Who You Gonna Call...?

By Richard Butner

Deep in the bowels of the Durham School of the Arts is a cinder block room that has no windows. The only sources of light are overhead fluorescent tubes and more than a dozen glowing computer screens that line the walls. Each monitor sports a printed label with a Star Trek character's name: Kirk, Uhura, Worf, T'Pol. ("I'm the Star Trek geek," technology teacher Darrell Thompson will explain later, with a hint of pride. "The kids aren't interested in it at all.") Only the network server in the corner breaks rank, declaring itself Gandalf, the wisest character in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

At 3 o'clock on a Thursday in October, just after classes end at this grades 6- 12 magnet school in North Carolina, four boys and one girl amble into the computer lab. They come here religiously every week for their SWAT (Students Working to Advance Technology) team meeting. And though the kids are the school's computer mavens, by no means are they geeks from central casting. There aren't any pocket protectors or coke-bottle glasses here, just the usual kid uniforms: T-shirts, cargo shorts, and jeans.

The youngsters immediately plop down in front of sleek, black IBM computers and start typing away. But before getting to work, the boys bunch together in front of one monitor, crank up a Linkin Park CD, and hunt for computer games. The girl, 8th grader Anni Simpson, kicks off her sneakers and begins working on a section of the school's Web site. Soon Thompson, SWAT's teacher-leader, breezes in, and the boys turn the volume down...