331–340 of 596 posts
This shit has got to stop. Seriously. As MEN in our industry we need to take a stand against this sort of behaviour which is truly endemic and all pervasive in our industry. This is not a women in tech issue, it's a problem with MEN.
I got a feeling that the OP was ranting due to her own hurt feelings rather than her daughter's. I failed to see anything out of the extraordinary that made the teacher deserve such harsh criticism. Yes she was harassed by some boys, I agree that sucks and the teacher should do something about it. I have a baby daughter my self and can imagine the feelings if I heard she got harassed by her schoolmates, but then I wo…
> I got a feeling that the OP was ranting due to her own hurt feelings rather than her daughter's. I failed to see anything out of the extraordinary that made the teacher deserve such harsh criticism. The classroom culture is the teacher's responsibility. If a student is being harassed and has a hostile environment in this classroom, the teacher has failed in a serious way. Doubly-so when the harassment is driven by…
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Sure, but care about the right things, and not construct a gednder issue where thete isn't one. Do you think gender issues are the most important problem schools are facing?
There's a gender issue in the balances of sexes as reported in the article. I don't know how American schools work, so I can't comment on your question.
Obviously there can't be male domination there, because boys are absent.
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Heh, Louden's book? Still got it here somewhere. For an hour of nostalgic fun and an excuse to burn a Bass Ale while your wife watches DWTS, take a look at the 1130 emulator at http://ibm1130.org/sim
hga is female. (Actually I don't know hga's gender, but wow - I have never seen an example of gender stereotyping as explicit as that on HN, and in a discussion about sexism in programming too. I'm really hoping your comment was supposed to be ironic)
does gender stereotyping manifests an intellectual failure on the part of the one expressing the stereotypes? If yes, does such intellectual failure is localized, say to the area of percepting and understanding gender relations in the industry, or is it a system-wide failure of the intellect of the stereotyping (i.e. something like a habit/instinct of using stereotypes)?
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But then there's all the women who take a programming class for the first time who aren't friends with industry experts. And even if this teenager is willing to give it another shot, I wouldn't blame her, or anyone, for feeling left out, and believing this is what the world of programmers is like. I know I made that mistake in high school: I actively dissociated from the male/techy-dominated "CS" kids in my school, d…
You know how it feels if people dissociate from you in high school becasuse you seem nerdy? It's such a joke that feminists now try to turn that on the head and claim those nerds prevented them from programming for sexist reasons. No, those nerds did not become the bullies they hated in high school. You are still the bullies you were in high school, you just found new excuses (then: they seem nerdy, now: they are sex…
There is no group of feminists that bullied nerds by disassociating with them (beyond what is acceptable in just not talking to people who don't share your interests) in this story 'claiming the nerds prevented them from programming for sexist reasons.' There is a girl getting treated like crap by people, for no good reasons, because of some group-politics sexism.
You're just foisting the arguments of the past, of different people, onto the current generation - This isn't like there's some evil cheerleader figure who stumped nerds for years turning up and expecting them to welcome her into their programming fraternity.
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A little off tangent but this year I started volunteering for an organization called TEALS ( http://tealsk12.org/ ) that's trying to address this by having developers teach into and AP computer science in high school. I'm currently teaching AP CS remotely to a school in Kentucky - it's extremely challenging and a huge time commitment but being able to get students excited about computer science and seeing them succee…
I don't think that's off-topic at all. Getting kids enthusiastic about computer science at a critical age, in an inclusive learning environment, with knowledgeable passionate mentors, is highly commendable and relevant. Good on you.
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> I'm sure they're teaching VB simply because that's what they have experience with, probably making them the most experienced programmer on staff at the school. VB is a fine language to get children interested in programming. Personally, I know many people who weren't able to grasp programming via C but were pretty excited about VB's gui designer and easy database connectivity. Most of the introduction to VB didn't…
I think that if I were going to teach programming to high school kids I'd show them the console in Chrome / Safari, because it's something they all have easy access to (I assume we're talking about a first world country, right). VB seems to me to be a poor choice because it doesn't intersect with the kids' lives. They likely won't go home and build VB apps (on their Macs...) The console is like lifting the curtain an…
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There's a gender issue in the balances of sexes as reported in the article. I don't know how American schools work, so I can't comment on your question.
Just because not every subject has gender parity does not imply that there is an issue.
And yet, here we are.
> But I am a mother, and I've spent years encouraging girls and women in IT, so perhaps my perspective will help you.
Being a parent does not qualify you to discuss anything other than being a parent. It's no different than saying "As a mother, I feel that we need to bomb Syria." It's just patently ridiculous.
> Here are seven suggestions for teaching high school computer programming:
I'm not a teacher either, but at least I know enough not to pretend that I can rattle off ways to "fix" the teaching of high school computer programming.