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My students forged the notes. I turned them into a lesson plan.
- zimbabwe 17y agoRest in peace, Frank McCourt. I missed Angela's Ashes, but Teacher Man looks like it would be worth the read. What a great reminder of what a good teacher is capable of.
- JshWright 17y agoWhat a tremendous story of a true "hacker".
- pieter 17y agoExcuse notes are a great example of why you need verification. Anyone can write one for themselves, and give it to you without proof it really came from a parent. That's a classic man in the middle attack. What you really need is some kind of certificate for each parent, allowing you to verify the note really came from the parent. That's why self-signed certificates really aren't worth much -- anyone could have created them.
- ivank 17y agoIf no one wants to miss class, you don't have to worry about this.
- dschoon 17y agoTotally agreed; this is exactly the generalized message I took away. How many "lessons" (goals) could we tailor to the desires of the "student" (user) as a substitute for enforcement mechanisms? Surely not all, but many more than we're presently doing.
- amohr 17y agoI think that concisely encapsulated the two go-to solutions for so many hackers: a) create a complex system that will postpone or perhaps solve the problem; and b) make the problem irrelevant with a miracle stroke of genius solution to be fleshed out at a later date.
- TheSOB88 17y agoHackers, hackers, hackers, why does every thread have a post about how hackers are so great? Can we stop the big circle jerk?
- Jimmy 17y agoIt's called "Hacker News" for a reason.
- amohr 17y agoCircle jerk? I was pointing out unproductive behavior - the tendency to simplify a problem such that it fits into a stock solution or counting on a miracle. Neither of these actually confront the original problem - just duct tape and wishes.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- die_sekte 17y agoNo, excuse notes are not that important.
- natrius 17y agoOr maybe security should be simple enough that people don't mind doing it for the most trivial things.
- TallGuyShort 17y agoI thought it interesting that even without such a certificate, the teacher still had a pretty good idea of which notes were fake and which were legitimate. Kind of like websites - you just kinda know when they fake..
- Eliezer 17y agoYou don't know the teacher knew; all you know is that he sorted the notes into two piles. You don't know if the piles were correct. Not sayin' he was wrong. Just sayin'.
- mrduncan 17y agoInstead of sending notes, an easier way to weed-out most fakes would be to require a phone call. Sure, it can be faked but it's a lot more difficult do (especially if they have met the teacher).
- eli 17y agoReally? Because the actual story seemed to demonstrate exactly the opposite
- wallflower 17y agoThere is a great Erma Bombeck (author who wrote books satirizing suburban life "The Grass is Greener Over the Septic Tank") line about how the only real excuse notes are those written on a napkin, in lipstick and crumpled.
- jimbokun 17y agoNow, if you are teaching kids Network Security and you start getting these kinds of forged excuse notes, you are exactly on the right track. Just start having the kids alternate between thinking of ways to make sure the notes are really from the parents, then thinking about how to crack the system they just came up with. If anyone reading this is teaching such a class to undergrads or lower, please use this as a lecture technique and let us know how it goes. :)
- cracki 17y agohow about exchanging certificates in person?
- mad44 17y agoI had listened to a talk by him at the Columbia University (from Columbia's iTunes page). It was a lot of fun. Here is a link to another talk by him (maybe the same one): http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_remembering_frank_mccourt/ http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_rememb...
- euroclydon 17y agoThis is the perfect example of "Unschooling" ( http://www.holtgws.com/ http://www.holtgws.com/ ) where children are encouraged to follow their interests, inclinations and energies to their full and natural ends rather than being cowed into performing busy work in one topic after another, until they hate nearly all learning. [EDIT] I just wanted to throw in here a hacker angle on unschooling or homeschooling: I would gladly pay for software that teaches math or grammar and is based on cognitive science. Something like SuperMemo http://www.supermemo.com/ http://www.supermemo.com/ profiled in this Wired article http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...
- lsb 17y agoI think it's just a sublime example of teaching. He made the kids care about the subject matter by making it relevant to them, and there are abundant examples of authors creating first-rate work by riffing off of old themes (Apollonius of Rhodes, for example).
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- JimmyL 17y agoHow? McCourt was teaching a class on Creative Writing - this wasn't in a science or math class. He took what he was supposed to be teaching (how to write stories), and found a theme to write about that his students found interesting. Those children weren't following their "interests, inclinations and energies" - I find it very hard to believe that every single kid in that class would be doing creative writing if they had the ability to do whatever their interests led them to. They were doing what they were supposed to do in that subject-specific class, and just happened to be led by a very good teacher.
- euroclydon 17y agoThe had already pulled off good creative writing in their excuse notes, notes that could have been written for any class. Writing those fake excuse notes DID come from their natural inclination, and when encouraged to continue to follow it, rather than to get back to the program, they produced even greater work.
