Whose Imaginings? Whose Future?
In this episode I unpack Stauffer’s (2017) keynote titled “Whose imaginings? Whose future?,” which encourages educators to reflect on who is the shaping the future of their field.
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      Welcome back to another episode of the csk8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary each week of this podcast is either an interview with a guest or multiple guests or a solo episode where I unpacks some scholarship in relation to Computer Science Education now this week is a little bit different so it's 2023 first week and you may notice if you're watching this on YouTube it's actually a video of myself as opposed to just audio so hey this is what I look like if you didn't know and by the way if you're watching this on YouTube I have a resting or thinking face that looks upset or intense so FYI I'm not mad so I'm gonna be doing some things differently this year I'm going to be experimenting with some new ways of creating and promoting episodes so I'm gonna try out some new stuff so some of the future interviews hopefully if guests will say yes to it will include video as well as the audio that we were originally doing so you can let me know in the comments on YouTube or in comments honestly on like Twitter or Tick Tock or wherever you're finding these excerpts from and just let me know like what you think of the episodes and like some things that you'd like to see in the future so today I'm going to be unpacking a paper and this paper is titled who's imaginings whose future and it's by Sandra L Stauffer who is a professor that I had at Arizona State University so I went there for all three of my degrees so I worked with Dr Stauffer for many years she was actually on my dissertation committee so thank you to artist offer for your feedback all right so this paper is actually a keynote chat for the society for music teacher education 2017 conference and the theme of this was imagining possible Futures so I'm going to chat through this particular paper and kind of relate it to Computer Science Education now you might be wondering Jared why are you reading this particular paper or this particular keynote well the reason why is because I want this to kind of serve as a potential warning for a field to not get complacent with things and whatnot now when I read through this paper it reminded me a lot of the introduction to a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson so I'm going to read off a quote here it's like the very first paragraph and when I read this in high school it was like this really resonates with me so the book begins with quote our age is retrospective it builds the sipakris of the fathers it writes biographies histories and criticism the foregoing Generations beheld God and nature face to face we through their eyes why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe why shouldn't we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition and a religion by Revelation to us and not the history of theirs in bosom for a season in nature whose floods of Life stream around and through us and invite us by the powers they Supply to action proportion to Nature why should we grope among the dry bones of the past or put the living generation into masquerade out of its fated wardrobe The Sun Shines today also there is more wool in flax in the fields there are new lands new Men new thoughts let us demand our own works and laws and worship end quote now that quote really resonated with me in high school and it still resonates with me today I think it's important for us to not just look back and build off of the past but also to look forward and question what could be done and what could we do and in this case in the paper that we're going to be looking at we're going to look at the questions of whose imaginings whose future so the paper begins with an introduction that's kind of like thanks everybody and talks about how we had some advances in the field of music education but again I'm going to relate all of this back to Computer Science Education because I think it's really important to learn from other fields other domains to be able to apply these contexts into our own context right here's an important quote to consider this is from page three quote to look at our history one would imagine that music teacher educators are quite fond of change or at least enamored of getting together to talk about the future of music teacher education music education in the schools or even the future of schools of Music this is certainly not the first time we've imagined the future or that others have done so on our behalf and sent a support Report with their recommendations talking about the future or engaging in some kind of strategic planning initiative occurs in an almost predictable cycle in our professional organizations end quote okay so this quote really resonates with me not only for music education because that's what my degrees and my background is in but also in computer science education I have seen people talk about like reimagining the future of Computer Science Education or having these reports that kind of like talk about here are some recommendations for the future and I've done a lot of unpacking scholarship episodes on those different types of reports on this particular podcast now this is important for us to consider because we need to make sure that we are not just stuck in the cycle of like reimagining without actually doing things so the author goes on to talk about some examples of some of the reports and whatnot that the profession has engaged in again this is music education and it talks about a variety of topics that like relate to things that are still being discussed today and not really resolved so the author goes on to say well has anything actually really changed and their response is well yes but also no so here's a quote from page four quote it's easy to look outward for reasons maybe for excuses for surely the world is a messy complicated place and the need to change will always be with us but let me also pause it gently with respect that in this historical moment we ourselves may be in the way of the change we seek why because we are firmly embedded cognitively socially emotionally practically musically in ideas structures and realities we already know and to shake ourselves loose from those structure will take concentrated persistent effort end quote a little bit further down on that page quote to imagine an unknown is challenging and the future is certainly unknown as difficult as it may be though we should imagine possible features and we should do so while also admitting to ourselves two things first we have little to no idea about what the future will be remember we knew nothing of YouTube 13 years ago and second to paraphrase cultural Anthropologist Clifford geertz who is paraphrasing sociologist Max Weber we are caught in webs of significance that