You have to keep in mind that this place is visited by many in the Info Sec profession as well as those we are trying to thwart.  The site is called "EthicalHacker.net."  So when someone who is new to the forum starts off by asking "How do I get my teacher's password..." well we all weren't born yesterday.  That immediately raises a number of flags.  The fact that you have persisted through the usual responses proves you may be actually telling the truth.

Now the excercise itself could be valid, though I don't think any decent teacher would have you hack their own account.  If it was me I would have a lab setup for you all to try your hand.  If someone in the class is there under not-so-ethical terms, they can go beyond the school account and try to gain access to personal accounts. 

Like Hayabusa has said, do the research and if you have questions then ask.  This is an extremely helpful crowd full of excellent resources but they will not do your homework for you.  Also based on the info you have provided about the school and program, it does not seem that it would cover a course on pen testing/hacking.  So you have to understand how fishy that sounds to us.

There is probably at least 5-10 posts a month where someone is brand new and immediately starts in with "How do I hack such and such..."  and usually they do not respond after the initial questioning done by the senior members.

Cant agree more with the posts.

@ziggy_567 - I did email her.  Awaiting reply. 

But in the meantime, initial digging does put her pretty high up on the totem pole.  Could be, perhaps, that she's pushing them to hack a local / lab account or something. 

But, either way, I'll await her response.

I took a really basic computer security class last semester where we used virtualbox and the teacher gave us almost step by step instructions to get into box #2. But actually hacking a teachers real password not a virtualbox seems crazy to me.

Two things to note:

First, I still have not received a reply from the teacher, who is 'willing' to validate the story.

Second, while we wait, I haven't seen any more posts from 'New to the game.'

So either A.) both went on vacation, B.) someone thought that simply dropping a name would change our minds / perceptions, or C.) (thinking positively) perhaps the teacher realized the assignment was either too hard, or out of scope, and is actually helping them more, herself.

Guess we'll see IF I ever get a response.

Maybe he got tired of our suspicious elitist attitude, and decided to go elsewhere.

as for lack of a response. I only did a quick search, but think there is enough information to get her desk phone and call her. But that's more effort than I want to apply right now.

It does amuse me why do people think we would just tell them how to do stuff. You think the name of the site they would get the hint that we are not here to attack people/companies but to learn and help each other and be ETHICAL!! but still they ask lol

Lol!!  I've more or less written this one off.  If they don't respond, then it's not worth monitoring it.

IF I get an email response, I'll post it here, and MAYBE we can help the guy...  IF...