...making Linux just a little more fun!
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
[from austinist, via RISKS Digest]
http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php
Detention for the student and legal threats from a clueless teacher. Hilarious.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Samuel Bisbee-vonKaufmann [sbisbee at computervip.com]
>-----Original Message-----From: Ben Okopnik [mailto:ben@linuxgazette.net]
>Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:31 AM >To: 'The Answer Gang' >Subject: [TAG] Teacher Throws Fit Over Student's Linux CD > >[from austinist, via RISKS Digest] > >http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php > >Detention for the student and legal threats from a clueless teacher. >Hilarious. >
Agreed, was quite funny and brought back some memories. However, this story was not all happy. The blog post author's reply to user comments to his original post: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/character-assasinations-aint-us.html
[The original post, also available in the article that Ben posted: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html]
-- Sam Bisbee
Neil Youngman [Neil.Youngman at youngman.org.uk]
On Monday 22 December 2008 15:31:42 Ben Okopnik wrote:
> [from austinist, via RISKS Digest] > > http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php > > Detention for the student and legal threats from a clueless teacher. > Hilarious.
Here's the original blog
http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html
and here's a follow up. It's not quite so funny
http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/character-assasinations-aint-us.html
Neil
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 03:43:21PM +0000, Samuel Bisbee-vonKaufmann wrote:
> >-----Original Message----- > >From: Ben Okopnik [mailto:ben@linuxgazette.net] > >Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:31 AM > >To: 'The Answer Gang' > >Subject: [TAG] Teacher Throws Fit Over Student's Linux CD > > > >[from austinist, via RISKS Digest] > > > >http://austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php > > > >Detention for the student and legal threats from a clueless teacher. > >Hilarious. > > > > Agreed, was quite funny and brought back some memories. However, this > story was not all happy. The blog post author's reply to user comments > to his original post: > http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/character-assasinations-aint-us.html
Just read it. Yep, that part is less than funny - and it shows how polarized that aspect of the world has become. The thing is, the not-funny part isn't about Linux: it's about the social interaction that can result from clueless action by someone in power. That teacher made a mistake - that happens, and is understandable. What is not so easy to justify is her stupidly-emotional reaction, complete with legal threats and accusations. If it happened with something else - let's say a Chinese knockoff of a Belgian-made teddy bear - and she emailed the parents to accuse them and threaten them... and one of the parents happened to be a lawyer... she would now understand *exactly what "being thrown to the wolves" means. Having a pseudonymous nickname mentioned on Slashdot does not equate to that in the least.
Ken, by contrast, acted in a mature and reasonable manner *where it mattered*. He blew off steam on his blog - but managed to do it in such a way that the backlash, no matter how serious, did not affect that teacher. And, to cover whatever doubt remained in his own mind, he apologized - explicitly and clearly.
Whatever the shitstorm in a cup, it'll be over tomorrow. That would not be the case if Ken's reaction (and followup) were not those of man with discretion and judgement; nor would it be the case in the hypothetical[1] situation I described above. "Karen" has expressed her gratitude to Ken; I'll add my own regards [2] here.
[1] ...or not so hypothetical. I know of a case in a Colorado school where a teacher was haunted out of her job and her profession and sued into abject poverty by a lawyer-parent who decided that his little Johnny's self-esteem was being damaged by the poor grades he was (deservedly) receiving. Legal harassment is not a myth, folks; it happens, and not just once in a while.
[2] Most people can be brave after sober consideration, a period of preparation in the dressing room, and with their adoring fans watching breathlessly; the thing that counts for a lot with me is doing the right thing in the very moment when you're pissed off and harried and threatened. It's one of the biggest challenges we humans have... and few of us succeed every time. I can only applaud when I see an instance of it.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Deividson Okopnik [deivid.okop at gmail.com]
Just for the record, to show some of the difference, here in Paraná - Brazil, all of the public schools (more than 2.100 schools) use Linux only, from the director's room to the students - and not only that, the teachers room and the labs the students uses where all re-made with a debian-based distribution, featuring a hydra-like setup to allow 4 users per computer.
Currently, they account a 127,3 million economy on licences only - not accounting the ammount of computers (because of the 4 users per computer) and the lower energy bill - it's a win-win situation.
