Uncomfortable Discussions at Tech Conferences: Blind Spots and Systemic Racism
Typically, technology conferences buzz with gadgetry, infrastructure, and new ways to engage students. Most conferences provide an energetic keynote presentation along with a wide variety of session offerings where most educators can find something that piques their interests. Usually those interests are more aligned with the newest app or latest software rather than examining pedagogy, equity, or even relationships. With that said, when was the last time you heard someone talk about racism or digital equity at a tech conference? When was the last time you saw a keynote talk about the importance of reaching ALL learners and how we need to examine our own actions, biases, and intentions aligned with our roles as educators? Most tech conference attendees aren’t coming thinking that the institutions that create inequities, such racism or being complicit are important. Yet, when it comes to systemic inequities, both play a key role in how educational technology is implemented or even how speakers might address this in their keynotes.
More often than not, participants come to find inspiration and ideas that can be brought back to their districts. There is nothing inherently wrong with tech conferences that seek to inspire and educate. However, when racism, voice, and privilege are not addressed in a deliberate way, all of us suffer. We suffer because we lose out on face to face opportunities for meaningful conversations. We suffer because we lose out on the opportunity to examine our roles in the institution of education and how each of us play a critical part in the success of our students. We lose out because each year the inequities are perpetuated is another year we lose out on the human capital and contributions of all our students.
Here are two perspectives from tech centric educators:
Ken Shelton (African American educator/tech strategist):
I have had the opportunity to attend, speak at, and even keynote a lot of conferences over the years. My conference experiences are not limited to technology but they make up the vast majority. One of the areas that I often notice right away when I am at a conference is the low volume of diverse representation amongst the attendees as well as the presenters. This has led me to make a purposeful attempt at engaging as many attendees as possible to both learn together with and simply have an engaging conversation. Over the years I noticed that most of the conversations were related to the pedagogy du jour, ________(fill in the blank) mindset or the newest buzzword in education. As my experiences grew, my PLN broadened, and my perspectives (also through my teaching experience) became less myopic I found there were conversations needed but sorely missing. I realized that talking pedagogy meant very little if you didn’t have a number of critical things in place before you get to the learning. As Peter Drucker may have perfectly stated (authentications to him making this statement are inconclusive), “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast.” Regardless of whether Drucker actually made that statement or not is less important than the meaning of it. Simply replace Strategy with Pedagogy and you have the point I am sharing here. I identify two critical parts of any learning environment that culture is the foundation for. Do the learner’s feel welcomed and their contributions matter? Does the educator in the room have an awareness on how their own biases can affect the outcome, i.e. potential success, of the learners in the room? Our biases are very strong and they not only impact our conscious interactions, but they also influence our subconscious actions. In order to address the components of these biases we must first be intentional in having conversations around race, culture, and access. We must also be diligent about who we learn from and who we learn with. A combination of meaningful conversations at our learning experiences along with diverse representation on who is speaking can be the catalyst for growth in the areas that we continue to see be the barriers to equitable access to learning. Once we make progress in this area then and only then can we get to the conversation around the shiny new thing.
Matt Hiefield (white educator)
Upon arrival at my first large tech conference two years ago, I was overwhelmed by the number of options. Hardware that immediately caught my attention included drones, ozobots, the latest chromebook iterations, and classroom furniture configurations. Educators led energizing sessions on different ways to integrate technology that fueled engagement and facilitated better learning strategies and organizations. As a person interested in digital equity, I had a chance to connect experts who were national leaders on digital divide issues. Every attendee had an interesting story to tell, and I made a number of wonderful connections.
Amidst all of this energy, though, something seemed to be missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it amidst the chaos, but a systemic framework for all of this new learning was not apparent. At an equity team meeting in my district many months later, we started looking at key questions for decision making that included:
Whose voice is and isn’t represented in this decision?
Who does this decision benefit and who does it burden?
Is this decision in alignment with our district’s equity policy?
Does this decision close or widen the access, opportunity, and expectations gap?
As it turns out, thinking about these questions at the district level helped me realize what I felt was often missing at large tech conferences. We have serious equity issues in districts across the nation, and no amount of technology can or should distract us from key questions that relate to our students. Sometimes the bright, shiny and new obscure deeper issues of race and class that directly relate to tech integration.
The role of white fragility
In her book White Fragility, author Robin DiAngelo discusses how white people often view racism in a good/bad binary. In essence, she observes that many whites feel uncomfortable talking about racism that exists in a given system — especially if they are a part of that system. The reason is that many whites view racism as a good/evil proposition, and everything associated with racism is inherently evil. When viewed as a binary like this and not as a more nuanced condition, whites shy away from addressing racism if it means that the whole organization would be viewed as evil if there is structural racism is present. And of course this is a critical shortcoming: when we fail to talk about the nuances of racism and technology at tech conferences, we ultimately fail all of our students.
When meeting with strangers at a large edtech conference, racism isn’t the first issue that people address. Educators are looking to be inspired, to learn, and to make connections, and racism isn’t a common topic of discussion. Learning and being inspired are great outcomes, but they should not be the only outcomes. If technology is going to be a game changer for all of our students, we need to make equity a key framework and we need to be having difficult discussions.
In conclusion we would like to leave you with a few things to consider. When you attend a conference, put on a conference, or think about your professional learning experiences who is there? What voices are missing? Are they missing intentionally? What is the optical impact as well as growth impact of not having diverse representation? Now most importantly, what should we be doing about it?
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
Ken Shelton Ken is the ISTE Digital Equity PLN 2018 Excellence Award winner. Ken is currently the Global Keynote Specialist and Educational Technology Strategist, for EdTechTeam. Ken is an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Innovator and was also named to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Education Technology Task Force. You can find Ken on Twitter @K_Shelton.
Matt Hiefield is part of the Beaverton School District Team that won CoSN’s 2018 Digital Equity Award and was also awarded Oregon Broadband Council’s Outstanding Telecommunications Advocate Award for his work on digital equity. He is an ISTE digital equity PLN leader, a digital curator, and is a member of his district’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. You can find Matt on Twitter @MattHiefield.
Uncomfortable Discussions at Tech Conferences: Blind Spots and Systemic Racism
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