SCHOOLING FOR SILICON VALLEY
About the Book
A growing body of evidence reveals how EdTech is a vital apparatus of Big Tech's ubiquitous web of surveillance and control bound to larger political, economic and cultural forces. Tech companies design platforms that inflict a range of emotional, cognitive, physical and developmental harms on children, and replace human relationships with technologies that cannot provide the authentic emotional and empathetic experiences that are essential for healthy development and well-being.
GenAI is fast becoming crucial infrastructure for education systems, despite its record for augmenting bigotry, generating false information and enabling cheating. Ultimately, EdTech prioritizes obedience and subverts critical literacy.
This book meticulously applies critical and cultural theory to analyze the discourse of industry narratives alongside counter-narratives and hard evidence that expose EdTech's role as a compulsory appendage of the exploitive and autocratic designs of the Big Data and AI ecosystem.
As such, the larger question this book explores is: Why should we trust the tech industry—or more specifically—the tech billionaires who are increasingly governing all aspects of our lives?
About the Author
Timothy Scott is a social work professor, critical scholar and engaged educator who has a doctorate in social justice education from University of Massachusetts Amherst with an emphasis in political economy, ethnic studies, and education policy. He is a long-time labor and community organizer within regional, national and international social justice projects and liberation movements.
What Readers Are Saying
"As schools around the world hurtle towards wholesale embrace of more and more forms of EdTech, Timothy Scott flashes big bright red stoplights by not only debunking deceptive marketing but also illuminating the profoundly anti-democratic origins and dystopian futures of a wide range of technologies with breathtaking depth and breadth. Schooling for Silicon Valley is brilliant, eye-opening, compelling, and a must-read for anyone concerned about education, especially now."
Kevin Kumashiro
author of Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education