On being determined to design tomorrow today

Steve Keirl - University of South Australia

Keynote Address - ACET 2000

Steve Keirl

Coordinator of Technology Education (P-12)

School of Education, University of South Australia,

Holbrooks Road, Underdale, SA 5032, Australia

Tel: (Int+) 618 8302 6545

Fax: (Int+) 618 8302 6550

Email: Steve.Keirl@unisa.edu.au

1 Preface

I begin with three prefatory notes:

First, this paper is the text version of an address to Conference and is therefore in more formal style than the address itself. Some of the material used in the address is not included here although, where possible, I have referenced it. The paper offers greater depth and referencing for colleagues interested in pursuing further, or critiquing, aspects of what has been presented.

Second, this work draws in part on recent papers I have developed. Thus, while I have covered some of this ground elsewhere, the broader base of what is presented here is also available in fuller form for more detailed argument or critique.

The title of the paper, ‘On being determined to design tomorrow today’, draws upon the Conference Theme ‘Designing Tomorrow Today’. In part, I develop the paper by using pairs of words from the topic and not necessarily in the order they were presented at Conference.

2 Introduction

This paper begins with the identification of three current contexts, namely - international change, seven ‘orthodoxies’ with which we must wrestle, and, the competing claims or interests in our field. It is then argued that Technology Education cannot be constructed as mono-dimensional or defined by narrow definition but, rather that it be constructed in holistic terms. To this end, four dimensions are offered.

The question ‘How prepared are we to design tomorrow today? is then asked through the mechanism of the pairs of words drawn from the title. The paper closes by noting some of the powerful technological precursors of tomorrow that are already in place today.

3 Current contexts

3.1 Rapid and significant Technology Curriculum developments

The emergence of Technology Education as a curriculum entity is a recent phenomenon. While some of the developments over the last century have been well documented by Penfold (1988), two major international studies identify recent trends. In 1996, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reviewed Science, Maths and Technology Education in 13 of its member countries. It acknowledged the arrival of Technology Education as the ‘... most dramatic and distinctive development in the 13 countries’ (Atkin & Black, 1997:24). Another study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) which cast its net much more broadly across the world, is similarly explicit. Layton opens his report on this study by noting that:

It is rare today to be able to observe the emergence of a new subject in the school curriculum - the sources from which it springs, the conditions which sustain its development, the influences which determine its form and the goals it is expected to fulfil.

For reasons which are complex and not yet fully analysed, the present seems a moment in curriculum history when such an opportunity exists. In many education systems around the world, irrespective of whether the country is low income and developing or high income and industrialised, the case for technology as a component of general education is under examination and is impelling specific curriculum innovations.

(Layton, 1994:11)

In Australia, the single most significant recent factor was the identification of Technology as one of eight curriculum Learning Areas. This structure was reaffirmed last April by all the Australian States and Territories. With the introduction of their own Statement and Profile (A.E.C., 1994a, 1994b), Technology Educators gained a common framework, a common language and some much needed status. There has been a wide range of developments: in pedagogy; in local curriculum determination; in resourcing; in research interest; and in status too. However, no clear or unified picture is yet emerging. It may be that the richness and diversity of the field, if protected, will become its educational strength. Conversely it may be that we have the opportunity to contribute to our field’s self-destruction and watch other agendas prevail.

Strangely enough in these utilitarian times, these documents have done a considerable service to the potential development of Technology Education - an area which can be all too confusing to quantify, which is without any significant curriculum precedent or research pedigree and yet which is so fundamental to our species. While the Curriculum Profile is circumspect about actually giving definition to the term 'technology', the authors describe, illustrate and allude to ways in which technology may be constructed. They consider that:

Technology ... contributes to cultural, social, environmental and economic changes. People need to understand technology, be confident and capable users of a wide range of technological applications and processes, and to critically appreciate the consequences of technological innovation. People need to make informed decisions about the sustainable development of technology and its impact on people and the environment.

(A.E.C., 1994a:3)

However, one must ask – are we really interested in delivering such ‘people’s needs’ and, if so, how possible is this? The Technology curriculum area is a radically contested one and any attempts at resolving the contestation must inevitably face three key realities. First, with regard to technology per se, we need to clear the air by challenging a cluster of existing orthodoxies. Second, we need to examine and critique a spectrum of purposes and views that are currently held on Technology Education by those who claim interests in the field. Third, we need to understand Technology Education as multi-dimensional rather than trying to operate from any single orthodoxy, agenda or definition.

