Tux on the Upper West Side

The Beacon School is a selective secondary public school on West 61st Street in New York City. It is a place where students are encouraged to work with computers and technology, not just to run educational software, but to write code, administer networks and troubleshoot hardware. Long on knowledge but short on cash, Beacon is a textbook example of how Linux and Open Source make the impossible possible in education.

The Beacon "tech staff" is a loose gathering of faculty and students, but don't think for a minute that the faculty is there to ladle jargon and useless information onto the kids. These students are maintaining Webservers, learning Perl and rebuilding machines. Beacon is a place unlike any other, and the differences are wonderful.

For instance, there's Tiffany Atiles. Tiffany is the captain of Beacon's girls basketball team. She's also learning Perl and she teaches the teachers HTML. Carmelo Pabon is a tall guy, and he's the captain of the school's Ultimate Frisbee team. He's also incredibly good at taking machines apart to find out what's worth keeping, and what should go; a valuable skill in computer systems triage, especially at a cash-poor high school. The students take an active role in building and maintaining the school's network; Adam Matos, the senior student sysadmin, has root and administrative privileges on every machine in the school. Instead of the standard "spoonfeeding" that takes place in computer labs around the country, Beacon works because there's an overwhelming sense of cooperation, among the students, their parents, and the faculty.

Beacon prides itself on maintaining a dynamic curriculum focused on aestetics, technology and the arts, as well as the high school staples. Due to financial constraints placed on public schools, Beacon has to get the most out of every piece of technology they have. It seems as though Linux is a perfect fit. I recently got to ask Chris Lehmann, the school's technical coordinator, about how Linux has helped Beacon.

"Using Open Source, I was able to scale projects to include the entire school. If we were using proprietary software for all of the services we provide, we'd have to raise tens of thousands of dollars just to pay for e-mail and Web service for everyone. We wanted to start teaching programming... we didn't have to go out and buy compilers, we use the open source compilers on our server. IRC servers for bringing in experts to talk to our classes, mailing lists to support collaboration, we wanted conferencing software, we found great open source projects for Web-based conferencing, and now we're starting to alter the source to make it fit our needs better! Just by offering everyone in the building a stable, robust e-mail, Web and file-server, without ever worrying that we'd go over a user license, we create an atmosphere that encourages the use of the technology. Without Linux and Open Source, that doesn't happen."

Everyone at Beacon is learning a valuable lesson; when technology is implemented in a way that benefits everyone, cool things happen. All of a sudden, they're building Web sites in English class. Not only that, but they're often sharing their work with a "Cyber-Mentor," a program now in its second year, where students work with adults from the outside world on their writing. They're using technology every step of the way, and learning multiple skills as time goes by. Remember Tiffany, the girl's basketball captain? You can hear play-by-play of the games on the school's RealAudio server, as well as poetry readings. Keith Miller's photography class is getting into digital photography.

Thermodynamics tells us that there's no such thing as a completely efficient system. What happens when things go wrong? I asked Chris if any of the students have ever caused a serious problem on the network.

"Define serious... every time Word crashes when a kid hasn't saved their work in the last two hours, we've got a crisis of epic proportion."

"Seriously, not often. We've had a scanner walk out of the building, and we lose our fair share of mouse balls, but we've had very few problems. And I think there is a reason for that. The best hackers in the school work for the tech staff. We encourage kids to learn as much as they can, and we want them to feel like they've got access to anything they'd need to accomplish that. Every student has shell access... and we want them learning as much about Linux as they can."

"I'd say that once or twice a year, we find a kid trying to install a keycoder, or trying to hack into a hole in the server. More often, kids have been fiddling around and thought they'd accidentally wrecked something. I remember the poor student who was trying to learn about TCP settings and hit return right when our T1 line went down. They thought they'd brought down the network."

It raises an interesting point, one that's been recently discussed at length on Slashdot; what isn't allowed on the network at Beacon? It's great to trust kids and work with them, but there's got to be some kind of control there. Chris?

"Installing AOL is verboten, mostly because the kids try to set it to 'Home' setting and it always messes up network connections. Also, I really don't want my kids playing around in the AOL chat rooms... The last thing Beacon needs is a cyber-scandal. Keeping AOL off is a good defense. We also are pretty strict about installing games... again, not just for the obvious reason of 'Games are bad' but rather because most of the games I've seen kids installing off of a download have been buggy or virus-riddled. Also, we do want to control the use of games at school. Even with three open labs, there are always kids wanting to use the computers for their projects... not having games all over the computers make using the computers for educational purposes easier. That being said, when the kids and I have worked in the summer to get the school ready, we've had some pretty amazing Quake games."

