Since 10 years i’m teaching graphic design in some schools, i really feel that students knowledge is more superficial. It’s simply evident regarding their lack of simple prerequisite. I’ve always told myself i was getting older (which is true), or that my own knowledge was growing (to be proofed) and that i was thinking simple things that are not. You one always says that Youngs are so wonderfull, how easily to can manipulate all these strange objects, like computer, cell phones or *pod ! i didn’t want to be the monster in the story… And as a free software promoter, i just think that everyone has the knowledge he is aiming at. So no need to judge people, aso.

But, i, today, really experimented very bad. And as teacher i sometimes have to judge, not the people of course only their knowledge or abilities. The story is that I was just there for an exam i had to supervise. Foreign people might consider that french governments have tried for years to improve the student knowledge in computing : you know, tell what is an OS, a virus, how to use a text processor, and have some knowledge on main web applications and services. Well very very complex the one you would you use everyday. In France, it’s done in two steps : between 11 and 15 years and then in universities. Here are some comments or questions i heard this sad day, in the mouth of second year university students who have had at least 200 hours of courses on several software only in the university (in orange) :

Mr. Powerpoint crashes ! (oops noone uses Impress here)

- what does that mean i have to send a report ?
- Did you save your document ?
- No
- oops!
– But it’s not normal!
- yes it’s not normal to use a computer without saving

Mac Os keyboard doesn’t write the right letter

- I press 6 and underscore doesn’t display on screen
- what do you want to do ?

- Put an underscore there.

- On these Macs, underscore is on the right of the number line of the keyboard. It’s written on.

- ah oui ?!

Mouse is silent

- Mr right click doesn’t work to paste my email adress
- write it or try cmd-V ?

- oh yes it works

Not on facebook, but the computer sends me messages

- When i save (i just reminded them before) to asks me to replace. What should i do ?
no comment

THose machines does what they want regardless to what i want

- I have save to PPT PDF and web page as asked , if i click save, does it save the 3 at once ?
- i guess you should do each separate or just compare versions
- ffff! and why do i have 4 files on the Desktop if i saved 3 times. Is that important ?
- When did the fourth appear ?
- after i saved !

I heard some students sometimes say they would anyway succeed to their exams because it would be impossible to a school to have so many bad students. Well, they have at least understood how the concurrency could easy their work

[ of course there are still some good students, who certainly work at home]

- I often hear that what they see at school is meaningless at that they can live without. It’s estonyshing how they can consider themselves as being more able to say what is usefull that the teacher or professionnal do. I would the knowledge economy not become an economy of knowledge.

- Fuck with your styles, we loose time [ah yes, respect diminished too]

Of course, free software is made to increase user freedom and the first liberty is using or not such kind of tools. But since the freedom speech don’t seem to convinced them i’m not sure this is the point. Anyway i’m happy to work with free software : in this world, people consider the software as a tool, and what to control to be able to do what they want, and not just click here or there [no sorry, just there, the choice is too difficult too]. I’m considering not teaching anymore in such schools, and attend on higher level we we can talk about the real subject : graphism, communication…

I guess it’s a pure randow they find all the right information, because they googled it and all found the same, it’s certainly it is true. And as everyone know many new things have been discovered hazardly. And as everyone knows, it’s easier to and original concept when you don’t have a brain ful of kants or Plato’s writings. At least don’t see that it is not so original.

I hope i will live long enough to see those randomly appeared new concepts, out of nowhere, and i will thank this Big Computer Spirit to give us so many new things to consider. Anyway, isn’t it marvellous what a vomputer can do and how it works finally so well on so many subjects ?