Re: [Sheflug] ShefLUG - May/June 2008 Meeting

["Sean Whitton" <sean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello - I'm Ben's friend. I'm seventeen, he's twelve (but taller and
brighter than me!).

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Richard Ibbotson
<richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Yes.  It's strange you should say that.  On every occasion that I have
> tried to organise a meeting at a Sheffield school it has been blocked.
> When I finally managed to get something together I was told that it
> would cost £200 to hire a room.  Which was half the size of a room at
> Sheffield Hallam University at a cost of £100.
>
> To relate back to my own school days.  When I was eight years old I
> began to take an interest in transistors.  This was at a time when
> everyone was still using valves.  When my teachers found out that I
> was using a Philips electronic kit to build a transceiver it was
> confiscated.  Same thing happened when I was thirteen.  Then they
> wondered why I couldn't take a degree in electronic engineering or
> electrical engineering.  After they had confiscated my means of
> learning from me twice.  Sound familiar ? Later on I found people who
> wanted to be my friend.  Early 20's.  They had been through some
> enormously expensive public schools.  Parents paid £10 000 to £20 000
> per year for schooling.  Lot of money in those days.  They told me
> that they had same thing done to them.  When I got to be 35 years old
> I took a degree in Chemistry and Geology.  Then they screwed it up
> again.  Do I have to say any more ?
>
> So, don't ask your teacher for help and you should be fine.  At least,
> that's how it was for me.  Recently there was a news item which
> claimed that something like 18 000 to 24 000 teachers had been proved
> to be incompetent.  Lets see where is it.....  Oh ! Here we go...
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3858171.ece
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3866953.ece
>
>
> bit sad really :)

We have to be a bit careful about our criticism here. In my experience
of challenging teachers on this, the main reason that FLOSS isn't used
is because of the lack of support for it that they can call and blame
when things go wrong. IT technicians are not usually that incredible
at their jobs and so they need to be able to blame Microsoft technical
support when things blow up. They need that support contract. There is
very little like this available in the free software world at the
moment.

My view is that there should be more of a balance. Computers running
free software should be available, but we have to accept that at
present it doesn't make sense to train pupils in something they may
well not meet again. We're not there yet with free software on a
global scale.

-- 
Regards,
Sean Whitton <sean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://seanwhitton.com/
GPG: 0x25F4EAB7

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