This has been sitting over here since October, because I just, honest to goodness, could not find an appropriate way to mock the hell out of it. Even now, I’m having trouble stringing together a post that adequately describes the level of stupid that pours out of this article. This hot little mess has managed, I have no idea how, to overpower my ability for mockery. And all it took was a school teacher, an iTunes account and a topless photo of–I’m going to guess–herself to do it.
Because in 2012-2013 all the cool kids are doing it, a school in Anderson Indiana has taken to issuing iPads for staff and, presumedly, student use. At some point, this particular school teacher came into possession of–or, more than likely, was involved in the creation of–a neck-down photo minus a shirt. I’m guessing the photo was of this teacher, but the article isn’t altogether clear on that part. This teacher, at some point after that photo came into existence, had the school iPad at home for whatever reason. When it came back to the school, that photo was on it. And when some of her students, who presumedly had entirely legal and not quite so pornographic/sexual reasons for making use of the iPad, came across this photo, they were suspended.
And the common sense part of my brain just caught fire. I get 0 tolerence. I don’t think 0 tolerence is overly helpful, but I get the idea behind it. And I get the idea behind a school taking a position this one did on illegal or at least otherwise questionable images in the hands of kids. But, see, here’s the thing. The kids didn’t exactly go out and capture this image themselves–either from the wider internet or snapping the shot directly. That much was already easily established. And yet, rather than firing the teacher who stuck the image on a school issued iPad, they suspended the students who found it. And in so doing, very quickly proved a match for my ability to properly lable the stupid.
It’s entirely possible the teacher didn’t know what she was doing, or maybe didn’t quite grasp the notion that when she hooked a school issued iPad up to her computer, with her iTunes account and other such info on that computer, she would more than likely be syncing everything she’d normally have on her own iThing to the school’s iPad. That wouldn’t be a far stretch to make–Apple’s rules for what will and won’t sync depending are more than a little convoluted at times. But if anyone should be nailed for it under a 0 tolerence policy, you’d think–be it intentional or not–the teacher would be the one to buy it. But then, this is probably why you don’t work for this particular school. At least we can hope the teacher will be just a tad bit more careful next time. Or, in Andersonspeak, maybe now those kids’ll know better than to go looking at random pictures on a school iPad. Yeah, that doesn’t work for me either.