Our School is a joke...

[Soichiro]

So this is the 3rd or 4th time this month the school has been having power issues. The class next door has no power at all (for some reason my class hasn't been affected), and I'm not completely aware what's going on, but the last few times this happened it was a much more widespread situation. Random lights were out throughout the school, and the air conditioning and servers are off (and of course it was in the 90's here the first time this happened; we all assumed they would cancel school too :beer: and having the network down is bad, because my 1st period class depends on having computer access, as do a lot of other classes). Anyway, it seems that they keep blaming it on squirrels. I find it hard to believe that squirrels could cause this much damage, and think they just screwed up and are trying to avoid responsibility.

So, discuss please.

Update: When I started writing this post, the network was still working, but now the network servers are down, so nobody can access their personal student drives or any applications other than internet explorer. It's a shock the internet isn't down. :soda:

Update2: It feels like the air conditioning cut off too, which is bad because it's supposed to be pretty hot here today (like it was yesterday). There's serious talk from both students and teachers about cancelling school for the day.

[muddocktor]

Squirrels look all cute and such but they really are just a rat that can climb trees and have a furry, bushy tail. :eek: The damn critters will chew up just about anything and can be very destructive. I have a friend that raised a squirrel at one time; found a baby on the ground after Hurricane Katrina after the storm knocked down the tree that it's nest was in. It looked all cuddly and cute as a baby but when it grew up it got very destructive and could even chew through the wire the cage was made out of and escape inside the house, where it would proceed to chew holes in the cabinets and walls. He finally ended up releasing the destructive little bastich in the city park.

[Soichiro]

Well, the reason many students here think it's not really squirrels is because the last few times it happened was after a weekend, so we thought the electrical people just forgot to turn everything on. Anyway, another update: the network is now completely down. I had to retype my post on my cell phone. :p

[Frodo Baggins]

Update: When I started writing this post, the network was still working, but now the network servers are down, so nobody can access their personal student drives or any applications other than internet explorer. It's a shock the internet isn't down. :soda:

Update2: It feels like the air conditioning cut off too, which is bad because it's supposed to be pretty hot here today (like it was yesterday). There's serious talk from both students and teachers about cancelling school for the day.

Dude. All three of my schools from Kindergarten to Grade 12 didn't have air conditioning. Yeah, it was painful. Deal. It builds character.

Now please excuse me while I bust out a story about how when I was teaching in Kenya, I stood in a classroom big enough for 30 students, but instead had about a hundred, with no blackboard (a black square painted on the wall doesn't count), no chalk (I brought my own), no blackboard eraser (I used a wadded up piece of paper), the stifling smoke of the cauldron making the students' lunchtime porridge, the constant interruption of chickens and goats making noise right next door, and of course, let's not forget the lovely stench of the neighbouring open pit toilets, which, by the way, were 'malfunctioning' while I was there.

Surprise! There wasn't any air conditioning and/or network set up there either. Goddamn squirrels.

And I was still able to teach math pretty damn well.

[Soichiro]

Well, I expected to get flamed, but I think you're missing the point a bit. The ability to teach/learn was disrupted. Many of the classes didn't even have light for the first 2 hours of the day, and most rooms in our school don't have windows. You can't teach very well in complete darkness.

[Frodo Baggins]

Well, I expected to get flamed, but I think you're missing the point a bit. The ability to teach/learn was disrupted. Many of the classes didn't even have light for the first 2 hours of the day, and most rooms in our school don't have windows. You can't teach very well in complete darkness.

I was mostly teasing you, bro. But there was nonetheless a grain of truth in there. A good teacher shouldn't be constrained by equipment. It's a consensus among many university professors that these days, high school is overly dominated by reliance on stuff like computers.

The air conditioning (as I mentioned) is trivial. Unless you live in the Sahara, I've suffered through all my pre-University years in air-conditionless environments. Mind over matter.

As for the lights -- well, why doesn't the teacher take the class to another room or outside. My analogy with the Kenyan classroom was apt. You have to improvise.

