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."

Comments

Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[Teun]

It is a serious problem when teachers, regardless of the subject, use their position to 'teach' about things they have no or insufficient knowledge of.

Re:Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[ledow]

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.

Re:Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[EdIII]

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.

Re:Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[anothy]

see, that's kinda the reaction i was going for. i wish i'd gone to your school; my administration mostly just squirmed and looked at me uncomfortably. ;-)

Re:Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a network engineer for FWISD, and not only is this a fact, but it is much worse in reality than any of these posts even infer to. Most teachers do not understand the basics of technology, much less trying to get them to use an open source product, they refuse to read help files for simple apps. How do you propose to get them to peruse through "Open Source" blogs written for Geeks. The problem lies in the fact that teachers are some of the hardest people to teach anything to as many believe they are so educated that you couldn't possibly have anything of value to teach them.

MCSE+I, CCNP, NT-CIP, N+, A+

Re:Lack of knowledge not an excuse

[websitebroke]

I always hated that quote. How about "those who do can't teach".

The thing that people often forget is that teaching itself is a serious talent/skill. Just as often, as a twit teacher, you'll find the knowledgeable people who can't communicate an idea if their lives depended upon it.

Ideally, you get someone who knows their subject and has a passion for teaching. Unfortunately, those people are quite rare.

What?!

[Thanshin]

Things have got to improve, and that improvement needs to start with misguided teachers getting their facts straight."

Getting their facts straight?

The first improvement must be raising the bar for the teaching community.

This includes, among other things:
- Raising salaries: It won't work to appeal only to the rejects.
- Firing for gross incompetence. As works with just about everyone else.
- Requiring a higher level of knowledge and teaching abilities.

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.

Re:What?!

[AvitarX]

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.

Re:What?!

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

Re:What?!

[Nevern]

I agree with the improvements listed, but you should know that schools are reluctant to hire teachers with Master's degrees or higher. Due to the contracts they have to be paid more!! Well, they've had more training and know their area of specialty better, so what do you expect? The benefits to the students are also higher. When push comes to shove The Budget rules all.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me at home and you're likely to discover your phone number has been mistaken for a free sex number.

Um, tell me more about these 'free sex numbers'. I'd, er, also like to give these out instead of my home number..

Frist psot?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I agree totally.

The use of F/OSS software in education at ALL levels would be a total boon for IT education across the board. Interest in alternative licensing, for example GNU Public and Creative Commons would be tremendously beneficial in this age of free information sharing and distribution.

I distinctly remember a question on a sample IT GCSE paper from when I was at school, related to anti-virus software:

Q. Your friend tells you that his computer has a virus, and wants help. What do you do?
A. Tell him to purchase an anti-virus product.
B. Tell him to send you the virus so you can scan it with your anti-virus software.
C. Give your friend a copy of your anti-virus software.
D. Tell your friend to download a "cracked" anti-virus program from the internet.

I selected C and got it wrong. I spent 25 minutes arguing with my IT teacher about AVG and free software. He agreed, and told me that the paper was wrong. However, the mark scheme said A. and that's how it was marked.

No idea if they used that question, or similar, at any point.

Re:Helios Blog Entry Is Crap!

[ChienAndalu]

Remember OSX, based UNIX, said that they had no virii. Ooops, not that OSX is becoming popular it seems that there are a few security loopholes. The same thing would happen to Linux since hackers are a determined lot.

Linux needs to stop the smug attitude because users don't care about smugness. They just want things to work!

Please, don't use the word "virii" anymore.

And, as you said, Apache is very popular as a web server, and still isn't as vulnerable as Microsofts IIS.

So no, vulnerability does not always rise with popularity.

this is an american phenomenon

[ChienAndalu]

Here in Germany, I never experienced any hostility towards open source software in the educational system.

The universities are quite supportive of open source and lend their infrastructure to host mirrors for various distributions.

Re:Helios Blog Entry Is Crap!

[SerpentMage]

Apache is a different situation. Apache has been around since the Internet and as such has fought the battles.

The problem with Linux and Open Office is that they have not been in broad use in the context of a desktop. And as such the traps related to the desktop have not been exposed.

Many of the worst problems are because people click on things that they should not be clicking on. Linux does not have that type of idiocy proof technology built in. Windows and Vista have that built in. It is also a reason why I hate Vista.

Here is a very simple example. If I want to open a port below 1024 I need admin rights. Well what about above? Nope don't need it. This was done in the days when anything below 1024 was considered important. Though now it has become irrelevant and as such could be a security threat.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/node/2179

From the article...

> I wonder why. Isn't it time to declare the port 1024 limit as obsolete too and remove it?

Re:citations please ..

[rs232]

"Did you try the links in the summary?"

Not only that, when the story first 'broke', I tried emailing the AISD, they never heard of a 'Karen' involved in the alleged incident. The only source is on that blog ...