we ourselves have spun the structures we have built the codes the signs the stories the narratives the discourses that we share and know so well also constrain the change we seek end quote now for context this was written in 2017 and presented in 2017 so that's why the dates are a little off of YouTube this part really made me reflect a bit so when looking at this and was thinking okay well in what way am I stuck in the past in what way am I not of all solving and that for me is kind of like a difficult question to think through because I constantly engage in reflection practices like you may have heard in some of the interviews that I've done that I will reflect in the mornings and the evenings and I will just constantly think of like how to evolve as a human being in ways that I think would benefit me and people around me in the world Etc and when I think about all the experiences that I've had in education that have led to this yes it's a varied uh variegated multi-perspectable approach in terms of I am from music education professionally speaking got all my degrees are in that and then I became a band General music percussion director and then I moved into like a technology role where I was teaching coding to kids and then I went in and I did professional development created professional development and created curriculum that's used by students and teachers all around the world had all these like really different experiences and whatnot but I am still stuck in specific narratives and codes and ways of understanding that I are related to how I was brought up through education not only as a student but also as an educator or as a facilitator so all of these things kind of like impact the ways that I view the world of education and therefore impact what I see as possible futures for the field for myself as an educator and for the students that I work with this is beneficial and then I have this like Gestalt to build off of however it is also problematic because I am not able to see things that are outside of this like narrow scope of you that I've had in the world of Education again even though that I have had a variety of experiences that most teachers don't have who might only teach one subject area it's still a very limiting and very narrow perspective to go off of which is why when I do these unpacking scholarship episodes I have pulled in some scholarship not only from like sociology but also from like sports psychology like the episode that I did on Canada's Erickson's paper which the paper is titled the role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance if you want to check out that particular episode or released in January of 2021 but it's also why I look at like more familiar domains for myself like music education like in this particular keynote that I'm reading off but then also some more relevant domains like maker culture maker spaces Etc so you'll find a bunch of different podcast episodes that pull in all these different perspectives to try and look at this idea this field this domain from different angles different lenses different perspectives in order to better understand some different ways that we might be able to help the people that we're working with whether it's teachers or students or whomever but all of that starts with first realizing that we have some things to look at and to reflect upon to really understand where we've come from so I had a professor who did a class that was talking about different types of cultures and whatnot and this is broadly speaking like Capital C type of cultures and so one of the ways that he framed this particular class was around centering decentering re-centering so the centering idea was kind of reflecting on where you're at who you are as an individual and how you fit within different types of cultures Etc the de-centering was in unpacking that and trying to find some areas of growth or areas where you might not have reflected on or maybe even to problematize some of the ideas that you hold and then the re-centering was to okay now after you've like kind of like broken things down and like learned some new things let's build it back together and let's figure out where you are now so it's just like continuous cycle that you go through of centering decentering re-centering that allows you to kind of like reflect upon where you are where you're going and like some hopefully expose some areas that you might not understand so this I think is something that we could do when it comes to the field in like the future of the field and our own philosophies or perspectives on the field now one of the things that I've mentioned in some of the other podcast episodes is I'm not really a standards kind of person like I don't look at them go yeah this is great like I understand that there are some uses for them however there's also some problems and I'll do an unpacking scholarship episode in the future that kind of like unpacks it but here's a little quote from page four from Dr Stafford quote standardization has become more and more urgent since the Industrial Revolution a century earlier than that how is one machine to interface with another one measurement to be compared to another how could pieces of an Enterprise or parts of a machine made in different places be compatible standardization in gizmos and gadgets and many other places in our lives is a good thing standardization allows for predictability which is why we know that given the correct adapter we can plug our iPhones into sockets nearly anywhere in the world and recharge them end quote so yes the author admits that there are some good things with standards I agree there are some great things that can come from standards however they pose a potential reframing of things and this is on page five that I'm going to read off now the organizations nafmi and Nasim are organizations that kind of like help support the field of music education now think of this like a csta or ACM those are kind of like the equivalents when I read off this particular quote so this is from page five quote but structures and standards have multiple downsides among them lack a variety no guarantee that the standard is the best option control of Standards may be inequitable or unjust Market or political forces and elimination or silencing of rival ideas when a standard is widely accepted for whatever reason or through whatever set of circumstances so we need to be honest our structures Naf me nasm and others are a century old based on language and ideas that are two centuries-old and firmly grounded in standardization and in my view our structures have impacts that stand in the way of change still as dareda says within every text every structure is its own undoing it is always already coming apart cracking rupturing and in those cracks and breaks are the possibilities of opening and newness how might we hurry that along end quote now a little bit further down on the page the author