As for the network -- well, I can't imagine a single subject where a network and a computer is essential. Even for students in computer science in University don't sit in front of computers when they have their lectures.

A good teacher should be able to improvise. That was my point.

[phantasm]

I thought I replied in this thread? Mods? Someone not like my comments? I can this all day.

[DanFraser]

Air conditioning? Computers?

Never had that stuff at school. Somehow we all managed to integrate in to a society that seems to depend on them.

[Salomon Orangge]

My schools, both elementary and high school didnt have AC. We had those really big floor fans that the teachers used to move around the room to try to get a breeze going through those really old tilt-out windows.

We had computers, but there was no network and no internet. We had word processing programs on the standard use machines, or we had really early versions of Lightwave and Photoshop on the art room computers.

It was hot in the summer, and freezing in the winter. We didnt have parents complain about how heavy our backpacks were, and we waited for the shame train (the bus) in the cold.

You dont need lights to teach a class. Wait till you get to college and have to take a History Survey class that discusses slides the whole time for 3 and a half hours... in the dark, staring at a big white wall with really old stuff on it.

Schools and the people that attend them are getting so soft. My mother works as head secretary to a local high school and I laugh at some of the idiocy she vents on me when I call her at night.

[muddocktor]

I thought I replied in this thread? Mods? Someone not like my comments? I can this all day.

I deleted your useless post. It did nothing for this thread or offered advice, so it's gone. And I won't do this all day, just lock you out of GD, understand?


Frodo Baggins, what you state might have some truth to it, but not knowing how his school is made can change things, as far as being able to teach properly with a partial power outage. When I went to school (ages ago) I never saw air conditioning in the school until the 9th grade. But the schools I went to were built with large areas of windows on the side of all the classrooms that were able to be opened for ventilation and were better able to deal with no air conditioning than more modern schools. And having no lights in the classroom would definitely affect teaching ability if reading is required. Finally, you are assuming that all the teachers really give a damn besides getting a paycheck too, which is the attitude I get from some of them.

[Salomon Orangge]

Finally, you are assuming that all the teachers really give a damn besides getting a paycheck too, which is the attitude I get from some of them.

That's soooooooooo true.

Just from what my mother relates to me about the teachers at her high school... they are about as childish as the student body.

[phantasm]

I deleted your useless post. It did nothing for this thread or offered advice, so it's gone. And I won't do this all day, just lock you out of GD, understand?


Frodo Baggins, what you state might have some truth to it, but not knowing how his school is made can change things, as far as being able to teach properly with a partial power outage. When I went to school (ages ago) I never saw air conditioning in the school until the 9th grade. But the schools I went to were built with large areas of windows on the side of all the classrooms that were able to be opened for ventilation and were better able to deal with no air conditioning than more modern schools. And having no lights in the classroom would definitely affect teaching ability if reading is required. Finally, you are assuming that all the teachers really give a damn besides getting a paycheck too, which is the attitude I get from some of them.

You've got mail.

So this is the 3rd or 4th time this month the school has been having power issues. The class next door has no power at all (for some reason my class hasn't been affected), and I'm not completely aware what's going on, but the last few times this happened it was a much more widespread situation. Random lights were out throughout the school, and the air conditioning and servers are off (and of course it was in the 90's here the first time this happened; we all assumed they would cancel school too :beer: and having the network down is bad, because my 1st period class depends on having computer access, as do a lot of other classes). Anyway, it seems that they keep blaming it on squirrels. I find it hard to believe that squirrels could cause this much damage, and think they just screwed up and are trying to avoid responsibility.

So, discuss please.

Update: When I started writing this post, the network was still working, but now the network servers are down, so nobody can access their personal student drives or any applications other than internet explorer. It's a shock the internet isn't down. :soda:

Update2: It feels like the air conditioning cut off too, which is bad because it's supposed to be pretty hot here today (like it was yesterday). There's serious talk from both students and teachers about cancelling school for the day.