The fact is that all Technology Educators need to be central players in resolving issues about the aims, goals and purposes of Technology Education, not cast as bit players in the process simply implementing other people’s agendas. How do we see ourselves? As doers of the bidding of others or, rather, as the designers of a professionally defensible future for our curriculum field?

3.2 Challenging current orthodoxies in technology

No discussion of the nature and potential of Technology Education can be reasonably entertained without first challenging several orthodoxies of 'technology' itself. I present seven although I address them far less fully than I would wish:

The orthodoxy of technology as 'new'.

Despite common perceptions about ‘newness’, ‘innovations’ and ‘progress’, technology is not new. Not only have we been toolmakers and users for two and a half million years or so but, as Tudge (1995) argues, the feedback loop which exists between hand and brain has been critical in the development of the species - as it is with young children - and in the development of its language. ‘The more agile the hands became, the greater was the challenge presented to the brain ... and the more imaginative the brain became, the more dexterity was favoured’ (Tudge, 1995:209). Indeed, Tudge reminds us that homo habilis (handy man - sic) and homo erectus were the forebears of homo sapiens.

The orthodoxy of technology as 'things’.

There remain problems with the objectification of technology. Chairs, plates, fences, satellites, books, houses and clothes are all technological objects. However, technology is rather more than substance - as all of these ‘things’ are rather no-thing-ish until they are interacted with by people. Thus we might include language, constitution, republic, monarchy, market and regulations as technologies in that they are all human tools or enablers. Whether through trade, profession, day-to-day living, active or passive use, it can be argued that we are who we are by virtue of the technologies we inhabit, engage with, receive, and perceive. In the workplace, technology can be both provider and negator of dignity, and of self respect in meaningful production (Morris in Morton, 1979; Hobsbawm, 1998).

We are, as a species, technological. It is one of our characteristics. Remembering this, and the sense of technology-as-cultural-practice, perhaps gives a perspective to whatever we construct technology to be. It is technology in its existential sense which is fundamental to our meaning-making in this world, and, while technology may have meant survival for the species, it has, equally, the potential for our doom.

The orthodoxy of technology as ‘neutral’.

This orthodoxy is a co-habitant with ‘technology as things’ when attempts are made to apportion worth or otherwise to the technology itself rather than to the human behaviours and relationships which accompany it. Thus technologies are represented through the binary of good/bad. The salient point is that no technology is totally good (or, perhaps, bad). Despite numerous claims to the contrary, every technology has a downside.

The orthodoxy of technology as 'hi-tech/I-tech'.

Technology is not just computers or Information Technology. The latter is merely a sub-set of the former. It may be dominant, pervasive and current but that is all it is. I say 'all' because there are many, many other manifestations of technology - existing and yet-to-be-developed - and the critiquing of all these forms calls for detachment.

The orthodoxy of technology as 'applied science'.

Similarly, it is time to disengage from the now tired notion that technology is applied science. This stereotype has run its course and as science, in whatever its construction, is researched and critiqued, this narrow definition is being shown to be inadequate. The implied consequence of technology as a result of science has limited validity as, throughout history, it has been technology which has been the enabler of science (Pursell, 1994; Gardner, 1994; 1997).

The orthodoxy of technology as ‘inevitable’.

There exists the extremely powerful orthodoxy of technological determinism which is given currency by those who maintain that the flow of new technologies and their accompanying change are ‘all inevitable’. Thus one can’t influence or challenge technology’s course and one should ‘go with the flow’. There is a strong societal undercurrent which supports this view - whether it stems from a feeling of powerlessness on the part of individuals or is actively driven by those with particular agendas - for example, businesses promoting their products, or governments fearing a loss of ‘competitive edge’. The feeling of being ‘left behind’ or ‘not up with the times’ manifests itself at every level from the individual to the national.

The orthodoxy of technology as ‘incomprehensible’.

Finally, I would suggest that there is an orthodoxy which engenders complacency towards the seemingly incomprehensible nature of technology and its consequences. Patently, no individual can command deep knowledge of all technological developments - the growth continues exponentially - and legal and ethical systems invariably lag behind the innovations. The feeling of being ‘overwhelmed by it all’ can lead to the very complacency and passivity which weaken democratic society. However, it may be that knowledge alone is not the issue and that there are broader frameworks which can be brought to bear.

