When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux In Education 1589
jamie found this blog post up on the HeliOS Project, which brings Linux to school kids in Austin, TX. It makes very clear some of the obstacles that free software faces in the classroom. It seems a teacher came upon a student demonstrating Linux to other kids and handing out LiveCDs. The teacher confiscated the CDs and wrote an angry email to HeliOS's founder, Ken Starks: "Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. ... This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..." Starks pens an eloquent reply, which contains a factoid I have not seen mentioned before: "The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way. Then again, being a good NEA member, you would spout the Union line. Microsoft has pumped tens of millions of dollars into your union. Of course you are going to 'recommend' Microsoft Windows."
epic lul (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:5, Informative)
After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization.
I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.
I think it's more a mindset. I've experienced the same attitudes in school and by teachers long before Microsoft became a recognized name. It seems that many teachers still think "no pain, no gain" (or like the kid athletes said during one of the Olympics, "No pain, no Spain"). I also remember that we were not allowed inside the school during sub-zero temperatures during recess because recess is about being outside. Yep, I even remember one teacher confiscating a ball from a kid at recess (the kid told his parents who had that teacher suspended)... and not too recently my mom talked to one of the neighbour kids who was suspended from school for being late for class. It's an authoritarian attitude. Things need to be bought; if they aren't bought then it's either stolen or its communism or "socialism".
I also remember when a person from a British government copyright enforcement agency emailed the Firefox foundation to inform then that their software was being distributed and that punishments for those offenders will be forthcoming. That person had a hard time believing that software could be free (I believe this was a Slashdot story many moons ago).
I'm not inviting a spam-fest (Score:3, Informative)
Ombudsman@austinisd.org
If you feel compelled to respond, please be polite. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:0, Informative)
For someone so quick to judge someone elses ignorance, your response shows a similarly poor grasp of the English language.
For example, teachers often call conferences with students, the term 'conference' differentiates between 'simply talking too' and having a formal meeting. Also, 'hinge on falsehoods' is a perfectly valid statement, I'm suprised that a 'professional editor' would fail to understand what she meant. 'Verge on falsehoods' means something totally different. You realise that, right?
Your critique is weak, and you sound like an arrogant prick. Professional editors with such a poor understinding of English should not be editing.
Re:Oh dear god (Score:5, Informative)
Don't fake us out. If this is real just tell us which public school. Its our right to know as tax paying citizens. We'll get the rest of our information directly from the school district.
That's exactly what this situation doesn't need. With 60 comments in the thread, I've already seen two different "outings" of the teacher in question. Having hundreds of well-meaning and dozens of raving emails and phone calls targeted at the school district and the unfortunately misinformed teacher will make the Open Source movement look like children. It's the nature of massive mailing campaigns that the ones remembered are those that are over the top, and those become the characterization of the movement.
TFA says Ken Starks is going to meet with the school's superintendent and the teacher in question for some adult discussion. It's a lot less flamboyant than setting fire to copies of Windows, but it goes directly to the point of introducing Linux to the bureaucracy in professional, credible terms
Re:There is No Such Thing as a Free Education (Score:4, Informative)
You are an idiot.
Factoid... (Score:2, Informative)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
A factoid is a spurious - unverified, incorrect, or fabricated - statement formed and asserted as a fact, but with no veracity. The word appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true.
It muddies the intention of the sentence when you use this word, because its meaning has been overloaded like this. I would have gone with:
"which contains an argument I have not seen mentioned before"
[dons flame-retardant suit]
OpenEducationDisc (Score:5, Informative)
I am a teacher (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:5, Informative)
>>>I then tried to explain about linux and FOSS but he had grown up with the solid idea that nothing worth having is ever free
When explaining complex concepts, it's often better to keep things as simple as possible. I would simply ask the man: "Don't charitable organizations exist to give away free tutoring to students, free food to the hungry, and other volunteer work?" "Yeah." "Well the same organizations exist in the world of computers. They give-away free software to benefit the community." I'd then leave him to think about that for awhile.