As for the original post. We had faulty power in my elementary school. it would go out about 2 times a month. Most teachers actually kept big flood flashlights in the classroom so they could teach if this occured. Finally this past year, the disctrict rebuilt the schools and replaced the wiring in the half of the building they did keep.

Just an idea, see if they can keep some big flashlights around.

[SteveLord]

(Ironically, my power just went out for 2min as I came back into work from lunch.)

I'm all for finishing the period outside. Adapt and overcome!

[Hardin]

I don't think I have ever been in a classroom without an ac and I don't want to imagine what it would be like either.

[JamesXP]

We've started having little bits of airconditioning in school. (Like little portable units it makes a hell of a difference)


You should be yay that you have a/c

[FudgeNuggets]

When I was in grade school 20 years ago (geez....that makes me sound old) we didn't have AC and I lived in the HOT and HUMID Tennessee Smokey mountains. If I recall correctly, we were allowed to wear shorts on days that exceeded 90 degrees but they had to come to the knee (strict school). High school had AC though. I don't really recall it ever being smoldering inside those schools though because they had fans in there the size of hoverboat fans. Now those same schools have either been replaced with newer ones with AC or retrofitted with AC. I wonder what changed so that they get the creature comforts now that we didn't have?

[Xenocide]

I'm sorry dude but IIRC you go to some private school, and your complaining a few days out of the year not having power or computers.......

Things happen, everyone moves on, I am sure you are still getting a good education. But it's your part to make the best of it.

2cents.

[BenF]

No AC or computers...big deal. Neither of those are needed for most classes. I think I have had only one class that needed a computer and that is my math lab this term (the class focuses solely on learning to use Maple and modeling various equations so a computer is needed)

[Hardin]

Computers I can understand not having because I only ever used them in the computer lab(duh) but I still can't believe so many people didn't have ac.

[drenader]

Computers I can understand not having because I only ever used them in the computer lab(duh) but I still can't believe so many people didn't have ac.

Frodo is making it sound like an AC is no big deal, oh wait he lives in CANADA!! Try getting a little more south and you will understand what Hardin and I can't believe. AC is above computers anyday of the year.

[ryanmartini]

for all the people saying AC isnt needed.. do you live in south florida? nearing 100 degrees daiy with humidity, SUCKS.

There is no sucking that up. You just sweat and tire by the second sitting bunched up with 29 other people in a room and it starts to smell on top of that. If my school didnt have AC, I would have moved back to Georgia to escape daily conditions like that.

[Frodo Baggins]

Frodo is making it sound like an AC is no big deal, oh wait he lives in CANADA!! Try getting a little more south and you will understand what Hardin and I can't believe. AC is above computers anyday of the year.

The summers there can get up to 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit -- that's without the humidity index. It's not exactly the North Pole.

But I suppose before the time of AC, people in the south simply didn't go to school? That obviously explains the lack of education in equatorial countries.

[Oni]

Frodo, you have to inform me on how an open-pit toilet 'malfunctions'. What, did an angry lion fall in or something?

[FudgeNuggets]

Frodo, you have to inform me on how an open-pit toilet 'malfunctions'. What, did an angry lion fall in or something?

Not Lions, badgers.....

ALL TOGETHER NOW!!!!!

BADGERS? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING BADGERS

[muddocktor]

Frodo, in the old days before air conditioning, the schools down south were set up for it. Things such as 12 foot ceilings and 8 foot double hung windows that could be opened on both top and bottom for better ventilation. And it was still hot as hell down here in Louisiana. I'm glad that school didn't start until September down here because July and August are murder with temps in the 90+ range and high humidity too. Modern schools aren't set up for any kind of natural convection ventilation.

[Shell]

No power? No problem! No AC? Just stay cool.

There was a power outage for a whole day in pitch black windowless classrooms of my old highschool and things went on. The server room had a 1200w UPS so we turned off the server and used it to power a floodlamp pointed at the ceiling of 4 rooms...

