High School Girls in STEM (or Not)

tips for recruiting girls for a high school computer programming club at TheMakerMom.com

This computer club needs X chromosones!

I’m super proud of my son for organizing a App Development (computer programming) club at high school. There are many requirements for starting a new club and he’s tackling his to-do list with gusto. Not surprisingly, one of his tasks is to demonstrate student interest. He’s assembling a list of students who signed on to participate.

“Any girls?” I asked.

“Um, one,” he admitted as I gave him a Look.

“Let me guess,” I said. “It’s mostly white boys and a handful of Asian and Indian boys.”

I’m one smart mama. A human Oiuja Board.

What I can’t say whether the imbalance is due to a lack of interest, intimidation, or a lack of recruitment. Maybe a bit of each. For example, if my son is recruiting from his current video game design class there’s an automatic lack of girls, as it’s an all-boy section. If he also recruits from last year’s AP programming class..no, wait, that was an all-male class, too (at least his section).

I’m just learning this. We’re talking (okay, shouting across the house) as I compose this post. “How about your math class?’ I yell.

“This year there are three girls in my section (honor’s pre-calc.)”

What? I’m honestly shocked now. Add in an all-boy PE class and he might as well be at a single-sex school.

It turns out his English, Spanish and Chem classes are closer to 50:50. Still if you look at the overall group of students he has interacts with during the day, it’s not surprising he’s short on girls. And clearly there are systemic issue if his math and computer classes are that short on girls.

I’m going to look into the school’s. In the meantime, he is a teenager and when his whip-smart parents offer advice it induces much eye-rolling, so I thought some of you might have advice for him as far as:

Why he needs to make a concentrated effort to recruit girls into the club
How he might go about doing so

C’mon, Internets, help me out here.

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Anonymous says

June 8, 2014 at 4:04 am

Could the root of the problem be higher education and how we fund it? Nearly all higher education costs are government subsidized. Government is subsidizing easy pathways through college. Girls, and many boys, like easy pathways. Who would NOT like to pursue an easy pathway rather than a difficult one? If I can choose to pursue hard or easy, and I have few or none of my own dollars at stake, I will choose easy…….forget math when I can head for a Philosophy major and have the taxpayers pay for me to do it.

The government so far makes no distinction as to how a student must spend those easily available education dollars. You can major in something difficult, and lucrative. Like computer science. Or physics or chemical engineering. Or statistics. Not a lot of people do any of that. Those are all difficult, time consuming, somewhat grueling. Who needs it? Because, you can just as easily major in Asian Studies or Global Studies Or American Studies or Judaic Studies. You can major in Media and Communication Studies. Or Africana Studies. Or Linguistics. What kind of a job thousands of people can get with a linguistics degree I have no idea, but government is passing out the dollars to make those linguistics degrees possible, no questions asked, for whoever wants it. And if none of those suit you can create your own major. I am actually getting all these majors from the webpage here. http://www.umbc.edu/undergraduate/majors/

Or you can go to University of Chicago and major in something called Big Problems. I am not making this up. At Princeton, you can major in East Asian Art and Archaeology–again, generally at government expense. Or History of Science. At Guilford College you can major in Peace and Conflict and have the state and the feds pay your way. Yes. Or Sport Management. You can minor in Community Studies, for heaven’s sakes. Or you can flesh out your program by minoring in Interpersonal Communication or Japanese Language and Society. So there’s plenty to study for four years while you prolong your adolescence, most likely in something of a party school and have a great deal of college fun. It really does not have to be difficult, and it DOES NOT HAVE TO LEAD TO ANY JOB. Because government in the USA, has not made job-related education any kind of a priority.

As long as government subsidizes college degrees in just about WHATEVER topic professors which to teach, we are going to find that girls, and a lot of boys, too, are going to pick one of those easier, MUCH LESS USEFUL courses of study. Hey, it’s free to get those easy degrees. Or at least it’s quite cheap, perhaps with a very affordable loan backed by the government. So why would a person choose an education path wisely?Why would a person choose to work hard on math or science in middle school, if they have very little to lose because they know they won’t be paying very much of the true cost of their education when they get to college? The way our funding system is currently set up, there is no reason on earth for a school child to hone math and computer skills, and to build towards a future in those disciplines. Because government is subsidizing a massive amount of non-science, non-math, non-technical, non-computer education.

