Damped and Driven

but first a little back-story:

Our district is blessed to have a lot of monetary resources and fair bit of that goes toward technology. Most schools are not this fortunate in this way, but the circumstances here are acute enough, and the percentage of native students high enough that we get a lot of federal support, in the form of dollars poured on problems. Also it helps that the district has an excellent grant writer who’s managed to help to channel a lot of that federal money our way. Although all the technology helps in some ways, i’m not convinced that money couldn’t have been spent in better ways.

Anyway, so there is a lot of technology in the district, lots of smart boards and computers, not exactly what you expect on the front lines of educational inequality. We don’t have 30 children sharing one textbook or computers with floppy(5.25 inch) drives. The challenges are different. In my classroom this technology is manifest in a cart of 20 MacBooks. These are pretty nice machines, and i have 20 of them. I have no class that has that many students. I’ve always been a bit paranoid about using them, because it can be hard to manage. Some of the kids have a knack for doing exactly what they’re not supposed to be doing on a computer. Also, they’re expensive and after the number of them that have gotten stolen in past years, teachers are now responsible if they turn up missing.

Today, i had an assignment (that only a couple of students were working on) where they were supposed to do some research on the web about different kinds of energy resources. We’re learning about energy in terms of physics this unit and i had really wanted to work in a little bit about where our energy comes from, renewable energy, etc.

Anyway, at the end of 1st hour, as i was cleaning up for 2nd hour, I went to close the computer cabinet and #10 was not there. I looked around, a student must have left it on a desk or something. Nope, hmm, must be under some papers, did they hide it? No? I scoured the room and my mind, where did it go? Shit! The students who had been working on the computers were really good kids, i couldn’t imagine that they had swiped a computer. WTF?

I qc’d our tech person and told her the situation. She told me who to talk to and i informed them too. So during the next class period the wheels were turning. They interviewed the students who had used the computers and still nothing. At the end of 2nd period, an announcement over the intercom: Teachers hold your students in the room and account for all your students, i.e. lock-down.

Security went through and opened student lockers in search of the missing computer while students were held in their classes. It turned up (WHEW) but that meant that one of my students stole a computer(BUMMER).  I got it back, hes on his way to jail, and it saddens me. He’s a goofy kid, not a great student, but not a mean one either. I never imagined he’d swipe something. From what i gather, he was in a spot and desperate. I can only imagine the predicament he was in. I only hope this bad experience serves as a lesson and sets him back on the good path.