I’m an educator, and my Windows PC crashed during my first period class.
I had a cinnamon mint USB drive in my bag. I booted to it, and it saved the day!
I don’t have anybody to tell just how much of a godsend that was, but I figured you guys might appreciate it!
I have questions:
(One of these questions may be in jest)
It’s my work computer. I’m definitely violating a few policies by installing Linux, but the computer was non-functional. So, I excused myself because at best, the computer will have to be wiped anyway.
Well - I hope you are exploring your job options as they are with that technical know-how. Even if no more than what you already shared, you’re miles ahead of most IT managers. I negotiated my contract so that the company gives webmail & an email signature, but I procured the computer, sent them the invoice & set it up myself. Since I have no need for intranet resources or office space, they have no reason to complain about (lack of) security oversight. In a teaching position you might be working under similar circumstancea.
Educators almost never have that kind of ability to make demands in an employment negotiation.
I’d say such a statement can’t be made in general. There are a couple hundred countries on Earth and dozens of types of teaching jobs.
The highest-paid teachers in the world are in Luxembourg. They only make about 160% what teachers in the US do, who are the teachers I’m most familiar with. (Side note, I’m gobsmacked that the US is in the top 10 for teacher salaries. That’s bonkers to me.)
Is teacher pay a perfect analogue for ability to make technology demands at time of hire? No. But both are affected primarily by societal valuation of the profession, and it looks like that is sadly pretty consistent worldwide.
Teachers are educators, but not all educators are teachers. Also, the person I was originally responding to may have options in other fields.
If they have options in other fields, they likely know it and are remaining in the education profession because of their love for it; that’s certainly true for every educator I know currently. Many municipal school systems exploit this love ruthlessly to pay their teachers less.
In any case, I am a software engineer and have never had the ability to negotiate my contract to that extent. Teachers typically have significantly less leverage even than I do.