Guest post: Hairstyles over HTML

This is a personal narrative my daughter Acadia wrote for her 8th grade English class. It speaks to the subtle and not-so-subtle barriers girls face and feel in the realm of technology.

 

Hairstyles Over HTML

I don’t belong here.

This was the first thought that came to my mind as I watched the rest the class file into the classroom.

When my mom had asked me in April if I wanted to go to a coding workshop at MIT with her, I had been reluctant. “I don’t really… like… coding very much.” I had replied. The computer teacher back at school had been teaching my sixth grade class how to code all year, and, frankly, I didn’t enjoy it all. I preferred Shakespeare over Scratch, fashion to flash drives, hairstyles over HTML, and books over MacBooks.

“Your computer teacher says you are one of the best coders in the class,” My mom had replied. “He thinks you have real potential. I agree with him.”

Still unsure of what I was getting myself into, I unenthusiastically agreed.

Now I was sitting in a room full of educators (most of them female and over 40) and their sons.

Yes, sons. Not teenagers. Sons.

The brochure had said the program was for teenagers, grades 6-12, but some of the adults had deemed it appropriate to drag their 9-year-old, socially awkward, Minecraft-obsessed sons to the program.

The grad school instructors- one male and one female, to my relief- and their professor, a middle-aged female, began to talk about the program we were going to use. I glanced around the room again. I was the only girl among fifteen boys.

Instantly, I felt like my femininity had been threatened. I was only twelve, not even considered a woman yet, but instantly I was worried. Did this mean I wasn’t feminine enough? What if I wasn’t pretty enough or graceful enough or flirty enough? I had always considered myself a feminist from a very young age, but now I was also doubting that. Did being a feminist take away my femininity? I glanced down at my outfit: yoga pants and v-neck t-shirt. I made a mental note to wear dresses more often.

I listened to the instructors as they gave us directions on how to set up an account. I picked my go-to username: music_girl_11 and changed my status to Public, like they told us to do so that the other participants could see the simulations and games we had made.

After a few more quick directions, we were told to begin. My mom and I set to work, choosing the color and shapes of the little blocks drifting across the plane on the screen. I tried to relax, but the programming was very hard. In school, we had used programs like Scratch and Code.org, which gave you a list of instructions and blocks with instructions like “Move left _____” Here, we had to type our own instructions and figure out the exact order of words and dashes. How much would this number of paces move the blocks? How do I make the shark follow the fish?

I posted my first “game” onto my account 15 minutes before our lunch break and shared it with the rest of the class online. I didn’t have enough time to start a new program, so I scrolled through the other games that had been posted. After what felt like an hour, we were released. We were told we could stay inside and eat or go outside. Naturally, after staring at a screen for about 3 hours, my mom and I opted to go eat outside. It was a beautiful if slightly chilly July day, and the MIT campus was quite beautiful.

Soon, we came across a set of benches, one of them holding two other students from the workshop: an eighth grade boy and his mother, a professor. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to spend my lunch break with yet another boy, but for the sake of being polite, I kept my mouth shut as my mom and I sat down across from them on the other bench.

The boy was very intelligent and not very shy. As his mother and mine chatted, he would throw in some of his own thoughts and answers into the conversation. Whenever I was asked a question, I would swallow my bite of food and give a one or two word answer. To anyone who knew me well, this would come as a surprise. I was very talkative and somewhat outgoing person, a girl who always raised her hand in class whether it was to answer or ask a question and had a large circle of friends. But at this moment, I was feeling very vulnerable and self-conscious.

And then, suddenly, the boy turned to me. “So, how do you feel about the male dominance in the workshop?” He asked me.

I was so surprised that he had noticed. I had thought for sure I was the only one who had discovered that I was the only girl in the room who hadn’t finished college.

“I’m not actually sure how I feel about it,” I replied, taken aback but strangely relieved. I laughed a little bit. “It’s kind of intimidating.”

My mom turned to me in shock. “You’re really the only girl? I didn’t notice at all!”

I nodded. “How did you not notice?” I laughed, suddenly finding the situation comical instead of daunting.

“I don’t know!” She replied, also laughing.

The boy’s mom chuckled. “I guess you’re just going to have to kick all of their butts, then.”

That’s right.

The thought came out of nowhere, but it spoke the truth. I liked the idea of proving that I could code just as well as any of the other boys in there.

I went into the classroom with renewed sense of purpose. Prove yourself, whispered a little voice inside my head.

I worked harder and pushed myself. I actually began to see why people did this for a living. Soon, I had 2 more games shared with the group.

“Who’s music_girl_11?” I looked up from my laptop and across the table at the ten-year-old boy who had asked the question. He hadn’t said it in the nicest way- in fact, he sounded almost disgusted.

If he had said this before the break, I would’ve slouched down in my chair and swore never to code again. However, I ignored his comment and tried shrug it off. It was pretty easy, considering that earlier, that same boy was struggling to post his game up on the website.

