11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School 345
alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld:
"The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."
While these stories are interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, couldn't he have just downloaded some free Windows or Linux based A/V rather than buying crap at CompUSA?
Goes to show (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a job (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vista upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:While these stories are interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
You said it yourself, he's making inexperienced mistakes along the way.
"School Saves Money with Child Labor" (Score:2, Insightful)
Moving on.
Skills needed for network maint (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd hire him (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone offered to send the school a box of Ubuntu live CD's, just to ease this young man's workload of maintaining Windows boxes?
Easy? (Score:3, Insightful)
His fellow students won't remember him for this .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet this kid gets shoved into so many lockers for being a suck-up to the administration when NetworkWorld isn't writing articles about him.
I remember this kid when I was in school. He was not a popular kid.
Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"School Saves Money with Child Labor" (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm very very jealous that an 11 year-old has the knowledge and skills to land a network administration job and I'm still stuck at the helpdesk."
Re:Goes to show (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, I do understand that private schools sometimes struggle to make ends meet, especially on the IT side of things. But this situation still bothers me a bit.
Re:Win2k?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd call him a paytard (Score:2, Insightful)
This might actually be a new low for you.
Re:Are they paying him? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:network admin is a misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you require more from an administrator doesn't mean he isn't one. Don't piss on the kid's parade.
The telling point (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just about an 11-year-old who took over a network admin job. Note the parts of the story about updating the computers, updating the (much needed) virus protection, and getting a gateway appliance to make sure that didn't happen again.
It's about an 11-year-old who took over a network admin job and immediately started off doing a better job than his predecessor. Kind of makes you wonder who that sad sack was, doesn't it?
Re:But does he post to Slashdot? (Score:2, Insightful)
If that were the case we would all be reading about this on Fark, not Slashdot.
Re:"School Saves Money with Child Labor" (Score:2, Insightful)
Interviewer: "And what is your experience?"
Kid: "Network admin, 7 years."
Interviewer: "Oh really? Why don't you describe a day for us."
Kid: "Well... I hit the remove viruses button sometimes when we have viruses. And when things got really bad, I reinstalled Windows."
Interviewer: "........./facepalm"
Re:Great...there goes my business. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid kid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:network admin is a misnomer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the free solutions are licensed for personal and not institutional use?
Because the commercial product with service and support is the better choice for a school with very little technical experience and resources?
Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said. Big whoop if the kid is a network admin. It's not that hard. Is it really doubtful that an 11 year old can install an OS, install some software, and help a few people with their computers? How many of us started programming younger than that? How money of us cut our teeth on computers in the 80's? These machines were harder to use than a network is to run today. Especially when you have someone to step in when you run into something you can't handle.
As for the 11 year old being legal to work. There are a couple of things. First, there are all sorts of exemptions for various jobs like acting, modeling, and whatnot, but at least here in California, but for all intents and purposes it is illegal to hire anyone under 12 for most jobs. Network administrator would definitely fall into that category.
Exceptions that the school could be using is the "self-employed" exemption. This is questionable though, as it is likely that the school dictates where and when he does the job, so he may not legally be self employed. The other "exemption" is that schools have never followed child labor laws themselves. Child labor has traditionally been a method of punishment in public schools. Children are often put to work underage, outside of legal work hours, and without compensation. I have never heard of a state stepping in and stopping this behavior. It is just one of those lawless aspects of our public school system. I know when I was in school, I always wondered how the public schools could get away with what is for all intents and purposes slavery. If a school can force students to perform janitorial services with no compensation, we cannot expect anyone to stop them from allowing a student to perform IT services.
Really, though this comes story boils down to the fact that it is just not that impressive that someone 11 years old can do the job of network administrator. For most of human history, this person would have been on the cusp of adulthood. 11 only sounds young because we artificially retard our population so that most never learn to function until much later.
Re:While these stories are interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. He's just like any other computer-addicted 11 yr old, but instead of wasting his knowledge being forced to play silly final fantasy ps3 games like most kids his age he's been given the opportunity to help his mom ** admin a school.
Average users would call him a "boy genius", slashdotters would probably describe him as "me when I was 11".
"BTW, couldn't he have just downloaded some free Windows or Linux based A/V rather than buying crap at CompUSA?"
probably because it's a school network and most free Windows software is for home users. Probably didn't use Linux because I'm sure he's not that familiar with linux to run 60 networked PCs from it, and besides schools get huge discounts from M$ so why run Linux? And when these kids go to high school and college and the corporate world they'll probably be running Windows anyway so why introduce them to Linux?
What I want to know why is a 11 yr old doing this? Sure it makes for great news but being the network admin for a 60 PC school network is a full time job, where's the child labor laws? Or are they using him for free labor? Ah here it is:
"For his technical recommendations, Jon has had to present his suggestions to the school's management for approval ("Because he's not an adult, I've been hovering around," his mother says.) " **
So he suggests stuff and the adults decide whether it's a good idea or not. Oh I understand. Kind of like asking your kids what the family should have for dinner.
Re:Goes to show (Score:4, Insightful)
Some parents want a specific type of education for their child. The public schools may not provide that. That is the case where a private school should exist, not because the public schools are substandard.