3.3 Who’s interested in our field?

I have found Layton's (1994:13) metaphor of Technology Education as a '...curriculum drama' to be invaluable in illustrating to colleagues (within and beyond Technology Education), parents, principals, employers i.e. anyone who needs to see what we're up against in trying to clarify curriculum in the field. These 'six principal actors' are all claimants for roles in our play and they cannot all be accommodated…

Economic Instrumentalists, whose concerns lie with national economic competitiveness and wealth creation, and for whom technology education and vocational education become almost synonymous;

Professional Technologists, and engineers, who often see technology education contributing to national economic growth while also seeking to shape it to enhance the professional standing of their field;

Sustainable Developers, who seek to ensure the compatibility of economic growth and environmental protection;

Girls and Women, whose representation across the field of technology education remains minimal, yet towards whom so much technological development, in the product and systems sense, is directed;

Defenders of Participatory Democracy, who identify the empowering dimension of technology education as being a necessary safeguard against the dominance of a technocratic elite. The burden being placed on technology education in relation to democratic decision-making in the future is formidable....; and,

Liberal Educators, who laud the intrinsic merit of technology education, ...they argue that technological activity involves a distinctive form of cognition, unique and irreducible. As such, all children should have access to it, as a matter of right, and in order to develop their full human potential.

(Layton, 1994:13)

Even within our professional circles in Technology Education today we have colleagues who, individually, would see themselves aligned with one or two of these interest groups. This may well be a matter for the personal and professional philosophies of individuals but I contend that it’s now beyond time that we examined our personal professional ‘interests’ in the light of what might be described as a ‘greater good’.

Some of the external agendas are backed with rich, powerful and highly organised groups. Recent OECD initiatives (Black & Atkin, 1997) come to mind for the Economic Instrumentalists as do the powerful VET dollars and assessment schemes of the basic skills type. If, (viz. Professional Technologists) engineers, architects, computer programmers, dental technicians (extend the list as you wish) all claim that schools are failing to produce the product that their particular group needs then it is the Technology Educators who are deemed liable. A stark example lies in a report (ASTEC, 1997) which argues that ‘science and technology’ (sic) should be delivered in primary schools in their role as part of the education systems ‘... by which future generations of scientists, technologists and engineers are trained’ (ASTEC, 1997:4).

If we move through the spectrum of actors it is possible to rationalise and legitimise each of their claims but it is highly doubtful if we can deliver them all. This then begs the question of who arbitrates the competing claims - I would argue that a quality Technology Education profession should.

4 Holism rather than reductionism

The current social and political climate pressures us into conformity and orthodoxy. Schools and universities are being first starved of resources and then, because of lack of ‘food’ and increased workload, are too weak to resist the regimes forced upon them. So we are fed Basic Skills Tests – to ‘measure’ the student, to ‘measure’ the teacher, to ‘measure’ the school. The deskilling of our profession, the removal of our capacities to use our professional judgement and the increasing control of how we work all serve to weaken us professionally. So we default to the established orthodoxies and to the agendas of the dominant and powerful. When we are over-worked we don’t have time to reflect and create but, rather, we struggle to do the ‘basics’ - the introduction and design of which we had no say in.

So long as we see our field in small, traditionally-bound subjects, or in knowledge forms of a single type (on which, more below), or through such positivist constructs as Information, Materials and Systems, or as ‘products’ alone, or through whatever single-lens focus one might prefer, then we are condemned to division, isolation and, worst of all, continuing to reproduce the traditional canon without any concern for either the future or the consequences for our students. In short, to even be in a position to design Technology Curriculum well, we must work with as many of the variables as we possibly can.

Technology Education at its best is multidimensional. We operate with a single paradigm at our peril and I have suggested (Keirl, 1999a) four dimensions we might contemplate in designing a quality Technology Curriculum. I use the term 'dimension' rather loosely as, to paraphrase Green (1994:xxix), 'framing technology is like trying to nail jelly'. It is chosen less in its literal sense of providing a measure but, rather, in that freer sense of gauging the field. I do not seek to define the field by applying dimensions but to illustrate its holism. Briefly, the dimensions may be described as:

4.1 The ethical…

Issues of ethics run through much literature on technology per se (rather than Technology Education) and it would seem that hardly a technological act or product can occur without there being an associated ethical connection or concern. This view may not be shared by some, for example those who consider technology to be 'neutral' and who argue that it is the users of technology to whom the ethics should apply. Holders of this view separate the product from the act of using it.

Consciously or unconsciously, Technology Educators use the concept of neutrality in concerning themselves primarily with the product rather than with matters of conception and consequence. This suits the skills oriented, production-focussed, reductionist-assessment model of technology curriculum which 'tacks on' a bit of design before the production and some 'issues' after it.

