What is it about?
History tells us there has always been a relationship between human beings and their technologies. Anthropological findings offer evidence from pre-history, whilst history, we are told, begins at Sumer. This suggests that the Sumerians gave us the first cities and, perhaps most crucially, invented writing in the form of cuneiform. Consequentially, for the first time, this gave rise to written accounts which offered more accurate accounts of life at that time and thereafter. Whatever their origins, however, it is evident that from the time human beings occupied Earth, they have managed to evolve, from that day to this, only due to their relationship with their technologies. Therefore, understanding the concept of technology is essential if we are to comprehend the world both today and in the past. We have, moreover, now entered the era known as the Anthropocene, an era that, as a result of our over-exploitation of the natural resources of the planet for economic and technological gain, has led to what is generally considered to be the greatest existential threat to human existence ever encountered. As governments try to balance economic growth through consumerism with a scaling down of the use of fossil fuels, for example, the damage continues as a cancerous growth which is slowly but inexorably destroying our entire ecosystem. As I write this, there is a war being fought in Ukraine, one that Russia has initiated. This war is having a devastating effect on energy supplies throughout the world, where costs are escalating at hitherto unprecedented levels. The results of this war serve as a stark reminder of the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and reveals the urgent need to rapidly change how our energy is created. It is vital, therefore, that the next generation be given a voice through which they can not only express their concerns regarding these issues, but also enable them to become active participants in finding sustainable solutions. It is, after all, they who will inherit the world.
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Why is it important?
Technology education in schools does not offer a platform for young people to express themselves in this context. Vocationally orientated technology education continues, for the most part, to provide craft-based skill development and related pieces of knowledge that are all in the service of industry. Although curricula for technology education support the inclusion of technological literacy, this is mainly located within the extant pedagogies applied in technology education. Technological literacy, therefore, is, in reality, rarely ever covered and certainly not in any depth. What is needed is the creation of a modern-day Agora where young people can express their views on the technologically textured world they inhabit and will inherit. This will require the development of a new form of pedagogy: a nomadic pedagogy that will enable young people and teachers to consider how technology affects their everyday life experiences, and express how they think they might affect technological development. Rather than trying to resurrect technological literacy, which has been tried repeatedly over the years, a new subject entitled ethnotechnological literacy needs to be developed, utilising a new nomadic pedagogy. This chapter will explain how that might be achieved.
Perspectives
Borrowing from Inna Semetsky and Andrew Stables, my concept of Ethnotechnological literacy cannot be reduced to prescribed learning objectives, aims, or right versus wrong answers, all for the purposes of various forms of measurement, for these methods are always reductions; education about technology as a whole is much richer than formal assessment often implies. Nor is learning about technology a merely individual matter; nor is it uniformly collective. Rather ethnotechnological literacy is about the relationship between human beings and technology and is embedded in relational dynamics, therefore continuously developing via a variety of interpretive ways. Nomadic pedagogy about technology is about interactions and relations: between students and teachers, between people and their environments, between ourselves and others and between elements of that which is to be learned, understood through various relational perspectives. … Nomadic pedagogy about technology insists that the material and the mental cannot be so clearly demarcated and that education about technology is not merely a matter of developing the mind in a narrow sense; nor is nature simply a mechanism. We are embodied creatures who live in rich networks of experience, and our phenomenal worlds overlap, just as human experience overlaps, but does not coincide, with the experiences of other sentient beings.
John Dakers
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This page is a summary of: What Are the Characteristics of a Nomadic Pedagogy for Teaching about Technology?, November 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004537002_007.
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