Government needs to put a strict limit on the number of people it will subsidize to go into possibly important, but less critical areas like Metropolitan Studies, or Acting, or Exercise Science or Family Science (all offered at Towson State). When government creates limits, and directs MOST of the money towards the math- and tech-heavy job-related disciplines, we will find families making sure their daughters (and their sons) are working hard to master the math they are going to need for a bright future. Families want their kids to be in a good position growing up, and will guide them. But when government hands out money willy nilly, there is no reason for family guidance in these matters

Comments

Naomi Shapiro says
June 6, 2014 at 6:48 pm

This is a terrible thing to say, but maybe he needs to dare them. Challenge them to a robotics duel or something.
Anonymous says
June 8, 2014 at 4:04 am

Could the root of the problem be higher education and how we fund it? Nearly all higher education costs are government subsidized. Government is subsidizing easy pathways through college. Girls, and many boys, like easy pathways. Who would NOT like to pursue an easy pathway rather than a difficult one? If I can choose to pursue hard or easy, and I have few or none of my own dollars at stake, I will choose easy…….forget math when I can head for a Philosophy major and have the taxpayers pay for me to do it.

The government so far makes no distinction as to how a student must spend those easily available education dollars. You can major in something difficult, and lucrative. Like computer science. Or physics or chemical engineering. Or statistics. Not a lot of people do any of that. Those are all difficult, time consuming, somewhat grueling. Who needs it? Because, you can just as easily major in Asian Studies or Global Studies Or American Studies or Judaic Studies. You can major in Media and Communication Studies. Or Africana Studies. Or Linguistics. What kind of a job thousands of people can get with a linguistics degree I have no idea, but government is passing out the dollars to make those linguistics degrees possible, no questions asked, for whoever wants it. And if none of those suit you can create your own major. I am actually getting all these majors from the webpage here. http://www.umbc.edu/undergraduate/majors/

Or you can go to University of Chicago and major in something called Big Problems. I am not making this up. At Princeton, you can major in East Asian Art and Archaeology–again, generally at government expense. Or History of Science. At Guilford College you can major in Peace and Conflict and have the state and the feds pay your way. Yes. Or Sport Management. You can minor in Community Studies, for heaven’s sakes. Or you can flesh out your program by minoring in Interpersonal Communication or Japanese Language and Society. So there’s plenty to study for four years while you prolong your adolescence, most likely in something of a party school and have a great deal of college fun. It really does not have to be difficult, and it DOES NOT HAVE TO LEAD TO ANY JOB. Because government in the USA, has not made job-related education any kind of a priority.

As long as government subsidizes college degrees in just about WHATEVER topic professors which to teach, we are going to find that girls, and a lot of boys, too, are going to pick one of those easier, MUCH LESS USEFUL courses of study. Hey, it’s free to get those easy degrees. Or at least it’s quite cheap, perhaps with a very affordable loan backed by the government. So why would a person choose an education path wisely?Why would a person choose to work hard on math or science in middle school, if they have very little to lose because they know they won’t be paying very much of the true cost of their education when they get to college? The way our funding system is currently set up, there is no reason on earth for a school child to hone math and computer skills, and to build towards a future in those disciplines. Because government is subsidizing a massive amount of non-science, non-math, non-technical, non-computer education.

Government needs to put a strict limit on the number of people it will subsidize to go into possibly important, but less critical areas like Metropolitan Studies, or Acting, or Exercise Science or Family Science (all offered at Towson State). When government creates limits, and directs MOST of the money towards the math- and tech-heavy job-related disciplines, we will find families making sure their daughters (and their sons) are working hard to master the math they are going to need for a bright future. Families want their kids to be in a good position growing up, and will guide them. But when government hands out money willy nilly, there is no reason for family guidance in these matters
Angie S. says
June 9, 2014 at 11:12 am

As you can imagine, I take this to heart. As the parent of tween girl who loves STEM, I walk the fine line of wanting to make sure she’s participating in everything she would be interested in, while trying to be nonchalant about it. Nothing turns a tween/teen girl off of STEM stuff like an overenthusiastic parent. And maybe this is true of overenthusiastic teachers and classmates, too. I find that as long as it’s her idea (or a girlfriend’s idea) she’s game. It sounds like her school is unusual, but I’m seeing quite a few girls involved in STEM activities and advanced classes at her school. Her state champ math bowl team was close to 50/50. They do seem to run in pack mentality, though, so if your son can win one over, he may find himself surrounded by girls!