<p>Simba, we’re not talking about ethical, we’re talking whether it’s legal. Until all the facts are known, we can’t assume it’s gambling. What crap are you talking about? The jumping the gun crap?</p>
<p>Man guys, I saw, it’s gambling with real money.</p>
<p>But its all cool. I won’t report him!</p>
<p>In that same vein…though not illegal, our local school has a 8th grade social studies teacher that has for the past THREE years spent class time telling the students where the middle finger usage came from and how it is NOT an obscene gesture whatsoever…This when he should be teaching US History! </p>
<p>I would ask, do you think the school board would think it was acceptable have a bunch of eighth graders show up to the televised school board meetings ‘flipping the bird’. Or is it responsible behavior for that teacher to okay such gestures when a kid might flip the bird when he was driving through a questionable neighborhood i.e; a notoriously gang ridden, scary area? I think not.</p>
<p>Parents have complained but nothing has been put in this teachers file for the past three years, apparently because no administrators have bothered to tell parents they need to file a formal complaint with the teachers union. I doubt that OP would have much influence unless he goes to the school board or the press. And teachers wonder why they get such a bad wrap at times!</p>
<p>Gambling online with real money or play money looks identical. You have chips. When you sign in you sign on the play money table, the software works the same.</p>
<p>Ha, I still would report him. If it’s affecting my learning, then I have a right to voice my opinion.</p>
<p>OaksMom, it actually IS an interesting history lesson about where the middle finger came from. If I may…the ENglish longbow fighters were captured by the French during wars in a bygone era. The English were very effective bowmen, so when captured, the French would cut off the top of their middle finger, to disable them as bowmen.</p>
<p>At one battle, the English showed up strong and ready to fight, having never been captured. They stood on a hillside and proudly taunted the French soldiers by showing them they still had their top middle finger, and then the battle began.</p>
<p>If you know anything about teaching history, this is a GREAT way to begin a lesson. The kids will be on the edge of their seats.</p>
<p>Why do you use every opportunity to claw at your teachers? That’s what I call not fighting fair. But I won’t make any gestures.</p>
<p>The teacher playing on a computer, even if the students are doing an inclass assignment sounds like a lazy young teacher who won’t be around forever. If it were my kid, I’d call a principal and say, “My child mentioned to me that during assignments, he observes his teacher on computer unrelated to coursework. He believes it might even be online gambling, but is not at all sure.”</p>
<p>The principal will likely do a surprise drop-in visit to the teacher’s room, unannounced.</p>
<p>Don’t even tell your kid you’re dialing it in. It’s too much for a h.s. kid; it’s an adult problem. To the OP, I think I’d actually ask my parent to dial this one in, but protect you, meaning tell the principal not to say which family is calling it in.</p>
<p>It’s wrong on two levels: </p>
<p>One, online gambling IS illegal. </p>
<p>TWO: While teachers have legitimate reasons to be on computers duiring classtime, everything from research to administrative work, while you guys work independently, if the teacher is playing solitaire, the principal might want to suggest better use of the teacher’s downtime as he monitors the class. But that’s a subtle, educational development of a young teacher. It’s not illegal to play solitaire, just poor use of his time. A good principal will tell a developing teacher all kinds of other ways to hold down the class AND use his computer for academic purpose. School should be all about teaching YOU GUYS.</p>
<p>Our men’s dean was a statistics prof with a photographic memory. On his rounds of the men’s dorms one evening he came upon a poker game. He told the boys that there wouldn’t be a problem as long as they dealt him in. After he took what he considered to be a sufficient amount of money he left.</p>
<p>This sounds like an urban legend, but our dean was incredible. By the start of school he had memorized the names and faces of all incoming males, about 250. He greeted us individually by name when we came to sign in.</p>
<p>I know some experienced teachers spend their times online searching for real estate. So it’s not a young teacher thing.</p>
<p>Some districts employ blocking software that prohibits going to gambling websites… plus records histories… can’t be ours is the only one. </p>
<p>As I said eariler I would make dam sure it wasn’t a game program before I even thought about mentioning it to anyone. A simple what ya doin? isn’t going to get you suspended. trying to get someone fired on something you’re not certain of… might. </p>
<p>I also get the vibe this is a fishing trip…</p>
<p>^^agree. My company and a lot of companies have software to block these sites.</p>
<p>Did everybody lose sight of the problem…if the teacher is on-line during the class, how are they teaching? Am I missing something here?</p>
<p>OK, that’s a very fair question. I’ll describe a few scenarios where a teacher might be online AND teaching at the same time:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some classrooms are run like workshops with many activities occuring at once, multi-tasking. It sounds like a beehive, rather than a teacher lecturing from the front of the room. Appropriately run, the teacher is circulating to ensure all are working well. Poorly run, the kids are working while the teacher is doodling online.
Still, the kids are working and learning. He set up the tasks and is available to answer questions if anyone gets stuck. It’s not great teaching, but it’s a plain everyday lesson.</p></li>
<li><p>He broke up the class into smaller groups. One group of kids is tasked to retrieve information from books, another is sent for information available only online. In that situation, the teacher might have his computer online at the same time as his students, to monitor their research while across the room.</p></li>
<li><p>The teacher is very creative. If teaching a class about the Middle East, he can dial up a live camera that is focused on the Western Wall in Jerusalem, 24 hours each day. The students can literally “be there” at that moment. If he spins his screen around to show them, he has made a glorious visual lesson in geography, history, etc. Or, he might want to open a lesson with the stirring sounds of a Martin Luther King speech, click click and they hear his voice, see his expression.</p></li>
<li><p>The class might have a “pen-pal” style relationship with a high school class in China or anywhere else around the globe. His class might be asking their agemates in China, or AUstralia, or wherever, their opinion on a current event or new technology.</p></li>
<li><p>Least common denominator, but still mareginally acceptable in a classroom: the kids are all doing independent research at their desks, taking notes from a textbook, filling out a worksheet, or studying a document for discussion in a few moments. Meanwhile, the teacher’s online because, technically, the students are engaged and working. There’s some value to teaching kids independent research skills so they get away from constant spoon-feeding of information. During those times, if the teacher is online, the students aren’t learning any less; he’s irrelevant for a few minutes. Teachers used to do this in the l970’s, too, but maybe read a book instead, for that part of a class.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Not all teaching is in lecture form.</p>
<p>BUT IF, for one MOMENT, the teacher mistakenly leaves the site on a game of solitaire (default setting for afterschool hours), and one kid sees it, he could decide the teacher is gambling online and blow the roof off the school. IF, for one second, a teacher uses her 10 minute break to check on a piece of real estate she might visit after school, and a parent drops into the classroom, the parent might decide to post on CC that her kid’s h.s. teacher uses the computer to search for real estate during school hours.</p>
<p>That’s life in the public school biz.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions…two words…Snopes.com…yeah, that’s what the school teacher thought too…that it was actual history…maybe more people should check their facts before deciding something is history and not an old wives tale or an urban legend.</p>
<p>Interesting bit of history but actually in England we do not use the middle finger to make that rude gesture - we use 2 fingers the pointer and middle finger. And yes I am English and lived there most of my life so I do know this for a fact. So if you go to England and someone gives you one finger they are not being rude - but if they give you 2 (with the back of the hand toward you - the palm toward you means victory) they are being very rude.</p>