Racial Justice Amidst the Dangers of Computing Creep: A Dialogue

In this episode I unpack Shah and Yadav’s (2023) publication titled “Racial justice amidst the dangers of computer creep: A dialogue,” which presents a dialogue that problematizes issues around racial justice in computing education.

  • Why do we actually want people to learn

    Computing will more people learning

    Computing actually Advance racial

    Justice if not why are we calling for

    more Computing education these questions

    are posed on PDF page 7 by the authors

    needle Shah and Aman yadav apologies for

    mispronouncing their names in the paper

    titled racial Justice amidst the dangers

    of computing creep colon a dialogue

    here's the abstract for that paper quote

    the push for computing education in p-12

    schools which parallels the ongoing

    proliferation of computing in society

    has accelerated in recent years with

    respect to racially minoritized groups

    this Dynamic of computing creep has

    manifested and calls to broaden

    participation typically with the promise

    of access to economic opportunities in

    the Computing industry but whose

    interest does this broadening

    participation narrative actually serve

    is this narrative adequate to the Urgent

    project of racial Justice and if not

    what as a field do we need instead in

    this article we present a dialogue that

    Echoes major debates in the field about

    these critical issues first we discuss

    current trends and approaches to racial

    equity and racial Justice in Computing

    education now next we consider the

    possibilities and limits of a systemic

    change in the field finally we debate

    whether it is even possible for

    computing education to advance racial

    Justice given the corporate and

    governmental stakeholders that currently

    shape the field of computing we conclude

    with questions and provocations for the

    field to consider as this dialogue

    continues end quote so today's episode

    of the csk8 podcast is going to unpack

    this paper in relation to Computer

    Science Education mainly as the author

    said in the peak K-12 grade levels if

    you don't know who I am my name is Jared

    Leary I've worked with every single

    grade kindergarten through doctoral

    student in music education and computer

    science education context as well as

    overseeing and designing professional

    development and creating curriculum

    content used by Educators and students

    all around the world but now I'm a

    professional gamer drummer and computer

    science educator who hosts this podcast

    in other words a professional nerd I

    gotta say whenever I read these articles

    I go through it in advance and like

    highlight some sections and quotes that

    I think are interesting so that way I

    can read it off and I'm skipping through

    it right now and honestly more words are

    highlighted than not if not like 3 4 of

    like some of the pages so I highly

    recommend taking a look at this article

    it is available for free I do include a

    link to it in the show notes as it is

    found on Google Scholar the show notes

    can be found at jaredoleery.com where

    there are hundreds if not thousands of

    free computer science education

    resources as well as 176 podcast

    episodes before this one that I highly

    recommend checking out because there's

    some awesome guests who have been

    interviewed on the show as well as more

    unpacking scholarship episodes like this

    one it's also a bunch of gaming and

    drumming stuff on there because again

    I'm a nerd and that might interest you

    as well so the paper begins with

    questions who are we why this dialogue

    the authors kind of summarize that they

    have a background a wide-ranging

    background in education for well over 20

    years the authors have been both working

    in the fields in different ways so as a

    teacher researcher teacher educator as a

    programmer Computer Science Education

    researcher

    Etc nibel describes themselves as quote

    a brown boy in the midwestern United

    States end quote who grew up with

    structural racism and then Amman

    describes himself as somebody who spent

    their time living in a privileged upper

    middle class lifestyle in India for the

    first 21 years of the life and then has

    been in the United States as I quote

    minoritized brown man still with certain

    privileges for the last 22 years end

    quote both those quotes are from page

    one of the PDF now an important thing

    that the authors note in the

    introduction is that this is just one

    lens or one way that you can look at

    justice-related issues in education so

    from a racial lens so they zoom in that

    microscope specifically on this but

    acknowledge there are many social

    justice issues in education that we also

    need to discuss as a field so the office

    talk about how they are going to engage

    in a collaborative dialogue now this

    kind of reminds me honestly of like a

    podcast discussion between two people

    who have spent a lot of time thinking

    through and doing research on racial

    Justice issues related to education

    again I highly recommend taking a look

    at this actual paper but I'm going to do

    my best to summarize just enough to make

    you go wow that was a cool episode and

    wow I really want to read that paper so

    the first question that the authors pose

    is what do you see as significant Trends

    in competing education and what are

    their implications for racial justice so

    neural Begins by discussing something

    known as Computing creep which is quote

    the encroachment of computing

    Technologies as well as discourses about

    Computing into nearly every dimension of

    human life end quote from PDF page two

    so they relate this to the Warfare term

    Mission creep which talks about quote a

    slow drift away from a military

    endeavor's original goals as the mission

    expands in unfocused and often harmful

    directions end quote so they talk about

    how this has kind of happened with

    Computing education how might you ask

    here's another quote from page two that

    answers that quote we are currently

    seeing an unprecedented push of

    computing into Peak 12 education systems

    across the U.S with calls for compulsory

    Computing education and changes to

    graduation requirements in part this

