I'm a little fired up tonight. I should be using my weekend to catch up on some chores: fold the laundry, wash the floor, make my bed. I should be working on grading some papers. I was hoping to be able to get around to writing some curriculum that I'm working on or aligning our state IDT standards to ECS. All these are on my to do list and I had promised myself that this was going to be a productive weekend. Well, this blog post just couldn't wait. I don't have all the answers nor have I done any real research on this topic, none the less, I hope that you chime in with your opinion.
It all started with a quiet game of Moncala with my 5 year old daughter Emelia. We have a wooden Moncala set with real stones and sat at the kitchen table to play. It is Saturday night, and our children have declared Saturday night game night. Great idea! It is just Emelia and I this weekend, so we played Moncala instead of the traditional family game of Monopoly. I usually win more than I lose when playing any games with my kids. I don't believe in letting them win. I'll give them tips along the way, but only after they've made a bad decision. They can learn from it for next time, but I'm not playing to lose. I play to win!!! Always have. Sorry kids. Well tonight, I lost. Not once, not 1/2 the games. I lost 5 out of 6 games to my 5 year old!!! She was strategic in her playing. She was thoughtful. She lost the second game to me and was determine that I wasn't going to win any more games. She was a problem solver, a mathematician. I told her as much. I said, "You are a great strategic player and that is going to make you an excellent problem solver someday."
Why am I so bothered and what does this have to do with CS?
I bragged on my child on Facebook, and included the fact that she is being seen as average in her class. All satisfactory on her report card, no excellent. I know what people are thinking. I'm just one of those Mom's who thinks my kid is great. Everyone thinks their kid deserves all E's. Someone mentioned, maybe she just doesn't apply it at school. I don't think so. Well, that isn't why I'm upset. I know kindergarten grades don't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, or do they?
This past week, I started recruiting for AP CS A. I utilize AP Potential which is accessed through the collegeboard. AP Potential uses PSAT data to determine a student's likelihood of passing an AP exam. I've used this process for many years, but this is the first time that I was so struck by the fact that out of the 158 students identified as having 70% potential of scoring a 3, 4 or 5 on the AP Computer Science A exam, only 60 of them were female. How am I supposed to build a class with a 50 / 50 ratio of girls to boys when my pool is only about 37 / 63? And what data are they using? Math and English scores. So this means that females are not only being left behind in the field of CS, but also potentially math and English. This is why I say, lack of females in CS is a symptom of a much larger problem.
So, I wonder, where does this start? I have 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl. I will admit that teacher conferences are dreaded at our house. We don't want to hear again how our boys call out answers, and the long list of other behavioral grievances their teachers have, all nicely sandwiched together between glowing comments about how smart they both are. Our boys are both in the gifted program scoring very high marks on standardized tests in both math and language arts as well as science. Our older son is in both advance math and advanced language arts. These advanced classes have helped to keep them engaged in school so that the behavior is tolerable. As parents we are grateful. As an educator, I know that the odds that I had 2 gifted kids and 1 average kid is not likely.
Teacher conferences for our daughter have been very different. Pleasant actually. We had conferences about her in preschool and in kindergarten. We delight in the fact that she is so well liked by her peers and teachers. That she is helpful and sweet. She is dependable and often asked to help the teacher distribute papers or complete other tasks. She's a doll! We think so too, but she is also smart. She potty trained herself at 22 months old, and was speaking in full sentences while her peers grunted and learned sign language to communicate. She taught herself to tie shoes when she didn't even have any shoes of her own to tie. She is excellent at math. She is creative and tells the most detailed and elaborate stories. And lets not forget how she just creamed in 5 games of Moncala. But her brilliance is not recognized because in comparison to her brothers, she, like most girls, is compliant. Always has been.
Are our daughters missing out because they are too compliant? too nurturing? too mature? As an educator, we know that when students are bored, they get into trouble. To this end boys are offered extra challenges to occupy them when they have completed tasks early. Girls are asked to pass back papers. Could this be the root of a much bigger problem? Is the message we are sending one that communicates subconsciously to girls that they are not smart enough for these challenges?
This past week, I started recruiting for AP CS A. I utilize AP Potential which is accessed through the collegeboard. AP Potential uses PSAT data to determine a student's likelihood of passing an AP exam. I've used this process for many years, but this is the first time that I was so struck by the fact that out of the 158 students identified as having 70% potential of scoring a 3, 4 or 5 on the AP Computer Science A exam, only 60 of them were female. How am I supposed to build a class with a 50 / 50 ratio of girls to boys when my pool is only about 37 / 63? And what data are they using? Math and English scores. So this means that females are not only being left behind in the field of CS, but also potentially math and English. This is why I say, lack of females in CS is a symptom of a much larger problem.
So, I wonder, where does this start? I have 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl. I will admit that teacher conferences are dreaded at our house. We don't want to hear again how our boys call out answers, and the long list of other behavioral grievances their teachers have, all nicely sandwiched together between glowing comments about how smart they both are. Our boys are both in the gifted program scoring very high marks on standardized tests in both math and language arts as well as science. Our older son is in both advance math and advanced language arts. These advanced classes have helped to keep them engaged in school so that the behavior is tolerable. As parents we are grateful. As an educator, I know that the odds that I had 2 gifted kids and 1 average kid is not likely.
Teacher conferences for our daughter have been very different. Pleasant actually. We had conferences about her in preschool and in kindergarten. We delight in the fact that she is so well liked by her peers and teachers. That she is helpful and sweet. She is dependable and often asked to help the teacher distribute papers or complete other tasks. She's a doll! We think so too, but she is also smart. She potty trained herself at 22 months old, and was speaking in full sentences while her peers grunted and learned sign language to communicate. She taught herself to tie shoes when she didn't even have any shoes of her own to tie. She is excellent at math. She is creative and tells the most detailed and elaborate stories. And lets not forget how she just creamed in 5 games of Moncala. But her brilliance is not recognized because in comparison to her brothers, she, like most girls, is compliant. Always has been.
Are our daughters missing out because they are too compliant? too nurturing? too mature? As an educator, we know that when students are bored, they get into trouble. To this end boys are offered extra challenges to occupy them when they have completed tasks early. Girls are asked to pass back papers. Could this be the root of a much bigger problem? Is the message we are sending one that communicates subconsciously to girls that they are not smart enough for these challenges?