11 When Life Gets in the Way
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs is a good model for understanding how education fits with other dimensions of life. IT instruction generally targets the upper levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, things like respect, self-esteem, status, strength, or freedom. Maybe even self-actualization, because many students want to shift to an IT career for a more lucrative, more interesting, or more fulfilling career path. IT is a perfectly valid option for students who have a reasonably solid level of economic and personal security and who mainly just want more out of life. But what about the others? What about students lacking resources on even some of the most basic levels? Professional/technical programs often take for granted the most basic levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, but they should not. We may not imagine our students are lacking in food, clothing, shelter, or personal security. These problems, however, are very real for many of our students. For every self-actualizing student looking to IT for a more fulfilling career, there are probably three or four others for whom basic employment, health care, and affordable housing are the most urgent issues. Many students who apply for IT studies are looking for a job – any job. Quite a few are using unemployment retraining benefits, basic support grants, or student loans to pursue their studies. They need their IT studies to pay off, and they them to pay off quickly.
For this reason, it might be argued that the core social justice intervention in an IT skills development program is to target highly employable skill sets, and to exercise students in those skills as efficiently and effectively as possible. All beef and no fat is the ideal IT coursework design for this reason. IT programs need constant revision, because the job market is a moving target. It is a disservice to students to require knowledge and skills development for technology employers’ no longer find relevant.
Unfortunately, some of neediest students often are least able to successfully complete our programs, because as the title of this section suggests, sometimes life just gets in the way. For example, one student reported that her abusive boy friend was cutting off her Internet access for an online course. Many students have dropped IT classes for catastrophic health issues like kidney disease, heart attacks, or brain seizures. Every so often a student is burned or flooded out of an apartment. Every kind of auto theft or car trouble is just another day in the life. Sometimes workplace good news becomes bad news for finishing a quarter. On many occasions students have had to drop out or lower their grade targets due to shift changes, increased responsibilities, or sudden transfers out of area. Military deployments and National Guard duties do not respect the academic calendar, nor do weddings, funerals, sick children, or aging parents. Occasionally, a student will fail an IT course for purely academic reasons