    trend is the result of Decades of slow

    building federal state and local policy

    so the author describes how competing

    creep has occurred when Computer Science

    Education policy efforts had kind of

    like made this big push for computer

    science in K-12 education whether it's

    like hey we're going to have mandatory

    standards which I've talked about in

    recent episodes on some of the problems

    with standards like check out episode

    function of Standards quote the

    curriculum is a mind-altering device or

    check out the episode before that 174

    educational aims objectives and other

    aspirations these pushes for computer

    science and schools have made it so that

    there's more funding from the government

    and from corporations and more

    opportunities to get computer science

    into the schools sounds great right I

    mean who wouldn't turn down like a large

    NSF grant for broadening participation

    to help out minoritize individuals or

    groups in communities across the United

    States we've also had this push for

    Concepts like computational thinking

    which I ranted about in the last episode

    called the end of programming which is

    episode 176 all of these pushes for

    computer science education has led to

    more teachers teaching computer science

    and more students engaging with computer

    science so that's a good thing right

    well maybe the author mentions on PDF

    page two quote it proliferates with few

    checkpoints and with little

    consideration of its effects on society

    end quote so they mentioned that a

    concept known as mathematical thinkings

    came about in the post Sputnik 1950s and

    so many mathematics Educators Drew on

    analogies between mathematics and like

    making music or rather compositions of

    music or even plot structures and like

    Shakespeare's works and honestly I

    hadn't actually heard of this concept

    but some of the parallels that they were

    drawing definitely resonate with me and

    what I've heard on computational

    thinking relating it to anything and

    everything like tying your shoes which

    again if you didn't listen to last

    week's episode I would argue that's not

    computational thinking that's just tying

    your shoes so near it all ends this

    section by asking quote who does

    Computing creep actually serve and

    further does competed creep actually

    serve racial Justice end quote Amman

    picks up here so this dialogue kind of

    goes back and forth and so they say who

    the author is that's kind of talking

    about different stuff and when they have

    like a joint statement together now

    amman's response I honestly we could get

    a pillow for him and just like put it

    right underneath where he would drop

    that mic because it's a doozy of a quote

    Simon Begins by saying okay well this

    push for putting Computing and computer

    science into p12 schools is problematic

    in some ways one reason might be because

    the push is largely driven by a narrow

    of trying to get people into pursuing a

    career in computer science or getting

    into pursuing like continued education

    and higher education like to get a major

    or degree in computer science quote the

    notion goes that if we introduce

    Computing from the early grades students

    will be more likely to take Computing

    courses as they move through the p12

    system and beyond the eventual goal

    being to meet labor demand in the tech

    industry while I believe in pluralistic

    goals of computing education and agree

    that we need students to pursue

    Computing Majors I find the values

    behind competing creep to be problematic

    the way we do Computing now is not

    designed to serve teachers or their

    students end quote now you might be

    listening to that and go wait what so

    among goes a little bit further and

    asserts that quote right now competing

    education is designed to Value the goals

    of computing not the needs of teachers

    and students for example a number of

    professional development opportunities

    for elementary teachers focus on

    teaching them scratch so they can bring

    coding into the classroom to teach

    disciplinary content like math or

    English language arts or Worse

    elementary teachers go to a limited

    professional development to learn to

    teach the Cs fundamentals course in both

    of these cases we forget that elementary

    teachers are not Computing teachers and

    that they do not have the Computing

    expertise to be able to teach Standalone

    CS or adapt scratch to fit their

    curriculum plus we should not be

    burdening teachers to figure out how to

    use coding to teach course subjects just

    so we can introduce coding to Young

    Learners there is also no evidence that

    using coding to teach disciplinary ideas

    actually leads to Better Learning in

    those disciplines in fact it may even

    hurt learning a recent study with a

    large number of elementary students

    found that using scratch to teach

    mathematics Concepts example euclidean

    division additive decomposition and

    factions led to negative effects on

    students proficiency with those

    mathematical ideas end quote that's from

    PDF page 2 and page three and oh boy now

    that Amman has potentially raised some

    hackles on the back of your neck let me

    further drive it home as somebody who

    previously created the professional

    development that taught teachers how to

    do scratch I agree and so both the

    authors actually talk about this a

    little bit more later on so I won't do a

    rant right here quite yet I'll talk

    about it more a little bit later so stay

    tuned so Mom goes on to describe what

    racial equity and Computing education

    means to them and aligns heavily with

    all the things I've talked about on

    interest driven learning I'll include

    links to other podcast episodes in the

    show notes at jaredolary.com it's a more

    interest driven learning podcast

    episodes like the interview with Mitch

    Resnick which is titled lifelong

    kindergarten with Mitch Resnick and

    that's episode 106. and so naral

    responds by talking a little bit more

    about their understanding of racial

    equity and Computing education and they

    probably denies something that I've

    talked about in other episodes

    specifically on integration so I'll

