Teacher tells students Linux is

[The Canadian]

"...observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. 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. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.

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 verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

Karen xxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxx Middle School

AISD

Hmmmm....

I suppose I should, before anything else, thank you. You have given me the opportunity to show others just what a battle we face in what we do. "We" being those who advocate, support and use Free Open Source Software and Linux in particular.

If you find my following words terse or less than cordial, take a breath and prepare yourself...what I have to say to you are soft strokes to your hair in comparison to what you are about to experience.

First off, if there was even the slightest chance that I was doing something illegal, it would not have been done. To think that I would involve my kids in my "illegal" activities is an insult far beyond outrage. You should be ashamed of yourself for putting into print such none sense.

And please...investigate to your heart's content. You are about to have your eyes opened, that is if you actually investigate anything at all. Linux is a free as-in-cost and free as-in-license operating system. It was designed specifically for those purposes. Linux is used to free people from Microsoft. 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". To do otherwise would probably get you reprimanded at the least and fired at the worst. You are only doing what you've been instructed to do.

You've been trained well.

I don't know when you attended college Karen but the Linux of even two years ago pales in feature and ability to what there is available now...and that in turn will pale in a year's time. linux is superior to MS windows in so many ways, they are too numerous to mention here...I am weary of enumerating them. Unlike Microsoft who meters their "improvements" and then shovels them to you every five years or so for purchase; Linux releases their improvements upon their completion. We receive the newest and the best of the system when it is tested to be usable and stable. Karen, you have no idea the slavery you work under...but you don't know any better. The shame of it is, you are trapped with millions of other teachers in obeying the NEA and preaching the goodness of Windows and Microsoft. A superior, free and absolutely entertaining method of operating your computer is within reach and you are unable to grasp it.

The most disturbing part of this resides in the fact that the AISD purchases millions of dollars of Microsoft Software in a year's time when that money could be better spent on educating our children. A dedicated School Teacher would recognize that fact and lobby for the change to Free Open Source Software and let the money formally spent on MS bindware be used on our kids.

A teacher who cared about her students would do that.

That is sad past my ability to express it to you. Don't shackle your students in your prison Karen.

Now. You give that boy his disks back. Aaron is a brilliant kid and he's learned more using Linux than he ever did using Windows. Those disks and their distribution are perfectly legal and even if he was "disruptive", you cannot keep his property. I have placed a call to the AISD Superintendent and cc'd him a complete copy of your email. It looks like we will get to meet in his office when School starts again after the holiday. I am anxious to meet a person who is this uninformed and still holds a position of authority and learnedness over our children.

Ken Starks

HeliOS Solutions

All-Righty Then

Source: Blog of helios

[Denholm]

Perfect example of a simple brained organism with a closed source mind.

[stevehoot]

Whilst I'm not fan of Linux on the desktop (I really do like the phrase "a carnival show for an operating system :laugh:) Karen is obviously a moron.

Open Source and Linux aren't always free, however what she said was obviously bang out of order. She's obviously way out of her depth in dealing with systems out right.

Although to be fair, (and I appreciate that I don't know the in's and out's) if someone in my company was showing off Fedora and handing out free copies I'd be p*ssed too.

Sounds more like she's an idiot who's upset that your treading on her toes than someone that's been brainwashed by MS. Arrogance and Ignorance are more likely to be the root cause for this pathetic speech than her being a staunch fan of Windows.

The fact you go on about Linux being superior is purely subjective. I personally feel that Windows would give kids a better start in business as that is the de facto standard rather than the fragmented Linux front that is hardly used in most enterprises. The cost of Windows maybe high, however the cost of re-training all technical staff, finding replacement software for the closed-source / Windows only apps and of course ensuring that the OS works on every bit of hardware they already use is a major expense - and of course Open Source fans don't take into account that businesses and schools NEED manufacturer support for their kit. Something the licences paid to MS will already cover.

Add it all up and the cost to change to a FOSS stack is nowhere near "free".

However I acknowledge your original point that Karen is blind, blinkered and ignorant.

[d3nuo]

ok, i definitely support most of what Mr. Starks said in reply, based puretly on the naive nature of "Karen" however i was kind of turned off from the "go Mr. Starks!!!" when he started spouting some sort of definitive superiority of Linux in comparison to Windows. it is the opposite of most Linux-heads i know, and reminds me a great deal of Mac users who think their superiority is definite and factual. While i will definitely agree that Linux is great and awesome, even in a reply to such an ignorantly naive person as "Karen" i would at least imply an opinion on the superiority rather than the implicit factuality of his statements. On the whole, however, i approve of his response.. i just wish he was a bit more.. erm.. -open- minded rather than basically becoming a mac fanboy saying that the superiority is definitive beyond a shadow of a doubt.

that's how i interpreted it anyway.. obviously i recognize it will be different for others. nonetheless i can't believe a person in the educational system would be so ridiculously ignorant

[Panacik]

The teacher was out of order and he is somewhat correct in what he says about the money side of things. However, she too is correct, in that the children should be learning an OS that is widely used around the whole world.

The could learn Linux, great, but then get a job, be given a machine with Windows and then realise, "****, i don't know how to use it! Gimme Linux!"

However, if they wish to learn Linux IN ADDITION to Windows, then i am all for that. Additional learning in Linux will provide more scope for adoption of Linux in future.

However, what she has said about legallities discredits her from really making any comment at all about anything computer related, other than, "this is how you turn 'put on and off". She obviously has no idea about Linux and lied about using it before. If she had, she would realise how foolish she looks having said it is "illegal" software.

[+John Teacake MVC]

Seriously what I would do is this.

Confess your using Linux and ask him to report you to the Authorities. Tell that person that you will confess everything to the Authorities. Tell him you were right (In the most sarcastic way possible) Then when the Authorities turn up to seize your laptop have a look at it and return it to you (Having found there been NO problem). Then ask the person who thought Linux was illegal . . . "On a scale of 1 to 10 . . . How daft do you feel?"

People proper **** me off sometimes!!!!

[t0mbi]

HAHA! what a dumb mole

[Matrix XII]

Are you kidding me?

Some people, really.

[Knife Party]

reminds me of my old ICT teacher who freaked out when he heard i used the evil 'ubuntu' on his network :p and lord forbid people even whisper the name 'Firefox' :hmmm:

[Alexandre.]

These types of people make me sooooo angry >_<

[Lechio]

It's amazing what chimpanzees can do these days.

Teach classes...

browse the Web, write e-mails...

play video games, (...).

Pretty soon they will try to conquer the world... :rofl:

Edited December 11, 2008 by Lechio

[bobbba]

Yes she's got her facts completely wrong but why do you have to react in such a pushy way. I think you'd get a lot further if you dropped the smug approach for a more positive one. Maybe offer to demo Linux and provide some information about what it offers instead of an OS war approach. In short drop the religious element.

I think those endorse Linux subtly without resorting to desperate accusations achieve far more than the zealots.

[LTD]

Middle-school teachers are glorified babysitters, many of whom lack education themselves.

But this is what gave me a chuckle:

No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.

Remember, however, that the corporate/school system relies on MS, and MS relies on them. Any proposed change or new way of thinking will spark confusion and fear. The salt and the pepper shakers chance places and people go into a frenzy.

[bobbba]

Middle-school teachers are glorified babysitters, many of whom lack education themselves.

But this is what gave me a chuckle:

No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.

Remember, however, that the corporate/school system relies on MS, and MS relies on them. Any proposed change or new way of thinking will spark confusion and fear. The salt and the pepper shakers chance places and people go into a frenzy.

I know people have been known to imply that canada is backward in the past but I think you may be stereotyping more than a little there. One teacher getting it wrong does not mean that the whole system is the same.

There's good reason for schools to teach windows and ms office skills given the work place that students will move in to. Like others have said a good system should cover other software it just does not need to preach it.

[Moustacha]

There's good reason for schools to teach windows and ms office skills given the work place that students will move in to. Like others have said a good system should cover other software it just does not need to preach it.

But how will the students taught Office XP use Office 2008? With that new taskbar, they'll never survive in the business world! But wait, someone out there will take their money to teach them that file menu is still the file menu.

In a different article I read on ITWire about using Linux on the "OLPC" project in Australia, the man with the idea for the use of linux said students should be taught word processing and spreadsheet skills, not MS Word and MS Excel.

[morphen]

Lol, cracks me up ;) While i don't use Linux myself, I have played around with it, and I do see the advantages with it.

this Karen is obviously at moron :p

[LTD]

I know people have been known to imply that canada is backward in the past but I think you may be stereotyping more than a little there. One teacher getting it wrong does not mean that the whole system is the same.

There's good reason for schools to teach windows and ms office skills given the work place that students will move in to. Like others have said a good system should cover other software it just does not need to preach it.

bobba, it's bad. Seriously.

