School Teacher has Linux ALL Wrong

Our school teachers are supposed to be, well, intelligent, right? Well, let’s examine a situation that went down in some school. Some students were not only using the HeliOS Linux distribution in class, but they had the nerve (sarcasm) to demonstrate it to other classmates… in an attempt to show them what the big deal was. Well, the teacher, “Karen”, saw this, and took immediate action and sent the student to detention.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Karen went ahead and sent the HeliOS project lead a blunt e-mail, stating, “Mr. Starks, 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.“. She even went on to state that she used Linux in college, and that the legality claims made by the project are “grossly over-stated” and “hinge on falsehoods“.

Whew, I somehow gained a headache just then. The teacher obviously feels that Linux is illegal, and that no software is free, which is quite the statement to hear by anyone who has any decent computer knowledge. She went on to further prove her familiarity on the subject by stating, “This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all.”

Reading the full e-mail sent to Mr. Starks is good for a laugh, but what’s sad is the fact that this woman has Linux all wrong, and the fact that she claimed to have used Linux in the past makes the matter even worse. I’m sure by now, Karen has been corrected on all her statements, at least we can hope. It probably wouldn’t hurt if she began using the Internet, though. I hear there’s a lot of knowledge to be had out there…

Update: Ken Starks has made a new blog post updating the situation, and it seems that the schoolteacher is now in the process of learning more about Linux, which is a good thing. This blog post exposes more to the original story as well, so it’s a worthwhile (but long) read.

“At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows.”