> it has become clear that the foundational ideas in CS carry explicit values: ones of automation, replacement, standardization, centralization, and amplification. These values have positioned it as a discipline of power, and due to the ignorance with which it is often applied, often one of oppression.
No it doesn't. See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology. There is a diversity of thoughts and approaches in CS that’s quite unique to the field.
Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be so. Alas, there’s a reason nobody takes humanities seriously anymore.
This take appears pretty disconnected from both the point of the resource its replying to and the landscape of what CS education looks like right now, as well as uninformed about the point of the linked work. In addition, it contains 15+ hrs of reading material, I don't think judging any work purely off of the polemic abstract (and i would consider it bait) is in good faith or form, but if you can read 15+ hrs of pedagogic material in less than 5 I congratulate you and will buy you a beer. To be clear, this is a textbook about the process of teaching CS subject matter. Asking "does Computer Science as a taught discipline carry explicit values?" Has a plenty of well researched answers. If you don't want to engage with it or the heritage of studying the outcomes of technology, thats your call, but it doesn't provide you an effective framework to justify your beliefs.
From the perspective of good faith: please do read "Race After Technology" by Ruha Benjamin and "Algorithms of Oppression" by Safiya Noble. They are two books that i wish more tech and tech adjacent people would read.
> Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be
The two above books are great counterpoints to this mentality. If you want to analyze a system you look at its outcomes, thats basic systems theory. "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows provides both a great introduction to systems theory as well as numerous examples as to why this way of considering them is valuable. Additionally this seems to be a non-rigorous way to interpret any of the humanities. Alas, who is going to expect those in the technologies to consider their work critically.
> See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology.
These are nonsequiters, and do not address the values imparted by both CS education and the culture within. As counter points I can name off the top of my head: locked down bootloaders, proprietary drivers, data ownership, mass surveillance/adtech, about 4 actual OS vendors with dominant control of the market, data set bias. The web as it stands for the majority of people on it very much so fits the standard of centralization. Just because a few fractions of a percent of all internet participants use the internet in a peer-to-peer way a fraction of the time that they use it doesn't provide a fruitful sample of how values are built into the system.
Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
"This focus on middle and high school, and on adolescents is intentional: 12-18 year olds are at a developmental stage where they are just beginning to comprehend their social worlds and their roles and positions in these social worlds. We believe that learning CS in social terms at these ages can not only help them integrate perspectives on computing into their new awareness of the world, but that the ideas in CS itself can help them better understand what it means to be human, to make decisions, and to have intelligence. Children in primary school may be too young for conversations about systemic social conflict. And while adults in postsecondary and beyond need to learn justice-centered CS literacy as well, many are less open to such learning, having hardened their political views as they enter adulthood. We likely need different methods for children and adults."
They know adults will be skeptical of what they teach (with reason). So they try to jam it down children’s throats where there’s little parental oversight. And they aren’t even trying to hide it.
> Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
That's an interesting way of framing it. As if people not ok with these teaching methods were simply too dim witted to engage with this material too “challenging” for them.
> Just reading the material reveals some gems
> Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be so.
I don’t quite understand the tone of this, but it seems you’re trying to read the piece to fit your narrative of what this is in the same way that you consider its study to be wrong. Maybe you can help reconcile the two approaches and show how what you assume they are doing and what you are doing are different so I can understand.
> "This focus on middle and high school, and on adolescents is intentional: 12-18 year olds are at a developmental stage where they are just beginning to comprehend their social worlds and their roles and positions in these social worlds. We believe that learning CS in social terms at these ages can not only help them integrate perspectives on computing into their new awareness of the world, but that the ideas in CS itself can help them better understand what it means to be human, to make decisions, and to have intelligence. Children in primary school may be too young for conversations about systemic social conflict. And while adults in postsecondary and beyond need to learn justice-centered CS literacy as well, many are less open to such learning, having hardened their political views as they enter adulthood. We likely need different methods for children and adults."
Thanks for taking the less than 25 minutes of reading the introduction and citing this paragraph. Lets look at the paragraph directly after it.
| “Our focus is therefore adolescents, and on a counter narrative about computing that views CS as both magical, but also fraught. It simultaneously examines the racist, sexist, ableist, classist reality of our global society, and demonstrates how CS is often used to amplify and reinforce these forms of oppression in daily life. *It shows how only certain people experience the utopian narrative of CS, and those that do go on to perpetuate this narrative in higher education and industry, systematically and often unintentionally excluding those who were never included.* It positions students as agents of social change, both in how they use computing, but also in whether they use it, and to what end. This is a book for secondary CS educators who want to develop the agency and skills to catalyze social change though their students." [emphasis mine]
Your original comment can be upheld as a case in point.