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net):
> Ken, by contrast, acted in a mature and reasonable manner *where it > mattered*. He blew off steam on his blog - but managed to do it in such > a way that the backlash, no matter how serious, did not affect that > teacher. And, to cover whatever doubt remained in his own mind, he > apologized - explicitly and clearly.
It's possible that Ken Starks has grown up a bit, since the days a few years ago when he started blogging (at the time, omitting his name and using solely the moniker "Helios"). At the time of his very noisy appearance on the Internet, he seemed to do little beside trolling, and, for a blog supposedly concerned with Linux, seemed to spend the vast majority of its time slagging Microsoft Corporation.
On reflection, I'm not sure Mr. Starks has grown up discernibly. And I would inclined, if the man told me the sun was going to rise up in the east, to get up early and check. Or better yet, just not waste time on him at al.
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 09:51:30AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> > On reflection, I'm not sure Mr. Starks has grown up discernibly. And I > would inclined, if the man told me the sun was going to rise up in the > east, to get up early and check. Or better yet, just not waste time on > him at al.
I have no knowledge of Ken Starks other than what I've seen in this one situation - and that's all I have to judge by, of course. For all I know, he may well be Adolph Hitler in disguise at all other times [1], but in this situation, he did the right thing.
[1] WARNING!!! WARNING!!! Incorrect invocation format; failure in GODWIN.C, core dumped.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net):
> I have no knowledge of Ken Starks other than what I've seen in this one > situation - and that's all I have to judge by, of course. For all I > know, he may well be Adolph Hitler in disguise at all other times [1], > but in this situation, he did the right thing.
I wouldn't even necessarily rely on the recounting of facts: Some later, less-heated analyses suggest that the teacher had merely reacted to the kid disrupting the class by "confiscating" the kid's Linux media only until the end of the school day, which is pretty much standard practice in US public schools anywhere.
The (alleged) e-mail with the goofy litigation threat, that were claimed to have been from the (consistently unnamed) teacher were of course pathetic no-nothingism, but it's positively amazing how Starks has seemed to find and grapple onto exactly such people in incident after incident, over the years, always as if they were his tailor-made opponents for each particular moment.
I'd already classified "helios" (Starks) as a liability at the time of his loud advocacy of the Lobby4Linux debacle, a year and a half ago:
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2007q2/001433.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2007q2/001428.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2007q2/001516.html
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
I wrote:
> The (alleged) e-mail with the goofy litigation threat, that were claimed > to have been from the (consistently unnamed) teacher were of course > pathetic no-nothingism, but it's positively amazing how Starks has > seemed to find and grapple onto exactly such people in incident after > incident, over the years, always as if they were his tailor-made > opponents for each particular moment.
Reviewing some more of the follow-ons from the original squabble, there is some hope that Starks is indeed growing up a bit: He posted a belated clarification[1] that:
o The teacher did not, as he'd claimed, confiscate the student's Linux disks, just hold them until the end of the class because he had been (as I figured) disputive of the class with them.[2] o The teacher did not, as some had claimed, put the student on "detention". o She had not threatened Starks or anyone else with litigation, but merely expressed a suspicion that he might be advocating illegal activity.
About the only thing Starks did that was right was not splashing the teacher's name and e-mail address all over Slashdot. Assuming there ever was such a teacher.
And there lies one big problem: We're asked to make the charitable assumption that the entire little morality play wasn't invented out of whole cloth, for publicity / melodrama purposes, by a notorious self-promoter, which is also more than possible. Frankly, the style of writing in the alleged teacher's e-mail seems fake, and the entire incident seems much too pat.
[1] http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/character-assasinations-aint-us.html
[2] Quoting Starks's clarification: "The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube. She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness Free Software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping."
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 01:56:37PM -0300, Deividson Okopnik wrote:
> Just for the record, to show some of the difference, here in Paraná - > Brazil, all of the public schools (more than 2.100 schools) use Linux > only, from the director's room to the students - and not only that, > the teachers room and the labs the students uses where all re-made > with a debian-based distribution, featuring a hydra-like setup to > allow 4 users per computer. > > Currently, they account a 127,3 million economy on licences only - not > accounting the ammount of computers (because of the 4 users per > computer) and the lower energy bill - it's a win-win situation.
Ever since I read about Brazil's Open Source initiative, years ago, I've been impressed by their approach. It's great to hear how well it continues to work.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *