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Teachers Need an Open Source Education
palegray.net writes "Teachers are sorely in need of an education in what open source software is, what it isn't, and how it can benefit their students. A recent news story at the Reg discussed the case of a Texas teacher who accused those distributing Linux to students of committing criminal acts. A HeliOS blog entry exposes a 'higher education' culture of apathy, lies, and fear of open source software. Things have got to improve, and that improvement needs to start with misguided teachers getting their facts straight."
I agree with your points 2 and 3, but there is serious risk of raising salaries too much. Especially at the younger levels.
The desire to teach is a HUGE positive in a teacher, and currently most teachers could be making more money. This means they are taking a portion of their pay in job satisfaction (don't let them fool you, it is a great job that makes you feel good).
Paying enough that teaching appeals to people in it for the money is risky.
Also, teachers with a good education make decent money, certainly as much as any other entry level job for someone with a liberal arts degree. I don't know what people make with science backgrounds though, but I bet it is more.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Also, it would be nice to raise the public awareness about the importance of the teaching profession. One of the main pillars of the future of a country is currently seen as just a simple job anyone can do.
Just my humble opinion, and I'm sorry if I offended you.
I agree with your comments, and would add:
Parents need to take an positive, active role in their child's education
I know a lot of teachers, and they have far too many stories about parents who whine:
"It's your fault my little darling is failing. You aren't doing enough. What are you going to do to get them to pass?"
Of course, the parent has been told repeatedly that their darling cuts class, fails to turn in work, is high in class, misses makeup tests, etc., and there response is to do nothing and continue to blame the teachers.
Not to mention those that try to call teachers at home, on weekends, etc. Even though any teacher with half a brain doesn't give out home numbers parents find them any way.
I couldn't teach, because the first time I got that "What are we going to do?" crap I'd tell them unless they got a mouse in their pocket there isn't any we in this. And flunk their sorry kid.
Call me at home and you're likely to discover your phone number has been mistaken for a free sex number.
No wonder many of the good ones leave for other jobs where they don't have to take all this crap.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You must be new around schools... :-)
I've worked with "Head of IT" Teachers who can't install a simple application and don't understand "read-only" attributes.
I've worked with IT teachers who teach that the main components of a PC are a monitor and a hard drive "which contains all the other bits of the computer, including the CDROM".
I've worked with IT teachers who have NEVER programmed a single line in their life, trying to teach people how to use a programming language.
I've worked with IT teachers who are reluctant to let go of their floppies because they can't handle USB drives.
I've worked with IT teachers who have *zero* concept of licensing and just install everything everywhere.
Unfortunately, I met most of those people while working at a specialist IT secondary school / Academy.
It's common to most schools and to most subjects and even to most teachers - they might have a *related* degree (i.e. maths teachers with physics backgrounds, or even IT teachers with "business" backgrounds) or an actual degree in their subject but it doesn't mean that they understand the most fundamental things they are supposed to be teaching.
There are exceptions, as always, but it's true for the vast majority. At one point, I was tempted to do the extra 1 year PGCE in the UK in order to go back into those schools and show people that, actually, a network manager can do their job in a trice, but they can't hold a stick to a good network manager. Unfortunately, it would mean having to come down to their level for that entire year and I'm not sure I could manage it without pissing myself laughing.
As an IT Manager for a school, I was able to roll out several open source solutions - Edubuntu (for a low cost scalable lab with low end equipment), open source groupware, firewall, proxy, content filter, Thunderbird,Firefox, linux kiosks and more. Teachers and administrators don't care if there is proper training and the bottom line is low. Children don't know the difference between closed and open source either.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
This teacher was a moron. Plain and simple.
You worry about when teachers only "teach" with their ignorance while abusing their position. What happens when they use that same ignorance to pursue prosecution from outside authorities and to have the student permanently expelled?
I have been in the Principal's office with the police in the room with the Principal screaming like an idiot asking for me to be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. My crime? I was in possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Spittle was flying across the room while passages were being read that described thermite and 10 ways to kill somebody with your finger. It was taken from my backpack from another teacher when I left it in class. The police actually had to calm her down to explain to her that I had broken no laws whatsoever. It took 2 weeks to get me back into school by going to her supervisors and pointing out that I did not even break any rules in school.
I was also through the same situation later on when a teacher that taught computer science claimed that a file left on a "hacked" server proved I was the perpetrator. Why? It had a line of text that said, "Ed did this". Seriously, that was the CSI level proof that required my expulsion from school. I knew the kid that did it and he thought it was absolutely hilarious what happened. At the time my ethics demanded I did not "squeal", so I never said I knew who did it.
It's one thing for people to completely ignorant of what open source software is, licensing models, copyrights, fair use, etc. It's another when they use their ignorance and position of authority to force their ideologies on a student. That's just inappropriate when a teacher does that.
It's something else when a teacher sets out to destroy you over their ignorance. It sucks since a student is most often left in a position that they can't defend themselves at all, even when they are right and innocent.