At the end of the class, the instructors showed some of the games and simulations on the SMART board and the instructor chose one of mine to show to the class. After it was finished, there was a moment of silence.

“You go, music_girl_11!” The instructor said. Though it wasn’t my best game, I felt a sense of pride. I had done it. I had learned to code, had my work displayed to the class, and proven that I was just as good at coding as any of the other boys there.

I had learned something else that day as well: I was not defined by the people who shared my interests. Liking computers did not mean I had to be glued to a computer screen 24/7. Being good at coding did not mean I couldn’t like fashion as well. Liking something boys traditionally liked more did not mean I was unfeminine.

I am who I choose to be, not who society tells me to be.

 

— APC, 6/15/16

 

There are a lot of good resources that promote coding for girls, including Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, Google’s Made with Code, and some that promote a more inclusive approach to coding for everyone, such as CoderDojo and code.org. The MIT workshop Acadia and I attended was very good, and I like the StarLogo NOVA programming platform, which uses visual blocks like Scratch or Blockly but allows more complex simulations. Here’s the homepage for StarLogo Education.

 

 

 

 

Acadia’s narrative reminds me of how much the environment in which students learn affects how they feel about the subject matter. A room full of boys was immediately intimidating and off-putting to her. And yes, I was that clueless — I really didn’t notice that she was the only girl. Encouragement from her teachers (and her mom) couldn’t compete with what she perceived as a threat to her identity. Ultimately, an ally in the classroom and motivation to prove herself carried the day.  I left with two ideas; one from the lovely professor we ate lunch with, who teaches biology and uses computer models of biological systems as a “backdoor” way to get her female students interested in coding. They already love biology; the computer models are an additional tool to learn more about something they enjoy. So here’s idea # 1: Capitalize on what your  target population is already interested in, and then connect it to coding. Idea #2 comes from both research and personal experience as a teacher and a learner; wherever identity is intertwined with learning, and in fields dominated by one gender, differentiation is particularly important. Students with very little experience coding may give up easily trying to keep up with others who spend much of their free time on computers.

Engineering by another name: Feminine handicrafts

Identify the Problem, Materials, & Constraints

I made the quilt pictured here when I was in my mid-teens. I had no formal training in quilting, but my mother had taught me the basics of sewing, and I wanted to make a quilt for her. My grandparents, her parents, had died a few years earlier, and I planned to construct the quilt using three generations of cloth, my grandmother’s, my mother’s, and my own. The fabric I had was mostly remnants, so the amount and shape of each type varied depending on what it had been used for before.

 

Develop Possible Solutions

I sketched a design in a notebook and then scaled it up to the finished size I envisioned. I remember being surprised and delighted when I figured out I could use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate how long to cut the rectangular pieces of cloth that rain along the sides of the right triangles in my design. When I was satisfied with the prototype, I cut the pieces and laid them out, rearranging them until they met my aesthetic and geometric specifications.

 

Create/Build

Once I found the a layout I liked, I pinned and stitched the pieces together to construct the front of the quilt. Without prior quilting experience or instruction, I relied on my observations of quilts to figure out how to sew the front to to the batting and the backing. As a final touch, I embroidered by grandmother’s my mother’s, and my initials on the edge of the quilt, where each of our fabrics intersected.

 

Evaluate

My mother was as delighted and touched by the quilt as I was proud of it. She kept in her study, where she wrote poetry, for the rest of her life, and now I keep it in my study. I went on to make a few more quilts in my teenage years, including one when my eldest nephew was born which was then passed on to each of thirteen cousins. My older sister started the tradition of embroidering initials on the edge as the quilt was passed to the newest addition to our family.

 

***

Now that I am a science and technology teacher, I see quilting and other crafts as engineering, but as a girl and young adult, I certainly never thought about it as such. I saw engineering as something that involved tools I didn’t know how to use and math that might be too hard for me. This perception was not rooted in logic or observation; I was as capable of learning to use tools or solving math problems as any of my peers. I didn’t have opportunities or experiences which sparked an interest in traditional engineering challenges, so the tools and materials of mechanical or electrical projects remained mysterious and remote.

I don’t argue that all craft projects involve engineering, but many do. Anyone who has developed or modified a sewing, knitting, or crochet pattern has worked through the steps of the engineering design process. Sewing machines are as complex as power tools, and fabric, clothing, and blankets as necessary as buildings and vehicles.

I chose the example of the quilt I made for my mother because it every step of my process was so rooted in what’s traditionally feminine. My purpose for making it was sentimental, based on my family relationships. The design balances bold colors with pastels and eyelet lace in a starflower motif. Creating the quilt required sewing skills passed on from my grandmother to my mother to me. And the evaluation of my product was based almost entirely on feelings: my pride, my mother’s delight.