>>>The teacher confiscated the CDs and wrote an angry email to HeliOS's founder, Ken Starks:
This is the point where I would take several steps:
(1) Ask the teacher to meet with me so we can discuss why she stole the personal property of my teenager.
(2)(a) If the teacher is not cooperative, I would remind the teacher that theft is still illegal, and that she should return the CDs to my teenager, else she could be prosecuted for criminal acts. (b) Schedule a meeting with the superintendent of the school district to discuss the teacher's stubbornness.
(3)(a) If he is also uncooperative, I would stop paying school taxes to this non-free district. (b) I would then use the money saved to pay the tuition for a private school, or a neighboring public school, that does not violate a young adult's basic rights.
It's a bunch of bullshit that government schools can dictate to teens/parents what OSes they can or can not use. Or what books they can or can not read. Or... Citizens need to fight back when this kind of tyranny happens, not just "give in".
BTW:
My alma mater Elizabethtown College has turned its back on Windoze. They use Linux to run the campus-wide network and for the student labs. I would also mention that in my discussion with the close-minded teacher/superintendent. "Well if Linux is illegal, then why is my college using it?" and see what they say.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:5, Informative)
Well, there are a lot of cognitive shortcuts people use to reason about situations like this that are applicable most of the time, but have significant exceptions.
The sticking point with free software is that people think it's too good to be true. After all, software is hard to make, why would somebody do it without being compensated? But free software developers are compensated. They are compensated in payment by their employers for solving problems. They are compensated also in terms of status in the developer community but only when they share. And here's the point they miss: status is worth money. Proverbially, you can't eat prestige; but you can dine out on it.
Look at a project like the Linux kernel. Early on contributors nothing but status, but for a few people like Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, the magnitude of the status payoff is huge. Those kind of people can walk into any big software developer and say, "I want a job with a six figure salary and by the way I'll be spending most of my time just working on things that interest me." And they'll probably get a job. There are people who have done comparable work in closed source projects, and while they got more pay in the front end, they never get that kind of status.
It's kind of like the difference between being a rock star vs. being a guitar teacher. If you are diligent and conscientious, you can make a living as a musician by teaching. But a rock star makes a lot more money than a hard working music teacher -- after he makes it. Beforehand, it's expected he'll starve until he gets his first hit. Software is more moderate. Unknown contributors don't have to starve, because they're creating things for which people will pay good money to have exist. On the downside, being the equivalent of Elvis in the software world involves a lot less wealth.
The problem with the "no such thing as a free lunch" theory is that the assertion is much to strong. Free lunches exist under special conditions. For years free radio and television flourished. You could say recipients "paid" for the programming by watching the advertising, but using that loose standard of "payment" people who use free software "pay" the creators by enhancing their status.
Re:Ignorance beyond words (Score:5, Informative)
Because USA public schools do not pay enough to attract competent educators.
Honestly, most are flocking to easier or more fulfilling education avenues. Most going to school to be a teacher are wanting to be grade school teachers or college professors. Almost NONE want to be Jr High or High school teachers. The ones that are fantastic end up at private schools that pay upwards of 2X what the public schools do. Being a teacher = you're poor nowdays. This is not the 80's when they had high salaries. it's 2008 and my sister in law makes $44,500 as a teacher. And she's considered at the top of her pay-scale for the 4th grade teachers. Oh and she has to buy many supplies for her classroom because the schools cant afford to.
American public schools are a massive failure.
Re:You need to explain (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, I'm an American and I understand "gratis" perfectly, thank you very much.
I also understand "vrij", "libre", "frei", "libero" and "livre".
Despite what you may have heard, we Americans are not as unsophisticated as you might think. Even those of us that are Conservatives.
Apparently this Teacher isn't the only one that needs to free her mind from stereotypes and misconceptions.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:3, Informative)
Suspension for being late for class is a fiscal issue.
1) First off the kid I'm talking about isn't American, so American rules don't apply.
2) Second this is not a fiscal issue nor should it be. Education is an educational issue. Forcing a person to not be in school merely hurts the child's education.
3) Using draconian forms of discipline solves nothing except to make children cynical and untrustful of the people who are supposed to be helping and supporting them.
