Gox Box Falls on Hard Times

I remember the time soon after Joel started working at Software Builders when he told me about the chat program they used at work to communicate with David, their deaf fellow-programmer. "It's called Gox Box," he told me soberly.

I giggled. What program writer out there knows the silly way Pennsylvania-Dutch-speaking people refer to chatterboxes? Surely no one else uses the term Gox Box.

I asked Joel if he knew what a Gox Box is. He didn't have a clue. When I explained, he explained that his Amish fellow programmers had written the program. Then it all made sense. That's what comes of having Amish programmers. They write fancy code and then come up with a quirky-plain name like Gox Box for what they've produced.

Some time in my early years of teaching at Pilgrim, the local gurus installed Gox Box on all the teachers' computers, which were networked. We had many a merry electronic discussion with messages flying from desk to desk, each of us in a room full of students who were not privy to the conversation, unless one of us giggled and they begged to know what was funny. Sometimes we told them.

Last year, and again this year, Gox Box was installed on all the computers at school. Through the school-wide wireless network a student at his own computer could "Gox" a teacher and ask a question. Grant, who spent much too much time on zero privilege would sometimes ask me via Gox Box "May I go potty?" or just "Gotta go potty" or simply "GGP" or some other juvenile expression he should have been embarrassed to say out loud, even to his Mom, at school.

This year Gox Box has been used and occasionally abused at school. In response to its misuse, Mr. Schrock, being a sensible and fearless man, deleted Gox Box from all the school computers the students have access to. It may be reinstalled at some future time if it seems wise.

And that is how Gox Box has fallen on hard times. The chattering gene is alive and well among our students--Pennsylvania Dutch and otherwise. But for now all the Gox Box types will have to exercise their quirky-plain talents without the benefit of electronic assistance.

Mr. Schrock, who is certainly no Gox Box, can still communicate sedately with me and I with him whenever we click on that little coffee cup icon in the lower right hand corner of the computer screen. A tiny ding will announce the communication, and we can peruse it at our leisure. We are the favored few for whom Gox Box will go right on being as sociable as we want it to be, and not one whit more. Nice.