Followup To "When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux"

An couple of anonymous readers wrote in to let us know about a followup to last Wednesday's story of the teacher who didn't believe in free software. The Linux advocate who posted the original piece has cooled off and graciously apologized for going off half-cocked (even though the teacher had done the same), and provided a little more background which, while not excusing the teacher's ignorance, does make her actions somewhat more understandable. Ken Starks has talked with the teacher, who has received a crash education in technology over the last few days — Starks is installing Linux on her computer tomorrow. He retracts his insinuations about Microsoft money and the NEA. All in all he demonstrates what a little honest communication can do, a lesson that all of us who advocate for free software can take to heart. "The student did get his Linux disks back after the class. The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube. She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness free software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping. In a couple of ways, I am guilty of it too."

Comments

Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[bruce_the_loon]

Don't rant first and ask questions later.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Ethanol-fueled]

There was a lot of unnecessary foaming at the mouth from both sides about this.

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards? Sure, in a perfect world kids would have exposure to a variety of platforms in school but teachers have to see to it that their students stay on topic using the class materials, otherwise too many disctactions will arise and that'll make things harder for the teacher to do their job. One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet. As I said above, teachers usually aren't censoring for its own sake, they just don't want distractions.

And call me old-fashioned(and I'm mid-20's), but what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school and why would it have been okay for the student to break out a laptop in class if it were running windows? When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards? POSIX _is_ a standard! Now, why are they learning Windows? >_>

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LMacG]

In Henrico County, Virginia, the school system supplies laptops to all middle school and high school students. They used to be MacBooks, but I think they use Dell now.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Yeah, well, when I was in high school, things like cell phones, digital cameras, pagers, and laptops were considered science fiction. Now get off my yard!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Jim_Maryland]

what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school

Some "special needs" students are permitted to bring in laptops for use at school. My son is on a 504 education plan to help with his ADD and ambliopia. He qualifies to use a laptop or a typing device (Alpha Smart) but refuses to use either (for some reason using a laptop makes him stand out in a negative way but his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one).

Oh, Howard County Maryland is the school system. I haven't heard of any plans to allow laptops in general but they do have special exceptions as I mentioned above.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[icebraining]

Here in Portugal (a small country near Spain) the government is giving cheap laptops to all children from 7 to 18 years, for them to use during classes and work at home. On the other hand we have one of the worst education levels of Europe. Yes, something is wrong here.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcgrew]

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards?

Windows != "standards". And, by the time a 7th grader enters the work force, Windows will be less like the XP he's using now than Mandriva is like XP.

There are, of course, businesses that need some sort of proprietary, Windows-only software (e.g., Photoshop) but a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, a word processer is a word processer. Each new version of Microsoft Word is less like the previous version or Word than that previous version was to Star Office.

Microsoft software in schools is a pitiful, ignorant waste of my tax money.

One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet

But your analogy is completely flawed. More accurate is the kid is showing up in a guitar class with a Fender and the teacher is complaining that everyone else has Gibsons.

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

That was the case when my daughters were in high school (my oldest is 23), and I and others fought that policy tooth and nail.

When I was in high school a computer needed a whole building, and it had less computing power than a Hallmark greeting card. But I'll get off your lawn anyway, Grandpa.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Portugal (a small country near Spain)

I love how you felt the need to clarify where Portugal is. I don't doubt that plenty of people reading that still said "huh, I wonder where that is?".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shawb]

his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one

He wants his personality to stand out, not what others will perceive as deficits. Besides, these days having your natural color of hair is more likely to make you stand out than blue would. A lot of people are honestly surprised when they learn that I don't have any tattoos... even to the point of asking "why not?"

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[TrekkieGod]

Another conclusion can be to not believe an online blog like it's God's word. I've never actually seen a blog yet that was not one sided on the issues it cared about. This one especially screamed of flamebait, but I'm glad that they were able to open up communication channels and come to an understanding.

Actually, when I read the teacher's original e-mail, my first thought was that Ken Starks had been trolled. It's not that I don't think people can be ignorant of free software, it's that I the teacher had said she "experimented with Linux in college" which made it sound like somebody got greedy with their trolling, but Starks bit anyway.

His reaction was way over the top, but it's cool he calmed down and resumed discussion. Especially since it turned out to NOT be a troll, and that there was an actual teacher, who actually did confiscate frigging Linux CD's. In the end, looks like everyone gained something, even though all of this could have been avoided if the respective parties had kept their composure from the beginning: The teacher could have done a simple googling for linux before sending an inflamatory mail or, failing that, Starks could have not been an asshole with his original reply.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[khellendros1984]

(a small country near Spain)

OK, granted there are a lot of Americans on this site, and we sometimes have a reputation of being ignorant of geography and other countries, but I think most people have heard of Portugal. I mean, for goodness sake...the *pope* gave you guys half a continent...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shawn(at)fsu]

Windows-only software (e.g., Photoshop)
ahem... Photoshop is NOT windows only.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ThreeE]

...like I need someone to tell me where a South American country is.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Ethanol-fueled]

Well put. He is kind of right about the guitar-trumpet analogy, so I see his Fender-Gibson analogy and raise him one guitar-violin analogy :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Curien]

You've made a huge mistake.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[MichaelSmith]

(a small country near Spain)

OK, granted there are a lot of Americans on this site, and we sometimes have a reputation of being ignorant of geography and other countries, but I think most people have heard of Portugal. I mean, for goodness sake...the *pope* gave you guys half a continent...

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LandDolphin]

"Portugal (a small country near Spain)"

This made me laugh. I would like to think that you would not need to say that, but then I remember that you probably do.

And yeah, the education is pretty bad there. Just look at how poorly people in Portugal speak Spanish, it's almost as bad as Brazil!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[butalearner]

I'm just shocked that all literate people in the Western world wouldn't be familiar with any country in Europe. That seems like a reasonable baseline expectation for any adult in Europe or North America.

It may seem reasonable to you, but as an American I can tell you we rarely hear anything about most of the European countries. If you're in a country that hasn't significantly affected anything in our history books or on our news stations, the only time we might even hear the name of your country is during the Olympics, or if some famous person hails from your country. If that's the case, chances are you'd be left out if you asked us to list the European countries. Scrolling down this list, I could probably have named about half if I thought real hard. Some of them I'd never even heard of before looking at that list, and I probably won't remember.

