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Comment by indymike | Hacker News Reader

I have five kids, and have had this kind of thing crop up multiple times. The most recent was when I was showing my youngest how to make web pages on his school issued Chromebook. They school had locked down everything, including the browser's developer tools. So, I called the administration, and they told me that they didn't want kids having access to programming tools because the kids could use them to cheat, access "secure" data and otherwise cause mischief.

I asked, so, what if my son wants to learn to code? The IT guy said, "use your own computer". This isn't incompetence. It's outright foolishness. He also went out of his way to remind me that unauthorized access was a criminal offense and the school would go after any student who "tried".

I pulled my son out of the school.

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Out of genuine curiosity, would you quit a job if the equipment they gave you was locked down to meet enterprise requirements?

It's a school issued computer. I think it is more than reasonable for the school to lock down their own property as they see fit for security, and likely for liability, reasons.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't be able to learn programming, obviously they should be able to, but we have to stay in touch with reality.

IT standards should not block the mission of the organization or block a user from doing their job. If I were hired as a developer, and the "enterprise requirements" prevented me from doing my job to the best of my ability, I would find another job. The problem here is that administrators (IT or business) have lost sight of what it means to be an educational institution, and are denying students a very powerful chance to learn.

This is a bit hyperbolic.

A more apt analogy would be an enterprise blocking, for example, the Tor protocol on the laptop which was given to you to do graphic design. The laptops are given to students for school-related activities, and evidently learning the developer console of Chrome is not a school-related activity.

We're on the same page when it comes to the fact that students should have ample access to learn programming and other CS fields. The fact is that it is not currently in the curriculum, and no one is entitled to use the organizations laptop for things the organization says it doesn't want. This isn't even touching the aspect of liability the school's face for the actions taken on/with their property.

The fight should be to change the curriculum, not to get mad at the IT guy who is enforcing the administrations rules about using the organizations property for unrelated activities.

Perhaps there is a larger fight to fix the curriculum. In the mean time, the kids need to be somewhere that they can safely explore.

The only way your example would be equivalent is if the school was offering a class on programming, but then blocked access to the development tools required to complete the class.

You seem to be doing a bit of hand-waving at the end there trying to equate the school’s purpose with the entire idea of education and learning. That’s something that takes place on all of life, not just in school.

Well... if a school's purpose is not education... What is it?

The school's purpose is still education...

It's just not educating in the specific areas you want. I imagine your kids aren't learning quantum physics or fine dining etiquette either. That doesn't mean that the school is no longer educating.

"It's just not educating in the specific areas you want."

You are right. I do not want my children to learn whatever is being taught when the school's IT department is threatening children with the police for trying to learn to make a web page and fiddle with CSS and Javascript.

That is a separate issue, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. If that is what the IT department or administration said, I would also be upset. Saying that it is locked down for XYZ is one thing, adding in a line which threatens kids with police action for wanting to learn something is obviously out of bounds and inappropriate.

However, that is different than claiming that schools purpose is no longer education. It's conflating an entire system with the disappointing actions of a few people working within a school.

That's funny though, a good chunk of companies forces you on macbooks nowadays, which for devs working on ubuntu the entire life, does stop them from working to the best of their abilities.

I would quit if the corporate computer prevented me from doing my assigned job.

Programming is literally an option to sign up for, after which it is an assigned task on which you get graded.

You can’t tell me there is no way to let someone use an entirely web based programming environment. I understand locking down the machine, but then provide a VM.

If we were discussing a school which offered programming, I would agree.

We aren't. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

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