All of these responses have given me a lot to think about. Even in the handful of anecdotes provided, I’m starting to see a pattern:
- Early years – Aimee and Audra’s little kids tend to have the girls just as excited and involved in STEM topics as the boys.
- Middle years – Alaina’s middle school girls responded when they could explore STEM topics in a “safe space”.
- Professional years – The fresh-outs and experienced professionals in my area of technology are almost all men.
Of course, this is outrageously reductive, so let me build upon it with a crazy statement (open to debate, please): Success in technology largely comes from curiosity about how things work and the fearlessness to figure out how to make it work. I believe there are a significant number of girls who show up on day 1 of kinder with curiosity and fearlessness and, by high school graduation, I fear it’s been eroded away. Programs like Alaina’s can reverse some of those effects, though.
This conversation has gone in a direction I didn’t expect, and I’m grateful. Beyond the “how are we going to fix society” question (which I’m happy to continue), I have a few more direct questions:
- How do I create a safe space for girls in a mixed robotics club? It’s already a no-grades Saturday afternoon club. I intentionally have left it pretty unstructured so kids can explore aspects that interest them. I failed (and learned from) four years ago when the boys were like feral animals taking over the robot, and the one girl just kind-of hung back. If I have a critical mass of girls, I can even give them their own robot, but…
- How do we get girls to take the chance on showing up? At last year’s open house (for incoming students), I had about 8 families with girls make a beeline for the robotics booth and tell me how excited they were. 2 showed up for the info meeting and 1 joined the club (the other had a conflict).
While I was composing this reply, I got the e-mail that the open house for next year’s incoming and interested families is in a week. So, the pressure’s on.
- Thursday, December 9 – Figure out how to get girls excited to show up for robotics
- Friday, January 7 – Fix the rest of society (that should just take about a month, right?)
