Hey Art, I actually do appreciate all the autobio and think it relevant, to me at least.
I thought you were some kind of financial advisor before and individual clients and/or pension fund managers might knock on your door looking for safe ways to grow their money, a rate of return -- but then again, who isn't looking for such opportunities, when it comes to moneymaking. Anyway, you still didn't grapple with my question, which I'll now direct to some random capitalist: if you think some companies have a negative influence on education, is the answer to purge the education sector of all company influence, or is the answer to free schools to be more autonomous and savvy when it comes to picking and choosing vendors and service providers? As a small business person, I want to be an attractive candidate when bidding on school-related contracts. I don't mind competing with Microsoft, and/or partnering with it (could go both ways in different contexts e.g. MSFT competes with Apple, but also writes software that Apple users buy, e.g. Office). Worse than Microsoft up to its usual dirty tricks would be some government edict from on high that says thou shalt not do business with private for-profit companies if thou art a public school. That'd be a disaster for me, personally, and for just about any for-profit company that produces merchandize or curriculum materials (e.g. text book publishers like McGraw-Hill, a former employer). I want to encourage some uses of Python in schools, and among home-based scholars (who may be adults as well as kids), that I'm sometimes rewarded for demonstrating and promulgating (i.e. professing, teaching, delivering). In microcosm, I suppose I'm not that different from Microsoft (I'm just a lot smaller). I want to survive in a business that interests me. So that brings me to a philosophical question: what's wrong with that? I don't see my goal as in principle unethical. It's what teachers have always wanted: to teach, to have brilliant students who make a difference in the world, and to receive food and shelter while doing some honest work. Kirby 4D Solutions PDX OR USA _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