My promotion of the ethical dimension (Keirl, 1998) rests not only on the global and societal concerns that exist for the manifestation of technology (yet which, I would argue, are scarcely present in the curriculum). There is another sense of the ethical dimension and that is the sense of professional ethics. Here, I would argue that the determination of what should be included in the curriculum and, more importantly, how it should be defended and delivered calls for a strong profession which has the ethical backbone to 'take the reins' and demonstrate leadership. It is not only a matter of content of the curriculum but also, in arbitrating amongst the claimants cited above, articulating publicly our rationales for our professional decisions and actions and not being 'bought' either by rhetoric or by funding from agencies beyond the Technology Education profession.

4.2 The epistemological…

We can't go too far without discussing just what constitutes knowledge in our field. While some (Down, 1985) would challenge that there exists such a thing as technological knowledge the matter is far from resolved yet the questions raised in the discussion illustrate both the strength and complexity of Technology Education. Understanding at least the epistemological questions and ‘interests’ (if not the answers) can be most helpful in explaining some of the curriculum and political phenomena around us.

Close examination of the claims to Technology curriculum shows that the interests are underpinned by differing constructions of knowledge. (Compare the types of knowledge preferred by each of Layton’s six principal actors.) However, it is not enough to conduct an analysis by curriculum content alone, and then to make comparisons with standard knowledge models - for example, the propositional knowledge of the 'knowing that' sort, or procedural knowledge or 'know-how'. Tacit knowledge may be valued within our field, but it remains highly problematic for the logical-reductionist curriculum planner and teacher whose assessment strategies amount to the 'If-you-can't-see-it-you-can't-measure-it' type, is undervalued in many fields, not least ours.

Apart from knowledge models, it also helps to be informed by Habermas (1971) whose work was, in turn, influenced by Critical Theory which values the challenging of any one-sided doctrine and the subjecting to criticism the origins and constructions of theories and knowledge. Habermas’s work suggests there are constitutive interests at play when we consider constructions and applications of knowledge. These occur in three forms or rationalities:

· the technical, knowledge being logical-positivist, grounded in survival needs, and control of the world of resources and the environment;

· the practical – hermeneutic, concerned with meaning-making and being a part of the world we live in; concerned with action and interaction through negotiation and communication; knowledge determined by understanding and consensus;

· the emancipatory, being critically reflective by constantly critiquing and questioning opposing viewpoints and norms. Its outcome is autonomy and freedom.

No matter what the theoretical basis for a knowledge form or type, it seems to warrant a place in Technology Education. This, I believe, gives a special quality to Technology curriculum for all those who are its teachers and its learners. It becomes a strength of our field and therefore, as with any strength, we should know it and understand how to use it.

4.3 The dynamic…

It may seem a truism to suggest that there is a dynamic dimension to Technology Education and, while the phenomenon is apparent throughout the literature, it is not at all times explicit nor is it evidenced by research. Neither technology nor education, by whatever definition, is likely to be portrayed as static in content or in manifestation. Both are concerned with intentions and acts to bring about changes in certain states of affairs.

For its part, technology has been at all times a part of the species' evolution and the interaction between technology and its users has been central. As Cardwell (acknowledging Gilfillan) comments:

...there have been two complementary processes in the development of technology: evolutionary improvement and revolutionary invention.

(Cardwell, 1994:488)

On change within the educational context, Fullan (1991) argues that '...the transformation of subjective realities is the essence of change', and draws on Berger & Luckman's (1971) work in discussing the ephemeral nature of 'objective reality'. He contends that:

Change often is not conceived of as being multidimensional. Objectively, it is possible to clarify the meaning of an educational change by identifying and describing its main separate dimensions.... The difficulty is that educational change is not a single entity even if we keep the analysis at the simplest level of an innovation in a classroom. Innovation is multidimensional. There are at least three components or dimensions at stake in implementing any new program or policy: (1) the possible use of new or revised materials (direct instructional resources such as curriculum materials or technologies), (2) the possible use of new teaching approaches (i.e., new teaching strategies or activities), and (3) the possible alteration of beliefs (e.g., pedagogical assumptions and theories underlying particular new policies or programs).

(Fullan, 1991:36-7)

All three of these dimensions can be at play for a technology educator today. Added to this, the pace of change, whether technological or educational, and the extent to which a teacher can control that pace, is a significant factor in understanding the dynamic nature of the field too.

Feminist perspectives, from within and without, serve to inform our understandings of a dynamic dimension to Technology Education. Wajcman (1994) has suggested that:

Technological change itself is neither the path to progress nor the road to Armageddon. It is a process subject to struggles for control by different groups, the outcomes of which depend primarily on the distribution of power and resources within society. Perhaps by understanding the dynamics of this process we will be better placed to assert our right to shape it.

