Facing Fears Head-On

I am brave. I'm a thrill seeker, a trail blazer and and adrenaline hound.  What I do for a living terrifies most individuals.  I take what other people fear and make it my bitch. I leap into the open abyss every day, armed with only two things: The hope that my training has prepared me for today, and the belief that luck will pull me out of whatever trouble I get myself into.

Image Courtesy of Lenovo Ad Campaign

That's right, I'm a computer science teacher!

Don't laugh.  It's completely true.  When I see the look of horror and dread that comes to people's faces when we talk about technology, it only reaffirms what I already know.  I'm a counter-cultural, extreme being...an off-road educator.  I twiddle bits all day long, asking for nothing but the chance to do it again tomorrow.  I. Am. Fierce.

I see the desire in the eyes of young people everywhere.  They want to learn how to get to where I am. I see the frustration when they figure out that their parents can't help them. That's why I do what I do.  I created Thinkersmith to teach...to inspire...and most of all, to foster confidence in a generation raised by a parents who are full of technological doubt.

My name is Kiki and I am one of the FabFems.  Please join us today and share *your* story.

Making Room for Non-Trads

To properly prepare for today's blog article, you should probably first become familiar with the "brogramming" movement, the science cheerleaders, and my article on letting people be who they are.

With Mayim Bialik in D.C.

I was in Washington D.C. this weekend working the USA Science Festival with The National Girl's Collaborative Project and FabFems on behalf of my non-profit, Thinkersmith.  The experience was phenomenal. It was truly unparalleled by anything I had ever seen as far as introducing families to the fun and creativity behind science.  With over 100,000 visitors, the festival was buzzing with excitement.  Thousands of minds were absorbing positive messages about mathematics, engineering, biology, chemistry, and computer science. It was awe-inspiring.

Surrounded by such a variety of positive female role models, I thought I would take the opportunity to go spread the word about FabFems, the new site that matches girls in science with female mentors in their area.  The result was baffling. At first, I was pleasantly surprised by how many booths were being "manned" by women.  Next, I was disappointed to find that many of them described themselves as being "just in HR" or "volunteering with a friend", disavowing any relationship to science themselves.

Those who *were* scientists kept telling me "Oh, no, I'm not really in the sciences...I'm just a math teacher." or "I'm not actually a scientist, I'm a psychologist."  I even heard one lady say "I'm not a scientist, but I write books about science, is that okay?" After reassuring these women that they had a valid relation to STEM, I handed them my info and suggested that they sign up as mentors so that they might inspire a young girl to someday believe that her contribution to STEM is also valid.  

My normal attire

As I was walking back to the "Girl Zone" (sponsored by the NGCP) my focus was distracted by super-sparkly cleavage.  Confused, I continued to look; trying to make sense of this group of bosoms being flaunted to a convention center full of young children.

Before I go further, it feels important to mention that when it comes to STEM conventions, I usually have the most exposed chest in the room -- I have no problem wearing low collars, as long as it remains age-appropriate and doesn't get to the point of becoming a distraction.

Science Cheerleaders

These ladies, however, would have made J-Lo blush!  Clad in deeply cut v-necks, short shorts, and more make-up than the late Tammy Faye Bakker, the women had attracted a ring of fathers so big that it was difficult to see what experiments were being offered. A brief chat with the cheerleaders showed me that they were a group of female scientists who were playing these characters as a method of trying to excite and entice young girls to follow their career paths.

Judgements not yet formed, I thanked them for the chat and headed back to my booth. As it turns out, these ladies have been all-but rejected from the female scientific community in an effort not to replace one stereotype for another.

Example Brogrammer Meme

The same thing appears to be happening with the Brogrammer movement.  Brogrammers have caught a lot of flack lately for their unabashed flaunting of a testosterone-filled irreverence. Fortunately, these guys don't actually exist as a corporately encouraged entity as various videos and articles would suggest.  Instead, these mythical creatures were dreamed up as another example of meme, such as the Sir and the more recent Ridiculously Photogenic Guy. Any geek worth her (or his) salt would take a look at the evidence and detect the farce instantly.  The media blitz generated by the misunderstanding, however, was very real.

This spinning vortex of extremity went a long way toward exploding my mind over the weekend.  When asked about my opinion of these radical groups, I had to defer my answers.  On one hand, I am such a big fan of supporting non-traditional individuals in any field.  On the other, I'm appalled by the perpetuation of a woman being most prized as eye-candy.  (Another honesty side note: I most likely only feel that way because I don't fit into the eye-candy stereotype and I want to be prized, too.)

Finally, I came to peace with my answer.  If brogrammers existed as a group, I would hope that their derogatory attitudes wouldn't be accepted in any workplace anywhere.  The practices being heralded as brogramming basics would make for sloppy and unsuccessful coding practice, and their kind wouldn't last in a start-up world anyhow.  Attitude aside, I do LOVE the idea of programmers who stay active, stay social and buck the system. There's no reason to fall into a stereotype just because some group appears to outnumber you.