Some people went outside and brought the class outside with them, some wwre just fine because their class had plenty of sunlight and kept cool with the windows wide open.

It was a hot summer day just a few Km north of Toronto and it was 90F.

I agree with Frodo's above posts.

Do you need computers to do everything in that class?
I was in programming class and we went all stone age writing code on paper for the teacher to read, it was a good thing because there was no library to acess and we had to explain all of out code to prove we knew what we were writing down.

[Mathersalan]

The summers there can get up to 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit -- that's without the humidity index. It's not exactly the North Pole.

But I suppose before the time of AC, people in the south simply didn't go to school? That obviously explains the lack of education in equatorial countries.



I laughed at the lack of education for the south part. It is true that most of the kids down south drop out before they hit their sophomore year. I believe its because the parents simply do not care and just let them go with the flow of wildness. Maybe not all parents because kids can be hard to handle, above the law and such. I lived without AC throughout my middle and elementary school years because the school district never provided the funds to install AC units in the older schools in which I attended.. The schools were run down from the 1930s. Summer time in the mid were very hostile. I got so hot I never worried about working out after pigging out on junk food because I sweated it all off in a day. Up until I transferred to another school district during my freshman year every things going great in a school that offers AC, decent computers, a very fast network connection and they offer unprotected Wi-Fi where I can slip out my lappy when no ones looking to access email or troll the OC forums :D

But I know what it feels to live without AC down south. Canada is not always like what people think. It can have really hot springs and summers up into the 90s. I took a vacation up their a few years back and it was pretty warm.

[Captain Newbie]

I was mostly teasing you, bro. But there was nonetheless a grain of truth in there. A good teacher shouldn't be constrained by equipment. It's a consensus among many university professors that these days, high school is overly dominated by reliance on stuff like computers.
Except when it comes to adding. :cool:

The air conditioning (as I mentioned) is trivial. Unless you live in the Sahara, I've suffered through all my pre-University years in air-conditionless environments. Mind over matter.

As for the lights -- well, why doesn't the teacher take the class to another room or outside. My analogy with the Kenyan classroom was apt. You have to improvise.

As for the network -- well, I can't imagine a single subject where a network and a computer is essential. Even for students in computer science in University don't sit in front of computers when they have their lectures.

A good teacher should be able to improvise. That was my point.

Pretty much. (And good teachers _do_ improvise as required.) A good CS teacher can teach spin locks without even using a computer analogy. And watching that happen is pretty fun!

[twEEkerAreUs]

Never had A/C period K-12 or decent school books, decent teachers, decent classes, half way decent students, walked 3 miles year round for a while. Yeah I don't miss the whole school experience what so ever lol.

Although I'm sure they have A/C and all that extra stuff they should of had in the first place now. Can't say I feel sorry for you.

[David]

I'm sure only a few rooms in my school ever had AC....

(granted Scotland is pretty cold usually from mid-Sep to mid-April...)

[Soichiro]

I'm sorry dude but IIRC you go to some private school, and your complaining a few days out of the year not having power or computers.......

Things happen, everyone moves on, I am sure you are still getting a good education. But it's your part to make the best of it.

2cents.

Since when did air conditioning and computers automatically make it a private school? This is a public school, it just happens to be one of the largest and best funded in the state. Still, it would probably not compare to a private school.

And as several people pointed out, this school is designed to be air conditioned. 90% of the classrooms don't even have windows, nonetheless any kind of proper circulation required for convection cooling. My calculus class (for some reason) doesn't have working air conditioning, but the teacher keeps a large fan blowing in there at all times, and it keeps the room at a decent temperature. The rest of the classrooms are air conditioned almost every day of the year, so when the air conditioning does go out, those rooms become almost unbearably hot.

[Xenocide]

Since when did air conditioning and computers automatically make it a private school? This is a public school, it just happens to be one of the largest and best funded in the state. Still, it would probably not compare to a private school.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that. I thought you and your bud EmAn went to private school. Maybe just he does. Or I am very confused.