    include a link to some integration

    podcast episodes again at jaredleary.com

    so one of the things they mentioned is

    that by crowbarring computer science and

    Computing education into domains like

    let's say in elementary school this

    makes it so that there is less time for

    other subject areas that might be better

    suited to address some of the racial

    issues that have been going on in

    schools and in the communities that the

    students are living in and beyond that

    so for example less time for social

    studies and Humanities education in

    schools because we are now trying to add

    in more standards which is one of the

    concerns that I have is that as we

    continue to add in yet another subject

    area every few years we're going to get

    to a point where we spend so little time

    on all all of them that they're all just

    diluted and we just skim the surface of

    understanding in many different areas

    that are all important for different

    reasons now the next section starting on

    page three asks the questions what are

    dominant approaches to racial equity and

    Justice in Computing education how do

    you appraise their potential to achieve

    those goals so mom begins this section

    by talking about how there's a belief

    that in order to remove racism from

    products and Technologies Etc we need to

    have more people of color in particular

    in Computing jobs Computing careers Etc

    how do we do this well we need to

    diversify the pool of people who are

    computer scientists and who work on

    those products and we do this by

    starting earlier in the p12 schooling

    system and encouraging from preschool

    kindergarten Etc to start learning how

    to engage with computer science either

    through coding or maybe through

    computational thinking and in order to

    actually teach this we have had to have

    trained thousands of teachers over the

    last several years in order to try and

    fill this Gap or this need in order to

    address the new standards the new

    policies the new District in state

    mandates which might assist with

    broadening participation not just in the

    p12 OR K-12 but in higher education and

    in the tech industry but to do this

    quote we need to ensure that students

    have highly qualified teachers with

    knowledge of computing and that teachers

    are implementing pedagogical approaches

    that Center students lived experiences

    End quotes from page four and that is

    something that I strongly recommend and

    designed into professional development

    experiences I created as well as the

    curricular content that I created it was

    all about getting it so that teachers

    could focus on working with students

    one-on-one helping them explore their

    interests in a way that was individually

    meaningful for them rather than just

    saying hey 30 students you're all going

    to create the exact same project it was

    hey 30 students let's all create 30

    unique projects that are interesting to

    each one of you maybe you'll work

    together maybe you'll work on your own

    maybe you'll work on a different pace

    and in my own class it was maybe like

    you was a different language than the

    person next to you you might use Swift

    the other person might use Ruby the next

    person might use JavaScript the next

    person might use scratch I don't know

    not only were the projects determined by

    what students if you're interested but

    so were the platforms the languages and

    even the pedagogies that I'd use for

    them some students really wanted to work

    in groups and other students really

    didn't want that at all they just wanted

    to work on their own I was one of those

    students I prefer to just work on my own

    let me even if it's harder I want to

    just like figure out how to do this and

    that worked well for me so for students

    like those I worked with them using a

    different pedagogical approach than

    students who preferred to work with

    other people and that's okay that should

    be expected and thankfully I had

    administrators who came in and valued

    that they liked seeing how I was

    treating the students as Unique

    Individuals and they like seeing

    students who would normally disengaged

    in their other classes very much so

    engaged in creating something that was

    actually meaningful to them they didn't

    have this opportunity in most of their

    other classes so if you have an

    administrator who's like no I want to

    see everyone doing the same thing I

    guess a question that you might ask them

    is what's more important having everyone

    obey and follow the same rules or

    getting it so that people actually enjoy

    learning my answer clearly is the second

    one but for an administrator they might

    disagree and if you do just tell them

    that Dr O'Leary says they're wrong it'll

    make me laugh Dr earlier by the way I

    just go by Jerry but there are more

    nuances to this that are discussed in

    this particular paper and that can be

    discussed outside of this so narelle

    responds then talks about how this

    framing of discourse around like

    Computing jobs being a way to advance

    oneself economically while it may be

    true for individuals it might not

    necessarily be true for communities at

    scale quote broadening participation in

    Computing serves corporate interests by

    offering an expanded labor Supply from

    which to select the most productive

    workers it is true that this might

    benefit an elite subset of bipoc

    individuals but the macroeconomics of

    the global labor market mean that access

    Computing is unlikely to ever benefit

    bipoc communities at scale end quote

    it's from page four that is a really

    important distinction to make yeah

    certain individuals might like really

    benefit from high salary working in a

    Computing job is that going to

    necessarily improve bipod communities

    maybe question mark probably not but in

    episode 117 I unpacked a paper titled

    stem diversity and inclusion efforts for

    women of color Cohen a critique of the

    new labor system and this particular

    paper it talked about how we could use

    sharecropping as a metaphor for what

    goes on in corporations in particular

    how they treat bipoc individuals so yeah

    there are economic incentives but these

    bypoc individuals are moving into

    communities that do not support their

    individuality or what they bring to the

    table in terms of their experiences

    their understandings their cultural

    identities so even if people are making

    more money by going into a Computing job

    they might be going into a job that is

    abusive treats them poorly has this like

    bro culture that is like known in a lot

    of Silicon Valley type jobs is that a

    win I can say it's not worth it to stick

    around a hostile culture just for a

    paycheck if anything it'll make you

    resent the field so personally like I've

    chosen to lead jobs like that in the

    past and I'd recommend the same thing

    for other people who are experiencing

    similar things so just because we might

    be giving higher paying jobs to buy POC

    individuals doesn't mean we've at all

    addressed all the problems that will

    come with that high paying job

    potentially and again going back to to

    narelle's point this is just focusing on

    individuals not on how to improve

    communities so then we switch back to a

    response from Amman and the response is

    basically so if all of these problems

    exist quote what does a Computing

    education focus on racial Justice look

    like first we cannot just focus on

    Computing Education Without addressing

    the underlying inequities that teachers

    and students face in their schools in

    Computing education this has manifested

    when we put teachers in classrooms with

    only one week of professional

    development without any formal training

    in Computing this again is driven by the

    need to expand access where curriculum

    providers count the number of teachers

    trained as evidence of success in the

    name of access we are providing students

    of color with an inferior Computing

    education second we need to move away

    from focusing on just developing

    technical competencies within Computing

    education and instead Center social

    political aspects of design and

    deployment of Technology this requires

    us to rethink the goals of competing

    education what we teach in it and how we

    teach it equity and inclusion goals of

    computing cannot be achieved with a race

    evasive and neutral stance towards

    Computing Computing education should

    focus on preparing students to not only

    be designers of Technologies but also

    develop critical perspectives about

    Technologies we should use Computing to

    develop critics knock technicians end

    quote this is from page four PDF alright

    so there's two main ideas there one has

    to do with like teachers and the other

    has to do with the aims or goals of

    curricula or education in general so a

    couple years ago I was a co-author on a

    paper titled measuring the effect of

    continuous professional development on

    Elementary teachers's self-efficacy to

    teach coding and computational thinking

    which is a mouthful one of the things

    that we talked about is how important it

    is to not just do this Workshop or weak

    model where it's just like here's

    everything you need to know about

    Computing and cool we'll see you never

    again enjoy have fun and good luck

    you're gonna need it instead the

    approach that we recommend in the

    article is taking a continuous

    professional development approach that

    took the course of two to three years so

    maybe once or twice a quarter we'd have

    a professional development person go in

    they'd facilitate maybe a 6 sour

    Workshop that not only introduced the

    concepts that the teachers needed to

    understand but also the pedagogies to do

    that and so they modeled this in the

    professional development session in a

    way that they might teach it with

    students and then we unpack the

    pedagogies of like well how did I teach

    it in this way and each time we would do

    these professional developments would be

    a different way to teach a different way

    to model it every single time so when a

    teacher would come back the next quarter

    they'd learn something new like one time

    we might focus on assessment types and

    different types of assessment another

    time we might focus on how to help

    students with debugging or whatever we

    could have done all of this in a week

    but this would have been a disservice to

    the teachers by making it so that we

    introduced just enough to get the

    teachers ready to go for that next

    quarter and to be able to be independent

    and work through all the lessons that I

    had created they would have time to

    learn something Implement over the

    quarter and then come back and learn

    something new that period of

    implementation made it so that they

    could come back with questions and go

    hey I actually tried this and here's

    something that worked really well and

    here's something else that I got some

    questions about if we had done all of

    the PD sessions in a week-long period

    and said good luck you're on your own

    they wouldn't have had that opportunity

    to actually try implementing it with the

    students and come back with questions

    and follow up with hey what's are some

    pedagogies that might help me with

    students who are having difficulties

    with blah or I want to talk more about

    this other thing when you did that for

    multiple quarters over two or three

    years it really did help improve

    self-efficacy of those teachers were

    engaging this so again check out that

    paper if you're interested in learning

    more about it I'll link to it in the

    show notes so I very much so agree with

    what Amman is saying right here we can't

    just give them a bunch of knowledge in a

    workshop for a weekend or a weekend and

    say cool you've learned everything you

    need to know about Computer Science

    Education have fun that is not helping

    the teachers and that is not going to

    help the students either this is my own

    opinion here but if you are signing up

    for professional development with a

    company some kind of organization

    whatever that claims that they'll be

    able to teach you everything you need to

    know about computer science in a weekend

    or in a week and you've never done any

    computer science before they're lying to

    you what's likely happening is they're

    having this like teacher in my box

    approach where the curriculum just

    teaches it for you and you're there

    basically for classroom management that

    kind of professional development

    experience is likely going to be a waste

    of your time and is likely going to

    teach pedagogies that have nothing to do

    with racial Justice and Equity because

    it's most likely going to teach you how

    to teach everybody the exact same way

    rather than working with individuals

    one-on-one which is where you should be

    heading in my opinion but that actually

    leads into the second point so the

    second point is maybe a bit of a

    difference of opinion in images of

    curriculum I talk about this more in

    episode 125 which is titled images of

    curriculum but some people might

    conceive of curriculum as content or

    subject matter others might think of it

    as a program and plan activities some

    might think it's intended learning

    outcomes or cultural reproduction or

    just curriculum as an experience or

    discrete tasks and Concepts or as an

    agenda for social reconstruction which

    I'd argue might be what Amman is arguing

    for or curriculum as career

    Etc there are many different ways that

    you can kind of conceive of the aims of

    Education these images of curriculum and

    aims of Education may or may not align

    with some of the Visions for Education

    that I discussed in episode 20 see us

    for what diverse visions of Computer

    Science Education in practice maybe you

    think that computer science should be a

    digital literacy maybe you think it

    should be a form of self-expression

    maybe you think it should be a vocation

    training like to get a job as a computer

    scientist or a programmer whatever all

    these different images and Visions may

    or may not align with your colleagues or

    your administrators or your policy

    makers in your state and so we need to

    have conversations around this if you

    haven't listened to those episodes I do

    highly recommend taking a look at them

    and they are listed in the show notes at

    jaredoleery.com for this episode so that

    final statement that I read off the

    quote for which was we should use

    Computing to develop critics not

    technicians it depends on what your

    Visions are and depends on what your

    images of curricular are while I might

    agree with this statement other people

    might disagree and that's to be expected

    to be honest in education so the next

    question is what are some approaches in

    Computing education you find promising

    and what are the limits of those

    approaches so I feel like Amman and I

    would get along really well here because

    so here's a quote from page four quote I

    have problems with Computing pedagogies

    that push students into cookie cutter

    curricula and put them in passive roles

    rather than being active participants in

    their own learning this is against what

    I believe is a value of computing to

    empower students As Leaders of their own

    creativity and learning end quote PDF

    page four I totally agree this podcast

    if I haven't made it clear enough in

    this particular episode really focuses

    on Equity issues and I often discuss

    about it in relation to interest driven

    learning if you think of Interest as

    like a broader framing of culturally

    relevant or culturally responsive or

    culturally responsive sustaining

    pedagogies Etc which I've talked about

    in several other episodes not only does

    interest account for cultures that a lot

    of people identify in terms of like

    demographic information like somebody's

    race or ethnicity or their gender or

    their socioeconomic status or their

    disability status or what their primary

    language is at home Etc we can also

    broaden that understanding to also

    include like interest in like drumming

    or in video games or sport courts or

    underwater basket weaving it's as broad

    or interest driven area that can account

    for not only different cultures that are

    identity related but cultures that are

    identity related outside of demographics

    that are often discussed in survey data

    Etc I describe myself one of the reasons

    as a multiplicity because I have many

    identities like I said at the start of

    this podcast I'm a gamer I'm a drummer

    I'm a computer science educator and

    those are just three of the labels that

    I'd like use to describe myself all of

    those have different cultures that kind

    of intersect with each other and diverge

    from each other in interesting ways at

    least in my opinion and if we focus on

    interest driven learning it can account

    for not only racial Equity issues and

    allow students to explore that and

    hopefully improve the issues that might

    be impacting them or people they know

    negatively or even people they don't

    know but it also allows them to explore

    other things that might be a lighter

    topic as I've talked about in other

    episodes sometimes students go to a

    class just to escape some of that like I

    enjoyed music classes so much because it

    didn't make me think about all of the

    injustice businesses that were going on

    in the world that was literally making

    me suicidal which I talk about more in

    episode 48 titled depression suicide and

    computer science education I highly

    recommend people listening to that

    episode it is the only episode that I

    repeat every year for National Suicide

    Prevention Week because I think it is

    that important for people to be aware of

    this but the point is some students

    might want to dive into some like social

    justice issues in computer science class

    great we should allow them to do that

    other people might not and from a mental

    health standpoint from an SEL standpoint

    they might be doing that because they

    need that mental break from those topics

    because they're engaging that whether

    they want to or not because of their

    lived experiences and their data to day

    lives which is why in other episodes

    I've said we should allow the

    opportunity and encourage people to

    explore social justice issues but not

    necessarily require it of everybody

    especially in instances where it might

    negatively impact a student's like

    well-being if they're surrounded by

    those issues 24 7 and can't escape them

    hopefully that makes sense but as I've

    learned by sharing stuff on social media

    a lot of what I say gets taken out of

    context unintentionally so so apologies

    if I offend anybody it's not the the

    what I'm going for I'm just trying to

    help here's another interesting quote

    that neural says in this particular

    section quote Computing Prof essionals

    and competing Educators who themselves

    find Joy while learning Computing tend

    to over extrapolate from their own

    experiences bipok Joy should be a

    priority but joy can be found in a

    number of educational Pursuits we should

    not assume that there are versions of

    computing education that will have Mass

    Appeal end quote that's from page five

    that is such an important point to make

    I learned that the hard way the my

    senior year I started teaching Drumline

    my senior year of high school because we

    didn't have an instructor anymore and so

    I was like oh I'm a section leader

    um I want to become an educator so my

    band director is like cool you can teach

    the Drumline great experience for myself

    maybe not for some of the students that

    I work with because I very quickly

    learned that my obsessive passion for

    learning how to improve and get better

    at the drums while that may have like

    made it so that I was practicing many

    hours a day every single day of the week

    that was not shared by everybody else on

    the Drumline while drumming may have

    literally saved my life it was just a

    hobby that some somebody was doing for

    fun or for social reasons and I didn't

    understand that those two things could

    exist simultaneously in the same space

    and that's okay so it's the same thing

    with like competing education one of the

    things that you might ask yourself is

    okay well if you had a really good

    experience in computer science classes

    maybe in high school that you took and

    you really enjoyed it let's say there

    are 30 people in that class how many of

    those 30 people ended up becoming

    computer science Educators or went into

    the field of computer science my guess

    is it's not 100 why is that well because

    it's not going to resonate with anyone

    and everyone I mean think about like all

    of the other careers and subject areas

    you're not going into or not teaching

    why didn't those all resonate with you

    in the way that computer science may

    have those same reasons why you did not

    go into becoming a professional

    underwater basket Weaver are likely the

    same reasons why somebody's not going

    into Computer Science Education or

    computer science as a career and that's

    okay which is why I know I unpopularly

    share the opinion that I don't think any

    subject area should be required but I

    won't rant about that today now a little

    bit further down around says quote what

    worries me is when schools and teachers

    tried to connect with bypoc identities

    and cultural practices mainly for the

    purpose of increasing access to dominant

    forms of Education which is usually

    about producing workers better

    positioned for the modern labor market a

    little bit further down quote where do

    we actually need Computing although it

    might be technically possible to use

    algorithms to analyze Toni Morrison's

    writings what is the purpose of this

    exercise end quote and that's something

    that I have critiqued on like the

    Integrations of computer science and

    especially computational thinking into

    other areas like the Arts like my

    backgrounds in music education at least

    all my degrees are and I was a band

    director and general music educator and

    percussion director Etc and so whenever

    I see somebody talk about computer

    science and music my ears perk up

    because I've done a lot of presentations

    and written Publications on that and my

    dissertations even on that intersection

    so I'm like yeah let's see what you got

    I can't wait to learn from you and then

    when it's something like well we can

    analyze like how the structure of lyrics

    is like the same thing as using a loop

    okay you could do that but I don't know

    any composers or lyricists who would do

    that so why but if we connect with what

    I think the author is saying because

    again like language is situated so maybe

    a misunderstanding which has certainly

    happened to me with some of these

    podcast episodes where people listen to

    something I'm like oh that's an

    interesting interpretation not what I

    meant but I often see people engage with

    different cultures in culturally

    specific way rather than a culturally

    relevant way like we're going to engage

    in a lesson about ex-culture or X

    identity and you might learn some facts

    and figures about that culture and you

    might engage in some computer science

    Concepts and practices but it's

    basically putting the culture on display

    often in a way that is One Direction

    you're looking at this culture you're

    observing it you're not actually

    engaging in dialogue with that culture

    or that identity you're just talking

    about them or learning about them and

    why are you doing that one way that we

    might interpret that is it's to serve

    corporate needs we want people to see a

    place doing this thing and we need more

    workers so so this is one way to do it

    I'm not saying that's what's going on

    but that's a way that you can interpret

    that and so it's important for us to

    consider how are we doing this now if

    that sounds alarming to you or you want

    to learn more about this idea John

    Stapleton and I talk about this in a

    paper that is called fostering

    intersectional identities through

    rhizomatic learning and this is episode

    reading off different sections of that

    paper so I highly recommend taking a

    look at that to kind of learn more about

    like what does culturally relevant mean

    and how does that differ from culturally

    specific education which is what I often

    see people mislabeling as culturally

    relevant education or culturally

    responsive education and again I'll link

    to that in the show notes at

    jaredoleery.com now one more thing that

    the authors mentioned that I'll talk

    about here and again I recommend reading

    this paper is they talk about the

    importance of including ethics but

    mineral has a really good point about