I’m not arguing that girls should be constrained to soft and warm engineering projects which involve sewing or knitting. Since my teenaged years, I’ve learned how to use many of the tools and materials that I then found intimidating, and I’m happier for it. Rather, we should do justice to these traditionally feminine handicrafts as potentially complex engineering challenges themselves, and use them to widen the field of materials, tools, and products we consider when we think of engineering.

 

One of the first people who got me thinking about this topic, from whom I stole the phrase “feminine handicraft,” is Margaret Wertheim. Her TED talk, “The Beautiful Math of Coral,” connects complex mathematical models, environmental action, and crochet.

 

 

There are great deal of positive initiatives designed to interest and involve girls in engineering. I would simply add that both girls and boys will benefit from an expansion of tools and materials they can use, problems they can solve, and products they can make. Adding fabric, yarn and sewing machines to maker spaces may draw girls in and expand horizons for both genders.

If you give a teen a smart phone…

…or what I’ve learned about social media from my 13 year old.

This one is for Savanna C. and her parents.

Yeah, I know my way around a typewriter. If you say “phone,” I picture something about the size of a lunchbox that tethers the user to a four-foot radius with a helical cord. So I was not without trepidation when handing my 13-year-old daughter her own smartphone. If she had a nickel for every time I’ve warned her that whatever she posts might come up at a future job interview, she could upgrade to the very latest technology and load it with every app her heart desires. Some of my worries are specific, like how what she posts might come back to haunt her, how the impersonal nature of digital communication makes it easier to perpetrate or experience cruelty, and how electronic devices really can be addictive in a clinical sense. But some concerns are vague; this technology and its applications are evolving so fast it’s hard – maybe impossible – to foresee all its pitfalls.

Being a teacher helped me set the ground rules with my daughter. Overhearing my students talking about texting each other at 3:00 am led to the decision to keep the phone with me at night; I might trust her, but do I trust everyone in her social network? And then there’s the legal stuff – that picture of your friend mooning her little brother might seem like a joke to you, but it’s child porn to the authorities. So I hand the phone to my daughter with stern warnings and a parent-child contract to sign, and the first text she sends me a few days later is this:

So here are four positive things I’ve learned about this brave new cyber world, thanks to my daughter:

1. Language evolves. #dealwithit

I spent years lamenting the rise of textspeak in my students’ work. U, gonna, 2 and the like have steadily crept into lab reports, open response questions, and research papers. And no, I’m not going to argue that it’s OK to use these new-fangled terms in formal writing. But clearly, what started out of efficiency (remember texting on a flip phone with a number pad?) has evolved into a creative and expressive lexicon. Language belongs to the young, friends; it always has. [Check out this TED youth talk by Erin McKean about inventing new words]

2. Social media can be a force for good.

I’ve already described my fears and concerns about my daughter’s use of social media. Here are some ways in which her online activity has been decidedly positive.

She’s in regular communication with her extended family. She has seen the latest picture of her baby cousin on Instagram, she knows her grandparents took a weekend trip to visit her uncle. Likewise, they see her photos and posts. She often knows more about what’s going on in the family than I do.

When social conflict does arise, there’s often a record of the interaction, whether texts, screenshots, or photos. As both a teacher and I parent, I’ve seen kids bring their phones to trusted adults when they know they’re in too deep. Evidence in hand, we can see if what we’re dealing with is bullying, harassment, or something less serious.

Social media allows teens to stay connected with one of their most important support networks – each other – through thick and thin. One of my daughter’s friends was hospitalized for an extended time, and experience that would have been far lonelier a generation ago. In addition to receiving frequent well wishes, my daughter’s friend was in the loop as far as gossip, silly jokes, and pop culture commentary. It was helpful for parents, too; through CaringBridge, we received regular updates at relatively little trouble to her parents. 

3. You can really get your nerd on on social media.

My daughter loves TED talks, follows @awesomesscience and @Rick Riordan on Instagram, and finds all kinds of funny, informative posts about academics, politics, and culture. “Hey Mom, did you know the Mars Curiosity Rover sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to itself every year?” No, I did not. 

4. Always say “I love you”…or luv u 😉

Being a parent of a young teenager has a shock and awe factor. My little girl who once expressed her love so freely is now far more reserved. (That’s what we call it on good days. On bad we go with surly, or worse). Since giving her a phone, I’ve had to revise my opinions about texting as a means of communication a little. I used to think you should say anything in a text that you wouldn’t say to someone in person, but if my teen wants to tell me that she loves me again and again through text messages but affect a cool distance in person, I’m OK with that. Plus, since many of her texts involve pick up, drop off, or other requests, it doesn’t hurt that they’re softened with a little love.

Here’s the “contract” we created when we gave her the phone.

Common Sense Media is my go-to as both a parent and a teacher for information about what is appropriate and useful for my students and my own children.

gtg! c u l8r