Australian school bans iPod | The Register — Interesting sociology here.
A private school in Australia has banned its pupils from listening to their iPods. The yuppie consumer gadget will not be permitted in class, because it encourages kids to be selfish and lonely, according to the school principal.
Damn, I guess that means no more Goth makeup, black trench coats, and doc martin boots, either.
At least in America we still have the right to be brooding loners.
I’m a high school teacher, and at my last school they implemented a policy where no one can wear headphones during school. The kids went ballistic, but from what I hear they’ve acquiesced and things are smooth. The adminstration’s reasoning was similar in that they think wearing headphones leads to anti-social behavior.
-Chris
I’ve been telling people about the time I took my preproduction ipod to work and stole a database off of the stereo AM servers.
I worked with White Houser Blogger over at NASA. The NSA ran us out the space agency. I lost the NASA job and then the dotcom I worked for went under in California. IT went bust when we found out that stereo AM was folding.
Flash forward a few months later and my girlfriend and I break up. I end up moving out of our shared apartment and if that’s not enough I am being sued by Apple Computer.
I’m thinking of moving down to Mexico City to get a job at an XBox plant. I’m learning Spanish now!
Besides making people selfish and lonely, I would think an ipod in class might make it hard to listen to the lecture.
When someone enjoys solitude, we call him a “loner”– a term with negative connotations. If he prefers to be around a lot of people, there is no negative inference made. If a crime is committed, it is mentioned if the individual is a loner; if he liked to hang around people all the time, it is not considered a causative element of the story.
“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.” — Albert Einstein
— K B
P.S. James hit it on the head– you ban iPods from class
because you can’t listen to the lecture and the iPod
at the same time. Are Australian educators as
clueless as American ones?