4) "It's a tool to get the parents and the kid to make sure the kid gets there on time." It's a tool that doesn't work. Study's have been done on this issue; having punishments for lateness actually results in more lateness, though I would think educators would be educated about such issues. Market economic theory doesn't always work for social situations.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:3, Informative)
"Linux is not illegal." - Bill Smith, Ph.D., director of computer science & engineering.
I would love to see the look on the teacher and superintendent's face.
.
Re:Oh dear god (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that this teacher is typical of public school teachers in the U.S. They are sterling examples of the axiom, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."
When my daughter (now an MD) was in college, all of her classmates who were going fore teacher certification had the lowest GPAs--without exception. All science majors had the highest GPAs. (My daughter graduated Magna cum Laude.)
The point is, do not expect the best and brightest among U.S. school teachers. The smart ones are in tech and biology fields, or otherwise engaged in better-paying and more rewarding pursuits.
Perhaps if teaching paid better, the situation might resolve for the better. Meanwhile, look into private schooling or home tutoring if you want your kids to get a decent education.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:3, Informative)
karenware.com:
"Welcome to Karen Kenworthy's web site."
http://www.austin.isd.tenet.edu/schools/staff.phtml?teacher=1600 [tenet.edu]:
"Karen Ciesla"
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:5, Informative)
That's why Eric Raymond et. al. coined the term "Open Source" back in '96 or thereabouts: because most people presume that "free" means "free as in beer," and get suspicious. But the name "open source" has its own problems, namely RMS railed against it because it doesn't address the idea of freedom.
I think we should call it "freedomware" but my idea doesn't seem to have caught on. ;-)
Re:You need to explain (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You need to explain (Score:2, Informative)
That's fair enough. Although not very many Americans travel outside the US. That's a fact, not a stereotype. Actually, now I'm talking to a real, live American, I have a question for you. A colleague who recently visited New York came back with some Hershey's chocolate, and very nice it was too. Except for the milk chocolate ones. They were disgusting - stank of vomit and tasted of sour, old milk. I remember on my visit there a few years ago experiencing the same flavour, but I put it down to it being a bad batch, or possible it got heated in transit. But no, it appears that taste is by design. Do other brands of milk chocolate made in the States have a similar flavour?
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:4, Informative)
This attitude is common with the older generation who aren't used to the net. "Free" rings alarm bells and this is an issue I rarely hear mention of when people talk about the problems linux has spreading.
Has he never volunteered for anything? Has he never helped his neighbor to shovel his driveway when his neighbor was sick? I don't think it has anything to do with older generation, or the net.
I also don't believe that NEA has anything to do with the moronic attitude of the teacher described in the article. I am an NEA member, and I try to avoid microsoft software as much as I can. I know a number of NEA members who have very poor opinion about microsoft, and very high about Linux, and free software in general.
I think mentioning NEA in the letter was somewhat unfortunate, as it politicizes the whole problem, which seems to be not one of politics, but rather of stupidity.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps it is analogous to unions - we all pitch in a little more so we can take advantage of working as a team.
Re:You need to explain (Score:3, Informative)
Well, Hershey's is rather low-grade milk chocolate. It's mass-produced, and like many things mass-produced, some quality is sacrificed along the way to the quantity gods. Small-batch milk chocolate usually tastes MUCH richer due to the use of fresh whole milk, rather than re-hydrated milk-powder. Think of Hershey bars as "The working man's chocolate". Cheap, easy to produce, and pumped out by the BILLIONS each year.
Also, Milk Chocolate is very sensitive to temperature changes, and can be rendered rancid quite easily. I've had a fresh Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar right off the assembly-line when I visited Hershey, PA. It tasted nothing like the candy bars I bought in the store, yet it was the exact same candy-bar machine the store-bought ones came from. It's the shipping and shelf time that ruins it.
Re:FOSS = Software Barn Raising (Score:3, Informative)
And the "catch" at least with GPL, is that you can't sell a community raised "barn" to other people, you have to give it away.
That's completely wrong. The GPL explicitly allows you to sell copies, provided the buyer gets the source code as well. You don't have to give it away.
