The classic American story of condemning a child to a life of incarceration and criminality because a family is too poor to afford to replace an accidentally broken school laptop (and has no other computer)...
He's making a joke. The kid isn't going to jail for this. What's more, there's no evidence the kid or his family is poor. He might've done it because he was scared of asking his parents to buy a new one because he broke it.
This is a new problem we’re going through. School provides equipment (iPad now, eventually laptop) and charges penalties for breakage whether accidental or negligent.
For a $300 iPad, they charge $100 for the first repair, then $500, then $1000. So these are penalties not repair fees. This iPad is expected to last through elementary school or middle school, so multiple years.
This is hard for an elementary schooler or even middle schooler and the risk of damaging these things, oddly they do not provide cases but allow students to buy their own.
I’d rather go back to paper books that are very hard to damage.
The school hired an “iPad wrangler” and cover their salary through the penalty fines. So it’s more expensive than just buying AppleCare. It’s also worse as it takes forever to get service and it’s faster to just go into an Apple store.
I’m not poor, but don’t have hundreds of dollars. Here’s some examples of charges- 1) iPad doesn’t work, school claims student damaged it but doesn’t know what is broken or what could have caused the failure, penalty charged, iPad replaced, no appeal possible, iPad wrangler (who has no credentials or training or skills in iPads) rules definitively; 2) another student knocks iPad out of hands onto floor breaking, penalty charged to steward not to knocker; 3) stolen, penalty charged
It’s implemented quite stupidly at school with no insurance and no skills for repair. 8+ year olds have a hard time protecting expensive electronics.
Not mention that the devices have spyware reporting all activity, not allowing messaging to parents and guardians, and not providing logs or audit to parents and guardians.
It’s funny that I dreamed of stuff like a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer and we get this Brazil-like implementation where everything sucks, but digitally.
> another student knocks iPad out of hands onto floor breaking, penalty charged to steward not to knocker;
I had stuff like this happen to me in school; my family was not well off, so it was a fun prank for the kids who had money to 'accidentally' break or lose my things that I couldn't get replaced.
That’s a good point and I wonder if that affected the interaction. I never got an explanation for why the classmate would knock the iPad out of their hands. Only that it wasn’t a friend and it was a “drive by.”
People end up in positions where they have to break their own moral compass all the time, even if they are generally honest people. I'm not condoning it but I do have some understanding of unfortunate situations.
Where I grew up, people were far too judgmental to make honesty the right call in a lot of situations where it really shouldn't have been a problem.
If I had broken my laptop and was honest about it, they'd have gossiped about me, a child, as if I should have the sensibilities of an adult. They might have also gossiped about my parents. They wouldn't worry too much if I overheard—perhaps even making a point of it to 'teach' me something. They definitely wouldn't worry about their kids overhearing it, and then I'd have to deal with them judging me too (read: using it as an excuse to try to bully me). If one of their own bullying kids was the reason my laptop was broken I'd have gotten to deal with being called a liar on top of it all, which would have been an even bigger excuse to try to bully me.
Thing is, if I'd have broken it, I'd have done odd jobs and saved allowances to repay it. That wouldn't have changed anything about the community response, though.
First you assume the family is poor. Second, you assume the laptop was _accidentally_ broken. Third, you assume the family has no other computer.
From what evidence do you draw ANY of your conclusions?
Plenty of rich or middle-class individuals steal things. It's not just the poor.