Linux in schools?

[Daniel Mons]

Jessica Brisbane wrote:
> Speaking as an IT teacher, I would have to say that while all these reasons
> are true, they are irrelevant. We are required to teach students how to use
> industry standard software, and guess what that is? The very first question
> that students and parents have (about anything) is "Will this give me/my
> child an advantage in the job market?" Until employment ads specifying Linux
> knowledge required outnumber employment ads specifying Office knowledge
> required, the answer has to be no.
>

I disagree with this.

The world is currently obsessed with teaching "what" instead of "why".
We are giving our children "checklist" skills that are limited and
meaningless, and over time become utterly redundant.

For example: the user interface from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft
Office 2007 has changed so dramatically it's not funny.  Speaking as a
system's administrator who works for some very large corporates, I've
seen millions of dollars in re-training spent several times no as each
new version of Microsoft Office hits the world.  I saw it happen 2000 to
XP, XP to 2003, and now again 2003 to 2007.

The people that required the least amount of training were not those
that were necessarily "taught" MS Office in school, but those who had a
fundamental understanding of how office systems tie together.  The
"checklist" educated individuals - people who learned via rope learning
and repetition; people who were taught MS Office in school/TAFE - these
people floundered.

Not to try and single you out, Jess, but your quote above is short
sighted, as are most parents of school-aged children.  10 years in IT is
a lifetime in any other industry.

Growing up, I took "IT" subjects in school.  I use double quotes because
learning an office package is not IT, but I digress.  We were taught
Wordperfect for DOS.  I recall asking my teacher at the time why we
weren't being taught either Microsoft Works, or the very new and
exciting Microsoft Word for Windows 3.1 - both radically new systems
with GUI and WYSIWYG interfaces!  The response?

"Don't be silly.  Nobody uses Microsoft Word in the real world".

We have the power of hindsight now of course.  Looking back we can all
chuckle at how ignorant the education sector was, teaching out of date
software to kids.

The point is, particular to IT, we need to stop treating learning as a
checklist of tasks, and instead start teaching some fundamental
understanding.  Teaching a 10 year old kid MS Word 2007 today is
pointless, when that child will be using MS Word 2017 when they finally
get into the working world.

Your quote above: "will this my child an advantage in the job market".
Your response should be "yes, if they started working tomorrow.  In 10
years time everything they know will be redundant if we teach them to
learn a limited system and amount of tasks, rather than teaching
complete understanding".

As someone who has done his fair share of Highschool and University
tutoring in the areas of science, maths and IT, I find the same hold
true.  Almost any child can be taught mindless rope-learning of a
system.  What education (and parents) need to focus on is ensuring their
kids have a fundamental understanding of the systems they are learning,
and not just parrot-fashion queue-and-repeat.

Beyond that, you use the term "industry standard" in your post above.  I
put the question to you: what will be the industry standard Office
package of 2017?  Do you know for certain?  I can confidently say you,
nor anyone else, does.  So why then are we teaching our children
"industry standard" systems of today when they will be utterly
irrelevant tomorrow?  Case in point, my IT childhood IT teacher, and her
foresight into a world where everyone will still be using WordPerfect
for DOS in the year 2007.

I won't even begin to comment on Microsoft Windows being immediately
irrelevant for 20% or more of school leavers stepping into all Apple
MacOSX jobs/networks.

The point is: there is no "industry standard".  Teaching "why" is more
important in IT than teaching "what".

Jessica Brisbane wrote:
> BTW, of the 700-odd students in my school, there's only about 40 who
> are
> interested in IT education, genuine or otherwise.
>

How many are interested in art and graphic design?  How many are
interested in music?  How many are interested in graphics, tech-drawing
and architecture?  How many are interested in history and research?  How
many are interested in maths and science?  How many are interested in
human movement/development and physical education?

How many of these jobs will be done on computers by the time these
children leave school?  More than 5.7%, which is the percentage of kids
at your school who seem to be interested, it seems.

And another question: why do we teach kids how to do art on paper
instead of computer?  Why tech drawing on paper?  Why music with
instruments?  In "industry", all of this is done on computer.

The answer is we teach kids not what is the current industry standard,
but instead what are the fundamental educational building blocks.  It's
more important for a child to pick up an instrument and play it than it
is for them to learn how a midi synth works.   Learning music at it's
core base will teach general skills that can be applied to
computer-based music editing later in life.

Why then are we so afraid to do the same in IT?  Why must we teach
"Microsoft Office 2007" rather than the fundamental building blocks of
word processing, spread sheeting, and other office tasks, independent of
platform?

-Dan