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To my daughter's high school programming teacher

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Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#21

Post by tokenizer »

ryanx435 wrote: 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…

But that seems impossible. Most men I know that program have general social problems, not just relating to women. The field itself is of interest to the slightly colder, and more rational mindset.

I'm not saying we can't fix this problem. We can do that by hiring more well rounded people for programming positions. The same type of male techie who would mistreat a woman at the workplace, would mistreat a man too. I don't necessarily think being odd is wrong as long as you're not hurting someone.

Personally it's the tech industries fault in general, which continues to pander to the academic and elitist groupings to foster talent, which is in and of itself unequal. Add to the fact that these groupings contain their own patriarchal problems and the picture becomes even more complex. Personally I don't feel like we need 50% women in the tech industry. I feel like everyone should be given an equal chance at learning as many skills as possible in a fostering learning environment. The fact that schools, parents, etc don't accomplish this can't all be blamed on the industry itself. Many engineering subjects suffer from these larger societal problems that relate with entrenched social roles and patriarchal institutions.

Making the average Joe reading hacker news aware of these problems are important, but laying the blame on all men, or even a subset larger than a choice few who benefit from the systemic patriarchal tendencies in unfair however. The core issue is equality. And society isn't equal. This is more of an effect than a primary problem.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#22

Post by garretruh »

danso wrote: post #2

Ugh...I saw the title and had positive expectations because usually, it seems, letters to high school teachers are positive, as in: "My teenage child was depressed but your class made her love school again, etc. etc." A couple of takeaways: 1. The fact that the OP's daughter signed up for programming class because she wanted to impress her parent is truly a parenting win. Not just for programming, but anything , at t…

With regards to your third point:

Is there a modern (or better suited for introductory courses) language that has the kind of curriculums built around it that VB and Java do?

Codecademy and the like are awesome for independent learning and exploration, but it doesn't work for classroom instruction. There don't seem to be many curriculums designed around modern, web-focused languages like Ruby or Javascript that your average teacher can use for high school CS classes.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#23

Post by jessedhillon »

yeukhon wrote: post #16
jessedhillon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 programm…

Oh interesting, I did not interpret it that way but you may be right.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#24

Post by hfern »

bangbang wrote: 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…

> While I was attending SC '12 in Salt Lake City last November, my daughter emailed to tell me that the boys in her class were harassing her. "They told me to get in the kitchen and make them sandwiches," she said.

Even if you think the parent is overstepping their bounds here, I would rather a parent be too concerned as oppose to not being concerned at all. Double so that he is in the tech sector while we are facing the huge gender issue. If the teacher is not doing their job stopping the harassment and thereby enforcing the stereotype, then perhaps is should be spelled out.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#25

Post by yeukhon »

nullgeo wrote: 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.

It used to be C++ for AP Computer Science, no? Anyhow. It used to be C++ for my high school and just a year or two before I was a freshman (that was 2006) it became Java.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#26

Post by kevinmchugh »

These situations are always regrettable and awful. High school strikes me as the place to expect immaturity and shittiness the most, and because of that, I would expect teachers to be all the more committed to fighting that shitty, dumb sexism.

By not stopping the shitty, dumb sexism dead in its tracks, the teacher also did a huge disservice to the boys in the class. They've now had a chance to learn that treating women in CS this way is okay. I hope that in the <5 years it takes them to get to the professional world, they have realized how damaging they were. More importantly, I hope the author's daughter finds the personal strength to pursue CS.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#27

Post by jimzvz »

jessedhillon wrote: post #14
yeukhon wrote: 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.

It sounds like the author offered these choices to the child and not to the teacher.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#28

Post by ef4 »

The author's main point is well-stated and deplorable.

As for the ancillary issue of the class material itself being crap: yeah, duh. And it's not just computer programming. You only notice how bad that class is because you have relevant expertise.

It's a safe bet that the other courses are similarly terrible. Send a biologist or physicist or mathematician or historian to observe a randomly selected high school class and they will find that their subjects too are being taught by people without the slightest appreciation or aptitude.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#29

Post by spamizbad »

revelation wrote: post #4

If CS education in the USA is anything like here, the teacher of this class will be the unlucky fellow assigned with maintaining the school networks and other random "computer stuff". His qualification will be that of an interested layman, augmented by several one day seminars on random topics from Office to Java. There is simply no curriculum, there are no standards and no requirements, and if we are honest, the lev…

My Programming I class was taught by a math teacher (who was an excellent algebra instructor). Unfortunately he was only a chapter ahead of the class in computer programming. But that wasn't the worst part. For guidance, he turned to his brother-in-law, who was a manager of developers at Motorola. He stated as much the first day of class, boasting "You're going to have the rare treat of learning how programming is done in the real world!"

All the joy of programming was quickly sucked out as we had to meticulously document our code. Sub routines needed 2-3 paragraph plain-English explanations of what they were doing. Each variable's purpose needed to be stated. And before you could write a single line of code, you first had to write it out in a form of "pseudo code" which had its own syntax rules that we had to follow. Lots of emphasis was placed on the process of what we should be doing instead of the how and why. Students struggled.

I understand what he was trying to do: having us write everything out gave him a window into how our minds were breaking down the problem. But in the process, he turned what should have been a fun, exploratory class into a grind.

The notion that programming could be a fun activity, and not just mindless, process-driven office work was completely foreign to him, and I suspect the same is true for many teachers who are stuck teaching Programming classes in both public and private schools.

Edit: And on the issue of gender, my class had 25 students, 11 of whom were girls. I remember being amazed at how a programming class could have a 50/50 ratio. I didn't notice anyone being bullied or teased. I imagine once women reach "critical mass" women won't be singled-out to the same degree. A few bad apples or even a sexist teacher can't "single out" 44% of their class. Why were there so girls enrolled? I don't know, but the class did have a reputation for being an easy A, so perhaps it was viewed as less intimidating.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#30

Post by ccleve »

bangbang wrote: 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…

Hello? Why would it not be ok to tell a teacher how to do their job when they're clearly failing at it? Who, exactly, is the customer here?

My only complaint about the article is that it did not name the teacher or the school. Public shaming can work wonders.

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