This research project brings a critical perspective to the examination of computer literacy as an ideological form through a study of the reactions of high school teachers and students. On-site interviews with teachers and students found both acceptance of and resistance to the message of adjustment to an inevitable future of vocational and marketplace automation. It is concluded that, while the trend toward technologizing the schools cannot and should not be halted, teachers themselves should become more critical of the purposes of computerized education and begin to insist on a more serious role in defining and directing the appropriate use of information technology in their classrooms. Possible new directions for educational policy are suggested, including: ameliorating the myth of inevitability of automation; realistically portraying future job markets that will demand a minority of jobs requiring intensive computer knowledge and the bulk of jobs requiring a minimal ability to work with computers as tools; applying a more focused, lower level of computer use instead of a broad-based computer literacy program; ensuring a combination of high-technology learning aids with meaningful human interaction in order to further the development of complete human beings; critically questioning the acceptance of computer literacy; and allowing an equal right to a place in school and society for those students who find they do not get along well with computers. (Contains 20 references.) (ALF)