    how quote Business Schools have had

    mandatory ethics courses for years but

    it hasn't stopped malfeasance in the

    corporate world such education might

    make Executives aware that they're doing

    that what they're doing is unethical but

    too often capitalist concerns override

    ethical decision making end quote and

    both those arguments really make sense

    to me yeah we should be talking about

    ethics and if you do happen to follow

    computer science standards you probably

    have some standards related to ethics of

    computing but it doesn't necessarily

    mean people are going to follow it I

    mean how many times have we seen speed

    limits posted everywhere and you look

    and you see somebody who is like you

    know going 20 over while checking their

    Twitter feed they're aware that there's

    a speed limit and they're just choosing

    to get somewhere else faster it doesn't

    mean they're following the speed limit

    or you know safe driving so while it's

    important to talk about ethics we also

    need to kind of talk about enforcing

    those ethics flow whether it's through

    policy or responses from groups and

    corporations now one episode that kind

    of talks about that is episode 153 and

    so if you listen to it's titled what if

    freera had Facebook a critical

    interrogations of social media woke

    culture among privileged voices in

    computer science education discourse I

    highly recommend taking a look at that

    one and talks about like cancer culture

    and things like that and how you can

    respond in ways that engage in dialogue

    with problematic behaviors like

    problematic ethics or the lack of in

    like Tech fields or careers or products

    Etc and hopefully you can gauge in

    dialogue in ways that don't just come

    across as virtue signaling so if you

    want to learn more about that take a

    look at that episode again episode 153

    it's in the show notes at

    jaredoleery.com all right so the next

    question that the office talks about is

    how do we actually change the system of

    computing education towards racial

    Justice is this even possible so Aman

    begins this by talking about how quote

    curriculum providers focus on scale

    which means they want to reach as many

    students as possible by providing short

    professional learning workshops for a

    large number of teachers we need to

    bring Computing education to p12

    classrooms in ways that support teachers

    to collaborate locally with Community

    experts and technologists end quote this

    is from page six of the PDF I totally

    agree and I think we need to engage in

    this in a way that teaches them how to

    fish rather than teaching them like

    here's this teacher in a box teacher

    proof curriculum that you you can use

    and is not at all related to your kids

    but it's being used around the world so

    it's got to be great right no ideally

    you want to be able to modify the

    projects modify the content to match the

    individuals that you are working with

    just because like award-winning

    Educators researchers Scholars blah blah

    have worked on the curriculum doesn't

    mean it's great for every kid that you

    work with so I highly recommend

    customizing them in some kind of way so

    if you are signing up for professional

    development that doesn't encourage you

    to do that I'd cost somewhere else and

    if you don't have the opportunity to go

    somewhere else then you're likely going

    to need to find ways to customize it on

    your own this podcast can likely help

    with that especially the interviews that

    chat with some CS Educators across the

    K-12 and higher education space who talk

    about how they actually do that so check

    out some of those podcasts now naral has

    a really interesting point on page six

    it says quote the major forces now

    pushing Computing were not created to

    prioritize racial Justice thus we

    shouldn't be surprised when they do

    things that propagate racism end quote

    it's from page six what are these major

    forces well like Government Federal

    state local non-profits corporations Etc

    and again that podcast episode that's a

    critique of the new labor system kind of

    talks about this a little bit however

    here's a little thing that I'm going to

    kind of add to that in 2020 after George

    Floyd was murdered we had a lot of

    organizations and corporations talk

    about how Equity was so important to

    them not only as like organization as a

    collective but as individuals within

    that Collective if you were in an

    organization like that a question that

    you might ask people in your

    organization and yourself is to have

    each one of you name one act of support

    or involvement or Improvement they as

    individuals or as a collective have made

    that aligned with the shared supports

    that those organizations posted on their

    socials if you don't have an abundantly

    long list of things to share then your

    organization's actions and words might

    not be aligned with the statements that

    were released and people within those

    organizations and people outside of

    those organizations have taken notes so

    I totally agree that we really need to

    talk about racial justice issues as well

    as other Equity centered issues but we

    can't just talk the talk we gotta walk

    the walk I'm trying to do that with this

    podcast by like really emphasizing

    Equity issues in a variety of equity

    issues not just race like is discussed

    in this particular paper but also in

    like the service that I do for different

    organizations and just my general

    day-to-day being but I know that's

    easier said than done depending on what

    kind of a job you have where you live

    Etc some of you have more pressures and

    stresses than I do and I've always kind

    of been fortunate enough that I could

    say what are you gonna do fire me that's

    fine you don't like that I'm engaged in

    equity work I don't want to work

    somewhere that doesn't want me to be

    engaged in equity work but you might not

    have the Privileges that I've got to be

    able to take that kind of stance and I

    understand that so one of the things

    that the authors are arguing for is

    perhaps focus on a harm reduction model

    if you don't think like you can actually

