Teacher's and arrogance ?

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2007
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Sheffield
So today one of my teachers submitted a complaint about me to our network admin which has resulted in my web access being removed. The complaint wasn't about when I was using the internet to access sites, but for the content.

Two of the pages he has reported me for:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=826991 - For simply reading this post he deemed me to be using the internet to access racist material (Even though I correctly pointed out the difference between religion and race at the time). Now I could understand how some of the comments in that post could be deemed offensive but in large it's a discussion board, and these comments do arise, to deem a whole site "racist" because of this is absurd.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1601495/anonymising-bittorrent-code-downfall - This was today's result which resulted in my college internet access being revoked. When filing out the complaint the teacher stated I was investigating ways to become anonymous on bittorrent. When I expressed that all I was doing was reading a news article he turned into dumb mode and ignored this.

Now tomorrow I have a meeting with several higher ups in my college about these and am worried that they are going to consider his opinion on these two sites as correct, purely because of siding with a teacher over a pupil.

If you were a teacher and saw someone on this things how would you react? Would you agree with my teachers opinion on these two links or would you say I was in the right with my defense claims?

Thanks.
 
Soldato
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First one - its a public forum. Not allowed to view those at my school (blocked by Websense, bleh), else I'd be on OCUK all day :o

Unless that forum post is explicitly related to what you are studying/researching, then it just seems that you are 'browsing', rather than working. Annoying, I know.

Second one - its fine. I don't really see the big deal, I read lots of torrent articles and stuff at school (TorrentFreak isn't blocked, funnily enough...) when I'm bored. Seems like they made an ill-informed assumption. You are right - all you are doing is reading a news article! No harm done there...

Either way, if you were meant to be studying, then they would win the argument on both counts unless the websites are related to what you are doing.
 
Soldato
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First one - its a public forum. Not allowed to view those at school, else I'd be on OCUK all day :o

Unless that forum post is explicitly related to what you are studying/researching, then it just seems that you are 'browsing', rather than working. Annoying, I know.

Second one - its fine. I don't really see the big deal, I read lots of torrent articles and stuff at school when I'm bored. Seems like they made an ill-informed assumption. You are right - all you are doing is reading a news article!

Either way, if you were meant to be studying, then they would win on both counts unless the websites are related to what you are doing.

Our lessons are two hours long and we get a 10-15min break in the middle, they were both read during this break.
 
Associate
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London
First one - its a public forum. Not allowed to view those at my school (blocked by Websense, bleh), else I'd be on OCUK all day :o

Unless that forum post is explicitly related to what you are studying/researching, then it just seems that you are 'browsing', rather than working. Annoying, I know.


Either way, if you were meant to be studying, then they would win the argument on both counts unless the websites are related to what you are doing.



So today one of my teachers submitted a complaint about me to our network admin which has resulted in my web access being removed. The complaint wasn't about when I was using the internet to access sites, but for the content.


If it's not WHEN he was looking at the sites presumably it was in his free time (not in a lesson).

When I was in school we were allowed to go on computers in the library on lunch/breaks and we could go on anything we wanted....obviously nothing...'filtered!'




You definitely have a case to appeal, just calmly explain that the first one was only a forum about cars, and the second one was just a news article. They can't argue with that.
 
Associate
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First one is debatable, as it could be shown as just browsing, but as you said it was during your break then that's completely acceptable reading.

Second one is perfectly fine for reading, as i know you do an ICT based subject, that could be seen as keeping up with the world of ICT.

It just seems like your teacher was trying to pick a fight really, i often browse Usenet website (NzbMatrix etc.) and have had people approach me asking what I'm doing to which i replied "Just browsing" which seemed okay in their books. One of my teachers is actually a massive kid, and has asked before "Whatcha' pirating?" which was odd :)

It's just a teacher in a foul mood it seems. Embarrass him tomorrow by correcting him infront of the higher-ups if he gets the definition of race wrong again. :D
 
Soldato
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4,328
Meh, they've got a job stopping the pain-in-the-bum students getting up to things they shouldn't - I daresay sometimes they go beyond what they need to just-in-case and you've just got stuck with being one of the false positives.

If you're lucky you can talk sense to get your access reinstated - but don't get too keen on running your mouth off with reasons why those sites were fine or you'll just look like a fast-talker trying to pull one off on them.

Go in and apologise first. Say that maybe the sites included trigger topics which sound dodgy but both were discursive articles which interested you as opposed to being research for deviation!
 
Soldato
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Don't see a problem. I monitor children at my school on the PC's and i let a lot of stuff fly by and this would be part of it.

Indeed I think its just a lack of common sense with this to be fair. In regards to the content on a site, you could go onto a very well respected webpage and have it turned to slosh by 1 person doing a dodgy comment on it lol.
 
Soldato
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I'd begin by writing a lengthy written statement explaining how the teacher is incorrect in her assertions. Submit this an hour or two before the meeting so that the people interviewing have a chance to reflect but the teacher in question doesn't have a chance to reply.

With regards to both questions you could use the upcoming election as a reason for you reading the topics. The potential impact to the usefulness of the new Digital Economy Act could be another reason for your interest in the BitTorrent article.
 
Soldato
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I'd begin by writing a lengthy written statement explaining how the teacher is incorrect in her assertions. Submit this an hour or two before the meeting so that the people interviewing have a chance to reflect but the teacher in question doesn't have a chance to reply.

With regards to both questions you could use the upcoming election as a reason for you reading the topics. The potential impact to the usefulness of the new Digital Economy Act could be another reason for your interest in the BitTorrent article.

Doing something like this is a good idea. Get a letter or have a quick chat with the head of the college/school before the meeting.
 
Man of Honour
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I'd begin by writing a lengthy written statement explaining how the teacher is incorrect in her assertions. Submit this an hour or two before the meeting so that the people interviewing have a chance to reflect but the teacher in question doesn't have a chance to reply.

With regards to both questions you could use the upcoming election as a reason for you reading the topics. The potential impact to the usefulness of the new Digital Economy Act could be another reason for your interest in the BitTorrent article.

I totally agree, gives you a way of giving calm, reasonable arguments to why the suspension is unreasonable.
 
Man of Honour
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Funnily enough monitoring educational internet usage is one of the (many) facets of my job.

I wouldnt have revoked your internet access for either of those links. Although technically our internet access is for curriculum related usage, not just any old browsing of the internet (do that at home if thats what you want to do), even so..I wouldnt have acted upon either of these and in all likelihood wouldnt have even flagged up either of these.
 
Associate
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London
I'd begin by writing a lengthy written statement explaining how the teacher is incorrect in her assertions. Submit this an hour or two before the meeting so that the people interviewing have a chance to reflect but the teacher in question doesn't have a chance to reply.

With regards to both questions you could use the upcoming election as a reason for you reading the topics. The potential impact to the usefulness of the new Digital Economy Act could be another reason for your interest in the BitTorrent article.

Make sure to quote the exact websites you were viewing at the time. Actually may wanna leave out the PH one and just link to the article :D
 
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