Portugal, however, is one of the more well known ones here, if only because they turned down Christopher Columbus' request to fund his voyages here, and their famous explorers are always featured in our typical elementary school curriculum.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Smauler]

I'm just shocked that all literate people in the Western world wouldn't be familiar with any country in Europe.

Really? There are many countries in Europe which I know little to nothing about. For example, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Which way round they are geographically I don't know, and culturally I know _very_ little about them. Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia I have little knowledge of, apart from the recent (comparatively) wars. Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan I've got basically 0 knowledge of (though I did meet someone from Georgia a while back, coincidently when the whole South Ossetia invasion was kicking off, so I know a little about Georgia). Slovenia? I wouldn't be able to find it on an unmarked map. Then there's Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and the Vatican which are all countries technically. And Kaliningrad Oblast, which I just found out about now, which is a part of the Russian Federation I never knew about.

Europe is a complicated place, and not knowing a country in Europe is not a sign of gross ignorance. However, I do agree with you that not knowing about Portugal would be a little weird. They were one of the most important countries on earth a few centuries ago. A hint for those who don't think so - why do you think Brazilians speak Portuguese? That being said, Lithuania used to be a very big force in Europe too, and no one knows about that.

Back on topic.... This teacher seems to not be in the wrong at all. She confiscated CDs that she knew nothing about that were being given out in class. Now she's learnt that they are not harmful, she's is interacting with the OSS community. If I were in her shoes, and even knowing about Linux etc, I probably would have taken similar steps. You just don't know what is on a CD or DVD, and if they are distributed in your class, and something nasty is on them, you will be held responsible. Even if nothing nasty is on them, I can just imagine someone going home and trying to install Linux on their home computer, and there being problems, and parents getting annoyed. When Linux tries to install on my system, for example, it boots up and show 2 unformatted hard drives, and would ask to create a partition on one of them, not recognising any existing partitions. I've got a fakeraid stripe over those two hard drives, which everything of mine is on.

OT on RAID etc : I back up everything I will be _really_ annoyed if I lose, on an external web host in the US, and back on my parent's PC... I actually have very little data which cannot easily be downloaded again if lost. RAID is Useless for home systems. RAID 5 is slower than single disks when writing, and little faster when reading. CPU usage is not the problem with fakeraid 5, it's the infrastructure bottleneck with having the CPU doing parity calculations. Look at the benchmarks people.

Ok, I've just looked at the benchmarks and it seems I'm a little out of date in some cases. Low bus bandwidth is a killer when it comes to RAID 5, and recent consumer motherboards (especially seemingly by Intel) seem to have countered this problem to some extent. I've not seen full analysis yet, so I will reserve judgement.

However, if you just buy a stock motherboard and expect great RAID 5 performance, be prepared to be disappointed. RAID 0 (striping, should be AID 0, there's no redundancy here) will always give you very significant speed increases (ie. double for 2 disks, triple for 3, up to the throughput of the interface), both in reading and writing (though not seek times obviously). If you _really_ want redundancy and speed increases cheap, _not backup_, consumer RAID 1+0 is a good choice in my opinion - it comes close to the performance of striping, with redundancy, at double the HD cost... Is redundancy that important? How OT am I.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[theaveng]

Yes I don't think the blogger was being too harsh (remember the teacher threatened to SUE him - an attack without merit), especially when you read what OTHER teachers have posted. Like this one:

I am a school teacher in the Austin Independent School District and while I don't know any "Karen", I am intimately familiar with the rhetoric and attitude. The author here is uncomfortably close to knowing what he's talking about when he speaks of the NEA. We are "encouraged strongly" to discourage the use of anything other than Microsoft products in the school district and between the Tech folks fearing for their jobs and the ignorance of all the "Karens" I deal with daily, it's a wonder the boy wasn't publicly flogged.

I have been trying to get our school district to use Linux for 3 years and I've been told that I am to desist with this quest if I want to keep my job.

Those who questioned the email's authenticity owe him(?) an apology. Of course as I peruse the comments of the sort, I note with a wry smile that you don't have the courage to sign your name to it.

Cowardice is easy. I wish this author well.

        Tim Daily

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ClosedSource]

"Pffft. When I was in high school, cell phones were the still size of a small suitcase and laptops were still called 'portables'."

Actually, they were usually referred to as "luggables".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Com2Kid]

You think this is a bad thing?

You should have seen the back of my CS classes. A good 50% of the class was playing World of Warcraft on any given day.

Seriously though, Laptops are just one more source of distractions. Could PCs potentially be used to help improve education? Perhaps. Applications such as OneNote are great, I went an entire year without using any paper at all (I emailed my HW in), but I had plenty of trouble paying attention in class and staying off of /.

The current education system in America is by no means perfect, but throwing a bunch of laptops into the mix is not going to help things any. Teachers will still assign busy work, students will still pick on each other, and the majority parents will still be too lazy/busy to ensure their children complete homework assignments.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[thtrgremlin]

Yeah, that is one thing I have at least really appreciated from Microsoft is standardization. Wait...

I think I have heard exactly your argument as to why schools and government need to advocate for Linux, because open standards mean there is much less worry about compatibility, what software people have, and such. Loosely advocating or quietly necessitating Office 2007 for every student is absurd. I would much prefer "you can use the schools free and supported open standard, or get whatever product you like and it should be compatible / be easy to comply with standards". And subsidizing kids that just can't afford windows / office is a terrible "patch" to the problem. At my school I have had kids bring in documents for Claris and Correl Works, and honestly, the most difficult to work with till recently was .docx.

And yeah, things have changed. Some rooms now have "class sets" of laptops. The cell phone war was won by parents, but kids are asked to not be disruptive in class, technology related or otherwise, which usually means put on silent.