Why should this be different?

[Aladrin]

Why do we expect this to be different than everything else? New things are initially feared and only approached slowly. It's the way we've done it since the dawn of time.

Techies are on the bleeding edge of everything and keep themselves informed constantly. But just like I don't follow car news, most people don't follow computer news. They don't have any clue what 'open source' really means and they don't care!

The solution isn't to call them names, the solution is to just keep educating people about it... Slowly.

Open Source has been gaining momentum lately. It used to be it was 'free and able to be modified, but poor quality'.

Recently, I've seen a change. It's now 'free and able to be modified, and almost as good as commercial software'.

I believe it will soon be 'free and better than commercial software'. I certainly like Kubuntu better than Windows and OS X, and I used to really hate Linux because it was such a pain in the ass all the time. I just wanted to do things, I didn't want to constantly reconfigure the system and deal with all the broken bits from the latest update. Kubuntu still has a lot of that, but it only happens every 6 months, instead of every few days like it used to. (Debian Stable was -not- stable. And Slackware was much worse.)

Open source has definitely taken over for anyone who 'gets it'. At this moment, I've got Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Aptana (based on Eclipse), VLC, and Kate running on OS X. The only commercial apps I run now are ones that don't really have a replacement, like Pages (company requirement for internal docs), and a few that are just plain better than the alternatives, like VMWare. (I've fought and fought with VirtualBox, and I'm done.)

But to expect non-techies to know all of this all the time is absurd. Most of the advancements that make my system possible came in the last couple years. That is a -short- timespan for learning about new things that aren't in your realm of knowledge.

In fact, I see posts on /. all the time talking about how someone put OO.o on a family member's computer and just didn't tell them it wasn't Office because they couldn't explain the difference. If techies can't explain it to their family, why do we expect teachers to know automatically?

And 'sorely in need' of an education in open source? That a personal agenda and not something that is necessary at all. Kids will learn about open source on their own, no matter whether a teacher says it is bad or not.

Cost, Maintenance

[ehaggis]

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.

Frightening hypothesis

[fantomas]

You make some good points but I am a bit frightened about your hypothesis that paying people a good salary to do a job they love is risky, and if you only pay people a poor salary then you'll gte higher quality staff as only the highly passionate will apply to do it.

My personal opinion as a university researcher who works alongside teachers in a local secondary school is whatever they get paid, it isn't enough! :-)

And seriously, pay high, then lots of people will compete for jobs, then the school gets to choose a high quality teacher. I'm afraid I don't buy the line that if you want really high quality staff, pay really low wages.

Children are the future of society, the people we'll depend on when we're old and need to rely on others. Surely we want to spend as much as possible on their education, it's what they do for most of their waking life for ten years...

This is the least of teacher's worries...

[quetwo]

What teachers really need is :
  - Basic computer training. You would be amazed as to how many still can't figure out basic things like email, powerpoint or other similar 'basic' applications
  - Updated material. I was talking with a friend who is still in high-school, and his civics book still has no mention of the 42nd or 43rd President. Oh, yeah, and his European Culture class still has a chapter about the Berlin Wall -- an object that hasn't been apart of European culture since before he was born.
  - More salary. Many of the bankers went before congress defending their massive bonuses and payouts to employees using bailout money in order to retain the best talent. How are we ever going to get the best talent into teaching if we pay them slightly above minimum wage?! Show me a teacher that hasn't reached tenure who isn't struggling, and I'll show you a person who must have married rich.
  - Better Student/Parent relationships. If teachers wouldn't be spending all their time baby-sitting, they could actually teach relevant stuff. School isn't a place where kids learn, it's a place kids > age of 5 go for the day while mommy and daddy are at work.

Once these issues are fixed, then maybe teachers could spend some time learning about the latest FOSS craze.

Re:What?! Teachers shouldn't have to suffer -

[mwfolsom]

You said:
Paying enough that teaching appeals to people in it for the money is risky.

I'm sorry but at best this is silly. Its the logic that has been used for years to underpay teachers. I live with a 4th grade teacher, my mother was a special ed teacher, my sister was a music teacher and their salaries were/are all horrible. They all had/have Master's degree and I make 2x what they make/made. I personally would teach but the household can't afford the salary cut.

If we are going to apply the principle that you espouse - that people need to suffer to teach to the teaching profession we should do the same thing to others such as doctors, lawyers, and engineers of all kinds. Surely we want them to be passionate about their jobs just like teachers!

Re:citations please ..

[edittard]

Actually, an anecdote is proof of existance. If I have a black sheep, that is proof that black sheep exist.

You having a black sheep is one thing. You saying you have a black sheep is another. And you saying that someone else (that I've never met or heard of) has a black sheep is yet another.