zlacker

In 2001, in 7th grade at the beginning of my web dev "career", so to speak, I made a website that looked exactly like our school district's "snow day" school closure and delay page -- and I allowed anyone to edit the message. I told a few kids about this -- it was a pinnacle of my PHP prowess back then.

Got called into an office -- a gifted program administration, not the regular school office. I think one of the teachers there caught wind of my cool little trick, and asked me to take it down right then and there. I was terrified, as I wasn't really someone to get into any sort of trouble. I was able to take it down through their machine's windows explorer's FTP access.

Now I realize that this teacher probably saved me from a lot of trouble. I wish these sort of stories were the norm -- where educators welcome the natural curiosity instead of throwing the law at kids who dare to think outside the box.