taylor@limbo.ptp.hp.com (Dave Taylor) (09/26/88)
[This is an article I first encountered in the ACM SIGCAS Journal
and through the kind permissions of the authors I was sent a
copy of the text online for distribution to the Computers and
Society Digest readership (and the Usenet portion thereof). This
is a controversial article, and doubtless some of you will find it
quite inflammatory. As always, however, feel free to disagree with
the authors' points in this forum; I will also endeavor to distribute
copies of reader feedback to the original authors (who expect to be
added to the BITNET distribution of this digest in the near future).
--- Dave Taylor]
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Computer Literacy: The Pigeonhole Principle
Yale Magrass and Richard L. Upchurch
Southeastern Massachusetts University
Projections of the demand for "skilled workers"1 for the information age
have encouraged educators to apply their craft. A national cry beckoned
the educational system to respond to a demand/need "...that by early
next century every man, woman, and child in the United States will have
to be a software engineer."(Gibbs and Ford, 1986, p. 1) And indeed the
educational establishment has responded with curricula and programs to
quell the fears, and supply the raw materials for the information age--a
computer literate populace(Deringer and Molnar, 1982). Programs in
computer literacy emerged as public education's reaction. We say
reaction because of the untempered enthusiasm from which these programs
developed. As Sloan(1985) points out:
Extolling the computer as a boon to critical thinking, professional
educators by and large have been conspicuously uncritical about the
computer itself. ... American educators have made no concerted effort
to ask at what level, for what purposes, and in what ways the computer
is educationally appropriate and inappropriate, in what ways and to whom
we can count on its being beneficial or harmful.(p. 1)
The educational system has been intimidated into becoming "current" and
make students "functional" members of society--"computer literacy can be
considered to mean the minimum knowledge, know-how, familiarity,
capabilities, abilities, and so forth, about computers essential for a
person to function well in the contemporary world(Bork, 1985, p. 33).
Elsewhere (Magrass and Upchurch, 1987) we considered the
socio-political-economic underpinnings of the computer literacy
movement.
In that exploration, we discussed the notion of "hidden curriculum"2,
arguing that the development of computer literacy in pre-university
settings "adapts young citizens, and future employees, to a
knowledge-based economy/society as defined, or perhaps inspired, by
corporate America" and "such curricula breeds acquiescence to an
authority that the ordinary person dare not challenge."(Magrass and
Upchurch, 1987, p. 12) Now we consider computer education in practice.
COMPUTER LITERACY AS CLASS IDEOLOGY
No one today speaks of intentionally using computer literacy as a way of
establishing differential status among sectors of the population.(Baron,
1984, p. 113)
Computer literacy carries a broad range of implementations, from knowing
how to turn the computer on and apply software, to writing "basic"
programs (pun intended), to understanding hardware function, to
recognizing the potential social and economic impact of information
technology(Watt, 1982). According to Kearsley and Hunter (1983, p.
40), "Computer literacy is all an individual needs to know about
computers to function in our information-based society. This differs
for each person; everyone doesn't need to know how to program."3 How do
we determine what someone "needs to know"?4 Could it be through computer
education we mold an individual for a limited social niche?
Schools began implementing campaigns to counter the pending "crisis" by
giving courses in "computer appreciation," a term which certainly
suggests primary emphasis on technology's "positive" aspects. Computer
awareness has been replaced by computer literacy in schools. The use of
the term "literacy" implies that the computer is far more than a simple
tool; rather it is access to an entire culture.5 Given that, the
illiterate are forever sentenced to shallow lives where they will be at
the mercy of those who understand what they cannot, they must accept a
reality defined by the literate. If literacy means empowerment then, in
a class society, rulers may find it desirable to deny some people full
literacy (as the Catholic Church tried to suppress printing). A class
society may want to develop several tiers of computer literacy, each
corresponding to a specific social position. This means computer
literacy curricula could be used to enforce class stratification.
