Recently, some folks were recalling the weirdly strange events caused by a schoolteacher seeing Linux for the first time:
http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html
We've had a few years of the economy getting so nuked that paying for software from vendors demanding per-seat fees is literally impossible in many educational and charity situations. Which of course, mandates a choice between either having NO computers in use- or the use of software that's de minimus -cost free, and after that, the "Open Source" concept becomes a feature as opposed to the liabilities inherent in "Closed Source" software. Frankly speaking- I consider using ONLY "Closed Source" software in education to be made of Pure Fail. In a reality accepting society- we'd have the whole range of totally free to totally unfree software presented to our children, in a neutral fashion. Except? If you go to a school board and suggest anything beyond their comfortable, shrinkwrapped, high dollars per seat software,. it's not unexpected to replicate what Helios encountered.
The whole reason this is of potentially existential importance to ALL of Hackerdom is what our future will be- or NOT be if we do not teach our children to teach their TEACHERS. Oh, call it "Worldview Hacking" if we want to have a geeky pride in how we do it:)
Things like showing a demo of Puppy Linux might be "Less Scary" if someone first gave a demo of Portable Firefox on a comfortably familiar to that school- thumbdrive device. They see the "wow- it works" effect in their comfortable Windows based sandbox. Sadly, more schools still use IE than anything else so there's still a risk of Xenophobia being triggered.
Hacking the Worldview of Education is something that also falls under my favorite concept "Leading By Example"
IF we teach our children to be an ambassador for everything WE want our- and THEIR literal future to be, their example becomes what can lead us to a better world. I have 2 Grandchildren in a public school, and scarcely a week goes by that does not produce some story displaying a stunning "Lack Of Clue" in their teachers or the school itself.
In handing this over for hopefully constructive comments, I close with a question and Book recommend.
Do you think your life would have been different in a world where Linux/ "Open Source" type Worldviews had been taught? The book recommend that spawned that last query is Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow:
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
Do we REALLY want our children in a school like what Marcus attended, let alone to have us in the world that school is set in ?