Many kids can stay more organized with a computer, not to mention that, particularly with FOSS, tools and educational games on laptops are cheaper alternatives to paper material. In my very small district of less than 2 dozen schools k-12, >$8M is spent per year on printer paper. Laptops are also much lighter weight than what I remember carrying in my backpack at that age. Extra money could be spent on development of any number of things that might help improve FOSS educational software.

oh well, I know I am dreaming.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Forrest Kyle]

"But your analogy is completely flawed. More accurate is the kid is showing up in a guitar class with a Fender and the teacher is complaining that everyone else has Gibsons."

This is straight up terrible analogy. As a guitar player, I can play a Fender and then switch to a Gibson without having to learn anything or adjust my playing style in anyway.

When I switched to Linux, I had to read a huge book and several hundred man pages along the way, and it was a big paradigm shift in how I managed a computer system.

If we are determined to use musical instruments as an analogy, the best way to describe it would be switching from a finger-picking classical style, to a standard rock guitar style of playing. Same instrument, totally different paradigm of operation.

Pretending that switching to Linux does not require a huge investment of time, interest, and effort is not going to help it penetrate the traditional desktop market. Not everyone who doesn't use Linux is ignorant; they're probably just too busy being productive.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hal_Porter]

add isn't retarded either some of the smartest pe ooh a kestrel! look out the window!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[BlackPignouf]

Well, when I lived in Madrid, my US roommates asked me why TV channels wouldn't bother including this "south-west region of Spain" in weather forecasts.

They swore to god they never heard of Portugal...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

...500 years ago. But really, you'd be surprised how many people think Portugal is part of Spain.

Yes, but most of them live in Spain...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[CyberLord Seven]

Well, it is!

Look at the thing on a map. There it is tucked into the side of Spain.

Have you ever listed to Portuguese? It sounds so much like Spanish that it may as well be Spanish.

Therefore, Portugal is "part" of Spain! :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[severoon]

Two people, the school teacher and the blogger, spend their days as educators. One educating people on the benefits of certain technology, the other kids. For what it's worth, I found the teacher's email to certainly be more threatening than it needed to be given the amount of research she'd done into the matter. And the blogger's response had a bit of bite to it, but it was through much of it making real, valid, informational points. Maybe he shouldn't have indicted all teachers...but it's certainly true that this teacher's attitude isn't exactly unique in the industry either.

What's disturbing to me here is not that the teacher wasn't aware of free software or not up on technology...rather, it's her overreaction to the kids. Everything about the way she handled that situation was wrong, wrong, wrong. Did she put the class back on track and then ask the kid in a non-accusatory way to explain what was going on?

No, she flew off the handle, smacked down on the kid, fired off a threatening, uninformed email...pretty much an out-of-proportion, emotional reaction to a kid being a bit disruptive in the classroom—and being disruptive because he was actually excited about learning something at that.

What's even more troubling is that, even after the fact, she's crying and clearly sorry, but I didn't get a strong indication that she even knew exactly what it was she did wrong so she can fix it and respond more rationally next time. It's hard to say from the little bit of the blogger's follow-up post...but we really, really need our teachers to be adults in the room. The way she initially reacted was more like how kids treat each other.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[msuarezalvarez]

And we all know school kids simply cannot live without CMYK separation...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[idontgno]

Well, it is!

Look at the thing on a map. There it is tucked into the bottom of Iraq.

Have you ever listed to Kuwaiti? It sounds so much like Iraqi that it may as well be Iraqi.

Therefore, Kuwait is "part" of Iraq! :)

Signed, Saddam Hussein (FROM THE GRAVE!)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

The Woosh thing was funny on slashdot, only once. Now everyone is using it and it sounds really lame.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[downhole]

It kind of annoys me to hear people say that Americans are ignorant of geography and other cultures. In my experience, my fellow Americans are no more ignorant than Europeans are. Yeah, Europeans tend to know more about Europe (gee, imagine that), but how many US States and South American countries could the average European name and find on a map? The last time I was in Europe, I spoke to a guy in Norway who didn't know where Florida was, which kind of surprised me. I could understand if they couldn't find, say, Kansas on a map, but Florida is a pretty big vacation destination; you would think the average European would at least know which coast it's on.

I would say that, in general, most people only know about the geography and cultures that are around them and which affect their lives. For most Americans, Europe has no more influence on their lives than China, Japan, India, the countries of Africa and the Middle East, etc, so they have no more knowledge about it than most Europeans know about the US cornbelt.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ljgshkg]

I always get annoyed by some people who ask "why not" whenever I ask "why". While there're things with alternate ways to execute, or alternate ways to think, "why" is the correct way of asking if one have no intention to do something "extra" or "meaningless" etc.

"Why do you have tattoo?""Why not?" Er... that's just not an answer, you do something for a reason, no matter if it's for a logical reason or psychological reason.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[db32]

While it does depress me seeing how ignorant my fellow countrymen often are of the world around them I have to agree with you here. The U.S. of A. is a pretty large place with a lot of people. We have a variety of cultures and even regional dialects of english in our lands. We have more states and territories than Europe has countries. I have met tons of people foreign and domestic that still think Kansas is some wildland place with no indoor plumbing and indians running wild. (By the way, I am keenly aware that they were not in fact indians, but that was what a bunch of ignorant Euros called em and the name stuck).

Also...despite the idea that all American TV is ignorant crap...I present to you some classic performances.
States and Capitals
Countries

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[lordharsha]

Blue hair == rebellion == cool
laptop == geeky == uncool

Hope that clears the confusion.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[severoon]

No.

Up through middle school, which is the age of kids we're talking about, children's brains have not yet fully formed a strong self-identity, meaning that they are still being socialized. If an authority figure exhibits certain behavior, children at this stage and younger will respond to it and tend to reflect it. Which means all of your teacher friends, by refusing to give an inch are teaching their children that uncompromising behavior is reasonable...in effect, telling them to take a light year when the opportunity presents itself. That's what you call one o' them there "self-fulfilling prophecy" type things.

The fact that your friends are teachers gives them no more authority to speak on this topic than the teacher that instigated this mess, particularly since they apparently agree with the way she handled it, and I think we all agree that she handled it poorly. The very point I was trying to make is that it's distressing to me, and ought to be to you, is that I couldn't see any evidence that this teacher who's in charge of kids all day didn't seem to have any inkling of exactly how she should've handled it (though it is also equally clear to me that even she would most likely agree she dropped the ball).