One approach to computer literacy is tantamount to molding the
individual to ruling class6 needs. The educational materials that have
evolved in support of this version of computer literacy provide more
than adequate evidence of its underlying intentions. An example of this
genre is Spencer's (1983) An Introduction to Computers. As a computer
literacy textbook, it strives to induce adherence to an ideology that
the computer is an embodiment of abstract authority beyond individual
control and question. This is an ideology which would foster docility
and blind acceptance. Among those unlikely to have power, it develops a
sense that decisions are made by those with access to information beyond
the understanding of the lowly-- they should simply do their assigned
task without question. Here is how Spencer describes, to the layperson,
the programmer's responsibility:
Generally, the evolution from problem to program solutions includes: 1.
Analyzing the problem 2. Developing the algorithm 3. Coding the
program 4. Executing the program 5. Testing the program 6.
Documenting the program These phases may vary from one computer
installation to another and with the needs of a specific business or
firm. Some businesses require the program to be entered via a terminal,
whereas others record all programs and data on a magnetic medium prior
to being input to the computer. Some firms require extensive program
documentation, while others do not. Some businesses want their
programmers to check out program logic thoroughly during the problem
analysis phase, whereas other firms prefer that their people produce a
program quickly and spend time correcting the logic (if required) during
the program testing phrase. (p. 199)7
The impression Spencer leaves is that a business is the only conceivable
sponsor and beneficiary of software. It has the absolute right to
define the style, purposes and procedures of the programmer, and s/he
must adapt him(her)self accordingly. In arguing this, Spencer (we
expect unknowingly) adopts the Marxist assumption that under capitalism,
business is the definer of reality--"the ideas of the ruling class are
in every epoch the ruling ideas" (Marx, "The German Ideology" in
McLellan (1977), p. 176). However unlike Marx, Spencer provides the
impression that the power of business is proper and legitimate.
Business dictates how the worker behaves; that is the way it is and
futile to even discuss which, based on the economic ideology of computer
education, is the fundamental principle of acquiescence.
Another variant of computer literacy, on the surface, appears to be very
different. In this model, the computer is a tool for honing a person's
analytical and "creative" talents. Once upon a time, students were
encouraged to study Latin or even certain forms of mathematics
(geometry) which were seen as having little practical value, even in the
sense of leading to a broader set of substantive intellectual questions.
However, it was claimed that they enhanced general reasoning. Now the
same claims are being made about some versions of computer literacy,
particularly programming with languages like LOGO (Papert, 1980, 1985;
Upchurch and Lochhead, 1987). Unfortunately, whatever "problem solving"
and higher level thinking skills is developed through programming(Pea
and Kurland,1984; Dalbey and Linn, 1985a,b) appears to be restricted to
a select group of students (Center for Social Organization of Schools,
1983; 1986), so even at its best, the use of the computer to enhance
cognitive activity reinforces class boundaries.
Educators defend imposing a computer curriculum by claiming to address
such questions as: "How are these individuals going to survive in the
'new' information society, if they are not computer literate?" The
assumption underlying this question views the information society as
part of an inevitable "progress" beyond human control, to which all
individuals must be molded. One response is to create an explicitly
vocational computer literacy under the key phrase, "tool-based." Its
purpose is to make students functional with a standard set of
general-purpose software (word processing, spreadsheet, and data base).
The justification for this approach (Upchurch and Lochhead, 1987) is
"these tools would become vehicles to solve problems." We must admit
that the relief from the restrictions imposed by the programming version
of literacy (usually in the form of mathematics prerequisite) is
encouraging, and the goal reasonable. The realities, however, may pose
problems. Why does the voice of change push us towards tools-based
computer literacy? If we look closely at the rationale posed by the
proponents of the tool based ideal, we note that "these are the
fundamental tools of business computing." Some entry level positions in
business require knowledge of the computer, so our curriculum must be
modified to support entry level training for the business sector. We
appear to have dropped all pretense of education, and have adopted a
party line (training for industry). Through computer ideology,
capitalist culture continues to infiltrate, and provide undue influence
on, education.