"Clearly, porn is not allowed at Beacon, but we don't try to filter out every site. Rather than trying to filter everything, we really work to teach the kids what is and isn't appropriate for school. We also have supervision in the open labs, by both teachers and students, so that there is an expectation of appropriate use."

"Again, I think more important than 'What isn't allowed' is 'How do we teach the students to use the computers well.'"

Using Linux and Open Source software as the infrastructure, Beacon is blazing a new trail in American education. By using free tools and expanding on their functions, Beacon does a lot for a little, and the real winners are the students. When Tiffany, Adam and Carmelo leave high school, they'll have marketable skills in the tech marketplace. While all the other students may not be quite as technically inclined, they'll be familiar with more than just the basics. Beacon teaches students not to be afraid of computers, and if they're good with computers, not to be afraid of their skills. In the words of Chris Lehmann...

"Being a techie isn't a stigma, it's cool. And that rocks."

We're inclined to agree. The case for using Linux and Open Source software in education is getting better and better as each day goes by, and the Beacon School is a shining example.

NPR had a special on another PS### this morning...

Not all New York City schools are this fortunate. Many others are making do with very limited funding, very old computers, and an extremely limited ability to fix the computers that they do have. US Government funding provides a substantial amount of money to schools to get them "wired" for the Internet, but does not provide that much for the computers themselves.

My point, however, is to reiterate something I heard on the same program - that it is possible that these kids are learning how to use computers, but the skills may be taking the place of normal learning activities - like critical thinking (in more than a programming sense), literature, perhaps even more math skills.

Re:Long on Knowledge - short on cash ?

I sympathize with your having to deal with a tech staff throwing buzz words at you. Essentially, the advantage of the IX platforms is pure reliability. I initiated the purchasing of an RS/6000 running AIX as our primary database server about half a year ago, basing its cost efficiency upon the lack of downtime -- working for a sales driven company, an hour of downtime roughly equates to $22,000 worth of loss. The downtimes with IX platforms are much, much lower. This translates into less 'lost opportunity costs'. (The kind that you've probably sued your telco or ISP over at some stage when they violate their uptime guarantees)

I'd imagine your NT servers are being used primarily for user interaction -- possibly metaframes to allow for wide area networking, and possibly fileservers as well as particular application servers. You may even be running your primary domain controller off of windows NT. These are all fine and good uses of Windows NT, administration of which requires a middling skill set to pull it off without dropping bombs. The incredible number of MSCEs kicking about will keep the salaries low.

I would have to hypothesise that your database servers and core heavy applications (webservers, et al) are running on IX systems. IX systems don't tend to crash as much (when you have a good administrator), and they also provide much faster querying times for databases than NT based servers. Take a look at TPC.org [tpc.org] for some benchmarks on the subject. Take note that, yes, NT solutions are cheaper than IX, but look also at the efficiency achieved. It all comes back to opportunity costs, in my mind.

The reason your admins can go snowboarding is probably because they're quite good, although I question the wisdom of letting every IX admin in the house go off snowboarding without leaving at least a skeleton crew. IX administrators do their work in a different way than NT administrators. NT administrators fight fires, whereas IX administrators primarily stop them from occurring.

Fewer people have the skills required to be an excellent IX administrator, and a top-notch one can make your system much more efficient than a middling one. That's why you pay so much money to them. This is also due, as you know, to the current labour shortage in highly responsible technical positions (it seems to be levelling off amongst junior staff and programmers).

Ultimately, the best choice for a mission critical application is an IX system. They don't go down as much, they support much more comprehensive data recovery operations and are much easier to diagnose for difficulties. As well, they scale (in my opinion) much easier than NT servers. When I want to add 60 gigs of storage space to my RS, it takes me somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes, at least half of which is making certain that I'm mounting them appropriately.

Feel free to mail me (Drop the X's), as I'm a business oriented techie, so I may be able to shed some light. Of course, there are many more eminently qualified people who are doubtless right now critiquing my misuse of various terms. No time to proofread.

As for that unhelpful tech staff, I'd suggest that you tell them if they don't start justifying their expenses properly, they aren't going to be passed. It doesn't take /that/ much effort to word things in English. Everybody who has ever tendered a proposal has had to do it at some point.