- grnknight 17y agoThis is awesome!! What a creative solution to encouraging creative writing.
- euroclydon 17y agoFrank had already won when he didn't fuss or punish them for the fake notes. It's like PG says in his FAQ, kids can tell which teachers actually like them.
- ExJournalist 17y ago"I was having an epiphany. Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard putting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse notes, they were brilliant..." To me this is a great example of one of the fundamental problems with so much education: it is full of unchallenging, unrelated-to-life, contrived tasks. When any process (creative writing, math, coding) is harnessed to a fascinating, meaningful-to-students goal... well, of course they're motivated. And creative. That has always been true of me - when in grammar school, and decades into employment.
- cschneid 17y agoQuestion for you then. In high school, should a kid only interested in reading & writing (english class, journalism) be required to take math and sciences? How about a kid who's interested only in physics, should we make him read and write poetry? Even if each class is taught the best it possibly could be, individual interests will outweigh, and the kids will be bored in the alternate classes. So the options are either 1) uninterested kids, or 2) uneducated kids. Basically, since interests vary so much, even among middle school aged kids, there's no platonic ideal of a "perfect class that every kid will love".
- mquander 17y agoPersonally, I think that given an intellectually stimulating home environment, passionate teachers, and a great curriculum, (almost) every kid will be interested in both poetry and physics, because they are both fundamentally interesting and beautiful things. That's what we should be aiming for.
- zimbabwe 17y agoI can confirm this. In high school I hated math, planned on getting an English major, because the English teachers were so good. Previously, in middle school I hated critical analysis of books, but because my math teacher was so good I was an absolute math geek. I remember my high school Algebra II teacher was asked, "Why should we care about what you're saying?" His answer: "You shouldn't care. You're here to get a grade. You'll never use this and it's not fun." This while my English teacher was staying an hour after class to debate Lolita, Ulysses, A Space Odyssey, and a whole ton of other stuff with basically every student willing to talk to him. There were a lot.
- alanthonyc 17y agoThanks for that. I'm buying the book.
- nettdata 17y agoI would have read the article, but my internet connection was down.
- IsaacL 17y agoThat's really interesting.
- nettdata 17y agoReally? Nobody? It's an article about making up excuses. I was hoping everyone would chime in with their own excuses in the spirit of the article.
- alanthonyc 17y agoOkay, I get it now. But I think you were supposed to come up with a well written creative excuse. A short one-liner is not enough.
- nettdata 17y agoIt was one of the "good" forgeries.
- IsaacL 17y agoIt's a cool story, but he's hardly the first to do it - I worked as a volunteer English teacher in Asia for 6 months, and did this with some of my senior classes - excuses for missing homework, being late for school, losing their notebook, etc - I think there was a prize for the most creative one. It wasn't an original idea of mine - I got the idea from a similar lesson in my own high school english class (UK).
- trickjarrett 17y agoIt never crossed my mind that he was the only one, however it was still interesting to read and a good example of what teachers would be like in a perfect world.
- IsaacL 17y agoHe said in the article (may be a misquote) that he was the only one.
- christofd 17y agoWhy are the students exceptionally motivated to fulfill this assignment: - They have nowhere else to go. They have to sit in that class room. More or less, it's their job. - They are being asked to create something from their own imagination, which is in stark contrast to the usual method of schooling: memorizing established facts from textbooks. Motivation is a powerful force that schools do not harness enough. However, large organizations will always be political in nature, so driving behaviour with intrinsic motivation is probably NOT something that will be practiced generally.
- blats 17y agoUhh.. ?
- hendler 17y agoMy one criticism - I think some of the excuse notes he rejects as lies are true - if they reflect anything similar to my childhood.
- dipankarsarkar 17y agoHehehehe :) , it is true that lying/forging is one of the most creative activity (unless people die / get hurt because of it). Good one !!!!
- yardie 17y agoHa, I wish I had this guy in my college lit. class. Of the 3 I had 2 were great and the one in between (the one I knew I was going to fail) was a complete asshole. I'm still not sure how the other 2 managed to find a way to make the material covered relevant, yet the 3rd guy managed to make me hate everything about him, his class, and his topics. And the dude was a real hippy, but not in a cool way. All his themes were some sci-fi postapocolyptic drivel. When I brought his name up people knew of him and gave a sad frown like they knew I was suffering. Not just students but teachers and other professors. For 3 years I was listed as a freshman with over 90 credits because the I refused to take another lit class and the university wouldn't change my status until I did. BTW, almost 10 years later, it still pisses me off.
- sound2man 17y agoI can't express how much I love this style of teaching. This is about the only thing that you can do to curb this behavior and still maintain a relationship with your students. I was a goof in school, but my teacher kept me from getting out of hand the exact same way. By guiding my exuberance instead of squelching it, we got along great, and I graduated near the top of my class. +20 to dedicated teachers!