The several tier approach to computer literacy has become the accepted
norm for computer education.8 Bitter (1984, p. 415-417) has proposed an
explicit two track curriculum, "awareness" (acceptance of the machine's
power and mystique) and "programming" (some ability to structure what
the machine does). He would have students placed in one track or the
other as early as kindergarten and then progress in their respective
tracks all the way through high school. The Los Angeles School System
has a continuum "split into four hierarchies, Awareness, Knowledge,
Competency and Expertise."(Fischer, 1984, p. 17) All students are to
have "awareness and knowledge", but "competency and expertise" is to be
reserved for the "interested and capable."(p. 20) It appears that in
the Los Angeles model, "the interested and capable" may also be singled
out as early as kindergarten. One of the claimed goals of the computer
literacy curriculum has been "defrocking the priesthood"-"undo ...
status inequities"(Baron, 1984, p. 111). The danger is multi-tier
literacy may make the priest's frock all the more impenetrable.
The tiers of computer literacy may merge very nicely with the hidden
educational curriculum.9 Of the two tier curricula, the first
(awareness), epitomized by Spencer, attempts to bring the students to
acknowledge the computer as an authority to which they must adjust. The
second tier (programming) gives the appearance of encouraging creativity
even among those not likely to become computer professionals. However,
it carries the danger of structuring imagination within the boundaries
of computer epistemology and inculcating binary, operational thinking at
the expense of concern for subtlety, nuance, metaphor and ambiguity
(Davy, 1985; Sloan, 1985).10 The tools-based track (perhaps a third
tier), though founded on egalitarian grounds, has become nothing more
than a training ground for data-entry personnel. The tiers taken
together provide the stratified workforce necessary(?) for the new
economic "reality."
COMPUTER LITERACY AS COMPUTER IDEOLOGY
To the extent that computers can define social order, computer literacy,
as realized in educational systems, may be a schema to adapt humans to
computer needs rather than adapt computers to human needs. In speaking
of computers having needs, we are personifying the machine. One goal of
the hidden curriculum is to give students a sense that there are forces
beyond their control which they must simply accept. Computer education
may create the impression that information technology constitutes one
such force. The anthropomorphization of information technology is found
throughout computer education literature, especially in computer
literacy textbooks. Authors give computers attributes that cannot be
implied by their design; computers, both hardware and software, can be
victimized.
Not only are people victimized by computer, but also the computer is
also victimized by people. (Spencer, 1983, p. 329)
Let us turn our attention to crimes in which the computer itself is the
victim. (Bitter, 1984, p. 297)
What does it mean to say that inanimate objects can have needs and be
victimized? Perhaps "computer needs" are essentially a metaphor for the
interests of those who control information technology; they would be the
victims. We are talking about adapting the rest of the population, as
human capital, to the needs of the overseers of computers, including
those to whom computer professionals must account. Given the computer's
potential, controlling it could equal domination of the primary means of
production-- we have fallen into an orthodox Marxist definition of
ruling class, i.e. the class that dominates the means of production.
The computer becomes an extension of the ruling class, and, as such, can
assume its power. It can provide an "objective" measure of success and
forbid raising issues without clearly tractable solutions. Either
something works or it does not work. In schools, the programming tier
can serve the hidden curriculum, and make the "talented" student a pawn
of capitalism, because it brings them to believe that authority's
assessment of their achievement must be just.. Their work is measured
through criteria which exists independently of any one person, in fact
embodied in an inanimate machine. Those who judge (the computer can be
included) need not always have to have their talent, knowledge,
information, training, or intuition. This is often the case in the
workplace where there may be increased demand to replace intuition with
formal operations, and replicable procedures.