The fact that you know teachers doesn't give you any special authority on the topic. I myself claim no special authority either...so with a total absence of special authority to go around, why don't we all just agree to discuss it as equals and assess the points on their own merits and reasonableness. Appeal to authority is always a fallacy, but it's particularly absurd when there is no actual authority present, wouldn't you agree?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[rnelsonee]

To the OP's defense, I think it people sometimes can't tell how well-known their locale is to people outside their geographical area because they don't interact a lot with people from other areas (and when they do, the chances of their own city coming up in conversation may be low).

For example, I grew up in Annapolis, and I expect that most Americans will know this is in Maryland, but only because it is the capitol. But non-Americans? I don't think they really know much about it, but why should they? Now I live in Baltimore, and I wonder how many Americans know where to find it on a map. I mean, it was once the largest city in the country, and it's near other very prominent cities, so I think most Americans know where it is. But it's not terribly exciting currently and has no foreign policy significance, so how many Europeans know where it is? Everyone around here can point to it on map, but until you see other people talk about it, or hear references to your home area on TV shows or movies, it's hard to tell how aware others are.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shellbeach]

The fact that your friends are teachers gives them no more authority to speak on this topic than the teacher that instigated this mess, particularly since they apparently agree with the way she handled it, and I think we all agree that she handled it poorly.

That's not exactly what he/she said: to quote the GP, "I don't think overreacting can really come into the picture until we actually know what the class is like." Their point was merely that some school classes are pretty awful in terms of behaviour, and for many teachers the only way to prevent things getting completely out of hand is to rule through uncompromising strictness. Sadly, rational argument is not often something that works very well with a class of rebellious children!

Going back to the original mail the teacher sent (quoted here), all she did was confiscate the linux live CD (fair enough, since it was apparently causing a disruption at the time), and then talk to the student about the issue after class. Whilst her preconceptions about free software were deplorable, and her email to the HeliOS maintainer obviously an overreaction, her actual handling of the matter in class seems perfectly calm and reasonable.

The fact that you know teachers doesn't give you any special authority on the topic. I myself claim no special authority either...so with a total absence of special authority to go around, why don't we all just agree to discuss it as equals and assess the points on their own merits and reasonableness. Appeal to authority [wikipedia.org] is always a fallacy, but it's particularly absurd when there is no actual authority present, wouldn't you agree?

From the wikipedia article you just referenced:

"The second form, citing a person who is actually an authority in the relevant field, carries more subjective, cognitive weight. A person who is recognized as an expert authority often has greater experience and knowledge of their field than the average person, so their opinion is more likely than average to be correct. In practical subjects such as car repair, an experienced mechanic who knows how to fix a certain car will be trusted to a greater degree than someone who is not an expert in car repair. There are many cases where one must rely on an expert, and cannot be reasonably expected to have the same experience, knowledge and skill that that person has. Many trust a surgeon without ever needing to know all the details about surgery themselves. Nevertheless, experts can still be mistaken and their expertise does not always guarantee that their arguments are valid."

The fact that the GP knows teachers who have experience of unruly classrooms seems a valid point to me. After all, the GP wasn't suggesting that this was the case with the class in question, only that it was a potential factor that ought to be considered.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[drsmithy]

You see a new OS, you poke around the GUI. You explore the thing and you use your ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING of what you need to do to help you figure out the details.

The average person doesn't have an ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING of how an OS [interface] works, any more than they do about a car. Pull here, push there, turn that.

That anyone even considers (let alone carries out) "retraining" between Windows or Office releases is proof that the average person hasn't the vaguest level of "abstract understanding" when it comes to computers.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Larryish]

That is why I bought a "Jumping To Conclusions Mat(tm)".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[vawarayer]

where is spain?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[eldepeche]

Florida is easy to find: it's America's wang.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[the_womble]

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards?

No one expected her to teach Linux. The kids were learning it for themselves.

Telling them that they should only learn what they are taught is the opposite of education.

One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet.

Bad analogy. No one expected her to teach Linux.

I would not expect a guitar teacher to try to prevent their pupils learning the trumpet in another class. I would not expect the guitar teacher to claim that trumpets were illegal and threaten to sue anyone who gave children trumpets.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mikechant]

It doesn't make a lot of sense to teach basic computer literacy on Linux when 90% of the computers they will encounter are Windows.

*Basic* computer literacy is virtually identical on Windows and Linux. Using a web browser, emailing, basic word processing, basic spreadsheet, organizing files, copy, paste, rename, delete, all manner of basic operations are essentially identical. Plus using Linux you'll have fewer worries about the pupils introducing viruses and other malware or goofing off playing games.

If you go for Windows on the grounds that 'this button is exactly in this place, and this menu entry is always below this menu entry' etc. then the pupils will be completely lost when they have to cope with a different version of Windows.

Apology

[coppro]

I would like to apologize to everyone involved for being so judgmental, even though I never actually commented on the topic or said anything to anyone. I think I jumped to conclusions too (although the "people are stupid" doctrine continues to perform well).

Re:Apology

[pm_rat_poison]

Apology accepted, Captain Needa!

Not how reporting works

[fastest fascist]

Hey hey hey! What is this? First we get a nice knee-jerk sensationalist story about an M$ drone teacher doing her utmost to keep the kids enslaved to capitalist software, and now you're ruining it all with facts and sensible dialogue between the parties involved? Where would we be if all the major news outlets started following their scaremongering and outright deceitful articles up with corrections and balanced analysis? I mean, what's next, honest reporting without hidden agendas?

Re:Not how reporting works

[madhurms]

Do you mean like, Fox News?

Reminds me of the old saying

[cabjf]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." If either side had done some research or better communicating before yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[Just Some Guy]

If either side had done some research or better communicating before yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

In fairness to Starks, if I'd been threatened with having the cops called on me for something perfectly innocuous, I might've responded as he did. In hindsight it wasn't that big of a deal, but her opening salvo was fired from an elephant gun.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[Hatta]

Not really. The teacher still acted out of ignorance and fear. She deserved a good brow beating. Maybe next time she'll recognize her ignorance, and listen to her students instead of jumping to conclusions. Nothing damages the relationship between teacher and student than this kind of arbitrary and capricious exercise of power. Now the kids know that 1) the teacher is an idiot and 2) the teacher values obedience over correctness. This kind of behavior is absolutely not conducive to a constructive learning environment, and I hope that she's ashamed of herself.