(Wajcman, 1994:12)

Drawing from feminist literature, a different source for the dynamic sense of technology education can be indirectly derived from a quotation of Wallach-Scott (in Weiner) who recognises the need for the constant scrutiny of 'necessarily unstable' concepts such as 'womanhood' or feminism:

...they require vigilant repetition, reassertion and implementation by those who have endorsed one or another definition. Instead of attributing transparent and shared meanings to cultural concepts, post-structuralists insist that meanings are not fixed in a culture's lexicon but are rather dynamic, always potentially in flux.

(Weiner, 1994:65)

Such is the case for ‘technology’ too. It is reasonable today to describe it as 'necessarily unstable'; 'rather dynamic'; and, 'always potentially in flux'. Its meaning is culturally determined and the multiple orthodoxies and interests identified indicate the tensions which keep the concept 'in flux'. This is highly significant for determining theory and praxis in technology education. Our field may have its roots in the tangible, the material and the certain. It is now time to approach matters through the intangible, the ethereal and the uncertain.

4.4 The pedagogical…

Probably the ultimate concern for those in the profession who are responsible for delivering Technology Education are the pedagogical issues implicit in what has been said so far. It is abundantly clear that the range of interpretations of 'technology education' is extensive, potentially confusing and at times contradictory. It is the pedagogy of the technology educator which will manifest and articulate a quality Technology curriculum. Thus the pedagogical dimension is placed as the fourth and cumulative dimension.

I draw upon other authors to illustrate some issues. First, as Banks has argued:

The changes in schools regarding the purposes, scope and teaching in this practical area of the curriculum have been rapid and profound. Within the professional life of teachers now in school an acceptance of a skills-based apprentice model has been overturned in favour of an intellectually demanding problem-based model requiring many different sorts of skills and knowledge.

(Banks, 1994:2)

Consider too, the pedagogical implications of designing. The Design Council (1991), writing for schools, noted that design activities involve '...a number, sometimes a large number, of diverse considerations' and that:

This diversity means that the designer must exercise not only analytical judgement in coming to decisions. There is seldom a unique and inevitable solution to a design problem. The ability to make judgements is therefore one of the qualities needed by all who design. Other qualities include the urge to make new things, imagination, the ability to conceive in the mind's eye, the ability to draw on experience and to exercise criticism of one's own efforts before reaching a decision.

(Design Council, 1991:3)

Having noted all the above, the accompanying assessment issues are not without interest either:

The holistic approach to technology education presents a number of severe problems for the assessment of technological competence....the problems of assessing, in a reliable, valid and economic way, knowledge and skills manifest as capability in solving a technological problem, remain formidable.

(Donnelly & Jenkins, 1992:3)

5 How prepared are we to design tomorrow today?

When it comes to recreating our curriculum with such futures in mind we must often admit, if we are honest with ourselves, that we are victims of our own education. Are we able to set aside our preconceptions and interrogate our own values to engage in the design and construction of the new? Are we willing to operate critically and for the greater good?

I have described what I see as some of the key orthodoxies and interests that serve to influence our work and our thinking today. Further, I am suggesting that many of these orthodoxies and interests, rather than helping us design the future with a valid educational rationale, actually hinder us.

Thus, I have also suggested that we must be comfortable with such notions as holism, critique, dynamism, change and uncertainty, and perhaps even design a futures curriculum less from what we know and more from what we do not know or cannot know.

Let me now add some thoughts ‘on being determined to design tomorrow today’.

5.1 On being…

First, I believe that it is of the essence that we understand that technology is a key determinant of who we are. We cannot ‘be’ without technology and technology cannot ‘be’ without us. This is how we live. This is how we exist.

For some reason we seem blind to this reality and the powerful significance of the fact is marvellously described by Sclove whose text is, I believe, most valuable for our field. It does not deal with education per se but its analysis of design, technology and democracy is significant. He highlights the paradox of the utter pervasiveness of technologies in our lives alongside the utterly inadequate critiquing of those very technologies. He argues that:

This complicity in technological decisions that haphazardly uproot established ways of life is as perplexing as discovering a family that shared its home with a temperamental elephant, and yet never discussed - somehow did not even notice - the beast's pervasive influence on every facet of their lives. It is even as though everyone in a nation were to gather together nightly in their dreams - assemble solemnly in a glistening moonlit glade - and there debate and ratify a new constitution. Awakening afterward with no memory of what had passed, they nonetheless mysteriously comply with the nocturnally revolutionized document in its every word and letter. Such a world, in which unconscious collective actions govern waking reality, is the world that now exists. It is the modern technological world that we have all helped create.