[Frodo Baggins]

Frodo, you have to inform me on how an open-pit toilet 'malfunctions'. What, did an angry lion fall in or something?

Actually, that was my mistake. The open pit toilets were the ones that kept on working. They had some squat toilets, and those were supposed to be relayed via pipe to a big pit somewhere. The pipes, unfortunately, were clogged.

[||Console||]

Actually, that was my mistake. The open pit toilets were the ones that kept on working. They had some squat toilets, and those were supposed to be relayed via pipe to a big pit somewhere. The pipes, unfortunately, were clogged.
Im glad it isnt my job to fix that pipe .

[EmAn]

no Soichiro and I dont go to a private school we go to a township school

just a bit of info on our school

2 T3 lines
4000+ students
2000+ Presshots (Prescott's)!
500-600 + Pentium D 960's
A couple of servers
ALL THE NETWORKING COMPONENTS to connect every computer

NO WINDOWS THAT OPEN

http://www.pike.k12.in.us/schools/phs/default.htm

[Captain Newbie]

no Soichiro and I dont go to a private school we go to a township school

just a bit of info on our school

2 T3 lines
4000+ students
2000+ Presshots (Prescott's)!
500-600 + Pentium D 960's
A couple of servers
ALL THE NETWORKING COMPONENTS to connect every computer

NO WINDOWS THAT OPEN

http://www.pike.k12.in.us/schools/phs/default.htm

My (I'm an alumni) high school is still running 1.2GHz Athlons, last time I checked, and can barely issue textbooks to everyone who's entitled.

Hush.

[Frodo Baggins]

My (I'm an alumni) high school is still running 1.2GHz Athlons, last time I checked, and can barely issue textbooks to everyone who's entitled.

Hush.

AFAIK, that's better than what my high school had. I think most of the computers were less than 1Ghz. Maybe around the 500 Mhz range.

[Adragontattoo]

no Soichiro and I dont go to a private school we go to a township school

just a bit of info on our school

2 T3 lines
4000+ students
2000+ Presshots (Prescott's)!
500-600 + Pentium D 960's
A couple of servers
ALL THE NETWORKING COMPONENTS to connect every computer

NO WINDOWS THAT OPEN

http://www.pike.k12.in.us/schools/phs/default.htm

Does it do the job that it needs to do without raising your taxes unduely? Would you rather they have the top of the line PC's and you have less activities or services available?

[JamesXP]

Newbie don't feel too bad. Our school has P3's + Celeron Ds.

[||Console||]

When I went to community college it was faster for me to remote desktop to my home pc to surf the net then it was to use the schools internet .

[da_spork]

Gotta love high school.

I went to one in Missouri with no air conditioning. If it was hot they'd walk around with this temperature gauge in each of the rooms and whenever it was 100 degrees in the classrooms by 10:30-11:00 we'd get out at 11:30 and have to make it up at the end of school.

I thought my school was a joke for academic reasons. It had about 650ish kids that went to it and only offered the very basic courses, nothing to challenge the kids that wanted a challenge.

EDIT: And I can recall a couple of times in middle school squirrels crawling into some power crap and blowing it up, losing power to all the trailers we had class in.

[SteveLord]

no Soichiro and I dont go to a private school we go to a township school

just a bit of info on our school

2 T3 lines
4000+ students
2000+ Presshots (Prescott's)!
500-600 + Pentium D 960's
A couple of servers
ALL THE NETWORKING COMPONENTS to connect every computer

NO WINDOWS THAT OPEN

http://www.pike.k12.in.us/schools/phs/default.htm

Looks better than private schools I've seen. Bet the AC for the server rooms work fine. ^^

[EmAn]

Looks better than private schools I've seen. Bet the AC for the server rooms work fine. ^^

Yes they do because they are on their own ac units which are brand new as the old ones went out and we lost a server but the reason i posted up some info about our school was so you could try to imagine that school with no a/c (so you know what we feel)

[Soichiro]

