One example: The school bought the yearbook committee state-of-the-art computers and a negative scanner, and a licence to then-cutting edge desktop publishing software QuarkXPress, chucked a manual at us and basically said, “figure it out.” Our “staff adviser” was a wonderful English teacher, a published poet, who I very much suspect had never used a computer in his life. He would drop by every now and again, make some amused and mildly disapproving noises about the filthy state of the office and all the empty Copenhagen tins, read some material we had put together, give some feedback, and then cheerfully potter off.