(Sclove,1995:5)

Developments over recent decades have seen the move from ‘crafts’ in schools and the emergence of computing. Few would question the validity of this. Whereas the ‘traditional’ in the form of a ‘craft’ is seen as technology passe, computers are very much technology de rigueur. The critiques of Fry (1992) illustrate, ironically, the emancipatory role of the traditional and the technical role of the modern respectively. It is possible to share his concerns when he suggests that it is our very separation from technology, at least in its craft sense, that contributes to a de-humanisation (at work or otherwise).

Besides whatever particular craft practices deliver, craft centres on the act of human making which is increasingly important to retain in the face of technologies that de-democratise the power to shape the world through one's labour. In such a context, craft inverts the historical trajectory of technology to shift the directive power of the making of forms away from the hand and machine-skilled labour into management maintained systems. In other words, it re-centres the human maker that advanced technology de-centres and displaces.

(Fry, 1992:263)

Some colleagues will be aware of Florman's (1994) text ‘The Existential Pleasures of Engineering’ where he writes:

Yet, what if existential searching were to reveal at the core of the human spirit a love for engineering? Or what if engineers, seeking the basis of the satisfactions they derive from their work, were to come upon the very soul-satisfying elixir that existentialists prize?

My proposition is that the nature of engineering has been misconceived. Analysis, rationality, materialism, and practical creativity do not preclude emotional fulfilment; they are pathways to such fulfilment. They do not 'reduce' experience, as is so often claimed; they expand it. Engineering is superficial only to those who view it superficially. At the heart of engineering lies existential joy.

(Florman 1994:101)

Compare and contrast this with Hacker's (1990) analysis of 'The Erotic in Technology'. She, too, looks at engineering and, later, deconstructs Florman's work. She says;

Let us consider the field of engineering, foregrounding the passionate context of this occupation. This field, the apparent epitome of cool rationality, is shot through with desire and excitement. Much of this excitement stirs the mind. It is as though an intricately shaped erotic expression finds its most creative outlet today in the design of technology. The contemporary images of eroticism and of machines and systems reflect the imagination of the designer. How could it be otherwise if any human venture?

As with any human and social activity, some care a lot and some don't give a damn. Technical skills and activities and erotic skills and activities leave some cold, but fire the imagination of many. The latter, rightly or wrongly, view the disinterested as alienated, pathological, or deficient in some way. The disinterested may view the aficionado as obsessed, either with sexuality or with technology.

(Hacker 1990:206)

Today we can converse, rather than just speculate, about robots and about - at least at a restricted level - artificial intelligence. In 1990 Kurzweil titled a text 'The Age of Intelligent Machines'. Two years later Caudill (1992) sub-titled her text 'Building an Artificial Person' (note 'person') and used the title 'In our own image'. Last year, Kurzweil’s (1999) text is subtitled 'When computers exceed human intelligence' and the title? 'The Age of Spiritual Machines'. In the same timeframe there has been growth in the field of nanotechnologies – machines built on atomic scales and, it is proposed, capable of travelling through the bloodstream. The landmark author, Drexler (1996) titled his text 'Engines of Creation'.

None of these authors are of the science-fiction genre, indeed their works are highly appropriate as studies of Design, and of Technology. They offer excellent material to explore what I see as key concerns for a quality, futures-focussed Design and Technology Education.

What, then, is to be said about the views I have just presented? I pose three questions:

· Where are we, as conscious beings, in relation to the technologies we design and use?

· Are we conscious of the extent of our empowerment, disempowerment, depersonalisation or dehumanisation by technologies in our lives, relationships or work?

· What are our intentions in designing technologies and systems that we claim to be thinking, conscious or even human?

5.2 to design…

Technology is pervasive. It is often put to use in ways that were never intended. Its function often creeps (Nixon,1996) and we need to understand at least four aspects of a chain of events that occur for technologies.

First, there must be intention. Whatever then follows, or is created, is the result of the intentions of one or more people. It is critical that we evaluate and reflect on needs and ethical questions at the point of intention. So far as quality futures-focussed Technology Education is concerned, students can learn much about the world and about their own design methodologies by critiquing the intentions that preceed(ed) the design of existing technologies.

Second comes design. To design is, certainly for the last tens of thousands of years, to be human. Design is not accident nor is it discovery. Design is about choosing, making decisions, taking action and it is about change. The very act of designing is about taking one set of circumstances and changing it into another. To design is to exercise one’s will.

