Teaching girls - and their teachers - technology

[Former Member]

I am the co-creator of SAP GIRLsmarts, a program launched this year to inspire girls to explore technology.

In response to a recent article on our program, a parent reached out to ask us how to get IT curriculum prioritized at her school. I thought I'd reach out to you experts for a response; I'm frankly a bit horrified by the teachers reasons for not teaching programming.

I know this isn't the primary purpose for this group, but I thought I'd get the most diverse perspectives here.

Thanks in advance for your thinking.

Hi!
I read the article at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/07/22/workplace-diversity-more-females_n_5609543.html
mentioning your program, ...  I was wondering if there is any way that your organization, or someone else you know, could
help me.

My 16 yr old daughter currently attends a private girls' school in Victoria BC.  I want her to learn IT, including programming.  Both her father and I had this exposure to this curricula in school, and her father currently works as a database administrator and "security architect" in fact.

My daughter started at this school three years, ago, and every year has enrolled in I.T.  However, her teacher has essentially refused to teach the girls how to code.  Each year, when I ask him to teach her this, he says that there is no future in it, and that as a job it takes long hours at low pay.    Instead, in IT class, she does graphic design work each year - using photoshop, etc.  She enjoys this, but not enough to be interested in this as a career. Meanwhile, she is brilliant at math and science, meticulous on detail work, and I'm certain would enjoy programming and serious I.T."  But, her I.T. teacher will not teach it.

None of the girls at her school have been encouraged to try programming, and as  recall, the teacher told me that none are interested (frankly, none have ever ben exposed to it to know!).

So, I was wondering if there was some way in which your organization can help m daughter, or her school, or educate her teacher, so that in September in Gade 12 she may finally be allowed to learn programming?

Yours sincerely and with much thanks!

[former_member190011 · Accepted solution]

Hi Darriel,

Thank you for sharing this.

First of all, I just wanted to shout out-

"CODING IS AMAZING...CLOSEST THING WE HAVE TO A SUPERPOWER." 

- Drew Houston, created DropBox

As a (relatively) young woman in Technology, a former Software Engineer and somebody who has pretty much explored all facets of career opportunities in High Tech, i cannot help but get extremely emotional reading comments such as the one you quoted,

"...her teacher has essentially refused to teach the girls how to code.  Each year, when I ask him to teach her this, he says that there is no future in it, and that as a job it takes long hours at low pay.  "

To be honest, i am shocked. I thought my day of being one of the only four girls in my Engineering class of 80 has long gone. In an era post Lean In, an era where the women in the industry have finally gained enough momentum and attention to make empowering girls of the future generation a movement, it's astonishing to see our teachers, those who are the most influential in shaping our girls' future, are still sending messages like this.

Perhaps my view is biased as i've been somewhat at the center of the movement because of what i do. They story you shared has definitely served as a reminder of how we still have a long way to go.

Emotions aside, i'd like to quickly share my story on how i became a woman in Technology, and emphasize the importance of a collaborative effort - the support, encouragement, inspiration and enablement - i received from various groups of people who made my journey possible.

My story starts with a book. It's a book written by Bill Gates almost 20 years ago. It's call "the Road Ahead". I was a little girl when i "accidentally" came across the book, and it lit up a path that i had never seen before. I felt the desire of pursuing a career in Technology. I had always liked Math and Science but always thought i'd one day become a professor and teach at Universities. Until the summer came that changed my life. My high school offered a joint summer program with MIT, where students from MIT would come to my school and teach programming. That was the first time i coded - okay, it was HTML, a mark-up language, but still - and i was immediately hooked and the rest is history. It was the extracurricular activity that led me into aspiring to be a Software Engineer.

So, i guess the moral of my story is to emphasize the role community plays in shaping our girls' career path and expose them to all possibilities - and assure them that they can do it.

Some of the wonderful programs available in cities close to us-

Vancouver

Be Like Ada

GIRLsmarts | Computer Science at UBC

and.. SAP GIRLSmart!!

US/Bay Area

Girls Teaching Girls to Code

Best,

Vivienne

[former_member374]

One more. Estonia is teaching every kid how to code: Why Estonia Has Started Teaching Its First-Graders To Code - Forbes

"The idea isn’t to start churning out app developers of the future, but people who have smarter relationships with technology, computers and the Web."

She is doing her students a disservice not to teach them how to code, the closest thing we have to a super power.

Best, Mark.     

[former_member374]

Hi Darriel,

The teacher needs to read Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age: Douglas Rushkoff from the description:

"The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”

Second show her the App Academy: 12 weeks of learning how to code and a placement ratio of 98% with a starting salary of $84K which my guess is twice of what she is making after at least 4 years of college.

Finally show her Codecademy where they take the students by the hand on a journey of learning how to code. Have not looked deeper into it, but that or other resources are out there that will make it easy for her to become a good coder. It may be that she is afraid that she is not good enough at coding to be able to teach it to her students.

Oh and then there is this amazing video:

Zuckerberg, Gates, Will.I.Am Encourage Students to Code

Hope that helps, Mark.     

[TammyPowlas]

Hello -

MIT has a curriculum for Scratch programming, which is fairly easy (I did it years ago, and I'm not a program) - it aimed for most ages.

Please see http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/scratch-curriculum-guide-draft - I am sure there are other resources but Scratch is a good start to learning programming.

I am not sure how to influence the teacher but it is a suggestion; the intent is to show how simple it is to program.

Tammy

[Former Member]

Thanks Tammy,

One of 0ur GIRLsmarts workshop activities uses Scratch for our gaming activity - it's a very cool tool; we also use Alice for our programming activity.

I am most curious about how we can influence teachers to use these, and other tools.

During Month of Service in Vancouver we'll be hosting a Design Thinking workshop to answer this question and hopefully come up with some great resources for parents and teachers alike. Just hoping to get a great answer for this parent before then

DD

[TammyPowlas]

What about options like Code Club - see Code Club World - where professionals come in once a week to teach programming, and not necessarily rely on the teachers to do it?  I know DJ Adams does this in the UK Code Club | Home

That takes the pressure off the teachers to do the programming.