[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Re: [seul-edu] Site@School V2.1 betatesters needed

Hello Everyone,

Two quick ;-) comments.

Doug et al, thanks so much for the help, info and encouragement you've offered for the past couple of years to me and all the contributors and lurkers on the list, and for the tireless effort it entailed. I've been lurking, feeling guilty about not being able to contribute more. You have helped to sustain my interest in OSS for the educational system by providing a sense of community that has always seemed to me to be international in scope and generous in nature. As my kids age and I seem to have stumbled (up?) into administration, I am endeavouring to realize a goal of incorporating Linux into the educational system of which I am a part. When it happens it will be in no small part due to the sustenance that has been provided by this community.

I can't help but throw in my 2 cents worth. While it may at first blush appear that having english as the new lingua franca (huh?) for business and technology is a benefit for Americans ( and all us other english speaking peoples), I think the benefit works both ways. Dutch and Japanese speakers can communicate without intermediaries, while it gets increasingly difficult for english speakers to practice their second (or third) language skills (except here in Quebec :-). It may sound counter intuitive Hans, but I'm not sure you'd enjoy having everyone switch into Dutch when you were trying to practice your english or spanish. In any case, I've heard many european, latin american, south asian voices on this list, and I've always been impressed by the international flavour of linux distros.

Now you know why I don't post often ;-)
Thanks again,
Gordon


Donald J Christensen wrote:

Hans Paijmans wrote:


Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:47:37 -0500 (EST)
Hans Paijmans <j.j.paijmans@uvt.nl> wrote:

Hans> Hans> I personally would feel more sympathy towards seul.org if they were
Hans> not so through-and-through American. They convey the distict feeling
Hans> that anything not origionated in the US of A is not worth very much.


Hans, we should not go in this trap and think that way. May be most
members of the Seu/Edu list are orginated from USA but I don't agree with
your statement.


I  feel sad when I think of the americans that I like and the
americans that I admire (possibly disjunct sets). But do not
forget that I, an assistant professor on a dutch university
will be forced to teach in english for a class of dutch students
and to discuss the affairs of my faculty in english in a meeting
of dutch staff members...


Who is forcing you and how are they doing it?

I have friends with graduate degrees in theoretical mathematics
that had to take Russian and/or German (can't remember which offhand)
language classes as part of their required classwork.  The reason was
because much of the research in their field was published in those
languages.  Were they offended because it happened that their field
of interest was established primarily by foreign language speakers?
No.

If you are upset about working in a field where research is published
and collaboration is done in the English language, you certainly should
not be angry at Americans.  Perhaps you should find a different field
that is dominated by a language more to your liking.

-Don