From a purely utilitarian, game theoretic pov, harassing and chasing girls out of your personal and professional social circles and networks is a very poor reproductive strategy. I would have thought programmers would be more logical, even if initially unthinking about it. If you love sausage fests, by all means, continue. Otherwise, think twice before disparaging girls and women, even jokingly (it's never a joke).
To my daughter's high school programming teacher
141–150 of 596 posts
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#142trigger alert: Linux user at 11 asks for MacBook Pro at 16
Many people run Linux on MacBook Pro.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#143I feel for the daughter who (like many women before her) had a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world. I feel for the parent who sees her daughter possibly reject a very fulfilling career path after a bad initial experience, when the future could be so much better. But as a former high school teacher, I also feel for the teacher. Giving them some benefit of the doubt, I just want to point out a couple things:
1. As many others have mentioned, if this is a public school, it's quite unlikely that this teacher is college educated as a programmer, let alone has ever been a professional developer. 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.
2. High school bullies are typically quite good at restricting their bullying to times when they're unlikely to be spotted by an authority figure. As a teacher, you try hard to maintain awareness of the entire room as much as possible, but there are always tons of gaps. You might be writing something on the board, helping a student 1-on-1, addressing some other kid's behavior, or doing any of dozens of other tasks.
3. Most teachers try to keep tabs on their students on a personal level, especially when they behavior or attitude noticeably changes, but not all students open up. It takes a lot of effort to maintain an authentic connection. Parents have trouble connecting authentically with their children--imagine doing it with scores of students per semester. And when it comes to bullying, most teenagers downplay to avoid being though of as a snitch. Some are self-conscious to be bailed out even when they haven't "snitched".
4. For many of the author's suggestions, the teacher may be doing these things (recruiting, cross-promoting, etc.), to the extent that they have time. But these are outside the job of teaching. These are things the author could be doing at the school too, but presumably she's too busy. I'm sure the teacher can relate.
Teaching high school was by far the most grueling and emotionally taxing job I've ever had. My work career also includes being a custodian at a health club, a baseball umpire, a senior software engineer, and and a startup founder. None of those jobs is anywhere near as demanding.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#144I 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…
As a teacher, I know that it is the job of a teacher to do better. Allowing an environment that takes engaged, bright students and grinds them down is in fact a failure to do a teacher's job: classroom management is tied with content delivery in a high school teacher's job description. Yes, there are many bad teachers, but why do you excuse doing bad work, essentially arguing that wasting kids' time and potentially doing them damage is just good preparation for the real world?
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
The system doesn't work if everyone reserves a table, it really grinds my gears when people do that in fast food joints etc. You don't need the table at that moment, people don't take long to eat there, you're bringing down the efficiency of the place by doing that. (sorry, pet hate...)
What if everyone sat at the table and one person ferried the money and ice cream back and forth from the counter? Would that be better? Actual utilization of the table for eating is still zero, and the table is still engaged for the same length of time. But try and evict bodies from their seats for the sole reason that their ice cream isn't in their hands yet and you would look crazy.
It's every bit as irritating, not that I would bother to confront anyone over it, it's not worth the effort. Still rude though.
Take a table when you need one in a fast food place, not as you're joining the queue. Reserving tables before you have food makes it less likely that people with food can get a table.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#146If 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…
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 succeed in their programs is worth it.
I suggest everyone to check it out - if you're near a local school you can actually teach a class in person.
Also - if you have any questions feel free to email me - username @ gmail
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#147I'm confused by the general scenario here - the daughter graduated high school last year, probably at age 16 - and is now repeating high school in India? The letter is to an Indian teacher in India? Is she going to a public school for Indian students there? It's the students in India asking her to make sandwiches? Is this some sort of student exchange program?
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#148trigger alert: Linux user at 11 asks for MacBook Pro at 16
Also, is it common for 16 year olds to ask for a car in the US? I asked my mum to make my favourite food, and some money so i could go out with friends. Compared to "a car" or a Macbook Pro, it sounds like i had a deprived life.
Yes, it is common for them to ask. (It doesn't mean they get it, though).
A large part of the US is not practically walkable and has insufficient public transportation. In order to "go out with friends", sometimes to even see said friends, to hold down a job, to go to the store, transportation in a car may be necessary. Teenagers prefer to not rely on their parents to take them places. Thus, car ownership represents freedom and autonomy to US teenagers.
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, is it common for 16 year olds to ask for a car in the US? I asked my mum to make my favourite food, and some money so i could go out with friends. Compared to "a car" or a Macbook Pro, it sounds like i had a deprived life.
Yes, very common, at least in the wealthier regions. Many kids have a car available as soon as they can legally drive. That said, I've noticed a trend among my son's peers. Many of them delayed driving until they left for college. Not sure why. When I was that age, everybody skipped school on their 16th birthday to go take the driving test.
NPR did a piece examining this phenomenon: http://www.npr.org/2013/08/21/209579037/why-millennials-are-...
Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher
#150It's too bad the teacher was too weak to protect your daughter's honor, and ensure decency in the classroom. High school can be a cruel place. I hope she realizes those hurtful comments didn't represent her at all. It was just scared boys searching for some semblance of masculinity they may never find.
Johnny, you did great in my class. You did well in the assignments and were heading for a nice B. But you know what? I'm knocking that down to a C for one simple reason -- you acted like a sexist fool towards Susan and created a hostile environment. You're not the only one. Karl and Larry and getting downgraded too. This isn't on your permanent record...yet. Don't do it again. Grow up. What made you think this behavi…
Believe it or not, most teachers can't do this in the real world anymore. Grades are supposed to be objective and based on a student's demonstrated work. In the schools where I've worked, a teacher would find him/herself in a world of pain for knocking down a kid's score by an entire letter grade for being a jerk.
These days, school policies generally insist on separating disciplinary and academic issues.