Teaching within Regimes of Computational Truth

Around the country (and around the world) teachers are seeing renewed skepticism over their abilities and professional judgement.1 Teachers and students are being evaluated by algorithms and software packages.Scores generated by machines are taken as more "truthful" than evaluations by humans.Teachers are found lacking; and the machines are taken as infallible in their ability to understand, predict, and promote student learning.There are many discursive forces that shape the current educational landscape: where teachers are suspect and tech is king.EdTech-defined here as a group of software packages, hardware, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithmic models that compute what is happening in schools-has reshaped how we understand teacher expertise.This article focuses on three prominent computation-oriented discourses that buttress a regime of truth which devalues teacher knowledge and expertise.1) EdTech is trustworthy because computers and math are involved.2) EdTech is complex and requires so much expertise that average citizens and teachers, alike, lack the ability to challenge the judgements and determinations made by EdTech.3) Teachers are not knowledgeable professionals because teachers are bad at math and technology.These three discourses buttress a regime of truth: that teachers cannot be trusted, and EdTech can be trusted.In order to further analyze these three discourses, I begin with a brief description of terms within the article. DISCOURSES AND REGIMES OF TRUTHFoucault deploys the terms "discourse" and "regime of truth" in order to argue that: how we speak, and the messages we hear, create our sense of reality. 2 And, in turn, that created reality further guides what can be spoken and heard.Discourse is the production of reality through texts; a reality that exists