Having lived in Alabama... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:While these stories are interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking back I might have actually volunteered to help run their services after I graduated, but I cannot with good conscience filter someone's Internet access.
Re:Vista upgrade (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, it is a play to keep them from going elsewhere, but a limited one at that. It is pretty sad when an 11 year old knows more then the people (teachers and school administration) who have been working with the stuff for that last 20 years or longer. Maybe this is more to save paying someone then anything.
Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, they're getting the unpaid services of an IT administrator - but then they're getting the results of an inexperienced 11 year old in his first post who's learning in-situ. Hope they contract out their email services!
"For most of human history, this person would have been on the cusp of adulthood. 11 only sounds young because we artificially retard our population so that most never learn to function until much later."
I do however take exception to this. 11 was on the verge of adulthood if you were a pre bronze age child or if you live in a subsistance-poor family at any point, including currently. Children didn't sexually mature until much later than now, even into their 20's, due to malnutrition. In the wealthier sections of society, even in the iron age, children were much older than 11 before taking the full mantle of responsibility.
Children are sexually mature earlier than ever, but lack the reasoning capacity to use it properly it often seems. We also require them to know a hell of a lot more than they used to function in our society - not many jobs down the coal mines or running under the weaving machines any more. We are a more technologically advanced society, though intra-socially we're little different than the romans. I doubt you'd find many roman 11 year olds capable of being a network administrator, even if they could work a shift on the farm.
Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo (Score:4, Insightful)
"it's teaching 'don't be a dick' or 'sit down, shut up and work when told to or you'll end up mopping floors for a living' rather than calculus, but it's still inflicting learning on the unwilling."
Really? Really? Have you ever actually listened to what your saying? Those are not the words of an educator, but of a bully who knows that he has his victims cornered. You can rationalize why your child slave labor is OK, but you and I know perfectly well that you are not doing it because you think it will make them better educated.
"I do however take exception to this. 11 was on the verge of adulthood if you were a pre bronze age child or if you live in a subsistance-poor family at any point, including currently. Children didn't sexually mature until much later than now, even into their 20's, due to malnutrition. In the wealthier sections of society, even in the iron age, children were much older than 11 before taking the full mantle of responsibility."
Take exception if you want, but it is true. Look at the rights of passage into adulthood for most cultures in the world. Things like the bar/bat mitzvah. They are almost always at 12 or 13. I don't know what country you live in, but less than a hundred years ago, right here in the U.S. wasn't uncommon for 13 to 16 year olds to get married.
Take a look at historical life expectancies [wikipedia.org]. For your claim to be true, most of your classical Roman's not only never bread because they were dead before they could have children, and most of those that did breed, never saw their children's 11th birthday.
"Children are sexually mature earlier than ever,"
I've been hearing this since I was a kid in the early 70's. In the 70's, girls were on average hitting puberty between 11 and 13, although it was not unheard of for it to be as young as 8 or 9. So, for this to be true, the average age of puberty would have to be averaging 8 or 9 now at least. As far as I know, that is not the case. A quick search showed that it is currently at 12.5.
"but lack the reasoning capacity to use it properly it often seems"
That's right. People like you train them "sit down, shut up and work when told to". It's no suprise that they are developing slower and slower. Of course that is the point. The sad thing is that the retardation is environmental, not genetic.
"We also require them to know a hell of a lot more than they used to function in our society"
The only more that we expect them to know now that we did not expect before is that we expect them to be able to read, although not particularly well. This is a task that a bright child can learn to do well by 3, and a slow one can easily learn by 6 or 7. Your belief that most modern people know significantly more than people used to is cultural bias. Life in modern America is so simple, and so little knowledge is required of people that most modern Americans could simply not function in older environments.
"I doubt you'd find many roman 11 year olds capable of being a network administrator, even if they could work a shift on the farm."
Gee, you doubt that someone who had never seen a computer, could be a network administrator? Go figure. Of course, I doubt that you will find many 11 year olds today that can speak Latin and make an authentic Roman shield. Heck, that is even with hind site in their favor. Why? Because people don't learn things they are not exposed to, which is why so many people are now retarded. Because they are called children for a half to whole decade after they reach adulthood.
Your belief that historically people were considered children into their 20's is simply revisionist history, and you are helping with the dumbing down of modern America.
Re:Goes to show (Score:3, Insightful)
I think, rather, that his point was that the private schools allowed middle-to-upper income families to avoid the public schools, thereby reducing the interest of much of the public (and a high percentage of property owners and those who bother to vote) in the quality of the public schools.
I bring up "property owners" because, in some (many?) parts of the US the local school districts receive a high percentage of their funding from real estate taxes.
If your kid doesn't go to the public school, and you don't even know anyone who goes to the public school, you don't care if the public school sucks. In fact, you may even be in favor of it if it helps to keep your taxes lower.
Now, if you're actually paying the tuition for private school, if you can save more in tuition than you would pay in increased taxes to make the local public school good, then you're ahead. But most tax payers don't have school-age children, so increased taxes are just more money out of their pocket without any visible direct return to them.
If you are paying for private school now, that tax increase isn't going to go away when your kid graduates. So even for you, over the long haul, higher taxes for better schools may not make financial sense.
If you follow the money, it becomes pretty easy to see why a lot of public schools suck.