Design does not stand alone, in isolation as some cultural or educational icon to be revered. Both design and technology are aspects of everyday cultural practice and this understanding is critical to new visions of Technology Curriculum. To design is a part of what happens in relation to the life and impacts of a technology. To design is to weigh up multiple and competing variables to bring about best possible outcomes. To design is to entertain uncertainty. To design is to create futures.

Third comes the manifestation, the bringing into being, of the design. For too long in schools we have been preoccupied with this aspect alone. It is not enough to simply make in an uncritical way without sensitive regard to the preceeding and ensuing aspects of the technology chain. This applies as powerfully to information and communications technologies as to any other.

Fourth, come the consequences, never totally predictable – especially when combined with other technologies or new cultural practices. Consequences are futures. We can educate to engage with them at each and all preceeding stages of the technology chain. We can educate to critique those with which we already coexist. We might well attribute all technologies a kind of half-life before their autopsies can be legitimately conducted.

Design is neither a new word nor a new concept. It has certainly held its place in cultural practice in all societies for a long time. I believe it is now gaining new momentum (beyond even ‘Art and Design’ or ‘Design and Technology’) for its place as the key to a quality futures curriculum. For example, a distinguished group of literacy theorists and semiologists adapted the word in a key paper published four years ago (New London Group, 1996) and a year later the populist proponent of aspects of thinking, (de Bono, 1997) in an interview with Slaughter 1997, recognised the potential of the concept.

To illustrate matters in much richer terms, I choose Buchanan, who says:

In our contemporary world, design is the domain of vividly competing ideas about what it means to be human. However, the exploration of design does not break our connection with the past. The central themes and commonplaces of design – power and control, materialism and pleasure, spirituality, and character – reveal deep continuities with ancient philosophic tradition. Indeed, the pluralism of design in the twentieth century is intelligible because it rests on a pluralism of philosophic assumptions which are familiar. The exploration of design is, therefore, a contribution to the philosophy of culture in our time.

(Buchanan 1995:55-6)

5.3 being determined…

I have already presented brief notes on the question of technological determinism. It is a powerful sociological construct and has deep philosophical roots. At the very least, its importance to us is the way it can be used to underpin arguments to support particular actions and political imperatives. It is all too easy to argue that something should be done or put in place because some kind of general force or trend compels us to do so. Such is the current climate of instrumentalism and uncritical acceptance of technologies, market forces and lack of alternatives that it is not fashionable to challenge these actions and imperatives. To have a general faith and desire to shape our global futures through Technology Education calls for an understanding of determinist positions.

On a more practical note, it is possible to construct Technology Curriculum in such a way that students are empowered through critiquing and challenging the very suggestion that the future is not theirs to take part in designing. By exploring in critical ways the intention-design-manifestation-consequences chain they can isolate key decisions and learn that it was just that – a decision – that led, intentionally or otherwise, to particular consequences.

5.4 design tomorrow…

What kind of tomorrow would we care to design? What kind of future might we conceive? Not least, we might well support the notion of a democratic global society. In a current climate of ‘dumbing down’ (see e.g. Roszak, 1996), of providing a minimal education to the mass of students and of re-creating instrumental curricula more suited to the Victorian years, it is hardly appropriate to keep on delivering yesterday’s curriculum. If we value truly democratic life as highly as we might, then I suggest that we need a truly democratic curriculum – holistic and ethical in nature and erosive of narrow interests and agendas.

I have attempted to set out a case (Keirl, 1999c) for the significant role that Design and Technology can play in an education for democracy. I link some of the arguments with the work of the distinguished moral philosopher Singer (e.g. 1993, 1997) whose text 'How are we to live: Ethics in an age of self-interest?' provides an excellent discourse on the question he poses. His argument that 'ethics is practical or it is not really ethical' is indicative of an approach one might take towards democracy. It seems to me that 'democracy', 'ethics', 'education', 'curriculum', 'design' and 'technology' all have in common that they are contested, dynamic, culturally determined and above all should be purposeful. Of course, the very fact that they are contested doesn't necessarily make them easy in practice but it is when attempts to determine them by 'rules', 'definitions' or narrow agendas applied universally and inflexibly, that tensions and frictions arise.

I pause to draw upon some extracts from McDonough’s (in Ellyard, 1999) nine Hannover Principles for sustainable design (so called for their articulation with the Hannover 2000 Expo ‘Humanity, Nature and Technology’).

