Teacher Throws Fit; Linux is NOT Free and Holds Children Back

[Pat]

In an age where Windows and OS X reign supreme, it's no wonder that a local AISD middle school teacher became enraged after discovering one of her students distributing what she believed to be bootlegged copies of an operating system in class.

While teacher "Karen" was clearly operating under the assumption that she'd scored a minor victory for the Microsofts and other downtrodden software giants of the world, the particular operating system that she ended up disciplining her student for was a freely distributable version of Linux.


Original Entry: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/1...kids-back.html


Source: http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd...ver_studen.php

[unni]

I have placed a call to the AISD Superintendent and cc'd him a complete copy of your email. 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.

I hope it won't backfire on her (if she is good in her teaching).

[mrintech]

LOL poor Teacher

[hsr]

lol shes in truble

[mrintech]

Now she will Join Linux Red Hat

[ico]

[dheeraj_kumar]

OMGLOL

This is truly epic!!!

[azaad_shri75]

lack of information, ignorance makes more bold

[hsr]

^^ same here LAWL

[red_devil]

LMAO!! a teacher who never heard about LINUX

[vaithy]

Originally Posted by n6300

LMAO!! a teacher who never heard about LINUX

She know what is Linux

read the para care fully

Mr. Starks, 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.

Perhaps she must have experienced the Linux ,when Linus was uploading his codes thro'internet, and the communities were in the compiling stage..

vaithy

[red_devil]

^^ LMAO

i'm very sure she added that "..I along with many others tried Linux during college.." $hit just to convince that she had heard about LINUX.

anyone who knows about LINUX would never have written such B$ !!

[kumarmohit]

/me wonders wat the quote of Einstein was about human stupidity.

[thewisecrab]

Originally Posted by kumarmohit

/me wonders wat the quote of Einstein was about human stupidity.

Its this:

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

and this

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

Take your pick

[vaithy]

My sympathies lies with the teacher'Karen'.. When Ballmere said'Linux is Cancer' nobady raise fingers.. but poor 'Karen' is thrashed all over the internet ...One Poster in a website, googled thousands 'Karen in the particular District from the Directory.. and e-mails are bombarding the other innocent 'Karen'.. Mr.Stark to prove his case unwittingly allowed the witch hunting, by naming her, in his blog.
I happened to met hundreds of such 'karen' every day..nearest me., or in my office.. even in the 'digit 'forum..So charactor 'Karen' is not a individual..but a symbol which identified the 'Ballmere's empire grip over the ordinary citizen..

vaithy

[kumarmohit]

@thewisecrab

The second one.

@ vaithy
Ow come on, when Ballmer said that he was pwned too much too.

[Faun]

:megalamo:

[ThinkFree]

Got to know about that news some days ago via Orkut.

[Dark Star]

To be honest I found Computer Teachers of School noober than their students Atleast what I have seen till date

[thewisecrab]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

To be honest I found Computer Teachers of School noober than their students Atleast what I have seen till date

Not a surprise. My cousin (at 10), who knew the ins and outs of PowerPoint, was failed by the teacher reasoning that he is doing "wrong things" when in reality he had far more knowledge than her in PowerPoint. The teacher apologised later though.

[ThinkFree]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

To be honest I found Computer Teachers of School noober than their students Atleast what I have seen till date

100% true for school teachers, 80% for teachers in college.

[Crysis900]

Lol teacher !

[alexanderthegreat]

Poor ignorant brat! For those who did not see the comments:-

NoDough said...

Dear Karen,

You stated:
>> "At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal."
>> "I along with many others tried Linux during college..."

You have clearly confused Linux with brain altering drugs. Depending on the extent of your use, you confusion may be perfectly natural.

Regards,
NoDough

Now she'll be chased around everywhere along with all the other innocent Karens!

[hsr]

ROFL

[Kl@w-24]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

To be honest I found Computer Teachers of School noober than their students Atleast what I have seen till date

+1

The scene is not much different in colleges.

[Hitboxx]

Phunny but then you know what they say about Texas.

[unni]

Its not over.

When I published a part of the email this Teacher sent me, it experienced something known as "The Slashdot Effect." Slashdot is a website devoted to the tech/internet world and is read by hundreds of thousands an hour.

Yeah...hundreds of thousands an hour. My article scolding this teacher ended up on the front page of Slashdot.

It never was my intention to attack anyone personally....

