Ever since I attended FETC in Orlando this year, I have been haunted by a press conference I attended with one of the keynote speakers, the astronaut, Leland Melvin. It actually came at the end of the interview and it was more of a conversation with the man rather than a question and answer segment. We were talking about girls’ involvement in science when Mr. Melvin pointed out the phrase that drove America and Russia for a decade, “The race to put the first man in space”. This was later replaced by, “The race to put the first man on the moon”. Looking back, that might have been the best way to disinvite half the country in participating in this nationwide endeavor. I have no doubt those words in that combination would not be accepted today, but that was a different time and a different culture. Nevertheless, it must have been a turn-off to many women and their involvement in science and math.
I often wonder why we have such a problem involving girls in more science and math classes. It is not my area of expertise, or even interest, but my youngest daughter is a Math major. Her classes are filled with males while the females in the class number in single digits. The scariest part of this is, that as enlightened as we like to think we are, we have been doing this for not only the last few decades, but also many centuries, and in some respects we are still continuing this today.
Now this is where I apply what I know with what I believe, so I am not saying that what I am about to theorize is a reality, but one possible explanation as to why something is happening. Let me be clear, there are many, many women who are successfully and prominently involved in science, math, and technology. The point is that as subjects Math, Science, and Technology are far less inviting to women than they are to men.
Now for the point I want to get to with all of this preparation. I am perplexed at the slow rate at which technology is taking to gain acceptance in being utilized as a tool for learning in our education system. The education profession itself is undergoing a change in the makeup of educators. Fewer men are entering the profession, which makes women the predominant gender in our education industry. As an aside, I wonder if the percentage of female administrators reflects the percentage of women in the education system, but that’s the stuff for another post.
My query: Could the slow rate of acceptance of technology in education in some way be linked to the hesitance on the part of many women to feel comfortable with technology? I am not attributing blame with this question, but I am trying to figure out how to apply a solution. I guess it still comes down to the obvious. If we are to change the system, we need first to change the culture. I guess if we worked as hard to put a woman on the moon as we did for a man, things might be different today.
The slow rate of acceptance has to do with the lack of supplies. I am not going to fight peers for access to the computer lab–I want tech right there waiting for teachable moments. That’s what kids are used to. Then, there’s tech inequality. We have some classes that are 1:1 and others who don’t share, “You can’t share those extras, they belong to the math department.”
Many schools are years behind the tech I use in my business and in my outside jobs. It’s one of the reasons I wrote “Don’t Sniff the Glue.” I don’t notice my girls and guys using tech differently but I notice it’s deployed differently–class to class… because at so many school’s it’s broken, blocked or banned to the point of inconvenience.
That said, we can still use tech creatively–Google Apps for Education, flipped and blended classes even ones that aren’t 1:1 can accomplish great things if teachers are flexible with deadlines for student who don’t have fast internet or phones).
Really good post, Tom. It challenges me to stop complaining about what I’d like and remember to do more with what I have:) –Dawn
This is from my experience… Hesitance on women’s part is that it’s a predominantly male field where the “old boys club” makes it very difficult (an understatement) to work, learn, and progress. Men are in hiring positions and they generally tend to hire more men. If you read ANYTHING on how women who already are in tech fields are treated, you will find a lot of harassment. There are plenty of articles about this… I won’t post them here. The same is true in STEM classes in schools. Many of them are taught by male teachers, and the experience for girls in those classes is very often a negative one. As a teacher, I had to fight hard for the girls in the IT classes, because their males teachers actually admitted they didn’t even want girls in their classes. As a woman who worked in the tech field in corporate America for several years as a trainer, programmer, and consultant, I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I was sexually harassed by my co-workers and my BOSS, and the number of times my work was dismissed as not as good as my male co-workers was staggering. The odd factor in all of this is that my work was requested more by our customers than any of the male co-workers’ work combined. So, are women hesitant to use technology, or are they just exhausted from fighting a system of harassment that discourages women from the get-go? I think it’s a lot deeper than “not feeling comfortable,” but I’m glad that you’re writing about it, Tom.
I would like to start by pointing out that I am “untechnomological” – the thought of setting up an interactive whiteboard, swivl, move between urls and have all of the web based functions work successfully makes me feel queezy. I recognised my variable skills with IT, knew it didn’t come naturally to me to tinker and chose to extend my knowledge in technology based concepts, organisations and movements.
I got (became) motivated and decided I needed to learn more about technology, or my relevance / currency in my educators role would be waning – a case of moving with the times.
Now, as a teacher, scrum master, software designer, school administrator and mother I make 2 observations:
1. There is a body of research which evidences that females achieve more success in gender aligned classes than males. Hence the concept of providing options of STEM classes for girls, within a setting, is one that might prove successful in capturing more girls imaginations.
2. Females, by proportion, (and as teachers) tend to be more nurturing, language based, right brained and less analytical, logical, left brained. So why try and make technology travel the left brain super highway….
I need to work in a team of people with different skills to create web based software. I fill the role of the creative, visionary, product owner, scrummaster and on my team I have web developers, graphic designers, marketers, finance officers, technical advisors and web architects. So I don’t have to be the queen of Mathematics or Science to be involved in Technology. Perhaps it’s choosing an issue or problem you have a passion for and following it to find a “solution”.
I talk to my 3 daughters about the sorts of jobs that might interest them as they move to high school and suggest big data analyst, software designer, ip lawyer. I encourage them to be a part of our school chess club, coderdojo and play with minecraft but I know that when I ask them what they want to be when they grow up they will tell me – Cupcake shop owner….. (let them dream)