New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
Appropriate Technology
M.K. McPHUN.
Many people have no idea at all of what Appropriate Technology means, and others have the
quite mistaken idea that it refers to a second-class technology for those unable to afford the real
thing. Yet who would choose to use or teach any form of technology that they knew to be
inappropriate? The question immediately arises as to whom or what it is appropriate, and this
needs answering in depth.
In the following I shall devote the first section to defining what is meant by Appropriate
Technology, and attempt to show that its application should be universal. I shall then consider
how its underlying concepts might be taught in the school.
WHAT IS APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY?
The use of technology is a major factor in industrial development, so it is to the industrially
developed world that we must look first. It is there that at present most of the world’s energy
and resources are being consumed, and it is there that an extensive critique of technology and
its consequences has evolved.
For a long period, ever since the start of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom,
technological developments were accepted without question as inevitable. ‘You can’t stand in the
way of progress’ was a saying generally accepted, without any attempt being made to define
‘progress’. The ‘progress’ referred to was in fact some development in technology, or a social
change consequent upon that development. In retrospect it is clear that often the progress was
negative in terms of the well-being of the human race. The challenge now is to define ‘progress’
taking into account all the factors, social and environmental, as well as technological.
This critique of technology has grown up under the umbrella term Alternative Technology,
outside of the public institutions and government. It has taken some years for it to gain any
respectability, but now some countries have got as far as requiring - by law - that environmental
impact analyses be made, to discover the likely long-term effects of proposed new technological
developments.
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