Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education
criticallyconsciouscomputing.org
criticallyconsciouscomputing.org
No it doesn't. See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology. There is a diversity of thoughts and approaches in CS that’s quite unique to the field.
Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be so. Alas, there’s a reason nobody takes humanities seriously anymore.
From the perspective of good faith: please do read "Race After Technology" by Ruha Benjamin and "Algorithms of Oppression" by Safiya Noble. They are two books that i wish more tech and tech adjacent people would read.
> Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be
The two above books are great counterpoints to this mentality. If you want to analyze a system you look at its outcomes, thats basic systems theory. "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows provides both a great introduction to systems theory as well as numerous examples as to why this way of considering them is valuable. Additionally this seems to be a non-rigorous way to interpret any of the humanities. Alas, who is going to expect those in the technologies to consider their work critically.
> See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology.
These are nonsequiters, and do not address the values imparted by both CS education and the culture within. As counter points I can name off the top of my head: locked down bootloaders, proprietary drivers, data ownership, mass surveillance/adtech, about 4 actual OS vendors with dominant control of the market, data set bias. The web as it stands for the majority of people on it very much so fits the standard of centralization. Just because a few fractions of a percent of all internet participants use the internet in a peer-to-peer way a fraction of the time that they use it doesn't provide a fruitful sample of how values are built into the system.
Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
"This focus on middle and high school, and on adolescents is intentional: 12-18 year olds are at a developmental stage where they are just beginning to comprehend their social worlds and their roles and positions in these social worlds. We believe that learning CS in social terms at these ages can not only help them integrate perspectives on computing into their new awareness of the world, but that the ideas in CS itself can help them better understand what it means to be human, to make decisions, and to have intelligence. Children in primary school may be too young for conversations about systemic social conflict. And while adults in postsecondary and beyond need to learn justice-centered CS literacy as well, many are less open to such learning, having hardened their political views as they enter adulthood. We likely need different methods for children and adults."
They know adults will be skeptical of what they teach (with reason). So they try to jam it down children’s throats where there’s little parental oversight. And they aren’t even trying to hide it.
> Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
That's an interesting way of framing it. As if people not ok with these teaching methods were simply too dim witted to engage with this material too “challenging” for them.
Thanks for taking the less than 25 minutes of reading the introduction and citing this paragraph. Lets look at the paragraph directly after it.
| “Our focus is therefore adolescents, and on a counter narrative about computing that views CS as both magical, but also fraught. It simultaneously examines the racist, sexist, ableist, classist reality of our global society, and demonstrates how CS is often used to amplify and reinforce these forms of oppression in daily life. *It shows how only certain people experience the utopian narrative of CS, and those that do go on to perpetuate this narrative in higher education and industry, systematically and often unintentionally excluding those who were never included.* It positions students as agents of social change, both in how they use computing, but also in whether they use it, and to what end. This is a book for secondary CS educators who want to develop the agency and skills to catalyze social change though their students." [emphasis mine]
Your original comment can be upheld as a case in point.
Since we want to be digging for gems, lets engage with some more (cited) quotes.
| “The common thread amongst all of these arguments for CS education above is that computing is a neutral skill: the goal is to educate youth about abstract ideas in CS, and inspire youth to create with those ideas, but rarely question what computing is used for or how it is shaping society. Moreover, these arguments do not question who shaped those ideas, why those ideas were created, and what alternative ideas in CS might exist had different voices participated in shaping them.” (Chapter 2 Section 2: Critical Pedagogy) Which seems to directly point to your OP.
| “At their foundation, Freire’s ideas started from a critique of the “banking” model of education. Freire and Papert thought similarly, both viewing “banking” models of education as fundamentally flawed. Freire was more concerned with oppression, whereas Papert was more concerned with identity and learning. All of the pedagogies discussed earlier are essentially banking models, viewing students as recipients of coding skill knowledge.” (Ibid)
| “In the context of CS, Freire might have argued that people cannot see how they are oppressed by a faceless, nameless credit reporting agency like Experian, which controls the data and credit score calculation algorithms that determine access to loans. And he might have argued that the banking model of education, still widely used throughout public education worldwide, only reinforces this ignorance of the sociopolitical dynamics of CS and their relation to students’ individual lives and opportunities.” (Ibid)
| “Helping students develop a critical consciousness of data requires shifting student perceptions of data as static, abstract, and inert to data as a nuanced relic of the past, with processes, meanings, and contexts that are all but invisible when viewing data itself. The central pedagogical challenge then is to make all of these invisible things about data visible, ideally in a student-centered manner that centers data about students themselves.”
I would suggest reading the whole chapter :) its quite good at explaining exactly what they’re trying to do instead of what you seem to think they’re trying to do. Additionally chapter three is probably more tame than you would think. Since you had Ones as you example, I suggest you read the OS chapter in its entirety. I think if you try to actually read the material without a desire to find all of its flaws first, whatever chapters you might want to (I’ve read 5 since this discussion began) you may find more that you agree with than the few choice snippests
> They know adults will be skeptical of what they teach (with reason).
Yes, because adults will have had reinforced beliefs, a strong metaphysics of and their place in it, and a standard for acceptable values. 12-18 years old in middle through high school, the age ranges where history is taught in earnest and value formation happens both explicitly and implicitly within the curriculums.
> So they try to jam it down children’s throats where there’s little parental oversight. And they aren’t even trying to hide it.
Ah, so education.
The Critical part of Critical Theory, and further moving into Critical Gender Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Critical Pedagogy (this work), is the basic understanding the social values are neither neutral or objective. You are not an objective rational observer, and neither am I. And that is why we must be critical in order to get to the truth—or at least to the tools to discern what that means for ourselves—within the context of a society that extends beyond just our self interest or individual skills.
| critical: A stance on a topic that questions, critiques, evaluates, or judges. In teaching, critical pedagogy refers to any teaching that engages students these activities.
Similarly I got the whitewashing of the genocide of 70M indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere, an idealized, propagandized, and a historical caricature of the founding fathers, persistent refusal to recognize the atrocities committed under chattel slavery, American Adventurism being lightly covered or even displayed in a good light, a lack of critical engagement as to the conditions that led to the civil rights era, or any truthful contemporary history beyond the blip of the fall of the soviet union,,, shoved down my throat. And that’s just the history classes. In the math classes: the tools of math’s primary aim being the methods to do accounting and the ways to guide mortars (an effort that started with Admiral Nimitz' Response to Bredvold's Letter 1941) which is particularly disappointing now having gone through an undergraduate mathematics program. The chemistry classes about ways to make profitable reactions, not socially necessary or useful ones. In physics how to determine thrust for missiles.
Values are being passed down through curriculum whether you want to admit it or not.
As the tone of this comment seems to be scornful of unexamined-by-parents information being taught, I do hope you are forming nuanced, well informed, and diverse in its historiographical methods opinions to teach your children (if you have any).
> As if people not ok with these teaching methods were simply too dim witted to engage with this material too “challenging” for them.
Which teaching methods are you specifically citing here? As they do lay out their pedagogical practices and standards in chapters two and three (which I assume you’ve read up to since you do not like the methods) I’d love to see what blind spots I may be having in reading the text. Your capacity to be challenged does not correlate with your intelligence, no need for passive voice here.