CNN: Why do Girls Lose Interest in Math and Science?

[Kims Robot]

We were just talking about this last night. We were theorizing it was more the pressures in school. One of our girls was saying how it was driving her nuts that all of the girls in her classes just seemed (or acted) "dumb". Many of them are spoiled and get everything they want from their parents, but as juniors or seniors, we see that its likely they are going to go off to college and not know how to hang a picture because they never had to.

It seems that in larger schools, those are the girls that are "cool" or "popular"... why?? They need everything done for them, and really have no common sense. These girls don't think science, math or technology are "cool" because they are harder subjects... so other girls that want to be "cool" and are desperate to fit in, follow in their footsteps.

Another thing that I've noticed in general (male or female) is that a lot of students these days are afraid to fail. They will take the easier route, or just not do anything at all so that there is no way to fail. We abolished this on our team. We try and push them outside their comfort zones, and show them that its ok to fail. I will give them more praise for trying and failing than I do for them not trying at all.

I even saw evidence of this in college... many of the girls that I knew in engineering majors had boys doing homework for them, and they would just go and whine or cry to teachers when they failed a test, often being allowed to make it up, or turn in extra work for it. It was disheartening to me, and to the girls that I knew that worked really hard to keep up our grades. I even had a friend tell me that in a summer class, he had a professor say he was relieved there were no girls in the class because they really didnt belong in the profession. This blew my mind because the professor was my advisor and I was easily in the top 25% of my class, having done all of my own work.

I really have to believe a beginning to the answer can be the lego league teams. I like the idea that we start with all girls teams, so they arent afraid of how they are going to appear to the boys, and then let them mix on FRC teams in high school. By then they've developed the confidence and they know that they are capable. We started two innercity FLL teams last year, one all boys and one all girls from the same school. The girls did an awesome job, and you could see how excited many of them were with it. They were learning that science & math are cool and they could do it.

Anyways, I think we need to keep studying this trend and keep finding ways to change it. FLL & FRC can be answers, but we need to work at it. Every team should pledge to change at least one girl's mind each year, and we just may change the numbers (I say as I sit here one of two female engineers in an 80 person department...)

[JaneYoung]

2 weeks ago I was at a Lego event here in Austin. LASA Robotics had one of the FIRST robots there for 'show and tell' - our '06 robot hadn't made it back to the shop yet -

I walked around talking to a lot of the Lego teams and met a group from one of the elementary schools. They have a 3rd grade class that meets. They have also formed an afterschool group of 3rd - 5th graders who are a little more advanced. One of the engineers asked me to go over and start talking to one of the girls, Emily, a 5th grader. 4 of the boys had built wonderful machines. One was a sort of helicopter with very fancy blades. Colorful. The other boys had built cars. The girl had built a box with a lid that opened and closed and had side walls that moved. When the box lid slid back, it revealed a small treasure chest. Inside the treasure chest was a golden ring.

She explained the mechanics to me and complained that 'it wasn't good enough.' We discussed that and determined that it was because of time constraints.

I asked her if she had any drafts/drawings of her box and lo and behold, she got under the table and pulled out a sketch on lined school paper. The sketch showed her entire concept complete with the moving lid. We talked a little bit about cadding and her face lit up.

The engineer just stood there smiling. We'll probably meet her in FIRST in a few years because of his mentoring.
Jane

[Greg Perkins]

There are a lot of sterotypical comments regarding women who are in engineering and science fields; more of them pertaining to the fact that the females in these fields are "nerds" and we know where the comments stem from that. I think women need more direction in their lives at younger ages; I've seen far to many times that when a girl goes to thier guidance counselor in elementary school, they usually point them in a direction of a more "domestic" career. When guidance counselors at this age start steering them away from other fields, it seriously deprives them from achieving what they may never know they can do. It's sad really, even though the nation has given womens' rights I still can see that its not completly true.

In my Major in college, ther were 5 girls out of 450 students; what does this demographic tell you? That A) either they are getting into better schools than my college, or B) that most high school girls are'nt interested in careers that will someday make the world a better place. Sure, any girl can go into the hairdressing school, and get out and make mediocre money; or they can go into a difficult field, and reap the benefits of their hard work. I really love what groups like RCU and other organizations similar do. I was a memeber of SME at my college for a while, and if one of those 5 female students wanted to join, they were immedialty turned away. You ladies, you have voices...speak up, be heard. Your future depends on it!

[David Brinza]

For my wife, it was a fifth-grade teacher that discouraged her and all of the girls in his classes from learning math. "I don't expect that you girls will be able to understand this (math), so if you just remain quiet during class, you will pass." That occurred a long time ago, but it created "math-ophobia" for my wife. In spite of having a very analytical mind (yes, she thinks like an engineer), she just doesn't deal well with mathematical expressions.

That fifth-grade teacher's attitude was indicative of the culture that was prominent in decades past. Some of this mentality may still linger, though I'd be surprised if a teacher today would make the same sort of statement in a math or science classroom.

Are there any current students out there that have experienced this sort of discrimination?

[sanddrag]

One girl I know is actually a tutor for math (higher math too), and every Saturday I see her with a welder in hand.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

We were just talking about this last night. We were theorizing it was more the pressures in school. One of our girls was saying how it was driving her nuts that all of the girls in her classes just seemed (or acted) "dumb".

Statistically speaking, most people are dumber than you. That's why you need to excel -- to take care of them.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Statistically speaking, most people are dumber than you. That's why you need to excel -- to take care of them.

My late great-uncle was fond of asking, rhetorically, "would you rather be dumber than you look, or look dumber than you are?"

Looking dumb can give you a tactical advantage, sometimes. Being dumb never helps you, at all.

Note also: neither the occasional tactical advantage of looking dumb, nor the general disadvantage of actually being dumb, is gender-specific.