Well...

[girlintraining]

So this was less about Linux and more about a teenage boy being, well... a boy. Figures. It would have gone better for him if it had been some ecchi anime. First rule of high school is -- don't point out that the teacher knows less than you do. The second rule of course is, if you break the first rule do so in an epic way.

A good lesson

[wcrowe]

This is the kind of misunderstanding that can happen when software advocacy becomes a kind of religion.

It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Lumpy]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[bigpaperbag]

Obviously you're not a teacher who has to deal with parents/PTA/school boards who are jumping after the teachers about not jumping after the students about things that have NOTHING to do with teaching to begin with.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Thyamine]

You may as well say that you wonder why they aren't required to take classes in auto repair or biochemisty. They don't need it. Would it help in situations like this, sure, but I can assure you that my wife has never had one of her kindergartners ask about Linux. I think we all (and I do it myself) assume that technology should be more important to people, but I would guess that most professions feel that way.

Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

This guy is getting a tonne of publicity for this (and apparently he is well versed in the art of getting attention for his projects in this manner), based upon nothing verifiable.

Maybe I'm just too internet shellshocked to believe anything any more, but it reeks of being a complete fabrication, in an era when Lying on the Internet is considered perfectly okay so long as you know to say "Ha ha! All a joke!" if caught, or perhaps the classic "This was just an example composite of various situations!".

I could be entirely wrong, but it all seems like a terribly thin ruse to me, with a ridiculous, one dimensional strawman (or women in this case) put up and then viciously knocked down. On the resulting torrent of perhaps gullible internet vigilantes, a hastily written cool-down appeared to, perhaps, try to divert them before they uncover the fiction of this (if it is fiction. My bets are that it is, but that's an uninformed opinion).

Then again, maybe I'm just too skeptical.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

As one aside -- this story reminds me, somehow, of the guy who took donated computers and prepped them for needy kids or something, and some purported donor complained when he found out his donation was going to a "retard". My fiction senses are giving me the same vibrations.

But I can't find that computer donation one. Anyone have a link to it if you remember?

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

Found it, and it's the SAME GUY. Honestly when the correlation clicked in my mind I had no idea at all that it was the same guy, but somehow the hashing algorithm was colliding the two articles.

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/09/wasted-on-idiot.html

Wow.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[multipartmixed]

You could call "Karen" fairly easily, there aren't that many Karens working for AISB who teach grade 8.

BAILEY KAREN T-7/8 P.E. MARTIN MS 414-3243
CASE KAREN T-7/8 THEATER MURCHISON MS 414-3254
CIESLA KAREN T-7/8 MATH O HENRY MS 414-3229
DONSBACH KAREN T-7/8 SCI- GEN' BAILEY MS 414-4990
GREEN KAREN T-7/8 LIFE SCI MURCHISON MS 414-3254
HARRIS KAREN T-7/8 LANG ARTS COVINGTON MS 841-3686
SCHIPPER KAREN T-7/8 CHOIR KEALING MS 414-3214

..and I think you could safely eliminate the PE and Choir teachers. And those phone numbers are in NPA 512.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[EvilToiletPaper]

I'm just too internet shellshocked to believe anything any more,

That is so politically incorrect, the correct term is 'Blogopathic PTSD'

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[Risen888]

Same guy, Ken Starks. Also the same guy who tried to raise about a zillion bucks to put Tux on an Indy 500 car. I'm still torn as to whether the guy's a con artist or just fucking stupid.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[Spazztastic]

There's this totally hot teacher that I want to bone, do you think I should suggest installing Linux on her computer?

I don't know... she may need some assistance compiling her kernel.

First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA:

Karen and I have talked on the phone now for a couple of hours, here and there. We've come to understand each other more and had she said some of the things in her email that she said during our phone conversations...

Ken and Karen sittin' in a tree. K. I. S. S. I. N. G. ...

A Happy ending

[jmorris42]

Yes the teacher brought the storm on herself. Not by being ignorant of open source but by being rude. This is a good object lesson about email more than anything else.

Helios was perfectly in the right to flame back, especially since he was pretty polite about it considering the pretty nasty slander the teacher was throwing at him. And even being ticked off he protected her identity so she won't have to suffer the consequences of her bad manners. Even better, after talking it over with her he appears to have turned the situation into a win. So high praise for him and since she seems to have learned something positive out of the mess lets give her a break now.

thanks, internet!

[Lord Ender]

It was obvious to the intelligent person that this entire situation was made of fail from the get-go. Any time spent analyzing this will likely just make us all dumber. Quit giving it press.

Culture of Fear

[Adrian Lopez]

When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling.

What a shame that the first thing some people do when told about adults interacting with children is to think of something perverse.

Re:Culture of Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a major reason why I, as an adult male, no longer teach grade school: "Once accused, always guilty."

Jump to Conclusions Mat

[Ogive17]

Using my Jump to Conclusions Mat it has been decided that I lose a turn.. hmmph

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Dunbal]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

      What, and do away with the education free educational system we have now?

Re:Boo to bloggers

[scubamage]

That's not super friendly. It is however, alliteration.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Linux PR/Education Department Needs Volunteers

[postbigbang]

You can find a million things online as reference materials, but it's difficult to talk to civilians about why FOSS is a good idea, and how it's put together. People kind of glaze over when you tell them the differences. Often, they don't care and are suspect of anything truly free.

Centralized advocacy could certainly be helpful, as Linux is by its nature, evolutionary and rife with useful anarchy. Still, protagonists need to do some work to evolve the public image of Linux/GNU, FOSS, and why. Half-cocked replies are what turns people off, as they're insecure enough already about computing.

At the end of the day

[Nate B.]

Ignorance is the most expensive commodity in the USA today. And we pay for that ignorance on a daily basis.

