Amy’s Voice: Becoming Fully Human in Our Professional Roles

Abstract

I am an associate professor of instructional technology. My scholarly interests include social and cultural implications of technologies; visuals for learning and instruction; scaffolding higher order and critical thinking; and educational philosophy. During my career, I have felt a growing need to better integrate and address issues of access, equity, cultural capital, privilege awareness, and other issues of social justice into my professional work. Although a thread of my scholarly efforts has woven through issues of culture, ethics, and critical consciousness development, those themes are frequently perceived to be at the margins of mainstream Instructional Design and Technology (IDT). Learning theories—and by extension, epistemologies—are central to the field of IDT. However, it seems to me that an epistemology of ignorance (as expounded by Linda Martin Alcoff) permeates our field with regard to issues of equity, inclusion, unearned privilege, and institutionalized oppression, and that social justice issues are largely regarded as not directly relevant to either the IDT field, broadly, or the particular classes I teach, specifically. I think this must change.