Since we want to be digging for gems, lets engage with some more (cited) quotes.
| “The common thread amongst all of these arguments for CS education above is that computing is a neutral skill: the goal is to educate youth about abstract ideas in CS, and inspire youth to create with those ideas, but rarely question what computing is used for or how it is shaping society. Moreover, these arguments do not question who shaped those ideas, why those ideas were created, and what alternative ideas in CS might exist had different voices participated in shaping them.” (Chapter 2 Section 2: Critical Pedagogy) Which seems to directly point to your OP.
| “At their foundation, Freire’s ideas started from a critique of the “banking” model of education. Freire and Papert thought similarly, both viewing “banking” models of education as fundamentally flawed. Freire was more concerned with oppression, whereas Papert was more concerned with identity and learning. All of the pedagogies discussed earlier are essentially banking models, viewing students as recipients of coding skill knowledge.” (Ibid)
| “In the context of CS, Freire might have argued that people cannot see how they are oppressed by a faceless, nameless credit reporting agency like Experian, which controls the data and credit score calculation algorithms that determine access to loans. And he might have argued that the banking model of education, still widely used throughout public education worldwide, only reinforces this ignorance of the sociopolitical dynamics of CS and their relation to students’ individual live...
6 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 17.7 ms ] threadNo it doesn't. See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology. There is a diversity of thoughts and approaches in CS that’s quite unique to the field.
Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be so. Alas, there’s a reason nobody takes humanities seriously anymore.
From the perspective of good faith: please do read "Race After Technology" by Ruha Benjamin and "Algorithms of Oppression" by Safiya Noble. They are two books that i wish more tech and tech adjacent people would read.
> Now, CS approached with the conclusion that it is biased and somehow racist will, of course, prove itself to be
The two above books are great counterpoints to this mentality. If you want to analyze a system you look at its outcomes, thats basic systems theory. "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows provides both a great introduction to systems theory as well as numerous examples as to why this way of considering them is valuable. Additionally this seems to be a non-rigorous way to interpret any of the humanities. Alas, who is going to expect those in the technologies to consider their work critically.
> See the multiple different ways to architect a CPU, Write an OS. The web and peer to peer technology.
These are nonsequiters, and do not address the values imparted by both CS education and the culture within. As counter points I can name off the top of my head: locked down bootloaders, proprietary drivers, data ownership, mass surveillance/adtech, about 4 actual OS vendors with dominant control of the market, data set bias. The web as it stands for the majority of people on it very much so fits the standard of centralization. Just because a few fractions of a percent of all internet participants use the internet in a peer-to-peer way a fraction of the time that they use it doesn't provide a fruitful sample of how values are built into the system.
Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
"This focus on middle and high school, and on adolescents is intentional: 12-18 year olds are at a developmental stage where they are just beginning to comprehend their social worlds and their roles and positions in these social worlds. We believe that learning CS in social terms at these ages can not only help them integrate perspectives on computing into their new awareness of the world, but that the ideas in CS itself can help them better understand what it means to be human, to make decisions, and to have intelligence. Children in primary school may be too young for conversations about systemic social conflict. And while adults in postsecondary and beyond need to learn justice-centered CS literacy as well, many are less open to such learning, having hardened their political views as they enter adulthood. We likely need different methods for children and adults."
They know adults will be skeptical of what they teach (with reason). So they try to jam it down children’s throats where there’s little parental oversight. And they aren’t even trying to hide it.
> Comments like these are why we black engineers rarely feel comfortable within our industry. Its not to say anything you said was explicitly offensive, but that it shows an unwillingness to interact with challenging material.
That's an interesting way of framing it. As if people not ok with these teaching methods were simply too dim witted to engage with this material too “challenging” for them.
Thanks for taking the less than 25 minutes of reading the introduction and citing this paragraph. Lets look at the paragraph directly after it.
| “Our focus is therefore adolescents, and on a counter narrative about computing that views CS as both magical, but also fraught. It simultaneously examines the racist, sexist, ableist, classist reality of our global society, and demonstrates how CS is often used to amplify and reinforce these forms of oppression in daily life. *It shows how only certain people experience the utopian narrative of CS, and those that do go on to perpetuate this narrative in higher education and industry, systematically and often unintentionally excluding those who were never included.* It positions students as agents of social change, both in how they use computing, but also in whether they use it, and to what end. This is a book for secondary CS educators who want to develop the agency and skills to catalyze social change though their students." [emphasis mine]
Your original comment can be upheld as a case in point.
Since we want to be digging for gems, lets engage with some more (cited) quotes.
| “The common thread amongst all of these arguments for CS education above is that computing is a neutral skill: the goal is to educate youth about abstract ideas in CS, and inspire youth to create with those ideas, but rarely question what computing is used for or how it is shaping society. Moreover, these arguments do not question who shaped those ideas, why those ideas were created, and what alternative ideas in CS might exist had different voices participated in shaping them.” (Chapter 2 Section 2: Critical Pedagogy) Which seems to directly point to your OP.
| “At their foundation, Freire’s ideas started from a critique of the “banking” model of education. Freire and Papert thought similarly, both viewing “banking” models of education as fundamentally flawed. Freire was more concerned with oppression, whereas Papert was more concerned with identity and learning. All of the pedagogies discussed earlier are essentially banking models, viewing students as recipients of coding skill knowledge.” (Ibid)
| “In the context of CS, Freire might have argued that people cannot see how they are oppressed by a faceless, nameless credit reporting agency like Experian, which controls the data and credit score calculation algorithms that determine access to loans. And he might have argued that the banking model of education, still widely used throughout public education worldwide, only reinforces this ignorance of the sociopolitical dynamics of CS and their relation to students’ individual live...