Canadians might be nice, reasonable people who can be worldly at times, but our kids are not being taught very well. I taught myself in earlier grades and then I ended up teaching the teachers. I *really* began to learn during, say, maybe my last year of high school but in earnest during my undergrad years at Uni.

At the time I was given a chance to study in Switzerland and even the UK, but I had to pass it up. I would have loved to take advantage of the opportunity though. I'm currently going for my Master's, so there will be similar opportunities, thankfully.

[bobbba]

But how will the students taught Office XP use Office 2008? With that new taskbar, they'll never survive in the business world! But wait, someone out there will take their money to teach them that file menu is still the file menu.

In a different article I read on ITWire about using Linux on the "OLPC" project in Australia, the man with the idea for the use of linux said students should be taught word processing and spreadsheet skills, not MS Word and MS Excel.

Which is a fair point but the decision on what to teach those skills on should be based on many things like what existing staff can support as well as cost savings.

If there are the skills to support Linux and open office and the costs add up then great. The reality of it though is that the cost savings are not always there and that open source skills are not common place not to mention the difficulties that switching causes.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Forget the subject matter - it is not for a teacher to impart prejudice or opinion.

Moreover, they should be teaching facts, not unsubstantiated claims.

[Lechio]

Which is a fair point but the decision on what to teach those skills on should be based on many things like what existing staff can support as well as cost savings.

If there are the skills to support Linux and open office and the costs add up then great. The reality of it though is that the cost savings are not always there and that open source skills are not common place not to mention the difficulties that switching causes.

Maybe in the "world" where you live those aren't common. However if you travel "outside your world" you will see a lot of institutions using Free Open Source Software for their activities, and those institutions aren't just the public service ones but also the private sector. Not to mention if that you are going to work in the IT sector and don't have the knowledge to work with this type of tools you are very limited to a low rank work (if you are able to find any in this area).

It's a matter of priorities that governments just don't seem to understand. Who has the knowledge controls everything, the ultimate truth is adapt or loose your position. It's even in their own interest to maintain their position, but sometimes this reality gets obscured by other interests of a more doubtful nature...

Interesting that you mentioned the cost. The cost of not having the competence is far greater than the cost of making this type of knowledge available to a society.

[ichi]

If there are the skills to support Linux and open office and the costs add up then great. The reality of it though is that the cost savings are not always there and that open source skills are not common place not to mention the difficulties that switching causes.

The issue is you just cannot tell what will be common place when kids grow up. Showing kids products other than Microsoft's is not about preparing them for an open source scenario, but about giving them a broader vision of computing so they can adapt to whatever they find later.

[Ambroos]

Schools and teachers are all like that.

At my school:

Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 are unstable and not secure. Same goes with XP SP2 and SP3. That's why we keep running our XP SP1 with IE6 without any updates. (on machines with 4GB ram by the way)

First thing I usually do at school is download portable Firefox (limited domain account stuff) and run from that. Now, they noticed, and they blocked mozilla.com on their proxy (I kinda lolled, since portable firefox is somewhere else).

Then, they said that if we send any Office 2007 file, it would be automatically rejected because it is an incomplete standard.

And I guess there's many more schools like that.

BRB, gonna hack our school server, you can join me, they assigned a domain (www.ekcst.be) that leads directly to our server (and that's also our web proxy server), that's a lot more secure then Vista, I'm sure...

Right...

[Beastage]

It's amazing what chimpanzees can do these days.

Teach classes...

browse the Web, write e-mails...

play video games, (...).

Pretty soon they will try to conquer the world... :rofl:

I don't know man, they maybe smart but them computers will kick their asses.

[markwolfe Veteran]

...

Open Source and Linux aren't always free, however what she said was obviously bang out of order. She's obviously way out of her depth in dealing with systems out right.

...

Add it all up and the cost to change to a FOSS stack is nowhere near "free".

Ah, English. That leads to confusion of terms like what you have there.

Often, you see the term FLOSS instead of FOSS. Free/Libre Open Source Software. The term "Libre" means freedom. However, in English, the term "free" can mean both "freedom" and "without cost" (or "gratis" ). And the "free" in FOSS/FLOSS has always meant free as in freedom, for FLOSS software can be sold and you can make money on it.

So Linux is always "libre". It is also often, but not necessarily, "gratis".

[Rudy]

is it bad that I was expecting this to be an article from TheOnion.com? :blush: