07.10.20
Education Without Free Software is Training or Indoctrination
Not every adult will have a computer
Summary: Kids need to decide for themselves what they want to do and what they wish to use when they grow up; schools need to provide general tools and the mental capacity to make good decisions (rather than make these decisions for the kids, sometimes at the behest of foreign monopolists)
TRAINING. What is it really? How does that differ from education?
What about indoctrination? Well, the former tends to allude to relatively simple tasks, which do not necessarily require profound understanding. It tends to be something mechanical, associated with muscle memory, subconscious reflexes and skilled art. The term “indoctrination” is a lot more loaded because of political connotation and association with cults. When people affiliate themselves with bad things that cause them to do/say bad things we tend to call them “indoctrinated”.
There’s nothing wrong with training. Cops undergo training, barbers are trained for even longer periods of time than cops (in the US at least), and artists gain experience by apprenticeships, practice, inspiration and one might say “training”. No “indoctrination” to it; creativity is inspired by various outside influence(r)s and artists are rarely forced to follow one single “genre” or “style”.
“Skills that are dependent on menu layouts and GUIs (which change over time; see what we said about AWS a month ago) aren’t really skills and they won’t stay in the minds of young people, unlike analytical skills.”Enter the realm of software and what we typically deal with is either programming or the use of a program (application). There has long been that debate about whether we should teach kids/adolescents to code (at school level) and whether we should teach them how to use particular applications (and, if so, what kind/s of applications). Many schools still teach students/pupils how to use spreadsheets and word processors (not typesetting programs). They tend to focus on only Microsoft products, albeit with ‘clown computing’ hype being a ‘thing’ and with Chromebooks becoming very ubiquitous in schools, Google Docs also became an option.
If a school’s job is to prepare youngsters for “jobs”, then that might make pragmatic sense. The problem is, the schools become pipelines of proprietary software giants, a peripheral ‘training camp’ of sorts, teaching kids to become vendor-controlled and indebted to monopolies. This is morally wrong.
I share the sentiments of figosdev when he says that schools need to focus on teaching the nature of programming (even if at some abstract/basic level such as LOGO). Skills that are dependent on menu layouts and GUIs (which change over time; see what we said about AWS a month ago) aren’t really skills and they won’t stay in the minds of young people, unlike analytical skills. Teachers ought to sternly insist their students are taught general skills. Public education is otherwise merely an extension of “the industry” and this is ripe for abuse (cushioning corporate investment at the taxpayers’ expense).
Say no to proprietary software in schools. Say no to monopolies. Let kids decide for themselves what they want to do after they end their actual education period. Schools are not mills/factories. █
Content is available under CC-BY-SA