This is an excerpt from Raising Heretics: Teaching Kids to Change the World, which is due out on August 1st.
I founded the Australian Data Science Education Institute in 2018 because I wanted to show kids that they are capable of working with technology, that it is relevant to them, and that they don’t have to look like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory in order to learn to program.
It’s well known that the technology industry has a diversity problem when it comes to women, but lack of diversity goes way beyond gender. By trying to increase the number of women and girls in STEM, we are only tackling the easy part – though it’s actually not that easy, judging by the sheer volume of women in STEM programmes and the persistently stubborn failure of the numbers to actually shift.
The problem is that we consistently attract the kinds of people to tech that are already there. We are missing big chunks of the population – boys included. Boys who don’t see themselves as nerdy, or who don’t see the point of tech. Girls who don’t see it as relevant to them. Non binary and gender queer kids who don’t see themselves as represented or welcome in any of the tech programmes available to them.
If we had true diversity in technology and Data Science, we’d have a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as people with a wide range of physical abilities. We’d have people on our design teams that are mobility compromised, vision impaired, with allergies, with varied gender identities and sexualities, with every possible skin tone and body shape. We’d have people who act differently, dress differently, think differently, and have different needs. I have headphones that don’t work well with long hair, for goodness’ sake! Guess who was on that design team?
This lack of diversity is bad for the technology industry, but it’s even worse for the rest of us, because technology is changing the shape of our world at an alarming rate, and we currently have very little say in our own future. Companies like Uber and Doordash are radically changing our working conditions and eliminating hard won entitlements and protections, while Facebook and Youtube spread misinformation and encourage radicalisation, all in the name of keeping people on their platforms and maximising their profits. Our world is being directly shaped by technology companies that are working in ways we don’t understand and have no control over.
Meanwhile we see human resources companies using AI to filter job applicants, claiming that their system eliminates “human bias”, without admitting the possibility that it introduces new forms of machine bias. We see “predictive policing” algorithms being used to predict crime and target particular communities in disturbing ways. We see a rush towards machine learning and artificial intelligence systems for their own sake, rather than for problems they can legitimately solve, and we have a wholly unwarranted confidence in the accuracy, reliability, and objectivity of their output.
It turns out that diversity in the technology industry is only a small part of the reason why teaching all kids Data Science and STEM skills matters. The big part is that we need a technology and data literate population who are trained to think critically and creatively, and, in particular, trained to believe that they can solve problems. That’s the world we need to build. And the foundation stone of world building has to be education.
We have a choice. We can train kids to be obedient process followers who don’t rock the boat, or we can train them to be challenging, critical and creative thinkers who ask difficult questions and come up with innovative solutions to our worst problems.
Above all, we need people who are prepared to be heretical.
Who ask “why?”
Who ask “how can we be sure?”
Who ask “what have we missed?”
Who ask “how can we do better?”
Who ask “who are we hurting?”
Who ask “how can we fix this for everyone?”
Who ask “how will we know how well it works?”
These questions are often heretical. By asking them, I’ve sometimes made my bosses very unhappy. They make people uncomfortable. But they are crucial to building an ethical, sustainable, positive future for all of us.
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Pre-order Raising Heretics now:
https://events.humanitix.com/raising-heretics-pre-orders-and-book-launch