The computers may be good and the network is fast sometimes and decent most of the time, but even though this is a computer forum, and we're both taking computer classes, there's more to school than computers, obviously. There's also the environment and the teachers, both of which I feel could use some improvement (when I say environment, I'm not just referring to the cooling either). As for the taxes, which someone mentioned, county income tax is still negligible even though it's being doubled to 1.25% this year, and state income tax isn't outrageous. The state sales tax is a modest 6% as well. There has been a big outrage at the increase in property taxes over the past several years, however. Now, with the merger of the county and city police forces, property taxes have doubled this year alone. The citizens are finally doing something about it, but if the property taxes aren't raised any further, then other taxes will have to be raised to make up for it, or else funding will have to be cut to certain departments within the city, and I'm worried about where that may lead.

[FudgeNuggets]

Let me tell you a funny story about my school. The FREAKING BATHROOMS didn't have any doors on the stalls. I don't know the reasoning, I heard several different theories. I got to the point to where if I had to take a dump, I was going home and then coming back. I fought with the school so hard on this that eventually they made an exception and let me use the teacher's bathrooms or the nurse's. They had doors on them. The people I went to school with were weird. You'd be trying to take a dump or something and they'd want to hang out and have a damn conversation while standing there looking at you. No sir, not me...... I can't deal with that. I even close and lock the door in my own house when nobody but my wife is home.

[Hardin]

Let me tell you a funny story about my school. The FREAKING BATHROOMS didn't have any doors on the stalls. I don't know the reasoning, I heard several different theories. I got to the point to where if I had to take a dump, I was going home and then coming back. I fought with the school so hard on this that eventually they made an exception and let me use the teacher's bathrooms or the nurse's. They had doors on them. The people I went to school with were weird. You'd be trying to take a dump or something and they'd want to hang out and have a damn conversation while standing there looking at you. No sir, not me...... I can't deal with that. I even close and lock the door in my own house when nobody but my wife is home.

Oh my. :o:o:o

[Captain Newbie]

Newbie don't feel too bad. Our school has P3's + Celeron Ds.

I'm not very concerned about the <words edited before someone else does for me :)> computers...I'm concerned about the <words edited before someone else does for me :)> textbooks!

[JamesXP]

HAHA!


We've got plenty of those.....(Not in the best condition)

[EmAn]

neither are ours as our school gets new books every six years

[SteveLord]

Let me tell you a funny story about my school. The FREAKING BATHROOMS didn't have any doors on the stalls.

When I went to bootcamp...our stalls were the only one that had no doors OR WALLS. :confused:

[JamesXP]

eman, Some of our books are 12+ years old. (that's nearly as old as me)

[Cyrix_2k]

eman, Some of our books are 12+ years old. (that's nearly as old as me)

why are you complaining? I used books from the 60s at my middle school. They still had a box of slide rules, lol. Our computers were P2s the MVA was disposing of. No AC for me in middle school or elementary school. Deal with it.

[JamesXP]

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying eman should be glad :)


No A/C here. P3s+P2s here too.


(We have some books like that but they're only used when we've got a supply teacher)

[Captain Newbie]

eman, Some of our books are 12+ years old. (that's nearly as old as me)

Yeah, but you probably have enough to go around...

[MRD]

Buying new books often in the lower grades is probably a waste of money anyways. Say you have enough copies of a Shakespeare play to go around. That's not going to change at all, so why buy new ones?

In college, there is a real need for up to date books in the sciences because they are changing, especially biology.

Books shouldn't just be updated for no reason. I have many books of my own far older than 12 years old that are better than anything that has come out since.

[Soichiro]

The only subject that really needs new books frequently is history. Most other classes are fine with used books. However, there is a problem with the previous students abusing the books. If the books are torn up, then you're going to have to replace them, whether they're up to date or not. I don't know about anywhere else, but the majority of students at our school are really disrespectful toward everything, including their books, so they get torn up pretty badly within 6 years.

[MRD]

I've rarely seen even a single book so abused that it wasn't usable. They might not be pretty, but they are usually still quite functional.