Hopefully Ken has been able to push the frontiers of ignorance back just a little. Sometimes it requires a jolt to get that moment moving and I think that both Ken and Karen have learned a lot about jumping to conclusions. Here's hoping that Karen will now become an ally to Ken and his project.

Hmm...

[XPeter]

Well, I don't know about this place but in my High School we use Windows, Linux and Open-source and the combo works great. I'm taking classes in a program called T.E.A.M.S (Technology Enriched Academy for Mathematics and Science) and we do basically any thing tech-related (on a freshman level). As far as OS's go, for some things we use XP (AutoCad and Visual Basic) and for others we use OS X (Anything media related). IMO you can't have just Linux or Just Windows, the combination of the two works great! But like I said, IMO. For a browser we use Firefox and Safari. I'm trying to convince my teachers to give Ubuntu 8.10 a go and it looks like we'll be installing it on some machines soon. Just my two cents :)

Apology takes strength.

[chaim79]

This guy is really showing some strength and intelligence, he has made a public apology, and is working with the teacher instead of continuing the rant. The teacher has gotten a serious shaking up from the OSS community (through the blog) and he is doing his best to make a win of this situation.

This could have very easily degenerated into some serious verbal warfare, lawsuits, etc.

While I was interested by the first blog post and kept watch for followup, this second post makes me want to really keep an eye on this guy, actions like this apology are usually a sign of someone that should be listened to.

nice to see

[nomadic]

Well this blog posting was definitely a lot more admirable than the last one, and I'm glad he also apologized for the anti-union tirade. In regards to specific passages:

The student did get his Linux disks back after the class. The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube.

She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness Free Software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping.

This is a good point, and I actually think a reasonable teacher may have reasonably been worried about what was going on. Even one who actually had a basic tech background.

Karen isn't alone in her ignorance. I have sat in a PhD's office...a PhD that happened to be a principal of a school. She told me that according to her "tech staff", it was illegal to remove Microsoft Windows from their school computers. So who is ignorant here? The "tech staffer" afraid of losing his MCSE position or the Dr. of Education that didn't bother to check into such a statement. Ignorance isn't the sole possession of this particular school teacher.

Actually it's quite plausible that tech staff isn't allowed to do this. Maybe the district has a contract with Microsoft, or the school regulations prohibit changing a standard district-wide setup.

Now to the meat of the matter. Many, many of you have pushed for the identification of this teacher.

How about you reveal the identification of THESE people? I have some things I want to say to them...

Re:Teachers have underwear

[the_B0fh]

It really depends on what options you turn on.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[hansraj]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system

Me too!

I never liked those little brats. I say put them in a windowless environment, put them all in one!

Adobe? Google Earth? iTunes???? Free???!!!

[zojas]

in the blog, he provides a list of some of the software that the school makes available. but what he actually says is "Other open source software on both images include audacity and lame, and other Free Software such as Google Earth, iTunes, Adobe and many plug-ins."

Great, except for the part that Adobe, Google Earth, and most especially iTunes, are anything BUT Free Software. If he had said "free software" it would have been ok, but he deliberately went out of his way to capitalize it like the Free Software Foundation does. I'm pretty sure Adobe has produced absolutely no Free Software (Free as in Freedom, not free as in purchase price). and iTunes is certainly not Free; source is not available, and all the metadata for the iTunes library is locked in a proprietary, binary blob.

it's just shocking that this big-time supposed Free Software advocate doesn't even know how to spell free software!

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[corsec67]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

True, being able to see outside while sitting in the classroom can be distracting.

But, wouldn't renovation be expensive? Also, they have a higher electricity bill from having to use more lights.

teach are paid to teach a specific content

[fermion]

What is truly sad about this is the public perception that teachers and the teacher unions are disrupting eduction. As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do.

First, here is a fact. Teaching a job, just like those who sit in office doing nothing more than type code on keyboard. I mean, how hard can it be type random gibberish in a keyboard? Anyone can do it, !. So the teachers first goal is keep the class moving so objectives can be taught, assessed, rethought, and year end tests passed. Do teachers do this to maximize bonuses. Duh, are we idiots, of course. Why are the automakers begging for money right now, to kep 8 figure salaries. Why do we code for any semi-legitimate business, to make the money.

Second, the tools teachers use are the tools teachers use. How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots. I might say so, but not really as I have a inch of compassion and am not an arrogant bastard. No one is going to go into an office, give the staff new software to use, and expect management not to react. See point one. Teacher are there to teach content, not be experts at things not even experts agree on. Many serious consider Free OS invalid. In is an opinion. Considering it otherwise refers back to the arrogant bastard.

Third, a classroom is necessarily a controlled environment. While it would be nice to allow kids to do whatever they want, it is not feasible. In most schools, computers are not set up as a redundant array of disposable devices, and if a computer is broken, that generally means several students are denied an education for at least a little while. While teaching *nix is a lofty goal, i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class came in, or if they would just say, hey it is not my problem, and i don't care if some kids loses an education.

This is a classic example of why people hate *nix. Here is a guy who is trying to help the cause, but instead has shown how clueless the cause is. Unlike Dell Foundation, who provides money to teachers to help thing, this guy just seems to attack teachers with no understanding of the context. Even now, there is no acknowledgment of the damage that has been done to the students.

Help students by becoming teachers or mentors, not by attacking them. After all, teachers don't go into your lame ass web development operation and tell you to use real tools.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[MindlessAutomata]

What is truly sad about this is the public perception that teachers and the teacher unions are disrupting eduction. As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do.
Did you even graduate from high school? Many instructors are completely incompetent and are just plain silly. I've had good instructors, too. But I had enough bad ones to lose faith in teachers in general.

First, here is a fact. Teaching a job, just like those who sit in office doing nothing more than type code on keyboard. I mean, how hard can it be type random gibberish in a keyboard? Anyone can do it, !. So the teachers first goal is keep the class moving so objectives can be taught, assessed, rethought, and year end tests passed. Do teachers do this to maximize bonuses. Duh, are we idiots, of course. Why are the automakers begging for money right now, to kep 8 figure salaries. Why do we code for any semi-legitimate business, to make the money.
And the fact is, many teachers are very bad at their jobs. Even worse, teachers are authority over children, and many turn students completely off to education. I don't know how many teachers I've had spout off things that were absolutely wrong or bullshit. Too busy assigning children pointless busy work, too busy making them hate school and education to respect the opportunity.