clarifies that the different structures have some different binaries and even dualisms that are in this case centuries old and they're often meant to perpetuate the paradigms and practices of their day so here's a very quick little history you listen for those of you who are unfamiliar with it so music education was actually introduced into the schools in the 1800s and it was by Lowell Mason so Lowell Mason was running it like basically think of it an out of school choir with kids so Lowell Mason wanted to prove that hey kids can learn how to sing and they can actually do this in school so this could be beneficial for them so they created this program this choir and they advocated for it and they got it into schools when it was introduced into the schools it was the type of like music making and activities that people like to engage in outside of school context the same thing happened with band and with Orchestra for those of you who don't know in the 1800s and like even in the early 1900s the popular form of listening to music for like player pianos and Records Etc came out was to go and listen to a live performance by a band so this would be like equivalent to going to like a rap concert today in terms of seeing your favorite musicians and hearing your favorite songs in order to listen to that because this was like pre-radio pre-record player Etc you had to go to like a park and listen to a live uh organization or Group performing whatever kind of music that they were playing now this made it so that if you wanted to listen to your own music you had to either perform on an instrument or sing or know somebody who would do this so when all these different forms of music education whether it was like the choir or orchestra or band when they were introduced into these schools that was the popular type of music of that day now here's the real kicker to think through if music education had not been introduced until 2023 we would have if we had taken the exact same approach we would not introduce band choir and Orchestra why because that is not the popular music that people are listening to we would not be advocating for hey we should be doing this thing that's like a couple centuries old and we should be putting it into our classrooms instead what we would say is we need to introduce the type of music that people are listening to and in creating today and so that would most likely be rap hip-hop EDM production it would not be Jazz it would not be Rock Etc it would be the things that people are really engaging with right now this is important to consider from a like policy and advocacy kind of standpoint when we are advocating for like different ways of making music in this particular context we need to make sure we are advocating for the ways that people engage with music outside of schools now what does this have to do with Computer Science Education you might be wondering well let me tell you real quick my fear for computer science education is that we are going to replicate some of those problems that music educators have in that we are going to introduce Computer Science Education in ways that were meaningful to us at the time and not evolve and adapt to what is going on with the ways that people are engaging with computer science practices Concepts skills Etc outside of the classroom which when we are stuck in standards these standards are written and they are often not adjusted or adapted or modified for several years sometimes a decade or more depending on like the field Etc so I had the privilege a few years ago to work with some Wyoming Educators to come up with their state standards but one of the things that we talked about is how the process typically was like I don't know like a decade or so between like when standards were implemented and when a new weird Vision came out but that is too slow of a process for computer science education so when we're engaging in these standards we have this like tendency to create things that are relevant in the time but we don't necessarily adapt to the changes that happen over the subsequent years and therefore the standards become more and more out of date and and less useful so what can we do about this so the author mentions in this keynote that the first thing that they recommend is that instead of calling them standards perhaps we should call them guidelines so here's a quote from the bottom of page five quote standards are codes for compliance meant to keep things in place and predictable for a paradigm that looks like this vertical line and is about the past that is not what we are about end quote now if you're wondering what does the vertical line thing refer to it's talking about something that's mentioned in the pages above it so if you're interested to check that out but it's just kind of like a framework or metaphor to think through but the main point of this particular argument is if we change the word standards to guidelines then it makes it more honest as to what they are and then less punitive so every state has like different variations of like the national standards which makes it so that there's more local control so some districts have a different set of standards in other districts depending on what state you're in well as some states have the just like alignment to the national standards now again this is just guidelines like I agree that the wording is better and um hopefully we can look at this and and like understand that it should be more adaptable to the local which we talk about a little bit later in this particular keynote so the second thing that the author recommends is quote since many of us here have been raised in the structure we have adopted the language the codes and the gestures of the structure and we perpetuate that language those gestures those codes without thinking about it end quote this is from page six a little bit further down quote while we're talking about codes look at your school's website recruiting materials language descriptions advertising what are the messages encoded in them who are they important to why and do we have enough courage to talk about that to be honest and transparent about what those messages might mean end quote so there have been multiple guests who have been on this particular podcast and then multiple unpacking scholarship episodes where kind of talk about how representation is important for different reasons so if you want to learn more about that check out some of the episodes on representation at csk8 podcast now the third thing that the author recommends is very specific to the schools of music or music programs so the author recommends just sitting in your department and closing your eyes and just listening to the kinds of sounds that you hear now the author recommends not only listening to the different types of sounds but also listening at different times of day and to figure out who is welcome and who is not welcome within this particular program so for context in schools of music for example you might hear Jazz you might hear classical like the Western European classical music but if you don't hear EDM or you don't hear rap or Mariachi or throat singing or whatever this should give you an idea of who is welcome and who is not welcome in the schools you can do a similar thing in computer science programs you can go into classrooms and you can listen to the things that people are saying or you can use your eyes open your eyes and look at not only who is in the classroom but the ways that they are engaging with computer science Concepts skills practices Etc in the classrooms that are offering computer science or integrating computer science into them what will this tell you well it might tell you about who is welcome who is not welcome might also tell you what kinds of ways that people are able to engage with computer science and that might again tell you who might be interested or not interested in those times of Engagement so again like my classroom was multiple programming languages going on simultaneously so if you walked into it you'd see one student working on JavaScript and coding some art and animation the next student might be working on scratch like a game the next student might be working on Sonic Pi coding some live music and then the next student might be doing Swift whether Swift playgrounds or might be coding like an app for their iPhone or an iPad or something like that so there's all these different ways of Engagement going on in the classroom now if you were to just listen you would hear people talking about things that they're interested it in rather than just like recreating the same thing so they'd be like talking about sports and how they're going to integrate that idea or that concept into their project or whatever so there's a lot of like things that people were able to do in the classrooms that I work with that was by design that was intentional if you want to learn more about how I designed and facilitated those kinds of classes then check out the episode title applications of affinity space characteristics in computer science education now the fourth thing that the author recommends is actually looking at not just what is being taught or how it is being taught but who is engaging with a field or a domain so who are these students who are learning computer science if we're thinking about it in relation to the classes you might be facilitating don't just focus on the content or the pedagogy we need to think about who we are working with we are working with individuals we can't just treat them as a collective or as a group Etc and we need to not just think about like their demographics and their cultures but also why is this important for them to understand or for them to know or if they are not passionate about Computer Science Education why that is something for us to consider and for us to be able to adapt to so the author recommends that every program should look different so here's a little random tangent from back when I was teaching General music and band and when I first started teaching the very first class that I ever taught on my own like after I was hired it was a three grade level course I think it was like second third and fourth grade something like that and are supposed to teach them a song about being back into school and ready to go only problem is none of the students in the class spoke any English I was not allowed to modify the lessons or I would get written up which I did and instead I was forced by administrators to teach students how to do a song in English when they didn't understand what we were saying and it was a split grade level across three different grades so it was not developmentally appropriate for everybody this for some it was too easy for others it was too hard why was I forced to do this because every single Elementary School all 50 plus of them in that District had to teach the exact same lesson the same week to the same grade levels things were standardized to a point where it did not account for who was in the classroom I am so grateful that I had that terrible experience the first time I taught on my own because it really taught me the lesson that what matters is who we are working with not just the concepts and practices that we are teaching that was such a valuable lesson for myself to get on my very first experience teaching on my own full time at least because I had been teaching Drumline since my like senior year of high school in private lessons and all that fun stuff here's a quote from page seven that I'll modify slightly to focus on Computer Science Education it's definitely applicable quote Computer Science Education is learning and teaching in many ways among many people in many places end quote a little bit further down quote perhaps we can begin imagining possible features from a different point of view a local point of view every view is a view from somewhere and the local is where life is lived Grand statements are nice they are made by us for people we barely know what do I know of the life of a child experiencing homelessness or a popular musician becoming guitar songwriter teacher or a string student in New York or an adolescent in West Virginia what Futures do they imagine how do I know about them and if I do not know about them then what how could music making and Music Learning be meaningful if one does not know what it means to anyone else but oneself so here's my bold proposal what I propose is radical listening end quote again from page seven this point really resonates with me if you haven't listened to the episode that John Stapleton and I did it's on a paper that we wrote titled fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning I highly recommend taking a look at that it's really focusing on making it so that curricula and computer science engagement is hyper local rather than just like everybody across a school or District or region State Nation Etc is all engaging in the same ways of learning and understanding as somebody who has written curricula that is used around the world what I really tried to focus on was making it so that students and teachers were encouraged to adapt the projects to make it more meaningful to them so every single video every single resource always encouraged kids and adults to make this unique and customized to their own learning experiences rather than making us so that everybody replicated the projects that I demonstrated in scratch junior or scratch so when it comes to computer science you can do this for yourself and the students that you work with again the way that I did it listen to the Affinity space episode that I mentioned earlier but it's just basically about getting it so that kids come into the class with their interests and they share it with other people by creating different Expressions through code so the author goes on to talk about what does radical listening mean so the describing experience of attending a political rally as a protester and so there were basically two sides divided by a road and like some barricades and things like that so one side was in support of somebody who was visiting the town and then the other side were people who were against that and while they may have been like yelling things at the other side or they may have been like holding up signs that demonstrated what they're saying they're not actually talking in a way that both sides were willing to engage and listen appropriately instead they're engaging in discourse of practices that were trying to persuade one side to understand and agree with the other side as opposed to trying to listen for understanding a different point of view or a different perspective one way that I think this is really relevant to Computer Science Education is okay well if we think of the roughly 40 of people who don't think that Equity should be discussed in computer science context rather than saying hey it should be discussed in computer science context why don't we actually sit down and ask well why don't you think that I've talked about this in other episodes like related to curriculum and integration Etc about how maybe the people who think that Equity should not be discussed in computer science may be the reason why is because they don't think that we should focus on anything other than skills Concepts practices Etc so we should be hyper focused on the understandings and applying them in a context you might apply it in an equitable way hopefully you would but those people might think we should focus on the concepts and practices rather than the application of it itself I don't know I'm just guessing here what the author is recommending is that we listen and I recommend that for the field as well it's trying to better understand different perspectives that we might not agree with all right so that was kind of a short summary of The keynote itself if you're interested in it I highly recommend taking a look at it but at the end of these unpacking scholarship episodes I like to think through some lingering questions and thoughts and just kind of share them to share here are the things that I'm still thinking through as a result of reading through a article or whatever okay so the first question that I have is when is a standard more useful than a guideline so while I agree with what the author is saying in terms of instead of calling them standards what if we call them guidelines I can also think of advocacy and policy work around getting computer science into schools where it might be really beneficial to have standards it makes us look more legitimate it makes us look more like a core subject area which some are arguing computer science should be but again as I've ranted about in other episodes of this podcast that I have a tendency to disagree with that because it makes us so that if we continue to add one more subject this year and then I don't know five years from now we add another core subject and then another and then another we're just going to continue to dilute all of these subject areas that we have so instead of mandating a bunch of new subject areas over the next couple of decades perhaps instead we should make it so that you get to choose where you develop your expertise the next question that I have is whose voices are being heard and who's are being silenced so as a non-binary individual I have noticed a moment in the field where white male colleagues have been dismissed and I find that to be problematic it's great that we amplify voices of marginalized individuals groups communities Etc but if we flip the oppression onto the oppressor this goes against Paulo Freddie's notion of dialogue which if you haven't listened to those particular episodes I have done unpacking scholarship episodes on chapters 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 and chapter four I believe it's chapter three in particular that talks about dialogue so I highly recommend taking a look at that one to learn more about the concepts that I'm talking about here because I totally agree with advocating for an amplifying voice of marginalized identities but I have an issue with if we just simply flip it so that the oppressor is now the oppressed because if we agree that an act is highly inappropriate or problematic why would we want to then do that onto the person who's doing it to us it just doesn't make sense to me another question that I have is when and why are the needs of Corporation and outweighing the needs of communities groups or individuals and if you want to hear more about that particular idea check out the podcast episode or even the paper that's for free that I did on a titled reconceptualizing music making music technology and freedom in the age of neoliberalism and I relate to this computer science education if you listen to the podcast episode but the paper itself also talks quite a bit about Computer Science Education in particular even though it's about music education and music technology and here's one more quote from page 10 quote who's imaginings whose future I don't know what if instead of imagining a future for undergraduates we imagined with them what if instead of imagining a future for in-service teachers our colleagues we imagined with them what if instead of imagining a future for pre-k-12 Learners or any Learners anywhere for that matter we imagined with them the future is not us the future is them end quote Dr Stauffers drop on some mics on that one I really like that quote I really like those questions to think through and it definitely resonates with that paper that I mentioned on fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning so check out that episode if you haven't listened to that one if you got an idea that you like to share about how you are imagining things with the students and colleagues that you work with or the features you can let me know on social media thank you so much for listening to this episode if you enjoyed this please consider supporting you could find out how to do that on my website by just going to jaredelleary.com support or just clicking the link that says support this content in the menu and there are several different ways that you can learn how to support for free stay tuned next week for another episode until then I hope you're all staying safe and are having a wonderful week 
Article
Stauffer, S. L. (2017, September 9). Whose Imaginings? Whose Future? Closing keynote for the Society for Music Teacher Education 2017 Conference.
My One Sentence Summary
This keynote encourages educators to reflect on who is the shaping the future of their field.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
- When is a standard more useful than a guideline? 
- Whose voices are being heard and whose are being silenced? - When and why are the needs of corporations outweighing the needs of communities, groups, or individuals? 
 