Zuboff (1985) applauds automation as "empowering" or "informating" (p.
5) production workers because it takes their knowledge which had
"previously been fragmented, private and implicit" (p. 10) and
transforms it into something which "must first be broken down into its
smallest components and analyzed so that it can be translated into the
binary language of a computer system."(p. 8) For Zuboff, the replacing
of intuitive sensitivity with binary procedures represents for both
management and workers, "an even more penetrating understanding of the
operation."(p. 8) A similar argument has been presented for the
programming tier of computer literacy. In allowing students to write
computer programs, teachers are asking them to operationalize their
thinking which advocates claim leads to deeper understanding. It may
instead actually develop "procedural comprehension", a obscure phrase
which reduces to the "ability to follow directions."(Mayer, Dyck, and
Vilberg, 1986, p. 608) If this is true then the programming tier may be
another more subtle way of producing "human capital", perhaps for a
higher rung of the labor market.
Procedural competence makes creative acts into solving problems with
discrete solutions. This could be at the expense of musing, free
association and non-directed exploration. Programming, like "doing
mathematics," is an intuitive process, yet most variants of computer
ideology do not recognize it as such. Some forms of computer ideology
seek to replace human intuition with publicly replicable operations.
Even if computer literacy as programming serves as "mental enrichment",
it tries to encourage binary thinking, where everything is derivable in
mutually exclusive yes-no terms. There is little room for subtlety,
nuance or ambiguity. Open ended issues may become irrelevant. Problems
become viewed in the narrowest, most operational way, as subjectivity is
shunned.
Educators interfere with the students' thinking and creativity by
imposing "rules" and methodologies. Among the most popular
methodologies which are advertised as encouraging rigorous, organized
thinking is top- down design and structured programming. Rather than
creating the empowerment of which Zuboff speaks, Perrolle argues that
such methodologies in practice establish an assembly line like division
of labor:
structured programming and its extensions offer new control
mechanisms...it offers a way to replace temperamental
programmer-craftsmen with better disciplined, less experienced, and
better organized technical laborers. It also promises a 10% to 20%
increase in program productivity...structured programming rationalizes
the process of software design and coding. Easily supervised individual
programmers can then be set to making small parts of large software
systems.(Perrolle, 1987, p. 169)
In top-down software development11 the goal is to make each module of
the program independent and the personalized touches of the authors
irrelevant.12 Even if no two people were to write a given section the
same way, however written the results are supposed to be functionally
equivalent. This is Taylorism13 or "scientific management" where
overseers reduces each worker's task to discrete, measurable operations
defined, controlled and evaluated by the supervisor. Intellectual
workers may sense declining autonomy and greater accountability to
employers and supervisors which in a capitalist culture would be
business rather than the general public.
Scientific management through top-down design and structured
programming, has begun to permeate the problem solving tier of computer
literacy. Under the guise of problem solving, the programming tier
supports Tayloresque education. As these techniques are heralded for
offering greater efficiency and productivity within the software
industry14 , it is being greeted with fervor by the educational
system(s). The pedagogical motives of the educational innovators who
sponsor these approaches are unclear. The literature reviews by Shiel
(1981) and Vessey and Weber (1984) provide discouraging evidence of
their pedagogical value. Not only do they fail to discover that these
methodologies enhance student understanding, they are even unable to
support the claim that they increase industrial productivity.
Individual programmers are most effective in styles in which they
personally feel most comfortable. To impose one uniform style upon
everyone is to sacrifice personal talent, and thus the quality of their
work. Taylorist education has its industrial costs. The schools'
hidden curriculum of developing students who conform to preset molds
will produce workers who lack creativity and thus the ability to
innovate. We appear to have rushed to embrace computer ideology,
through curriculum, merely for the sake of molding our youth to whatever
needs industry claims to have--even if these perceived needs are often
ill- advised.