Second, the tools teachers use are the tools teachers use. How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots. I might say so, but not really as I have a inch of compassion and am not an arrogant bastard. No one is going to go into an office, give the staff new software to use, and expect management not to react. See point one. Teacher are there to teach content, not be experts at things not even experts agree on. Many serious consider Free OS invalid. In is an opinion. Considering it otherwise refers back to the arrogant bastard. ...What? There's a difference between "not being an expert on everything" and being an ignorant jackass, which it sounds like what the teacher was doing.

There are no serious experts that consider "Free OS" (?) "invalid".

Third, a classroom is necessarily a controlled environment. While it would be nice to allow kids to do whatever they want, it is not feasible. In most schools, computers are not set up as a redundant array of disposable devices, and if a computer is broken, that generally means several students are denied an education for at least a little while. While teaching *nix is a lofty goal, i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class came in, or if they would just say, hey it is not my problem, and i don't care if some kids loses an education.

If a student installs an OS on a school computer, it is that students' fault. If a kid is passing out Linux to friends to use on their home computers, then it is no problem. You say school is a controlled environment, but so is prison. Treat schools like a prison, and students will appreciate them like a prison. Believe it or not, you don't have to chain students down to get order.

This is a classic example of why people hate *nix. Here is a guy who is trying to help the cause, but instead has shown how clueless the cause is. Unlike Dell Foundation, who provides money to teachers to help thing, this guy just seems to attack teachers with no understanding of the context. Even now, there is no acknowledgment of the damage that has been done to the students.

No, people in general do not hate *nix and even if they did this wouldn't be a reason. Most people who know enough about *nix hate it because of some technical reason or because they want to seem anti-nerd. As for that... WHAT damage done to students, that teachers didn't do?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[MikeyistheDevil]

"I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system." I'd certainly have to disagree. I'd like schools to teach children how to be comfortable using software they will continue to use beyond school. I don't want schools to make the same mistake ours (or at least mine) did in the 80's by wasting their time teaching kids how to use pascal, fortran, or cobol on AppleIIe's when the reality was that did nothing to prepare us for the IBM dominated workplace. So until Windows is not the global standard OS that children will encounter later in life, they should continue to learn to be fluent with it.

NO ! this isnt over !!

[unity100]

now, where is my torch ? and all of you, get your pitchforks, fast

Awesome

[HalAtWork]

We all make mistakes, but hardly ever do we take the time to report that and also report how we can understand and improve the situation. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes or trying to make things better, and it's nice to hear about it now and then, plus we can all learn a few things.

Yah, ignorant teachers

[Spazmania]

Yeah, back when I was in school, I made a pencil drawing of a wico joystick. The teacher saw and thought it was something else...

The Teacher's Identity

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Ken makes a big deal about not wanting to name the teacher.
But each successive blog post gives away more identifiable details.
With just the information he has posted, plus the AISD's own website, it is now possible to narrow her identity down to one of 2 people.

I'm sure that's not news to anyone already determined to figure out her identity, but it ought to be a warning to anyone else trying to both talk about a person and keep their identity secret on the web. It is just a real-life puzzle of connect the dots where seemingly tangential information can be enough to put the entire picture together.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[corsec67]

NO!

They should be taught how to use a "word processor", be it OpenOffice.org Writer, Word, WordPerfect, Write, LaTeX (as LyX), HTML, etc. Have each be taught for a week, so they can see that even though things look different, each application has a way of doing the same thing.

Or are you saying that Word doesn't change every few years (like adding in a "Ribbon" instead of menus), so they should be taught a version of Word that is going to be out of date by the time they graduate?

Teach them how to *use* a computer, not how to repeat a specific set of steps, so they don't freeze up when things change slightly.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[LandruBek]

I don't want schools to make the same mistake . . . teaching kids how to use Pascal, Fortran, or COBOL on Apple IIe's . . .

Yeah, all that I got out of learning Pascal on an Apple ][ was that it helped me get ready to study computer science in college, which has only led me to . . . gainful employment. </sarcasm>

Seriously, I would much rather see them "waste" time teaching programming than have them spend classroom time teaching kids how to use GUI software, which most of them can pick up on their own.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[khellendros1984]

Most people don't work that way...they don't want to think if they don't have to. Based on my observation of human behavior, it's almost literally impossible to get them to do something that they don't care about (e.g. learning multiple word processors in order to see the patterns of use, rather than specific key strokes).

Thanks

[Auraiken]

Sorry to hijack your thread, but I'd like to say that this is what I'd like to see more of on /. We have too many stories indicating that things are one way only to be found otherwise and not corrected on at all. There were a lot of people in other stories lately who've been saying how wrong mass media is in how they 'report' on stories that are just there to make money. IT also shows that the open source community needs to stop attacking the ignorant people... I mean they might be stupid and annoying sometimes but we aren't going to get anywhere unless we educate them. /rant

verification that there really is a Karen ?

[rs232]

Did anyone bother to verify that there really is a Karen?

Re:Teachers have underwear

[morgan_greywolf]

Or what modules you insert.

I *am* computer literate

[Hognoxious]

At least she didn't threaten to set the FBI on him.

Note: it seems Dopey has moved on, but his replacement's qualifications don't look too impressive...

Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Now the kids know that 1) the teacher is an idiot and 2) the teacher values obedience over correctness.

They now know that the teacher didn't know something in particular about computers and software. (I'm a geek, and I know there's plenty about how kids use computers today that I have no clue about, or only the most general notion.) It's not a surprise that she doesn't know everything - I'm pretty sure the kids were already aware that she's a human being. The question is, does she know about the topics she's teaching about and the techniques for successfully teaching them? Nothing presented so far hints that the answer is 'no'.

And as for "2", that's quite a jump, considering even the blogger parent acknowledges the kid was being 'disruptive'. If Linux (or software in general) wasn't the topic under discussion, then temporarily taking away the discs and directing attention back to the class - which is what seems to have happened - isn't "valuing obedience over correctness".

