Live data from Hacker News

To my daughter's high school programming teacher

usenix.org

11–20 of 596 posts

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#13
post #7
post #3

my theory is that there are not a lot of women in tech jobs because the men in tech jobs generally don't know how to interact with women. any woman that shows an interest in tech is not disuaded by the material, but rather by the inability of her male coworkers to treat her normally. I would not want to work or study in an environment surrounded by social akwardness and harassment either. the problem lies with the me…

Hmmm ... with that theory you'd also have to explain the odd concentration of socially inept males in tech. Why are they pooling there? Is it a "low spot" where gravity leaves a puddle? (street cred based on brain-cells instead of muscle and the ability to completely avoid physical interaction sure sounds like a win to a severe introvert).

Why are they pooling there? Is it a "low spot" where gravity leaves a puddle?

Kind of, yes. Programming is a decidedly anti-social job in many ways, and suits the socially inept.

That's not all a negative thing- it's possible to be successful through your skills alone, and few other jobs provide that path.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#14
post #10

EDIT Seems like people generally are agreeing with my interpretation. I am rewriting my comment. First, it seems to me that she simply told her daughters what she could do. When her daughter said no the mother just left it to her daughter to deal with. After the semester is over, she's publicly denouncing the teacher. So this is a little bit wrong because she could correct the issue by letting the teacher know the pr…

From TFA

I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#15
So, was this article about the student's experience or the mother's? Because it reads like it's about the mother. The guys in class suggested that their peer go make a sandwich. That's the only accusation actually made against the class and the teacher. While I don't endorse such teasing, it's certainly in no way specific to computer programming, and it's not anything like the intensity one would expect when trolls find an article.

Minority entities will be teased practically any time they exist, regardless of sector or age, and they need to be taught to handle it well. We can continue to attempt to stop the teasing altogether, but in the meantime we have to live in the Real World, and if this child quit programming because a few guys made a kitchen joke, the mother is really misdirecting her efforts by writing a letter to the teacher.

It's hard to imagine that any rape joke would be allowed to fly in our classrooms where students can hardly wield pencils anymore, and if you read carefully, you'll see that it doesn't appear to have occurred. It appears to me that the author is attempting to use some clever wording to create an impression that the "harassment" was much more intense than it actually was by subtly crossing over into her personal experience with online trolls.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#16
post #10

EDIT Seems like people generally are agreeing with my interpretation. I am rewriting my comment. First, it seems to me that she simply told her daughters what she could do. When her daughter said no the mother just left it to her daughter to deal with. After the semester is over, she's publicly denouncing the teacher. So this is a little bit wrong because she could correct the issue by letting the teacher know the pr…

From TFA I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class.

None of that said she actually did. The previous sentence said she was suggesting all these options to her daughter.

edit here: "I consulted with friends — female developers — and talked to my daughter about how to handle the situation in class. I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class. Finally, my daughter decided to plow through, finish the class, and avoid all her classmates. I hate to think what less-confident girls would have done in the same situation. "

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#18
Is Visual Basic really any worse than what you'd be exposed to at a Drupal conference? I think you'd be hard-pressed to explain why you chose anything beyond a 4th generation scripting language if you were starting a new class with an unlimited budget.

Schools are often behind with this sort of technology, so depending on the development environment available, isn't one language as good as the next to explain concepts like assignment, boolean operations and program flow? (My high school computer classes were BASIC on a Burroughs B3300 mainframe and my first COMP SCI class at college was Fortran on an IBM s360 mainframe, so maybe I haven't got a clue!)

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#19
post #9

I cringe reading this. Since when it is alright to tell teachers how to do their job in bullet pointed letters? * Be an adult and talk about any issues, complements or concerns during the class. * Talk with them in person or on the phone. * If you wish, post to your blog after the issues have been resolved. To put a global context on the situation should be supported with evidence as it pertains to life as a women in…

Two things:

1. The OP did reach out to the teacher:

> I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class. Finally, my daughter decided to plow through, finish the class, and avoid all her classmates. I hate to think what less-confident girls would have done in the same situation.

2. Well, the issues were, in one way, "resolved" because the daughter passed the class (with an 'A') despite her apparent unhappiness. If you mean that the parent should wait till the issues are actually fixed before blogging...well, if the teacher doesn't respond, then I guess the parent should not blog at all?

edit: My bad, the sentence in context would indicate that OP offered to go talk to the teacher, but the daughter declined. Whether or not the OP should've gone ahead and met the teacher is a whole other issue.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#20
post #8

I also had a teacher in HS that taught Visual Basic in a computer programming class. Not VB.Net, but VB6, and this was 4 years ago. And they removed AP Computer Science that same year, when I was about to take it, that's why I had to settle with the class that taught VB. The state of HS education in this country makes me sad.

Four years ago? Jesus...

Back in 10th grade (2007), I had the option of choosing a programming course, but I chose not to. But at least the class was teaching C++ and not VB6.

Post reply on HN