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

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- CS for What? Diverse Visions of Computer Science Education in Practice
  - In this episode I unpack Santo, Vogel, and Ching’s (2019) publication titled “CS for What? Diverse Visions of Computer Science Education in Practice,” which is a white paper that provides a useful framework for considering the underlying values and impact of CS programs or resources.
- Depression, Suicide, and Computer Science Education
  - In honor of national suicide prevention week, in this week’s episode I read a paper I wrote on the topic of depression, suicide, and computer science education. This paper is formatted into the following sections: 1) A vignette on my own experiences coping with depression and suicide; 2) Statistics on depression and suicide as it relates to various populations computer science educators work with; 3) A vignette of a computer science educator helping a student through depression and suicidal thoughts; 4) Risk factors and warning signs; 5) Suggestions for providing support; 6) A vignette from a computer science educator's perspective on a student who committed suicide; and 7) Closing thoughts.
- Educational Aims, Objectives, and Other Aspirations
  - In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “Educational aims, objectives, and other aspirations,” which problematizes behavioral education objectives and discuss two alternative approaches.
- Images of Curriculum
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (1986) book titled “Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility,” which describes different examples, intents, and criticisms of “images” or “characterizations” of curriculum.
- Lifelong Kindergarten with Mitch Resnick
  - In this interview with Mitch Resnick, we discuss misconceptions people have around the four P’s (Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play) in Mitch’s book, encouraging depth of understanding while playing, what has surprised Mitch during his career, encouraging online communication and collaboration without creating artificial engagement, what Mitch wishes we’d see more of and discuss in CS education, our pet peeves with unplugged activities and computational thinking, accounting for survivorship bias with Scratch, expanding our focus on equity and inclusion to include both the “who” and the “how,” the importance of experimenting and learning through play, and much more.
- STEM Diversity and Inclusion Efforts for Women of Color: A Critique of the New Labor System
  - In this episode I unpack Scott and Elliott’s (2020) publication titled “STEM diversity and inclusion efforts for women of color: A critique of the new labor system,” which uses the metaphor of sharecropping to problematize the new labor system around STEM education and careers.
- The Centrality of Curriculum and the Function of Standards: The Curriculum is a Mind-altering Device
  - In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “The centrality of curriculum and the function of standards: The curriculum is a mind-altering device,” which problematizes curricula and standards by discussing how both can deprofessionalize the field of education.
- The End of Programming
  - In this episode I unpack Welsh’s (2023) publication titled “The end of programming,” which asks when generative AI will replace the need for knowing how to program.
- What if Freire Had Facebook? A Critical Interrogation of Social Media Woke Culture Among Privileged Voices in [Computer Science] Education Discourse
  - In this episode I unpack Coppola’s (2021) publication titled “What if Freire had Facebook? A critical interrogation of social media woke culture among privileged voices in music education discourse,” which summarizes Paulo Freire’s works and hypothesizes how Freire may have responded to some forms of woke culture.
- More episodes related to equity
- More episodes related to integration
- More episodes related to interst-driven learning
- More episodes related to social justice
- All other episodes
Check out the paper I mentioned, titled “Measuring the Effect of Continuous Professional Development on Elementary Teachers’ Self-efficacy to Teach Coding and Computational Thinking”
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter