Chromebooks are fine, if they boot from coreboot to debian.
If you don't teach people to value individual liberty, a lot of people won't. Maybe that makes good workers, but I doubt it makes a good civilization.
"The deepest reason for using free software in schools is for moral education. We expect schools to teach students basic facts and useful skills, but that is only part of their job. The most fundamental task of schools is to teach good citizenship, including the habit of helping others" [1]
Moral education according to the Gospel of GNU is not what schools and teachers are incentivized to achieve. They don't give a crap about that because they're too busy trying to get kids through tests on shoestring budgets.
The problem won't be solved by preaching, but by providing software at least as capable as Google Drive without the monopolistic tendencies. If you have a solution to that dilemna, I'm sure teachers will be all ears.
> The problem won't be solved by preaching, but by providing software at least as capable as Google Drive without the monopolistic tendencies. If you have a solution to that dilemna, I'm sure teachers will be all ears.
Teachers have zero time or resource--tools like this need to be managed by not teachers. Schools have no budget--tools like this will land where the cost is least.
That solution exists--it's called G-Suite on Chromebooks.
The admin time and cost drives everything in the schools.
Yet, eventually, they are going to be an adult who has to contend with issues of motivation and responsibility. If not during childhood, when would be the time to learn those skills? It seems like the stakes in childhood, both for the individual and for society, are lower and the consequences of failure less dramatic.
One of my kids learned at age 17, when he realized that adulthood was bearing down on him. Suddenly, the need for employable skills became much more real. Before that, it was a sort of far-off theoretical thing that didn't really count.
Learning by failure doesn't work with a kid who just doesn't care. Kids often don't see a reason to care because the future seems so distant. Flunking classes doesn't seem to change anything, and there doesn't seem to be a reward for passing classes. Video games are fun. YouTube has fail videos, cartoons, make-up tutorials, and so much more.
If you don't teach people to value individual liberty, a lot of people won't. Maybe that makes good workers, but I doubt it makes a good civilization.
"The deepest reason for using free software in schools is for moral education. We expect schools to teach students basic facts and useful skills, but that is only part of their job. The most fundamental task of schools is to teach good citizenship, including the habit of helping others" [1]
[1] https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-schools.en.html