Back with another tempest brewing

Blog cleaning is finished for the moment. The new skin is called Foxes—little four legged critters, not the two legged kind—and I’ve upgraded ExpressionEngine. Also tweaked a few things here and there. I have a coding problem in a couple of skins that I can’t figure out, but everything still works as far as I can tell. If you find anything that doesn’t, please let me know. I have no idea what Foxes looks like on a Mac. I’m almost afraid to find out. ;)

Just a word about ExpressionEngine—every upgrade brings it to a new level of fantastic. Over the last year or so I’ve been disappointed to see it virtually ignored or brushed off by many in the design community. But that has finally changed. Over the last week I’ve seen more references to it than ever before. No doubt, in large part, because of a brilliant marketing move by the fine people who bring us ExpressionEngine. Check out their $15,000 Shootout contest. Some of the heavy hitters of the design community are involved and they’re liking what they see. All I can say is it’s about time. The contest entries beautifully illustrate what is possible with ExpressionEngine. Two examples: Volkher Hofmann’s Living with Music and, also, Veerle’s blog, which has created no end of buzz the past week. I love seeing how other people use the capabilities of this powerful CMS.

On the home front, I’m enjoying the lad’s sudden feast over famine girl situation. Suddenly there are four girls who really, really, really like him. One is approaching stalker status and driving him (and me) crazy, another lives in Rockport (and is the one he likes most, unfortunately), and the other two are classmates. He is totally intrigued by the young woman from Rockport. They met at the dramafest last weekend and instantly hit if off. She gave him her telephone number and they’ve talked on the phone every evening since. I don’t know how that’s going to work out with the distance involved, but they sure do find a lot to talk about. But he pointed out that he’s not really looking for a girlfriend at this point. Since he will be leaving in a few months, getting involved now would likely end up with a couple of busted up hearts and he doesn’t want to go there. Well, we’ll see.

He also seems to have gotten himself into a situation with his AP History teacher. It’s a group thing and I think a good whack upside the head would benefit the lad and, possibly, the teacher. There will be a meeting today between the parties involved and the teacher with another potential F in the works. This time the lad’s Dad is involved and he’s ready to go to the mat on this one. This has turned into a lesson on when being honest is really bad policy. The short of it is that several students cheated on a major portfolio project with tactics ranging from purchasing material from the web to recycling papers from former students. The teacher zeroed in on these pretty quickly and gravely lectured the students on honesty, integrity, and responsibility. He told them that they knew who the guilty parties were and he expected them to individually come to his office to discuss the matter.

Included in the list of cheats was the use of study guides that are widely available on the web. They are like Cliff Notes and we know how teachers hate those things. Using them in place of reading the material is wrong. But the lad used a couple of AP History study guides. Yes, he did. But not in lieu of doing the work. He used them as supplements, which I find to be fair use. I can certainly attest to the long hours he puts in on his history reading and assignments, routinely still studying and reading at 1:00 AM or later. He earns his grades in that class. Absolutely.

However, when the teacher said that he expected those students who cheated or used study guides to fess up, the lad marched to the teachers office and said that he’d used a couple of study guides. Did he explain how he used the study guides? No, he didn’t. Do not ask me why he didn’t. I don’t know what he was thinking.

Now, the teacher says that there will be a penalty for each and every one of the students who came to his office to fess up. If they felt guilty enough to come to his office, then they are guilty in his book. I’m not sure whether it’ll be a lesser penalty than for those who didn’t confess, but either way, it’s not a good place to be in. The lad’s Dad is on standby and ready to do battle—he spent a week in PR watching the lad spending ridiculous hours on history reading assignments, journal entries, and the portfolio. He knows damned well the kid didn’t cheat.

I hope this ends up being a tempest in a teapot for the lad. It seems to me that this teacher is a bright man who, after being a (very fine) teacher for years, recognizes the difference between genuine work and manufactured work. He also, clearly, recognizes his students’ individual styles. Here’s hoping, anyway.