Off on a bit of a tangent, but you should check on costs of upgrading those NT servers, keeping up on the latest Windows software, etc. You may find that they tally up. -l

marketable skills?

When Tiffany, Adam and Carmelo leave high school, they'll have marketable skills in the tech marketplace

I thought you said they were learning Perl?

Grass root efforts are better

This is great stuff. Reminds me of the Netday efforts honcho'd by an army of volunteers in the local communities. Grass roots efforts always seem to have a bigger positive impact on the kids that the "Only in it for the press" efforts of the big companies who leave as soon as the cameras are gone.

Public HS

I attended a public high school in NYC and had the joys of encountering corporate interest in the school environment. One key topic that this article does not touch on is the effect that large amounts of proprietary hardware or software have on schools, especially large schools. Because we were subsidized by various companies, offering us large amounts of services for a discount, we ended up choosing the route most economic without enough regard for effectiveness, reliability or educational benefits.

I was good friends with a lot of the techies and some of the computer people in the faculty, and I saw some of the weird stuff they had to fix, the strange networking problems they had to deal with, etc. Open Source software would have not only made their projects (and lives) easier due to the reliability, but would have let the students learn more and become more familiar with something that is very useful.

I know I'm pretty much preaching to the choir, but I just wanetd to share my thoughts on Linux in High Schools and especially on the level of interaction and learning of the students.

I say let's see more of this!


-Max

It's important to get them hooked first.

Really, I think that it's important to get kids programming first. They can learn more structured languages when they're ready; more exposure to formal mathematics, for example, will help them a lot, but you just don't get that in high school. Perl gives them positive feedback very quickly, and lets them do useful things from the get go.

Building enthusiasm for programming (not to mention raising its social cachet) is the best thing that could come out of this. Those kids are not professional programmers, but this should not be confused with academic or professional training. It's a light introduction. When they move on to their freshman year of college, they'll have broken through the major barrier of computer education - fear of the computer - and will be ready to learn properly.

Btw, I know/knew Chris Lehmann - he's quite a guy. Those kids are very lucky, even though they probably don't realize it now.

--

A noteworthy point, BUT...

With Perl, kids are more likely to experience success in making programs that do interesting and useful things, within the first week or so. Try to do that with C or C++! On the downside, you're point about poor programming practice is good. The fact that there are 'better' (more structured) languages available as well is true, but Perl has the widespread use (real world examples) and pop-culture appeal that is more likely to capture and hold a kids interest, which I take as a point in Perl's favour.

Re:No! This is awful!

&lt apropos humor >

And God Damn It! No child should be permitted to graduate from High School without experiencing the Blue Screen of Death at least twice daily, lest they be terribly ill-prepared for a real world, corporate Windows environment!

Down with Open Source Education! All Hail the Fuhrer of Computing! One World, One Internet, One Operating System!

Take those penguins away and give the infidels Windows 2000 CDs immediately! (Parents will be charged a nominal $200 class supplies fee, licenses subject to cancellation at Micro$oft's discretion, supplies in our warehouses exceeding capacity and collecting dust, so Act Now!)

&lt /apropos humor >

Perl as an introduction to programming?

These students are maintaining Webservers, learning Perl and rebuilding machines.

Hmmm, this will probably be moderated down as Flame Bait, but it needs to be said anyway. I really must question the wisdom of teaching kids perl as their first programming language. Yes Perl is extremely powerful in the right hands, but it can also be a breeding ground for poor programming practice (even among experienced programmers).
Perl encourages an attitude of "if it works, use it" - this is not good programming practice. I did hear that Python [python.org] was going to become the standard teaching language in American schools and this seems much more sensible to me.

--

Homework assignments and excuses

1) But Miss I did hand in the assignment, check the web interface out you gave me an A.

2) Of course its unreadable Sir, its Perl.

3) I know it doesn't work properly and crashes alot, but I thought you wanted it to be a real world example.

4) No Johnny using server side includes to reference another web site is NOT the same as doing it yourself.

5) Umm Jenny
Yes Sir ?
Could you tell me again why rm -rf /* is a bad thing to do as root ?

And of course top of the shop

6) Oh sir thats not fair, its not my fault I've only got MFC at home.

changes...