As far as the Science Cheerleaders go, I approve of the message, but not the outfits.  As long as the science is real (and not dumbed down) then the method doesn't really matter to me.  Why should I care whether the message comes from a cheerleader, an old man or a rat?  The reasoning is in the results.  If it works, it works!  I figured out that my initial shock came from the same place as if I had seen my child's kindergarten teacher dressed in a similar outfit.  It just doesn't feel like an appropriate costume for the age group that they're reaching out to.  In the end, I say to the cheerleaders:  "The message is good.  The outfits...not so much."

What I Learned from TEDxPortland 2012

TedxPortland 2012

1.)  People are willing to put up with a building that's difficult to use as long as it looks beautiful.

2.)  Our rivers are burning because we have as much red tape for fixing our waterways as we do for damaging them.

3.)  When a woman is well educated, her entire family - her entire homeland - benefits.

4.)  Children like to play outside, but it rains a lot in Oregon and city planners don't seem to think covered play areas/skate parks are important.

5.)  The mayor of Portland is not as entertaining as an 11-year-old skater boy.

6.)  We are all cubists and if we can see everything from every perspective at once, we'll end up with something extraordinary.

7.)  People love unexpected happiness.

8.)  The World Wide Web isn't flat.  When you take away 404 pages and allow people to fill in the cracks, what you get is Wiki-magic.

9.)  Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and a thousand pictures can be better than a video.

10.)  I'm not the only one who struggles with being vulnerable.  Unfortunately, vulnerability seems to be the dividing quality between secure and insecure people.

11.)  We're killing good and bad microbes indiscriminately, which is making us sick.

12.)  Many places on Earth still don't teach their girls/women to read or swim.  This can be lethal for an entire gender.

13.)  A group of trombones is called a chorus.

14.)  You have to continue to respect fear or you'll break yourself.

15.)  No matter how clueless you are, you can achieve your dreams long as you have talent and Thomas Jefferson. 

16.)  It's not always necessary to think outside the box.  Sometimes, you can just change size or contents of the box to solve a problem.

17.)  It can be helpful to embrace a sucky situation as your own.

18.)  TEDxPortland knows how to put on a conference!

"Yay" Us...Not "Booo" Them

I was inspired to this topic today by seeing Elizabeth Lesser's video presentation at TEDxPortland. I've posted about sportsmanship before, though never on one of my own blogs. I'm talking about the habit of tearing down "the other" side so that your group seems to have more importance.

My seven-year-old is a huge sports fan. He's also a huge smack-talker, so I hear a lot of "Boooooo, Rockets!" and "You stink, Lions!" and even "Your team plays like poop."

 Now, I understand his passion...it's the same passion that I have for anti-racism and pro-femininism mentalities. I do not, however, understand the need to villainize those who feel differently. Making another group evil does not, by default, make your group good. If someone asks "Why is Bud Light a great beer?" it would be weak to hear the answer "Because Miller Light is crap." That's like saying that your selection is at the top of your list because all of the other choices are at the bottom. A best of the worst scenario. Wouldn't it be more impressive to be at the top because you deserve to be there?

I think a big part of this issue stems from people believing that everyone else should be just like them. (I like cheese, you should too.  I believe in God, you should too. I sort my books alphabetically, you should too.)  Well, I don't. And my life is working out just fine. There would be so much less hate in this world if you could let me be me, and you be you.

In conclusion, if you want to say "Anarchists are the Best" go ahead. But if you want to post on your wall that "Democrats are a bunch of tree-hugging communists", I'm probably going to mute you.

Can Computers Help Us Understand the Human Brain?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

What a wondrous and powerful thing the human brain is.  It's the control center for our entire body, telling us how to feel both physically and emotionally.  Merely thinking of a new love can cause physical reactions like shivers, palpitations or the sensation of butterflies in your stomach.

We used to think our brains were like gigantic computers, with a billion neurons that acted as processors, giving humans computing power that could barely be rivaled by a dozen super-computers.  Nowadays, it appears that each neuron resembles it's own super-computer, fueled by thousands of synapses that handle the heavy work.

* These are not my actual views on the soul
...but those are for me to know and you to hypothesize about.

So, when I heard that a scientist in Europe is attempting to duplicate the human brain by combining all of the current research models into one gigantic machine that rivals the data collection of the human genome project, my reaction was: "WHAT THE FRIG?!?!?!!"  Hasn't this person ever seen The Terminator? Eagle Eye? Doesn't he fear the day that computers take over the world?

