If a kid being bullied/harassed doesn't speak up and it doesn't happen right in front of the teacher, how is the teacher supposed to know what's happening? Kids lose interest and get depressed all the time, it could be bullying, they could be having problems at home. Teachers are not therapists. They are not trained to recognize warning signs of anything. That's why schools have guidance counselors and principals for kids to talk to. Yes, there could be some preemptive measures taken at the beginning of the class but that often gives the little bastards doing the bullying more ideas. If the OP had been more involved (not just interested in bragging about, but really involved) in her child's life and recognized the warnings signs (that she easily picked up on months later) then she could have done her job as a parent an intervened. It's your job as a parent to watch out for your children. You should know them better than anyone. If you didn't see the signs, how could a teacher who barely knows your child pick up on them?
To my daughter's high school programming teacher
431–440 of 596 posts
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who learned programming in VB, I agree with you. As a junior high kid I was able to make things from business calculators to arcade style games. Was my code great? NO. Was it hip and trendy? Back then... maybe, but no. Am I now a successful programmer "who knows better" with a degree/full time job/start up? Yes. I'm not sure VB was a "make or break" factor in my education, but it certainly didn't help. Als…
I learned to program in school using BASIC on an Apple II, and it was great, but that doesn't mean I think this is the way to teach programming today. As recently as, say, 2000 desktop applications written in VB were kind of cool and relevant. Today: not so much. In 2000 the original writer's daughter would probably have bugged her for a Windows laptop and not a Macbook Pro. > I'm trying to teach my girlfriend develo…
And then what happens when they go "Ok, so... can I actually make anything with this? How would I use this in the real world?" Which is exactly what happened to me a week ago.
Then you're on the hook for "Well, first you'll have to learn HTML, then you'll have to learn how to access the HTML from javascript... then you'll have to learn CSS to actually make it not look embarassing." I SUPPOSE I could make my novice girlfriend write a backend server in node with her new found looping and if/else if skills.
I think once she gets the basics down I'm going to have to switch her over to objective-c, which is going to be a bitch but at least she can do something and see results. I love javascript, but it's not a fun and immediately rewarding experience like you get with a design->compile->run process.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
At what point does it become ok to harass and threaten this "privileged" group of people?
Never, but seriously as soon as I hear typical combinations of the words white male cis privilege I instantly write off the person using it as hopelessly deluded. These are dog whistles for social justice warrior ideologies and everything they imply. Use "different perspective" if that's what you're trying to put across, and if it's not and you really believe the whole privilege meme as something more than that, that…
What the fuck is so "horrendously offensive" about the obvious truth that some classes of people have advantages that others don't?
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#434The entitled and largely unconscious male privilege in most of these HN comments is pretty hard to stomach against the large and steadily-accumulating picture of just how very different this industry presents itself to men and to women. Just because you don't directly experience or see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you haven't been (consciously) chauvinistic to a woman doesn't mean women don't experi…
I can only really think of two ways of understanding the extreme gender imbalance in these jobs. Either there are systemic discriminatory forces at work, or women are somehow inherently ill-suited for programming jobs (ie. because of cognitive deficiency). I worry, but of course couldn't prove, that the sort of responses you get to proposing the former betray that many people subconsciously believe the latter. To tho…
> I can only really think of two ways of understanding the extreme gender imbalance in these jobs. Either there are systemic discriminatory forces at work, or women are somehow inherently ill-suited for programming jobs (ie. because of cognitive deficiency).
A third alternative is that they are not on average as interested in this kind of profession as the average man. That is a perfectly reasonable theory. But of course that doesn't put you between a rock and a hard place by having to choose between a society-is-sexist or a women-are-inferior theory, so I guess it's not a very fun theory if you want to stirr up a lot of emotions...
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that's the thing, every time someone does something misogynistic that's even remotely connected to tech in any way we get a storm of "stop the rampant misogyny in tech" rants and comments, never a "stop the rampant misogyny in the USA/UK/Western World/Whatever". I don't see this as a tech problem, and blaming the tech sector for it is a cop-out. If there genuinely is a larger problem with society as a whole, that…
Sure, there's general misogyny and all that, but just browse the rest of this thread if you don't think that the tech industry has a disproportionate amount. HN is one of the worst offenders, as a matter of fact. I agree that it's not necessarily an example of misogyny in tech per se, but it's absolutely a contributing factor in why there are so few women in tech -- many first experiences tend to be as the sole femal…
I'm not even going to bother with your first point, particularly as it isn't really a point per say and I don't think anything constructive will come of it. Your second point on the other hand, that has some meat to it. I've said several times in the past now that the low representation of women in tech is the fault of the media and our school systems, and to a very small extent this article demonstrates that.
