SEMINOLE - A question for teenagers: You accidentally receive an e-mail with answers to next week's big test. Without them you could fail. No one will ever know if you peek.
What do you do?
"I would delete it; I'd rather fail than cheat," answered student Ashley Riancho, one of eight contestants Wednesday in an exercise designed to explore what's ethical when it comes to computers.
Boos and catcalls rained down from about 200 of Ashley's fellow students, who made it clear during the spirited 40-minute game that they favored unfettered computer use, no parental controls and cheating.
Winn Schwartau was taken aback by what he later said was a show of "arrogance" and "pure defiance." A nationally known computer security expert who participated in Wednesday's Great American Teach-in, he presided over a "Cyberethical Survivor Game" in which unpopular answers got contestants kicked off the island.
"The noncheaters get the least applause?" Schwartau asked the students. "This is very interesting. Who's in charge of your computer at home - you or your parents?"
"Me!" the kids shouted.
"I find this extremely enlightening," said Schwartau, whose presentation brought a decidedly provocative flavor to the Teach-in.
Someone went to the office of principal Judy Le Boeuf to see whether she knew what was being said in Seminole Middle's gymnasium. Several teachers looked on with dour expressions.
Across the Tampa Bay area, the Teach-in drew thousands of volunteers into classrooms, where they talked about their jobs, hobbies and interests.
There was some of the usual: doctors, lawyers, police officers and nurses. And the unusual: squid dissections, snow-cone makers and parachutists. In St. Petersburg, a French master chef prepared chicken for culinary students at Northeast High School. At James B. Sanderlin Elementary School, Raymond Sanderlin, 78, told students how his brother filed the federal lawsuit that desegregated Pinellas County schools and became the county's first black judge.
At nearby Lakewood Elementary, head plant operator Sean Waters donned a wet suit and gave the kids a surfing demonstration.
Marine Lance Cpl. John Murray, who fought in Iraq, visited his old geography teacher, Dave Baylor, at Oak Grove Middle School in Clearwater.
The 20-year-old Marine told Baylor's sixth-graders how a rocket-propelled grenade whizzed across the hood of his truck as he fought his way to Baghdad, and how his unit tore down Saddam Hussein's statue. Murray's job that historic day: crowd control.
Would he go to war again? one student asked.
"I wouldn't want to, but if I had to go I would," Murray said. "No one should ever want to go to war. It's not a fun thing."
At Seminole Middle, Schwartau was one of nearly 100 speakers Wednesday. His presentation proved that when outsiders visit the protected world of a school, the result can be an unexpected dose of reality.
Language arts teacher Carolyn Sniffen said the students displayed a lack of ethical awareness that often causes teachers to quit. She said she wished Schwartau's game had given the kids more direction.
Besides Ashley Riancho, students Ben Burris and Katie Wahl were the only contestants who came down on the side of rules, parental control and ethical behavior.
Schwartau has a son in eighth grade at Seminole Middle and has authored a new book, Internet & Computer Ethics for Kids (and Parents & Teachers Who Haven't Got a Clue).
He said he was unpleasantly surprised by the young crowd's reaction but satisfied that he had gotten students and teachers to think about ethics and computers.
He asked them to imagine the "Internet age" in a few years with no rules and no sense of fairness from its youngest citizens.
He told them, "What we are seeing is the result of . . . parents, teachers and school administrators giving up on our kids."
- Times staff writers Melanie Ave and Donna Winchester contributed to this report.