My sights were set on correcting some obvious misconceptions. It was a focused attack on ignorance but with some unsolicited commentary on a particular group.

Whether by proxy or focused intent, it appears that is what has happened, however.

A particular teacher within the Austin Independent School District now sucks.

The consensus began building about 24 hours ago when I published a blog strongly chastising a teacher who emailed me. She made, what I considered to be, some amazingly ignorant statements, statements that I felt attacked the very core reason for my existence. It made me much angrier than it should have.

I'm human, so sue me.

No wait, scratch that last line...don't sue me. It is being discussed.

Her tone didn't help her case much. She insinuated that I may had done something illegal. We build/refurbish computers for kids who are financially disadvantaged. We also build and present computers to kids of high achievement. To even hint that I am involved in anything that approaches breaking the law is not only silly, it evokes emotion better left un-evoked. I've worked for years to bring the level of success, however limited, we have now. The last thing I need is to lose it all for something silly.

So instead of crafting a measured, count-for-count personal response, I chose to share her obvious ignorance with members of the Linux Community. It was meant to illustrate the maddening ignorance and bias a Linux Advocate faces in a Microsoft Windows world. It was also meant to digitally spank the hand of the offender. It was a good direction to go I thought.

Things pretty much turned to fecal flakes from there.

Look, I write this little back-water blog to document what we do at the HeliOS Project and to advocate Linux in general. One of our main focuses is to see to it that Linux begins gaining a foothold in the computing public's awareness. And no, my goal isn't to convince you to switch to Linux.

That's my desire.

My goal is to make you aware that you have a choice in how you operate your computers. And yes, a bias exists on the Linux side of the ledger.

Ya think? People don't realize they are prisoners in their own computers when they use Microsoft Windows. If they ever read the EULA, they'd understand quickly.

So boasting a stunning readership in the dozens, I go about my business writing about things that happen in our day to day operations. Every now and then, something or someone does or says something that I believe needs attention.

Holy Crap!

Well, we got attention. When I published a part of the email this Teacher sent me, it experienced something known as "The Slashdot Effect." Slashdot is a website devoted to the tech/internet world and is read by hundreds of thousands an hour.

Yeah...hundreds of thousands an hour. My article scolding this teacher ended up on the front page of Slashdot.

For whatever reason, this story took on a life of its own. By 10:30 AM, I had to turn my cell phone off. Poeple were getting my number from my business website and calling me with their comments and reactions.

Not all of them were particularly on my side.

I received calls from South Africa, The Netherlands, Croatia, The Land Down Under and Russia.

It's the one from New Zealand that bothered me the most.

The caller identified himself and then further identified himself as an editor for a well known magazine published in the UK. He was extremely to-the-point with his call.

He would donate $1000.00 immediately to The HeliOS Project if I would give him the name of the Teacher I blogged about.

I hung up the phone.

"This is madness." I thought to myself. What is the big friggin' deal here? This is a non-story.

And my phone buzzed again but it wasn't with the incoming call ring...it was a text message being received. I cued the caller ID and it returned as "unavailable".

I pushed "read message" and waited for the text to appear on my screen.

"Can I call you?"

I pulled the truck over into a parking lot and answered:

"I guess. Who r u?"

The inactivity was so long that I started the truck and began to put it into gear and re-enter traffic when the buzz came again. I pushed the read button.

"Karen".

It was my turn to hesitate. Finally, I toggled Reply and typed in one character.

"k"

She didn't call right away. It took her about 15 minutes to finally call me. When she did she didn't say anything for the first 15 seconds. When she finally did speak, it was obvious she was crying.

Source: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/1...s-aint-us.html

[MetalheadGautham]

hmmm..... ROFL

[vaithy]

When thousands of people search the particular directory for the name 'karen' she found to be caught and ask the same question to her tormentor,

Why did you throw me to the wolves like that?"

I didn't even have to think of the reply.

"I didn't throw you to the wolves Karen, I threw ignorance to the wolves

after all the thunderstorm caused by her email, it is amazing that her school is not aware of her identity..

Karen should be happy now..after the horrible experience, the teacher may turned as student...
Since she return the CD to the student concerned...we may conclude all is ended well...

But what happened to thousands of Karen that we met every day life?

[Lisa]

Is there anybody know the Chinese old-saying:"吃得苦中苦，方为人上人“.That means:"No pain,no gain."Do you know?