Learning Computer Science Was Hard. Unlearning Computer Science Is Harder

Learning computer science was hard. Unlearning computer science is harder. Horațiu Halmaghi Department of Integrated Studies in Education McGill University, Montreal December 2019 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements ofthe degree of Masters of Arts © Horațiu Halmaghi 2019 Abstract In order to succeed in a computer science (CS) education, CS students must learn how to translate reality into code, algorithms and other computational knowledges and practices. Samantha Breslin refers to these processes and practices as “rendering technical,”a term which also encompasses how computational processess and practices shape reality in material and conceptual ways. Technical renderings create computational ‘worlds’ that enable computer scientists and CS students to frame their world in terms of problems and solutions that are computationally solvable. However, this is possible only by reducing or omitting the social, cultural, political, economic and historical aspects of reality. And once CS students learn how to render technical it becomes very difficult to think in ways that honour the full complexity of reality. This thesis is an autoethnography of some of my experiences in learning to think around the boundaries constructed by processes of rendering technical. My narrative revolves around a workshop/political intervention I organized and facilitated with/for friends and colleagues in tech to begin a conversation about the social and political challenges facing us as technologists. The workshop was a step in my journey from an uncritical CS student, to acomputer programmer and computer programming educator becoming increasingly skeptical of Sili- con Valley dogma, to a graduate student wishing to commit and contribute to the difficult and non-innocent work of undoing the social hierarchies and the interlocking oppressions produced by the relations of settler colonialism. Thick descriptions of the path I have walked, and of my experiences trying to invite other technologists to learn from and contribute to my learning, can offer insights for academic and activist educators interested in education for social change. 1 Resumé Pour réussir en sciences informatiques, les étudiants doivent apprendre à traduire la réal- ité en langage informatique, algorithmes et autres pratiques et conventions informatiques. Samantha Breslin desgine ces procédés et pratiques le “rendu technique,” un terme qui décrit comment ces procédés et pratiques informatiques façonnent aussi bien la réalité physique que conceptuelle. Ces rendus techniques générent des ‘mondes’ virtuels qui permettent aux étuidants d’apprehender leur environment en termes de problèmes technologiquement solv- ables. Toutefois, ceci n’est possible qu’à condition d’omettre les réalités sociales, culturelles, politiques, économiques et historiques de la réalité. Et a compter du moment ou les étudi- ants s’approprient le concept de “rendu technique” il leur devient tout de suite très difficile d’apprehender toute la complexité de la réalité. Cette thèse est une autoethnographie de certaines de mes expériences pour penser leslim- ites construites par les procédés de “rendu technique.” Mon récit s’articule autour d’un atelier/intervention politique que j’ai organisé avec/pour des collègues et amis dans l’industrie de la technologie pour amorcer une conversation sur les défis sociaux et politiques que nous avons a relever en tant que technologues. L’atelier a été une étape dans mon parcours d’élève en informatique, depourvu d’esprit critique, à un programmeur et éducateur en program- mation devenant de plus en plus sceptique au dogme de la Silicon Valley, et enfin en tant qu’étudiant diplômé souhaitant s’engager et contribuer a la tâche difficile et politiquement intéressée de défaire les hiérarchies sociales et les oppressions produites par des rapports de colonialisme. Ces descriptions denses et détaillées du chemin que j’ai parcouru, et de mes invitations faites aux autres technologues à apprendre et contribuer, auront je l’espére le potentiel d’inspirer académiciens et autres éducateurs/activistes intéressés par l’enseignement du changement social. 2 Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to thank all the participants of the workshop which frames this thesis and which has inspired my work more generally. I am indescribably grateful to all of you for sharing your experiences with one another, for learning together and contributing to all our our collective learning, for allowing me to learn from you, for keeping me accountable, and for encouraging me that the work I have begun is important and needed in the tech industry (and beyond). Thank you also to those who helped me organize and facilitate the workshop itself,and to those who provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this thesis. Your contributions have made this work so much stronger than I could have ever made it on my own. I cannot express how thankful I am to Elizabeth Patitsas. She played my thesis supervisor in one of her roles, but was and continues to be so much more. Her broad, detailed and critical knowledge of academia helped me not only navigate through my degree, but also to claim the space I needed to care for myself in a process that would otherwise have squeezed all the energy out of me. Helpful also was the funding she secured for me, which allowed me to focus on my learning. Our conversations, the readings she assigned me, the reading groups she intitated and encouraged me to participate in, and the classes she taught that I was welcomed to audit, gave me the solid foundation I needed to complete my work at McGill, but also to more critically understand myself and the world beyond the walls of the university. And it was her guidance that made the first drafts of this thesis possible, her keen observation that pulled a coherent and compelling story out of those early drafts, and her continuous feedback, encouragement and trust that helped me polish them into what you’re reading now. Yet as important as all that was, I am most grateful to Elizabeth for pushing me to learn like no other teacher ever has. Her care and empathy allowed me to bring my full self into my learning; her trust and patience allowed me to learn at my own pace and from my own mistakes; and the supportive ways she challenged me on my unknowns, on my unstated assumptions, and on my particular privileges, helped me do the best work I can do. Elizabeth modelled teaching for me in ways I hope to also one day be able to model for my own students, and for this too I am immensely grateful. I would also like to thank my professors at McGill University for their contributions to my learning, with a special shout-out to Aziz Choudry, Naomi Nichols and Philip S.S. Howard. I have all three to thank for helping me learn to notice the ways liberal thinking structures much of the world we move through, especially the ways it informed my own perspectives, and to appreciate the need and urgency of more critical and more radical ways of thinking and being in the world. And perhaps more importantly, they showed me that it’s possible to be 3 both a rigorous and engaged scholar, that my full being was not only welcome but encouraged to participate in the processes of learning and knowing, and that the work we do in our minds and in the classroom must also extend beyond the walls of the university. Aziz also kept me in the loop on the latest critical work about technology and pointed me towards the more practical resources for social change education that formed the core of the workshop I organized and facilitated. I was fortunate enough to attend two classes taught by Naomi in my first semester, classes which (quickly) taught me what it means to think, to know and to be in a deeply unjust world. In those classes and in conversations about our work, she also gave me the courage to push the limits of what a thesis can be, while also reminding me that I would need to learn to navigate (at least) two different worlds – the academic and that of my community – when doing action research. I wouldn’t have the understanding I have of settler colonialism and of the complex and imbricated histories of race, gender, sexuality and class were it not for Philip. Struggling with my response to the Arts Against Post-Racialism event he organized along with other scholars and artists, and attending his classes, challenged me to appreciate why white supremacy needs to be fought on all fronts at the same time – and today. Philip also modelled what it means to live responsibly, to think carefully about the ways we are involved in each other’s oppressions in ways that resist simple abstractions or generalizations, to hold each other accountable while remembering to forgive each other and ourselves for the mistakes we inevitably will make, and to move through the world with genuine care and kindness. My Social Studies of Computing labmates and the friends and colleagues in the related reading groups helped me pilot different learning activities ahead of the workshop and several of the exercises that end the chapters in this thesis. They also helped me prepare for conference presentations about my work, and even kept me company while on the road. For all this I am very grateful; your enthusiastic support and feedback helped make this thesis stronger, my teaching more effective, and my work in general more thoughtful. Thanks also go to Marta Kobiela and Joseph Levitan. I am grateful to Marta forhelping me find my footing in the early days of my Masters, and for connecting me with Elizabeth Patitsas. And to Joseph, my thesis examiner, I am grateful for the insightful comments and feedback that guided the last few months of my work on this thesis, for believing in my work, and for pushing me to continue it beyond grad school.

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