    do something to change the policies that

    are negatively impacting the communities

    and the people that you work with but

    I'm on on page six mentions quote I do

    believe that Computing is a foundational

    literacy to be an informed Citizen and

    we could teach it in ways that put local

    community goals at the center and

    Advance racial Justice end quote and

    that really resonates with me however I

    received a really interesting comment on

    YouTube on one of the excerpts or

    highlights from a podcast that I

    recently did the comment brought us some

    interesting points that can kind of

    relate to this so what if the

    community's like local interest was

    actually against advancing racial

    Justice which we have seen in some areas

    what do we do at that point and if we

    say that's problematic and try and say

    no you need to do that is that a form of

    colonization and I don't really have an

    answer to that particular prompt so I'm

    just gonna throw that out into the ether

    and say what do you think but the last

    couple of questions that the authors

    have is what strategic visions do you

    see as promising in Computing education

    to advance racial Justice what questions

    would you pose to the field some of

    those questions are read at the very

    beginning but here are a couple more

    that were not read quote is more

    Computing in the p12 curriculum really a

    good thing who does more Computing

    actually benefit and does that actually

    serve bipod communities end quote and

    those are some certainly interesting

    questions to consider now at the end of

    these unpacking scholarship episodes I

    don't get to share some of my own

    questions or lingering plots again I

    highly recommend reading through this

    paper I highlighted the majority of it

    and linked to it at jaredeliry.com in

    the show notes but a question that I

    have is will the authors make the same

    recommendations for improving racial

    Equity if they focused on other forms of

    equity if not which approach to

    competing education do you use when you

    have to choose between focusing on one

    form of equity over another so if

    they're going to be different like I'm

    going to teach one way that is more

    beneficial to addressing race related

    Equity issues versus another pedagogical

    approach or even content that would be

    better suited for I don't know

    addressing trans related Equity issues

    which one do you choose at what scale do

    you make those decisions off of is it

    that we focus on higher percentages of

    groups being impacted with the

    communities that we serve or do we make

    those decisions based off of the

    communities we work in or do we make

    them on state level National level or

    Global Equity related issues so I

    totally agree that we can and should

    focus on Race related Equity issues but

    there are also many other Equity issues

    that the authors have mentioned at the

    start of their paper when we find that

    certain pedagogies and certain topics

    are more beneficial for one area over

    another it's difficult to figure out

    which ones are you supposed to focus on

    and what context and at what times and

    with whom you are working with and I

    don't really have an answer to that so

    I'm posing that more as something to

    think through as a field and something

    that we should further the dialogue in

    this paper was great in terms of like

    hearing the different voices from the

    two different authors and hearing that

    combined discussion at the end and the

    beginning and I recommend that the field

    kind of do more of that doesn't

    necessarily even need to be in paper

    form like you could come on this podcast

    episode and I'd be happy to engage in a

    dialogue that with with you and you're

    already engaged in many many interviews

    with some awesome people on the show but

    this is just one podcast you could even

    start your own or just create like a

    webinar or like a informal get-together

    like once a quarter where you talk about

    these things with your colleagues or

    peers or whatever again I highly

    encourage you to take a look at this

    paper thank you so much for everyone who

    listened if you're watching this on

    YouTube give it a thumbs up leave me a

    comment let me know what you think if

    you're watching this elsewhere if you'd

    leave a rating that'd be great just

    helps more people find it or you know

    just share this episode or some of the

    highlights with people you know that'd

    be much appreciated stay tuned next week

    for another episode until then I hope

    you're all staying safe and are having a

    wonderful day

Article

Shah, N. & Yadav, A. (2023). Racial justice amidst the dangers of computer creep: A dialogue. TechTrends, 1-8


Abstract

“The push for computing education in P-12 schools, which parallels the ongoing proliferation of computing in society, has accelerated in recent years. With respect to racially minoritized groups, this dynamic of computing creep has manifested in calls to “broaden participation,” typically with the promise of access to economic opportunities in the computing industry. But whose interests does the “broadening participation” narrative actually serve? Is this narrative adequate to the urgent project of racial justice and, if not, what as a field do we need instead? In this article, we present a dialogue that echoes major debates in the field about these critical issues. First, we discuss current trends and approaches to racial equity and racial justice in computing education. Next, we consider the possibilities and limits of systemic change in the field. Finally, we debate whether it is even possible for computing education to advance racial justice, given the corporate and governmental stakeholders that currently shape the field of computing. We conclude with questions and provocations for the field to consider as this dialogue continues.”


Author Keywords

Computing education, racism, racial justice


My One Sentence Summary

This paper presents a dialogue that problematizes issues around racial justice in computing education


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • Would the authors make the same recommendations for emproving racial equity if they focused on other forms of equity?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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