(The Hannover Principles should be seen as a living document committed to the transformation and growth in the understanding of our interdependence with nature, so that they may adapt as our knowledge of the world evolves. These principles have been adopted officially by the City of Hannover and are being used by design-based professionals, particularly in North America, Europe and Australasia.)…

2 Recognise interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognise even distant effects.

3 Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement, including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.

4 Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human wellbeing, the viability of natural systems, and their right to coexist.

5 Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards…

Ellyard, (1998:111-2)

It would seem that it is possible to contextualise our curriculum designs within the bigger picture of futures and democratic designs. However, this cannot be achieved from any kind of instrumental or narrow-interest base. We must heed the ‘orthodoxies’ and the ‘interests’ and be willing to embrace Technology curriculum design that is critical, ethical and holistic. It needs to be critical (in the Habermasian sense) while still fulfilling the practical-hermeneutic and the technical knowledge interests. Thus we can prepare students with strong self-identity capable of being autonomous members of democratic societies. It needs to be holistic to reflect breadth, diversity, complexity and quality. None of these attributes is sustainable from the curriculum constructions that currently exist. Finally, our curriculum design must be ethical – both in how it presents its content and in how decisions are made about its future.

The way we articulate our Technology curriculum designs offers an excellent reflection of the extent to which we understand and articulate technological literacy (Keirl, 1999b). Suffice to say here that, just as literacy can be narrowly constructed in an uncritical and instrumental way with its tests for ‘the basics’ in spelling and grammar, so technological literacy can be narrowly constructed in an uncritical and instrumental way with its tests for its own basics – notably, competencies.

Our ‘tomorrow’ for Technology Education could be strong, vibrant and central to any school’s quality futures curriculum. It could empower students in the so-far neglected but essential aspects of their being, their identity and their education. However, this will not happen by default nor will it happen by legislation. It is the Technology Education profession which must ask itself whether it is…

5.5 …determined to…

Have we the will to design tomorrow today? I would like to throw down two challenges to the profession. Could we be determined to address and act on them? Such determination needs individual and collective will.

The first challenge is to take a philosophical shift away from making the ‘material’ of products and systems as our prime focus – as it has been until now. Rather, to focus on the intangible, the unknown and the uncertain by teaching for what we can’t and don’t know. This may seem something of a conundrum but it is really only a matter of emphasis. A genuine pedagogy of design must centre on students, their futures, and uncertainties rather than on teachers, the here-and-now, and on the tangible. Of course the tangible and the material will continue to be created by students in their work but, hopefully, they will be far more richly prepared for their Seventh Generation Thinking (Schaef, 1995)

The second challenge is to bring together all those educators who work in the Technology Learning Area into a single national professional association. It is time for such an association to:

· end the damaging self interest promoted by the specialist enclaves – new and old – in our field

· bring together the interests of all Technology Educators in a coherent and supportive way

· provide curriculum leadership to establish quality Technology Education across Australia

· develop strong national and international networks

· lobby politically and advocate the field and the work of its members

· generate sponsorship, conduct research and create high quality communications within and beyond its membership

· establish a comprehensive set of national professional standards for the field and for the profession.

Neither this curriculum shift of emphasis nor the establishment of a vibrant and leading professional body is worth pursuing or is achievable so long as the narrow and instrumental agendas of the past (and I include data-manipulating technologies) are the basis of Technology curriculum. It is simply not good enough to be skilling students in the ‘how to’ of technologies without truly educating them in the deep relationship between ourselves and the technologies we live with and by. That is a long way short of either ethical or democratic practice. It is far from futures-oriented and it merely reinforces the determinist case.

5.6 tomorrow today

In his earlier address to this Conference, Beare has suggested that we are living in the future today. What does today’s world hold for us and for our students?

Today's is the world of the blundering oxymoron – ‘military intelligence’, ‘economic rationalism’, and the ‘discriminating consumer’. Today's is the world where the term ‘Luddite’ is used offensively towards anyone who dares to speak out against a particular technology. Today's is the world of instrumental and reductionist reasoning. Today's is the world of valuing material capital and viewing the individual as commodity. Today’s is the world of government-controlled and multinational-controlled suppression of knowledge (Tudge, 1999:46). Today's is the world of the telephone as a tool of mutual surveillance. Today's is the world of near total global communications surveillance (all phones systems including mobiles must now embody circuitry for monitoring purposes - Riviere, 1999). Today's is the world of plant and human gene patenting (Penenberg, 1996; Berlan & Lewontin, 1999).

The future is indeed with us today and it has been of our making. Let’s never forget the elephant…