Journal Entry 6

“The Politics of the Interface” has some very interesting points that have never occurred to me before. I have never thought of a computer interface as marginalizing races, sexes, and cultures. I took it for granted that anyone who was educated enough would know and understand the importance of acquiring the knowledge to use a computer. Selfe & Selfe pointed out that in schools with large minority enrollments, using computers in the classrooms are for basic instruction of “drill-and-practice” software. In contrast, in majority schools, the computer is used to achieve higher order skills and develop greater cognitive skills.
Now I would argue that this so because most minority students are from a lower socio-economic background, and are thus not as exposed to technology as the more middle-class students. Many minorities will not send their children to schools with a high minority enrollment because they believe that their children may not get the best academic experience. So, the minority-based schools will continuously be seen as a lower-level realm, and the students at that level will continuously suffer. To fix the problem with how computers are used in the different learning environments goes beyond the English teacher, and into society’s psychological and social milieu.
Selfe & Selfe go further in their arguments by stating the computer interface is a representation of the reality of the white, male, middle and upper class user. “The objects represented within this world are [familiar to the inhabitants] of that corporate culture: manila folders, files, documents, telephones, fax machines, clocks and watches, and desk calendars.” (433) While I can agree with this observation, I have to add that most people who would need a computer and its various functions are people who are in white-collar jobs. Small farmers, carpenters, maids are not necessarily in need of a computer interface to organize their lives. I cannot think of specific options that would ideal for those occupations. However, documents and files can be general store houses for a smorgasbord of information.
Even having English as a default language seems logical, as most business transactions, communication, even schools utilize English as the main language. It is seen as the universal language of choice; not because it’s better than other languages, but because it has been established as a language of the majority. To counteract that will be to reverse centuries of colonization and British monarchy rule; it seems rather impossible.
In today’s classroom using technology is a necessity. Being a critic or a user of technology is a neither here nor there, as teachers are educating students to be a part of the workforce that utilizes these interfaces. Employers are not sensitive to many things, such as cultural barriers, they only want the job to be done. So are we educating students to be a perfect representation of their culture, sex, and race— or are we educating students to function in a world that demands more than it sees?
In “Ideology and the Map” the authors discuss how maps are designed based on political, religious, and cultural point-of-views. Honestly, most of the content is quite lost on me, but from what I have gathered, the authors want designers to use a more “open-minded” vision in creating maps or any visual chart. Similar to “The Politics of Interface,” the idea of reaching everybody where they are, instead of pushing everybody to a specific point-of-view is the main argument I understand from this reading.
The reading gives various examples of the different types of maps designed by the different governmental bodies, as a means of segregating, repressing, or alienating a country or culture because it is viewed as a “nondominant interest.” I believe that these are very ideological concepts that the world ought to embrace, but as I alluded to earlier, the world is not a very ideological place.