That moment of panic quickly subsided as I reminded myself that computers are still without consciousness.  As we all know, a conscious soul is only bestowed upon humans in the midnight hour by tiny little fairies wielding twinkling wands*.  Therefore, let the supercomputer war begin.  Go ahead, Markram, IBM, and UNSW. Do your worst.  Make computers that can map the function of every single cell in the human body.  Make them as small as a fingernail, or able to calculate prime numbers to infinity; but don't come whining to me when you ask them to model the nervous system and they instead decide to turn all of the words ATMs into slot machines.

Why American Students Are Not Leading the Way in Tech

Imagine, if you will, a world where Americans don't teach our children math in elementary school.  Imagine that children no longer learn addition in first-grade, subtraction in second, multiplication in third or division in fourth.  Imagine instead that children make it all the way through high school without having any formal presentation of mathematical concepts.  Now imagine that a student is observant enough to realize that adults who have a firm grasp on mathematics have much better problem-solving life skills and financial opportunities than adults who don't. If that student is curious enough to enroll in an undergraduate math class, imagine how frustrating it would be to have the whole of arithmetic, algebra, and statistics thrown at you in your very first term.  Wouldn't it feel overwhelming?  Wouldn't you be discouraged...especially if you noticed that several people in the class already seemed to understand the stuff fluently? Wouldn't it be difficult to perceive the subject as one where you have talent?

This hypothetical may seem ridiculous, but the truth is that a similar situation is being played out in America today with the subject of computer science.  For many, computer science isn't even introduced to them at a k-12 level and their first exposure comes in an undergraduate classroom, where they're forced to absorb all of the basic building blocks of computational thinking at lightening speed before they can begin to fathom the concept of programming, design or engineering.  To add further blows, a handful of students (mostly boys) *will* actually have skills in these areas, making the newcomers feel deficient, awkward and behind.

How can we rectify this frustrating situation?  It could be as easy as giving formal language to computational thinking concepts beginning in elementary school.  Students don't have to be given computers as toddlers in order to start creating a technological foundation.  It's not as if we currently go looking for grants to put graphing calculators in the hands of kindergarteners. We start with age appropriate tools, preferably tactile examples, then associate the formal language of math to the skills they're learning.  We show them how to count two groups of objects, then have them count the total and call that "addition".  Why can't we have them step through sorting blocks from smallest to largest and call that an "algorithm"?  Why can't we have them find a solution that works for two different types of problems and call that "abstraction"?

I acknowledge that it's more than the fear of calling curriculum "computer science" that holds us back.  Teachers are overwhelmed with the number of subjects that they already have to squeeze into a day.  After all, mathematics is required in educational assessments and computer science is not. My challenge to you is to think of the world that our students will be working in, and ask yourself whether we should be preparing our children only for assessments, or if we should be preparing them for life-long success.  Computational thinking gives students the skills required to solve problems even when they have never explicitly been taught the answers.  It encourages them to think of things in different ways and helps them navigate complex situations by breaking them up into manageable pieces.  Don't those skills seem fundamental to a successful adult?  Isn't it possible that skills like those could help a student raise their scores on required assessments?  I invite educators everywhere to take a challenge of numbers.  Feed your kids computer science for one year, with or without machines, and look at the scores that they produce on required exams.  Post your results here and we'll have a healthy, hearty discussion.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Google It!

There are few things in my life that I will readily admit I can't do.  I can't sing, and I can't lick either of my own elbows. Oh, wait. It appears that I can (don't try to picture it...it wasn't pretty.)

I've never been the type of girl who crumbles at a challenge, or murmurs "I dunno" when asked how something is supposed to be done.  It's not that I have to be the best at everything, only that I need to give it a try.  Failure sucks, but it's not as bad as wishing I had given something a go in the first place.  That's why I'm completely baffled when I see young girls who would rather admit defeat from the beginning than give something an honest try.  Is it lack of self-confidence? Laziness? Fear of criticism?  What's the cause and how can we erase it?

In my classes, I've taken to not always answering my students' questions directly.  When I was young, my dad always told me to "look it up."  Back then, he meant the encyclopedia or the dictionary (do you know how frustrating it is to have to look-up how to spell a word in the dictionary?  You don't know how it's spelled!   How are you supposed to look it up??) Now days, I do the equivalent with Google.  I wish Webster would have had cross-references like, "Do you mean BOLOGNA?"  But I digress. 

"Google it."  I'll say.  Yes, I'm the teacher and I'm supposed to be teaching -- but the way I see it, I'm teaching something far more powerful than Python and JavaScript.  I'm teaching them how to fish. I'm trying to feed them for a lifetime...and not just with Python. When Python becomes Go and Go becomes Clojure, they'll know how to translate, look up samples and eventually learn the complete syntax. There's definitely a lot of guidance yet to be given and someone has to steer the boat while the students focus on the sport of it.  In the end, I don't care whether they think I taught it to them or that they learned it themselves.  I only care that they have learned it and believe in themselves enough to do it again.