SUMMARY
There may be ways to use computers to enhance student creativity, and
analytical and synthetic reasoning. This goal will more likely be
realized if educators commit themselves to this ideal very early in the
students' educational journey when their minds have not yet been
corrupted by years of dogmatic pedagogy. Computer educators may fail to
understand the hidden curriculum, and therefore not fully appreciate the
techno-cultural paradigm(Mowshowitz, 1984) embedded within the school
system itself-- "Contrary to some initial prophecies, computers have not
been able to escape the constraints of their use environments."(Chen,
1985, p. 38)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aronowitz, S. and H. Giroux. (1985) Education Under Siege. South
Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc.
Alavi, M. (1984) An Assessment of the Prototyping Approach to
Information Systems Development. Communications of the ACM, 27(6), p.
556-563.
Baber, R. L. (1982) Software Reflected. Amsterdam: North-Holland
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Baron, N. S.(1984) Should Everyone Learn Anything?: The Question of
Computer Literacy, SIGCSE Bulletin, 16(1), p. 108-114.
Bitter, G (1984) Computers in Today's World. New York: New York, John
Wiley and Sons.
Boehm, B. W. (1986) A Spiral Model of Software Development and
Enhancement. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 11(4), p. 14-24.
Bork, A. (1985) Personal Computers for Education, New York: Harper and
Row, Publishers, Inc.
Bowles, S. and H. Gintis. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America.
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Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital, New York: Monthly
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Paisley (ed.), Children and Microcomputers. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.
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Programming: A Literature Review, Project ACCCEL, University of
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NOTES
1 We highlight the issue of skilled worker because we are expected to
accept the demand without the requisite descriptions of what is meant.
There is a great deal of intellectual "hand waving" that results in the
computer literacy curriculum.(Magrass and Upchurch, 198?)
2 "... preparing students to take their place in the corporate order as
disciplined subordinate workers."(Aronowitz and Giroux, 1985, p. 61)
3 Combining this definition with Bork's we now know what the contemporary
world may be.
4 Who is the "we" that must determine what someone should know? If the
extent of knowledge differs for each person, who determines and when do
they determine what an individual should be taught?
5 Van Dyke(1987) refers to literacy in this manner: "functional
literacy," the possession of symbolic skills needed to meet minimal
social and professional demands, and "higher literacy," the ability to
use those skills to participate in culture."(p. 367)
6 Here we imply that the ruling class is the owners or controllers of
information technology.
7 The impression given is that this is the way programming in industry is
practiced. The current accepted design paradigm however is based on
prototyping, not the linear development as suggested above.(see Alavi,
1984, or Boehm, 1986)
8 Bowles and Gintis point out that "a century and a half ago [m]ost
[American educators] seemed to accept the fact that different races and
classes, boys and girls, would attend quite different types of
institutions."(p. 153) So the multi-tier view of computer literacy has
a heritage.
9 We have already observed computer education being defended as
explicitly adjusting schools to meet the needs of industry through an
economic ideology which elevates the capitalist and technological elites
beyond challenge.(Magrass and Upchurch, 198?)
10 The programming tier is related to the development of cognitive
skills, however narrowly defined. Woolgar(1987) presents an interesting
critique of the development of cognitivism which is related to this
issue.
11 We noted earlier a segment from Spencer on the steps in program
development. These steps correspond to the waterfall paradigm in
software engineering. This paradigm has come under increased scrutiny
lately, and practitioners are asking under what circumstances, or
problem domains, would the use of such a paradigm suffice. The point
being--this area is evolving and as Gibbs and Ford(1986) note "few
software engineering principles have yet been identified"(p.2).
12 This is usually referred to as egoless programming.
13 Taylorism ... is intended to be a SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT OF OTHERS'
WORK (Braverman's emphasis) under capitalist conditions...to achieve
control of the actual mode of performance of every labor activity, from
the simplest to the most complicated.(Braverman, 1974, p. 90)
14 Kraft(1977) presents the case on (against) mass-production techniques
applied to software design. Baber's(1982) arguments suggest that the
de-skilling of programmers may have led to the so called "software
crisis" of today.paigen@pixar.UUCP (David Paigen) (09/27/88)
I have three main responses to the article:
1) I would make an analogy between "computer literacy" and
auto mechanics. Not everyone in this society knows
how to fix a car, yet we all know better than to trust
a mechanic. :-) Eventually, people will learn what they need
to know about computers just by living in the society, and
make use of programmers and engineers when needed.
2) I think there are, and will be, many similarities between
the "industrial revolution" and the "information revolution".
In just a few generations, people will have at their
fingertips (literally) more information by orders of
magnitude than we are able to find today in any libraries.
However, this will come at a cost. Today we all have dining
room tables, most of which are poorly made. The information
of 50 years from now will probably be copious, but will have
little relation to reality.
3) The application of "scientific management" to programming
(e.g. top down programming) will not take away the creativity
and flair of programming. This is like saying that the
scientific method takes the creativity and intuition out
of science.
Besides, both of my parents are research biologists, so I
grew up in a scientific community. The last person I spoke
with who claimed to adhere strictly to the scientific
method was my seventh grade homeroom teacher.
Well, there you have it.
David Paigenmkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Mike Khaw) (09/29/88)
I was pretty disgusted after reading the article, and I still am, but here's my 2 cents worth: 1) Lots of criticism, but none constructive, and no alternatives proposed. It's easy to take potshots, but not so easy to come up with good ideas, eh? 2) A lot of what the article said about "computer literacy" education could just as well be applied to other subjects taught in schools. A good deal of what we're taught is indoctrination in the culture we belong to. Suppose I attacked art education for requiring students to learn about perspective, human anatomy, and the history of art, instead of letting students simply "express their creativity"? I think that would be pretty silly. 3) The author(s?) didn't say it in so many words, but were levelling charges of "elitism". I'd rather have a meritocracy than "equality" achieved through mediocrity driven by some standard of ideological purity, which would simply install an elitism of ideology instead. 4) I find it ironic that this diatribe against bourgeois capitalism is taking place in media made possible by that very same capitalist system. Capitalism has its faults, but would a Marxist socialist system allow the same kind of criticism directed against it, or try to suppress it? Mike Khaw
bowman%kanga.dnet@gw.wmich.edu (Joel Bowman) (09/29/88)
Magrass and Upchurch present several interesting ideas in "Computer Literacy: The Pigeonhole Principle." In some ways, the so-called "information age" is producing a greater distinction between workers with desirable skills and those without than were obvious when heavy industry dominated the economy. To say that computers and computer education condition students (and other users) to accept the authority of a "ruling class" is, however, no more valid than saying that the printing press was responsible for conditioning people to accept the authority of a ruling class. Yes, culture conditions; yes, culture (as much as the people who constitute the culture) uses information to condition people to perpetuate itself. History will show that every increase in the flow of information results in the ruling class having less power, while those at the bottom of the cultural hierarchy gain. As an "information tool," computers will probably accelerate the flow of power from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom--people who have access to information want to make decisions about their own lives and don't take kindly to the authority of a ruling class. The computer provides access to information. Wanting "computer literacy" for our students is an expression of our faith in democracy and in each individual's right to obtain information and use it to make decisions for him- or herself. The move from mainframe, centralized computer systems to microcomputers (PERSONAL computers) is an extension of the computers general tendency to promote democracy and individual liberty, as individual users no longer have to go beg a computer guru to run a program or analyze data. They can do it for themselves. In general, I think that good things will come from computer literacy and the Information Age. There are, however, no guarantees that the future will be better than the past, so we need to be aware of possible hazards along the way. Magrass and Upchurch have certainly presented us with enough interesting ideas to keep the information flowing for several issues. Joel P. Bowman College of Business Western Michigan University