225 Chapter 7 Justifying Technology Studies Why should we teach technology in the schools? What is the reason for accommodating technology in the school curriculum? Why should we have to justify our existence? Are the public schools an appropriate institution for developing economic human resources? Should students be taught to think critically about technology? Is the technology laboratory or workshop the place in the school where the students can "put it all together"? Will technology studies lose its identity in an alignment with math and science? Should technology studies serve to remedy long-standing inequities in technology? Ought technology studies be aligned with ecology and sustainability? These are some of the primary questions that impinge on the direction of technology studies in the schools. Throughout the 20th century, technology studies expended an inordinate amount of energy justifying itself. At times, it seemed as though this subject was trying to be all things to all people. In the next chapter, we will make the case that there is one, and only one, persuasive justification for the inclusion of technology studies in the schools. That justification is the content of technology. No one will buy the 'all things to all interest groups' justification anymore. No longer does technology studies have to shift its identity from situation to situation, appearing avocational in one place, vocational in another and academic in a third. No more does technology studies have to take a subservient role to other subjects by appearing in integrationist garments, serving to provide applications or relevance to apparently irrelevant endeavors in the schools. No more does technology studies have to be cobbled together from the remnants of the past. The days of doing summersaults and cartwheels or drawing sophisticated flow charts to demonstrate why technology should be included in the K-12 curriculum are over. Activities, projects and the orientation of practice derive from, and lead toward, the progressive understanding of technology as a social force and social product. They derive from and lead toward pre-established content of technology. Technology studies is not justified by the mere fact that we use technology; nor is it defined by an appeal to technical skills. Technology studies is justified by a theory of practice, about, through and for technology as explained in Chapter 6, and by the all-important imperative of the sustained study of technology in all of its manifestations. © Stephen Petrina. (in press). Curriculum and Instruction For Technology Teachers 226 While the primary justification for technology studies in the schools is the content of technology, secondary justifications are still important. Technology teachers may not have to justify their subject inasmuch as they will have to politick for their subject. This chapter describes ten of the more significant secondary justifications for the inclusion of technology as a school subject (Fig. 7.1). Most technology teachers choose three or four of these secondary justifications to emphasize at any given time with their students. Some of the justifications contradict others. For example, critical technological literacy contradicts technological literacy and appropriate technology contradicts tech prep. Other justifications, such as gender equity, cut across all the others. Read this chapter with an eye toward recognizing the advantages and disadvantages of each justification. The first section addresses the significance of technology, which underwrites the primary justification, or the content of technology. Technological Literacy Craft, Design Technological and Capability Engineering Critical Appropriate Technological Technology Significance Literacy of Technology Tech Prep and (Content) Gender Equity Trades Employability Character Skills Values Integration Figure 7.1. Justifications for Technology Studies © Stephen Petrina. (in press). Curriculum and Instruction For Technology Teachers 227 Significance of Technology While technology is obviously relevant given its ubiquity and its role in restructuring international and social relations as well as our personal lives, it is still necessary to state the case for technology as a subject of study. The study and teaching of technology as a subject in its own right is important for the following, among other reasons: Why Study Technology? • Technology is central to action, cognition and emotion. • The food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe involve technological decisions. • The scale and scope of technology are now extended toward two extremes of life: toward microscopic and macroscopic levels. Technologies now extend inward to minute cellular, molecular and even atomic levels of our bodies and outward to the massive complexes of power plants, urban centers and greenhouse gasses affecting the entire planet. • Technology is increasingly imperfect and at the root of global public disasters such as nuclear meltdowns and local private disasters such as industrial cancer. • Technology is increasingly integrated with all aspects of life, from amusement to domesticity to work. Technology is increasingly integrated into our bodies, leaving many to conclude that we are cyborgs. The artificial world and integrated circuit are ambient; increasingly, technology is habitat. • Technology is increasingly final in that its effects are increasingly difficult to reverse. The elimination of species, ozone layer depletion and greenhouse gasses are significant for their finality. • The monies directed toward technology amount to an increasingly large share of budgets in industry, the military and government. • Values, rights, liberties and choices are affected by technology on immediate, personal levels. • Technology is necessary for human existence. Personal livelihoods are dependent on technology for leisure, subsistence and work. • Technology is a fundamental area of culture and human endeavor, and is inextricably interwoven with history, culture, nature and society; also, it is integrative in nature. • Technology is problematic and paradoxical for individuals and society. • The ubiquity and immediacy of technology redefine our perceptions of the world and ourselves. The new media technologies play ever more pervasive and invasive roles in our lives. • Increasingly, technology must be regulated and its direction subjected to limitations and determined democratically. There is tension between personal and social choice. Education is the only reliable route toward technological decision making and democratic choice. © Stephen Petrina. (in press). Curriculum and Instruction For Technology Teachers 228 Traditional, subject-centered education is permeated with technology, yet as a topic of study, technology is traditionally precluded to anything but passing glances or delivered at an impersonal, unreflective level. It typically is reduced to technoenthusiasm. The notion of the integration or infusion of technology into all subjects of the school is underwritten by the naive assumption that technology is merely a tool (technonaivete) and does not have to be studied as a subject. Some technologies may very well be tools, but in the aggregate with its collateral and deferred effects, Technology is a subject that demands and requires systematic study and deliberation. Technology studies happens to have developed a powerful theory and practice in curriculum and instruction for this careful, sensitive study and deliberation to occur. At this point it is important to differentiate between the study of technology and the celebration of technology in schools. By celebration is meant technoenthusiasm, or: (1) the promotion and endorsement of new technologies, (2) the uncritical dispensing of technical skills and (3) optimism regarding the potential of technology to resolve social problems. The integration of the new media technologies in school subjects amounts to a celebration of technology. The traditional subjects, such as industrial education, information technology education and career and technical education usually amount to technoenthusiasm. Technoenthusiasm in the schools fails the students, the future of the subject of technology in the schools and the democratic processes of society. The study of technology drops the pretension that basically any activity with, or course about, technology is justified. Technology is obviously important enough to be a subject of study in its own right, rather than merely integrated into all other subjects. The study and teaching of technology requires a more critical disposition and orientation toward technologies than is found in integration and the industrial approaches. The study of technology requires technoskepticism to temper the enthusiastic optimism that typically accompanies technology; a healthy criticism, rather then ambivalence. There are three ways that technonaivete mystifies technology and generates ambivalence: 1. The workings of contemporary technologies cannot be understood. Technology is beyond our understandings, inherently progressive, autonomous or beyond control. If it cannot be understood, it need not be studied, or understood. Technology is a tool to be taken for granted and used (instrumentalism). 2. Given #1, technology is like magic or alchemy come true. It is mysterious. © Stephen Petrina. (in press). Curriculum and Instruction For Technology Teachers 229 3. Given #1 and #2, technologies appear to have no history or location. They appear as products of their