At 12:36 PM 11/11/98 PST, you wrote: Not incompetent. Untrained. You try getting 30 kids to sit quietly, let alone teach them to read, and see how well you do. Try managing a class so that the kids don't go wild when one of the kids pukes or wets his pants, and so that a kid with a speech impediment or burn scars isn't made fun of. Try teaching kids that violence is not a solution and selling drugs is not a viable career path, when they routinely see people killed and their whole family lives in a one room apartment. I've tried it, I've seen it done, and believe you me, anything you can do with a computer is a *piece of cake* compared to teaching. Teachers are not incompetent. They may be untrained in the use of older computers, but they are not incompetent. Why not take some time and teach them how to use them? Dig up some software that will run on them that they can use in the classroom. Volunteer to help set up their classrooms or type up lesson plans, so they have the *time* to learn how to work an antiquated computer. Show up at 7am and leave at 6pm like they do and see how much energy you have for playing with computers. For the last 8 or 9 years, I have been dating a woman who is probably the best educator in the bay area, if not the state. I have seen the hoops teachers have to go through, the work they do, and the abuse they take so that they can help the kids that are entrusted to them. I have seen parents who beat their kids, who write, in big red letters on the kid's homework, that they are not the kid's teacher and that the work is too hard for their kid, who don't bother showing up to care for their kids, let alone get them to school. Teachers are not incompetent. They may be overworked, underpaid, looked down upon, subject to ridiculous expectations, forced to conform to a rigid system when dealing with individual children with separate and distinct needs, but they are not incompetent. Max, I hate to put it this way, but you're a kid. You don't know what you're talking about. Generally, it's not a problem, but in this case, you've said something that is not only blatently untrue, but very hurtful as well. Perhaps you have had problems with your teachers -- How much of that was your fault? Perhaps the teachers haven't been able to focus solely on what you want to learn -- you're not the only kid in the class, and the other kids have just as much right to be there as you do. Perhaps you think the teachers haven't done enough for you -- but have you stopped to see how much they really do? (Including the hours they put in at school and elsewhere, and how much of their personal money they spend on you?) Sorry for the EduRant, but too often, teachers are blamed for the problems we as a society create, and it pisses me off. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/