the way students are graded. As mentioned before, the excersises are their to teach, not to be graded, it happens only to oftenthat students pass a class without learning anything. Simply because they did all the work, and passed, even though they failed the final exam. If a student fails and exam, they don't know the material, they failed the class!

The second most important change goes along with this, its called "placement testing". IF a student can demonstrate the ability to pass a class's exam with only a week or so of study, then the student should not have to take the entire course. As before as long as we assume that the purpose of the course is to teach, then the satisfactory demonstration of knowledge should count as passing the class. This will have very benificial effects, as student who know a subject, will not sit in a class they do not need, class sizes will deminish. Meanwhile, student who do not yet know a subject will get more attention, as their class will be smaller, and filled more with students at their own level. this is espeacially advantagious for students who have learning disabilities, or just problems with certain subjects, will get extra help, and will not be left behiond in a larger class.

Instituting placemnet testing would require no extra money, only minor restructering of the school semester. In fact, all we are really talking about is offering a student the chance to take a classes final exam before taking the class thus avoiding unneccessary work. IF you already know it, you don't need to learn it, period.

Of course, certain other things would occur with the implemention of placement testing. For instance, I think we would find that current standards are far to high for the avearge person. The current standrds in education have been set because we are afraid of falling behind other nations, and just the very apparent degrading level quality in education. SO , as mentioned before, The government says "we need more science taught to young people". The state make mandates, and the school districts respond by making a standardized test and requiring more science credits. They Showthe state thst they have more clesses now, and that student test scores (on a test geared to make them look good)have improved since the last one was taken. Once classes are actually teaching knowledge, i think we will find it impossible to learn everyting the government mandates that students do. This is the only major change that will have to be made, yet once again, it is just a change in thinking, entirely dependant on certain morons learning to think to begon with.

I certainly hope this artivle has been thought provoking, at the least somwhat intresting. I certainly hope that some member of the board of education will see this and decide its time for a change. Howeverm i have always been told by teachers and administrators, that depsite my knowledge, my character and intelligence would always be judge by my "work results". Well, judging by the board of educations work results, I think they are the most retarded fucking pigs on the planet, obiously evolutionary mistakes, or products of crimes against't nature. Never, even on the seediest oif talk shows, has there ever been assembled, a more disgusting group of cretins, the are the epitomy of ignorance, stupidity, self delusion, and just plain asinine behaviour. Therefore, alhtough I hope to see some changes, but I won't hold my breath. P.S., I apologize for any spelling/grammaticul mistakes, i did not yet have time to spell check the article.

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