- Whose Imaginings? Whose Future? 
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
- Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode - Fostering Intersectional Identities through Rhizomatic Learning - In this episode, Jon Stapleton and I read our (2022) publication titled “Fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning,” which uses mapping as a metaphor for individualized learning. 
 
- On "Methodolatry" and [Computer Science] Teaching as Critical and Reflective Praxis - In this episode I unpack Regelski’s (2002) publication titled “On ‘methodolatry’ and music teaching as critical and reflective praxis,” which problematizes the lack of philosophy, theory, and professional praxis in music education. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators. 
 
- Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire - Listen to the episodes on Pedagogy of the Oppressed 
 
- Reconceptualizing “Music Making:” Music Technology and Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism - In this episode I unpack Benedict and O’Leary’s (2019) publication titled “Reconceptualizing “music making:” Music technology and freedom in the age of Neoliberalism,” which explores the use of computer science practices to counter neoliberal influence on education. 
 
- The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance - In this episode I unpack Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s (1993) publication titled “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance,” which debunks the notion of innate abilities within a domain and describes the role of deliberate practice in achieving expert performance. 
 
 
- Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter 
 
          
        
       
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
                 
  
  
    
    
     
  
  
    
    
     
  
  
    
    
     
  
  
    
    
     
  
  
    
    
    