"Being a techie isn't a stigma, it's cool. And that rocks."

wow. just think about that for a while. In a high school, the place most of us dreaded, and still remember not so fondly (remember the hellmouth articles? i don't remmember reading a single "I loved highschool" response), times are changing... yesturday, i met with some VC's to do a 3rd round of financing for the company i work, being the CTO, all I mainly did was sit there, and say big words, and flap my arms around, and make it all seem better to the guy with the degree in History, the guy with the degree in English, and the guy with the J.D. About halfway through, they said that we would have to set up a meeting with their lead tech analyst, and they turned to me and they said: "he's a really HUGE geek... he's awsome."

It's happening everywhere people, from the highest mountaintops of corporate finance, to a very forward looking school in New York, it's happening everywhere... the revolution came.... and no one even saw it happen. I applaud all of the students of the Beacon School, their attitudes, their atmosphere, their ability to see, is enlightening, refreshing, and wonderful.

In these times of trenchcoat mafias, and 6 year olds with guns, isn't it amazing to see people cooperating and learning, and feeding off each others good intentions, and embracing the concept of open source, not just for softare, but as a rule of life?

The best hackers in the school work for the tech staff. :) gentlemen, ladies... this is a sign of things to come, all of the hate and oppression associated with geekdom (and I guess differentdom to a degree ;)) is coming to a close, at least in small pockets like these... let's keep nurturing them, let's keep feeding them good open source, see what they an do with it... and i can't wait to work next to people that grew up in an enviroment such as that some day.

The future depends on what we do now

Here is a perfect example of the potential of free and open source software. It can allow our schools to freedom to encourage the next generation of technical people. As the article stated, it is a great fit for schools because it is free, which means that a school can afford to stay with the current technology (meaning that the students aren't learning stuff that is 5 years old and useless in the real world). There is only one problem with this scenario, which is part of the reason the school mentioned in the article is the exception rather than the rule, most schools don't have anyone to guide them down this path.

This is where all of you come in. You have a chance to influence the next generation of techies to use, support, and possibly even contribute code to the software you love. Volunteer your time at your local school. Help them setup and maintain their networks. Offer to speak on technology issues in classes and clubs. Make yourself available to mentor students with an interest in technology.

Schools won't use open source and free software unless someone shows them that it is an option and explains why it is a good option, be that person.

Best school for programming

At least one school in this country "gets it."
At my high school there's porn filters all over the place (a amateur radio site I go to is filtered out at school) as well as having the SSH and IRC ports blocked. Also there's only several computer classes, all which are boring to me (computer repair, VB, computer applications, and computer networking)

I'm also the VP of web design at my computer club, which has gone NOWHERE because everyone's into games. Oh well.

I'll print out this article and give it to the technology director and tell him how badly the school's off technologically.

What would be the first thing I should do to make the school exactly like Beacon?

Re:I'm all for this, but...

Not everyone needs to learn to be a sys-admin. I completely agree.

And importantly, we don't expect everyone at Beacon to do that. It's there as an option (either by working on tech staff, taking electives, working to help teachers develop stuff, etc...) for the kids who want to go further. What we do want all kids to do is realize how technology can make them more powerful students of English, History, Science or Math... how it can make them look at creating art in different ways... More than anything else, we view computers as tools to create.

Especially because we are a city school, where many of our kids don't have the family resources of a more wealthy district, it's very important that we make sure our kids will be able to use the tools of technology after they leave us.

And getting kids excited about computers when they realize how easy HTML is, and how powerful web publishing is to have your work reach a wider audience than just your teacher is just great. Most of these kids won't go on to be sys-admins or web designers or programmers, but hopefully the vast majority will leave here knowing that technology is a powerful tool that they *can* harness.

Of course, I'm writing this in the tech office, watching Tiff take a picture of her teammates holding a Tux penguin with a Star Wars helmet on. So there's a fair amount of silliness, too.

-- Chris Lehmann
-- The Beacon School

I'm all for this, but...

too much emphasis on computers can also be a bad thing. The last thing schools need is to become a technical "vocational school".

Most curricula developed in high schools recently treat computer skills as an end unto themselves. The focus should be on using computers (and OSS) as a tool. I do like seeing things like high school kids using computers to model chemical interactions, study musical composition, perform and analyze experiments, etc. Applying computer skills to solve real-world problems should be the focus.

When I was in high school, most of the 'computer skills' I learned was a BASIC programming class and a bunch of home-grown skills. (Mostly doing with the good ol' Apple IIgs and Mac SE.. UNIX had to wait until college..)

I just don't think "the school for sysadmins" is a necessarily *good* thing. It's really neat for kids to get this hands on experience and all (and is a good application of problem solving skills), but kids today (especially techie types) really need to focus on preparing for a college education as well...