That case of a Teacher not comprehending Linux seems to warrant Hackerdom's attention.

[Oren Beck]

 Recently, some folks were recalling the weirdly strange events caused
by a schoolteacher seeing Linux for the first time:

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html

We've had a few years of the economy getting so nuked that paying for
software from vendors demanding per-seat fees is literally impossible
in many educational and charity situations. Which of course, mandates
a choice between either having NO computers in use- or the use of
software that's de minimus -cost free, and after that, the "Open
Source" concept becomes a feature as opposed to the liabilities
inherent in "Closed Source" software.  Frankly speaking- I consider
using ONLY  "Closed Source" software in education to be made of Pure
Fail. In a reality accepting society- we'd have the whole range of
totally free to totally unfree software presented to our children, in
a neutral fashion. Except? If you go to a school board and suggest
anything beyond their comfortable, shrinkwrapped, high dollars per
seat software,. it's not unexpected to replicate what Helios
encountered.

The whole reason this is of potentially existential importance to ALL
of Hackerdom
is what our future will be- or NOT be if we do not teach our children
to teach their TEACHERS. Oh, call it "Worldview Hacking" if we want to
have a geeky pride in how we do it:)

Things like showing a demo of Puppy Linux might be "Less Scary" if
someone first gave a demo of Portable Firefox on a comfortably
familiar to that school- thumbdrive device. They see the "wow- it
works" effect in their comfortable Windows based sandbox. Sadly, more
schools still use IE than anything else so there's still a risk of
Xenophobia being triggered.

Hacking the Worldview of Education is something that also falls under
my favorite concept "Leading By Example"

IF we teach our children to be an ambassador for everything WE want
our- and THEIR literal future to be, their example becomes what can
lead us to a better world. I have 2 Grandchildren in a public school,
and scarcely a week goes by that does not produce some story
displaying a  stunning "Lack Of Clue" in their teachers or the school
itself.

In handing this over for hopefully constructive comments, I close with
a question and Book recommend.

Do you think your life would have been different in a world where
Linux/ "Open Source" type Worldviews had been taught? The book
recommend that spawned that last query is Little Brother, by Cory
Doctorow:

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Do we REALLY want our children in a school like what Marcus attended,
let alone to have us in the world that school is set in ?



-- 
Oren Beck

816.729.3645