Computer science (CS) is often taught as a utopian discipline, full of powerful abstractions that can transform lives and society for the better. However, as computing has reshaped every part of society in both highly visible and highly invisible ways, it has become clear that the foundational ideas in CS carry explicit values: ones of automation, replacement, standardization, centralization, and amplification. These values have positioned it as a discipline of power, and due to the ignorance with which it is often applied, often one of oppression. In this book, we reconsider the technical and pedagogical foundations of CS and CS education from this lens, and offer teaching methods for secondary education that foster students’ critical consciousness of computing, with the hope of fostering a more equitable, culturally sustaining, and just future of computing.

[...] we each live in a present, a space for action. I no longer see you as an arrival point, far away from us on a line, or over the side of a waterfall. You, the future, are always imminent in my undecided present. We are at the center of time, and you, reading this, are also there. In both of our moments, we have so much to lose, but also so much to gain.

The press must learn that misguided use of a computer is no more amazing than drunk driving of an automobile