So, at most, the kids know the teacher has limited operating system knowledge, and she wants the kids to focus on the class. She did jump to conclusions based on the knowledge she had, but she addressed her message to the parent, and appears to be capable of learning when she finds out she's mistaken. That alone puts her above the 90th percentile among humans.

ebooks

[zogger]

It's way cheaper to give a poor student over in east elbownia hundreds of ebooks and to keep that updated electronically than to try and provide hundreds of dead tree books. Way cheaper and easier. That was the main point of the XO originally. As to the US, we've made team sports and learning political correctness and to not question authority at all for any reason ever the primary goals of "primary" education. You get what you pay for, and in those regards it looks like it has been a successful and transformational social engineering project. If they really wanted to push "education" first, there's nothing stopping them at all, but they don't, that is way down their list of priorities.

Belcerebons

[DrWho520]

...yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

You hit it square on the head and I think you do not even know it. There is a reason senators, parliamentarians, presidents and prime ministers have handlers, spokespeople and speech writers. When they say something, people listen. People listen for no other reason than they have a very large, very public soap box.

Arguing on the internet is not longer just packets floating passing in the night because, people are now paying attention. For better or worse and as scary as it is, these tubes now have a measure of credibility. Public figures care about their wikipedia profile, millions of people interact with social software and the internet has made a man President of the United States. It has also made many ugly things public and given an unprecedented voice to the vocal minority.

The internet is the largest and most public soap box in history. In this case, two people who appear to be very good at their jobs crossed paths. Their intersection occurred in a place of misunderstanding and the very real, very human fear of the unknown erupted in a hiss of venom and malice. It is unfortunate that the worst part of their interaction was placed on display for all to see. It is very heartening to see they have made effort to discuss their misunderstandings and learn from each other. Two people lost their heads and had a heater exchange. Normally only they and their close friends would know. They did it on the internet and shared their anger almost telepathically. Ironically, we use the internet to simultaneously blather on about meaningless trivia and share an almost telepathic bond.

Almost everything is legal

[jdavidb]

Regardless of how anonymous morons on the Internet acted (and anyone who doesn't realize the Internet is full of anonymous morons probably needs to come into this century), this teacher needs to be disabused of the notion that everything is "illegal" unless specifically allowed somehow by the law. So what if she's not sure something's legal? That's not the question. Unless she's sure it's illegal, she should assume it is legal.

She was way, way out of line in accusing the man of doing something illegal.

I want my kids educated with a belief in liberty, and that is why they will not be educated in today's government schools.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[jo_ham]

Last time I touched a woman's kernel I panicked.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[p0tat03]

Only in Canada

Been there, done that...

[msimm]

It was called slashback. They posted (often interesting) updates and/or corrections to previous articles.

....now we have Idle

Re:Boo to bloggers

[julesh]

That's not super friendly. It is however, alliteration.

Which means, of course, that it is freakily fucking friendly, filling our frail hearts with fear of further forthcoming friendliness, foiling our faltering flight, fading our fanciful fantasy of flat, emotionless interactions.

Erm -

[j_w_d]

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

Wouldn't that actually be a "small continent" near New Zealand?

Portugese descent in the US

[j_w_d]

When I was in high school, back before there WERE cell phones or digital cameras, we were asked to identify our "ethnicity," whereever the "ethnicity" was a quarter or more of our ancestry - as part of the initial efforts at "affirmative action" I think. Anyway the choices were "White, Black, Native American, Iberian, and Other." Since my mother was half Portugese, I put down Iberian. I was called in by an examiner and asked to explain, and I cited my twenty-five percent Portugese descent. This lead to a confusing interchange where the fellow attempted to convince me that Portugal was not "Iberian" - since the Portugese didn't speak Spanish - while I pointed that you can't get any farther west on the Iberian penninsula without getting wet. Since then whenever asked about ethnicity, I check "Other" and write in "Lusitanian." It generates an occasional baffled look, but at least I'm not subjected to irrational geography lessons.

If you plan a rant, just remember this:

[cheros]

.. most people act on what information is available to them at the time. This is a combination of what they know, what they assume and what they fear and experience. Your problem is, you are unlikely to know the extend of either of those things.

The best thing is to query the exact events that you disagree with and ask for motivation, ESPECIALLY if it's second hand like a news report or interview - I've been exposed to the glaring deficiencies in both.. IMHO, you should start from the assumption that the person's actions made sense to them in their personal context, and at that specific time. That doesn't imply an immediate judgement of "right" or "wrong" (and things are never quite that binary anyway) - your question(s) illustrate that your opinion differs and you would like to discuss this.

Only when you have a dialogue and context can you assess if you're dealing with an issue - or that you misunderstood the issue. Oh, and in case you missed it, people have feelings too. The aim is generally to get on with each other as it's so much more constructive..

That is, of course, wholly my opinion, carefully shaped out of the debris of too many fast conclusions. QED, I'd say :-).

Oh my

[Jedi_Yo_Jo]

I knew when I saw this story posted earlier that the whole story wasn't there. We can but hope that nobody jumped to conclusions and dealt her harsh words on the internet.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[plague3106]

XP, Vista, and Office 2007 are nothing luke what they will encounter in the real world. They'll be dealing with Windows 2015 and Office 2015...

I really hate to break this to you, but newer versions are similar enough that you can take what you've learned with you.

considering the coming depression I expect more businesses to go toward open source solutions.

Given the current recession, I think most companies will stay put. If they're not going to spend money to upgrade, they certainly aren't going to spend money to move to an entirely new platform. They'll squeeze more out of what they have, just like people are now keeping their cars longer than they did just last year.

The rich run things. They are in charge. They will make sure that theirs are taken care of, and if theeir kids are forced to go to public school, it will improve. As long as the poor's children are forced to have incompetent teachers, old material, crumbling buildings and so forth we have a two-tier, unequal education system.

Ya, keep telling yourself that. Its not YOUR fault you're failing, or having problems. Its everyone else. Forcing "rich" kids into school won't change anything, sorry. I love how you ignore that private school teachers are better than public school ones.. so instead of getting kids into THOSE schools, you want to bring the "rich" kids into public schools. All the while stealing money from me for your own benefit. Wonderful.