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, they had. Unfortunately, we didn't know that. The Japanese made the mistake of trying to send their feelers through the Soviet Union. The Soviets, seeing a chance to divide Japan the way they were dividing Germany by prolonging the war, made sure nobody else knew about them (as it was, they managed to do it to Korea). All we knew were the Japanese declaration that they would fight fanatically to the last man, woman and child, and after Okinawa we had no reason to doubt them.
Re:Don't blame the teacher ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let's cut the conspiracy theory (Score:3, Informative)
Not just PHP...
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austin.isd.tenet.edu [netcraft.com]
PHP on Linux, perhaps this teacher should quit her job working for a school that hosts their website on illegal software.
Re:Not a good example... (Score:2, Informative)
This is what I tell people when they say "They can't possibly be making money off Linux!"
I say it was created to save money. I tell them about how UNIX used to be (mostly) the realm of incredibly expensive workstations made by premier companies like SGI, DEC, HP, etc. You couldn't get UNIX without forking over tens of thousands of dollars, but lots of universities and businesses wanted it.
So then came Linus the broke college student, who adapted a "UNIXalike"-Linux, that could run on cheap Intel boxes. He filled a need in the market-not by making money, but by saving it...
Something looks fishy here... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You need to explain (Score:3, Informative)
"Frei" is the German word for "free" as in speech. The word for "free" as in beer is "kostenlos".
Direct experience with this... (Score:2, Informative)
I used to be the sysadmin for a high school. The district standard was Windows 2000 or XP on all workstations, with Altiris Deployment Solution to manage it all. My F/OSS experiences:
- We somehow wound up with a massive number of Ubuntu install CDs. I left them in a help-yourself tray in the library, until it was pointed out to me that SOME student is going to install it on a home computer, format the HD, and the parents will be calling the school for MY head on a stick. This wasn't too far-fetched, considering that I was frequently blamed for problems with teachers' home computers.
- I pushed out Firefox to lab computers, until teachers started to complain. Turns out there were several websites teachers sent students to that required MSIE--including educational software running on my own servers.
- All my lab computers ran Office XP. Because of my experiences with teachers who tended to be idiots, I did not also install OpenOffice.Org, lest I be blamed for installing something that doesn't work. One time, one student came in with a OOO document on a USB flash drive. I used this student as my catalyst to install OOO on lab computers. Surprisingly, no complaints from teachers.
Now, Altiris did support Linux imaging, and if a teacher wanted Linux across their lab, I'd jump on the opportunity. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, as the teachers with computer labs under their control had the combined IQ of a tree stump. Example: the web design teacher told me her computer was "out of memory" because she had the entire desktop filled with icons.
Their own site runs Linux (Score:2, Informative)
So I suppose they are breaking the law too:
The site of the Austin Independent School District:
http://www.austin.isd.tenet.edu/ [tenet.edu]
What they are running:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austin.isd.tenet.edu [netcraft.com]
OS: Linux
Server: Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 PHP/5.2.5
Last changed: 10-Dec-2008
IP address: 206.77.0.250
Netblock Owner: Austin Independent School District
Field/Country dependant (Score:2, Informative)
My school (in Germany) had a cobbled-together pick-of-the-litter CIP-Pool running under Suse.
When I went through physics the CIP Pool ran on Suse and DEC Alphas.
I did my diploma thesis in an MPI and we were/are running Suse on P4s and the number-crunching is done under Suse on some old Alphas and Opterons.
Now I am on Xubuntu on an EEE - well, that's what you get when you head out for a year abroad.
So there was definitely no shortage of Linux in my education.
However, e.g. most of the Architecture department has never heard of Linux - the CAD vendors make sure of that. The same with the Business department. And I know that the CS-department gets free licenses from Microsoft to avoid them "going Linux" [many still do].
Re:Why does everyone fucking talk like this (Score:3, Informative)
Trinity was a plutonium-implosion device, just like Fat Man that destroyed Nagasaki. So that one was already tested.
It was Little Boy, the uranium gun-type device, that was untested. The physicists thought they knew the physics so well, and the mechanism was so straight-forward, that there was no need for a test.