To begin with the state of tech education in public schools is absolutely abysmal, it takes a dedicated student with a strong interest in tech to tough it out through the school system, rather than being encouraged to go into tech by the school system. The media portrays programmers and other tech industry professionals as a bunch of lonely anti-social misfits who are almost exclusively male and either so exceeding stereotypically nerdy as to practically qualify as autistic, or else overweight and lecherous. These two factors combined mean that the vast majority of students, both male and female, decide to avoid the tech industry at an early age because either they believe the media stereotypes or else they take some tech related classes and are so appalled at the curriculum that they practically run to other professions.
When considering a career in the tech industry, going solely by the state of pre-college and entry level college tech courses, combined with the overwhelming media stereotypes around the tech industry, is it any surprise most women decide to pursue other fields?
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#436Sad.
Her suggestions to her daughter's teacher seem reasonable and useful for other teachers.
I hope sending her daughter to India (of all places!) for her final year of high school wasn't a mistake.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#437The entitled and largely unconscious male privilege in most of these HN comments is pretty hard to stomach against the large and steadily-accumulating picture of just how very different this industry presents itself to men and to women. Just because you don't directly experience or see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you haven't been (consciously) chauvinistic to a woman doesn't mean women don't experi…
So, you're saying that women need special treatment as the more delicately nurtured sex? I completely disagree. The tech environment is what it is, and I don't want to be treated differently than my male co-workers. Also, I've never seen anything resembling a "grotesque pastiche of misogyny and bullying" in my 17 years of working as a programmer or systems analyst.
So, you're saying that women need special treatment as the more delicately nurtured sex?
Uh, no, he's not saying that. The issue is that women, generally, are already treated differently than their male co-workers, and they shouldn't be. It's about not treating them differently.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#438I spent a year as a high school computer science teacher back when the AP exam was in C++ and I had one young woman in my classroom. The OP's comments are reasonable as a parent, but like many she doesn't properly comprehend the difficulties encountered by a modern day teacher. When I was teaching class, I had to contend with numerous learning obstacles and then had to leave after class for my other full-time program…
The one salient point of the piece was the fact the teacher did not respond properly after the harassment occurred. We can all agree on that. This is the key. People don't expect teachers to control what comes out of the mouths of their students. They can't stop the initial bullying from happening. What teachers can do is react once it happens. Edited to remove: "It sounds like the OP went out of her way to help the…
Wait, how did she help the teacher turn it into a 'teaching moment'? What I got from it is that neither of them contacted the teacher at all about any of this, and then expected him to be able to spot the issue and understand that it was a problem with his class rather than an issue of burnout or other normal teenager problems (I doubt the boys in the class harassed her in front of him). My guess is that he was actually less worried about her because she was actually doing well in the class and I imagine many of the students weren't. Sure, it is a real bummer that she was turned off of the programming industry because of her classmates, but if he had devoted most of his non-teaching time to just her, imagine the struggling students in the class who might have wanted to learn but couldn't get any of the teacher's time or help? Odds are they would be demoralized and unlikely to continue programming as well. It most likely could have been handled better, and it would have been great if the teacher had noticed the problem, but I don't think it is fair to place all the blame on him and suggest that they were helping him do the right thing.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
>> High school bullies are typically quite good at restricting their bullying to times when they're unlikely to be spotted by an authority figure. > The author is being unfair when she is holding the teacher solely accountable for bullying. Come, now. Yours is not a reasonable conclusion to make from the blog post. It should be obvious to the reader that the bullies in question are responsible. The author's point was…
The teacher has a responsibility to provide a safe environment THAT ENDS AT THE DOOR TO THEIR CLASS. If the harassment happened out of view, is the teacher still responsible? Are you responsible for harassment that takes place at your workplace outside your cubicle? Students have remedies, they all know what they are. I knew. If the child spoke up to a teacher, principal, janitor, or anyone and the school did nothing then I'd side with the OP in a heartbeat. Absent any real facts about what happened I'd have to guess (and it's only a guess) that the teacher wasn't the problem here.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#440It's fantastic that this article has stayed on the front page so long. Regardless of your thoughts on the author's claims, I don't think anyone can deny that this was a thoughtful, reasoned take on sexism in tech. We need more of these if anyone wants to take the discussion back from the Gawker's/Valleywag's of the world. There is an intelligent discussion to be had here. Personally, I lean towards advising women to…
"I don't think anyone can deny that this was a thoughtful, reasoned take on sexism in tech"
I can. It was a reasoned, thoughtful take on a single teacher's inability to effectively discipline a male dominated classroom, and how this lack of discipline severly impacted a woman's hopes for her child. Nothing more.
To say that this is "sexism in tech" is an extreme reach. I dare say dishonest.
Back when I was in grade 9, my friend and I were the only two boys in 'home ec.' It was always only us two in the cooking groups because the girls wouldn't ask us to join their groups. Should I take this to show the inherent Misandry in the entire culinary arts field? Of course not.