School teacher bans Linux

[Professur]

A US school teacher has taken the somewhat stupid step of throwing the open sauce operating system Linux out of her classroom.

The teacher got her knickers in a twist when one of her students, Aaron was seen giving away free discs for the HeliOS Linux distribution and showing his mates how it worked on his laptop.

Her reaction was as though the boy was peddling drugs. The unnamed teacher apparently believed that anything that wasn't Windows was illegal and immoral. She confiscated the discs and put him on detention.

But not satisified with that, she wrote to the HeliOS distributer to complain about his giving Linux to children.

"I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful," she wrote.

She said that children look to adults for guidance and discipline and she was going to research to see if she could report the distributer, a bloke called Starks, to the cops.

"I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting Linux on these machines is holding our kids back," she wrote.

Her argument was that the world was ruled by Windows, and it was on almost all computers. "Putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison [sic] of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

Writing in his bog, Ken Starks said that the letter from the unnamed school teacher showed what an uphill battle Linux people had in dealing with entrenched attitudes.

He wrote back telling her she should be ashamed for thinking that he was doing anything illegal. Starks told the woman that if she investigated anything she would discover that Linux did what it said on the tin and was a free as-in-cost and free as-in-license operating system.

"The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way," he said.

However he pointed out that the Vole pumps shedloads of cash into her teachers union so it probably was important that she "recommend" Microsoft Windows" or else she would might get reprimanded at the least or fired.

Stark said that the AISD purchases millions of dollars of Microsoft Software when that money could be better spent on educating our children.

"A dedicated School Teacher would recognize that fact and lobby for the change to Free Open Source Software and let the money formally spent on MS bindware be used on our kids. A teacher who cared about her students would do that," he wrote.

Stark told her that she should give Aaron his discs back. He is a brilliant kid and he's learned more using Linux than he ever did using Windows. Those disks and their distribution are perfectly legal and even if he was "disruptive", you cannot keep his property, he wrote.

Just to make sure he has arranged a meeting with the school's Superintendent.

"It looks like we will get to meet in his office when School starts again after the holiday.

"I am anxious to meet a person who is this uninformed and still holds a position of authority and learnedness over our children," Starks wrote.

It looks like this teacher might have allowed her ignorance about life, the universe and everything to get a wee bit out of control.

source

 

[chcr]

I wish I found it difficult to believe that a teacher could be this dumb.

 

[catocom]

"I am anxious to meet a person who is this uninformed and still holds a position of authority and learnedness over our children," Starks wrote.

It looks like this teacher might have allowed her ignorance about life, the universe and everything to get a wee bit out of control.

hear hear!

 

[GrandCaravanSE]

Her reaction was as though the boy was peddling drugs.

Drugz come from computer.

 

[Luis G]

"I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting Linux on these machines is holding our kids back,"

OMG!!!

 

[nalani]

Wow .. holy cow .. she *really* believes in what she's saying too .. that's super scary.

 

[chcr]

Wow .. holy cow .. she *really* believes in what she's saying too .. that's super scary.

Fanatics of any ilk are best avoided if it's not possible to put them down.

 

[nalani]

Fanatics of any ilk are best avoided if it's not possible to put them down.

Can we make that a law?

 

[Gato_Solo]

Fanatics of any ilk are best avoided if it's not possible to put them down.

Too bad that the Constitution disagrees...

 

[Gonz]

No software is free

Does this mean I have to give up my Windows?

 

[Huge]

Just a big ol'

 

[nalani]

Does this mean I have to give up my Windows?

better be careful that teacher doesn't find this thread and call a meeting on your post

 

[GrandCaravanSE]

Does this mean I have to give up my Windows?

(sarcasm)OMG you didn't pay for windows, your a horible person(/sarcasm)

don't worry i found a windows XP CD in the garbage two years ago and i used it on ever computer in my house.

 

[pc_builder]

And she tried it back in college. So when she thinks of linux, I bet she remembers that not-quite-dos-like prompt and being frustrated at the learning curve.
Doesn't she realize that linux upgrades and gets better all the time? Unlike Windows. lol

I'm not upgrading to Windows Vista, but I might try Windows 7 when it comes out... after the first service pack that is.

And I'm getting my old machine back from my brother, so now I have a good machine that linux can have a permanent home on.

 

[catocom]

And she tried it back in college. So when she thinks of linux, I bet she remembers that not-quite-dos-like prompt and being frustrated at the learning curve.
Doesn't she realize that linux upgrades and gets better all the time? Unlike Windows. lol

I'm not upgrading to Windows Vista, but I might try Windows 7 when it comes out... after the first service pack that is.

And I'm getting my old machine back from my brother, so now I have a good machine that linux can have a permanent home on.

ie7 is slow as a dog, but I have to have the security.

sp3 xp seems better though.

 

[GrandCaravanSE]

ie7 is slow as a dog, but I have to have the security.

sp3 xp seems better though.

I still think that XP is better, but that is just my opion.

 

[pc_builder]

ie7 is slow as a dog, but I have to have the security.

sp3 xp seems better though.

I don't use IE anymore. I'm liking Google Chrome a lot. It loads faster than Firefox and renders pages faster on this somewhat slow connection. But I found that I still need Firefox for some sites.

 

[catocom]

I'm not talking about browsing, I mean it slows the whole operating system.

 

[pc_builder]

Oh yeah, I did read that. IE still is used in the background by many processes. Well, I guess I never noticed the slowness, but I don't have an alternative experience to compare to.

 

[chcr]

Hardy Heron. Sorry, it's Intrepid Ibex now, isn't it? Actually, I prefer Debian. I find that any Linux distro runs faster on any given hardware than Winders (XP or newer) does.