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To my daughter's high school programming teacher

• ivanbrussik 13y ago
  I definitely see why he chose Visual Basic - you get to drag and drop windows and little buttons around and can take periodic breaks in btw churning out code to play with UI.
• SkyMarshal 13y ago
  From a purely utilitarian, game theoretic pov, harassing and chasing girls out of your personal and professional social circles and networks is a very poor reproductive strategy. I would have thought programmers would be more logical, even if initially unthinking about it. If you love sausage fests, by all means, continue. Otherwise, think twice before disparaging girls and women, even jokingly (it's never a joke).
  • roopeshv 13y ago
    high school students taking CS class != programmers. I would have thought person talking about logic would be more logical.
• danso 13y ago
  Ugh...I saw the title and had positive expectations because usually, it seems, letters to high school teachers are positive, as in: "My teenage child was depressed but your class made her love school again, etc. etc." A couple of takeaways: 1. The fact that the OP's daughter signed up for programming class because she wanted to impress her parent is truly a parenting win. Not just for programming, but anything, at that age. 2. I consider myself pretty open minded about gender diversity...but as I was reading the OP's post, I completely assumed it was written by a programmer-father, until I got to the part where the OP describes being harassed. Still, the mental stereotype was so strong that when writing this comment, I kept having to not refer to the OP as the father of the daughter. The trolling that the OP describes is troubling. But it's easy to be angry at the trolling, and raise awareness about it. Unfortunately, I think women in tech still have the much more difficult task of fighting pervasive, subconscious stereotyping and assumptions in the industry. edit: 3. The OP treats the use of Visual Basic as an ancillary problem...and it is, compared to what her daughter had to put up. But yeah, VB, seriously? I respect people who do VB -- and do it well, because they have to maintain legacy software at a big company...but if you're a programming teacher, you should have a passion to make your subject as relevant to your students and their contemporary lives when possible...nevermind that using VB, in this day and age, has some considerable barriers to just "dive into" compared to, say, Javascript. It'd be like a physics teacher who didn't make a single reference to CERN, Elon Musk, or physics as it applies to modern athletic competitions.
  • garretruh 13y ago
    With regards to your third point: Is there a modern (or better suited for introductory courses) language that has the kind of curriculums built around it that VB and Java do? Codecademy and the like are awesome for independent learning and exploration, but it doesn't work for classroom instruction. There don't seem to be many curriculums designed around modern, web-focused languages like Ruby or Javascript that your average teacher can use for high school CS classes.
    • danso 13y ago
      I think JavaScript fits the bill. I never took programming in high school, so maybe I'm setting my sights low...but even with a well developed curriculum, it's hard to imagine that the class gets very far. Whereas with JavaScript, they can literally start executing code as soon as they open their browsers. I think that makes up, at least a little, of the time lost in not having as mature of a curriculum. But I think the big win with JS is opportunity. Whatever crappy program they might come up with, they can immediately show it to their classmates and also to any friends or family with a simple link...it's not quite as easy to distribute a VB or other compiled executable. This kind of sharing makes programming...I would think...much more dynamic and lively. And in addition to that, they get some web development experience...which is handy now and likely to be useful in 5 years. Whereas with VB, and most other programming languages...it's possible to learn them without gaining any hands-on experience with the Web.
      • garretruh 13y ago
        I'd tend to agree with you. But the problem of teaching it still remains. While it'd be great for dedicated teachers at each school to create a flexible, Javascript-based curriculum built around online courses and projects, I think the reality is that very few would have the time, energy, or motivation to do so. So far as I know, there don't exist very many Javascript textbooks aimed at the high school, middle school, and (hopefully) elementary school levels. Without that kind of traditional material, it's difficult for even passionate teachers to get classes approved by administrators.
• ryanx435 13y ago
  my theory is that there are not a lot of women in tech jobs because the men in tech jobs generally don't know how to interact with women. any woman that shows an interest in tech is not disuaded by the material, but rather by the inability of her male coworkers to treat her normally. I would not want to work or study in an environment surrounded by social akwardness and harassment either. the problem lies with the men.
  • nilved 13y ago
    Was there ever any doubt that the problem lies with men?
    • skylan_q 13y ago
      Was there ever any doubt that the problem lies with men? Not for the last 80 years.
    • drdaeman 13y ago
      Yes. Those classmates didn't invent that sandwich stereotypes on their own, they got it from the environment. I think the problem is not with men or women in particular, but society in general, as it has a concept that genders are socially different while they're [mostly] not. I strongly suspect, neither men, nor women are prerogative carriers of such stereotypes - although, naturally, as those stereotypes are discriminating to women, they're primarily opposed by them, not men.
  • smoyer 13y ago
    Hmmm ... with that theory you'd also have to explain the odd concentration of socially inept males in tech. Why are they pooling there? Is it a "low spot" where gravity leaves a puddle? (street cred based on brain-cells instead of muscle and the ability to completely avoid physical interaction sure sounds like a win to a severe introvert).
    • untog 13y ago
      Why are they pooling there? Is it a "low spot" where gravity leaves a puddle? Kind of, yes. Programming is a decidedly anti-social job in many ways, and suits the socially inept. That's not all a negative thing- it's possible to be successful through your skills alone, and few other jobs provide that path.
• revelation 13y ago
  If CS education in the USA is anything like here, the teacher of this class will be the unlucky fellow assigned with maintaining the school networks and other random "computer stuff". His qualification will be that of an interested layman, augmented by several one day seminars on random topics from Office to Java. There is simply no curriculum, there are no standards and no requirements, and if we are honest, the level of computing in most schools and even businesses are a very far cry from the high-tech filter bubble we surround ourselves in.
  • spamizbad 13y ago
    My Programming I class was taught by a math teacher (who was an excellent algebra instructor). Unfortunately he was only a chapter ahead of the class in computer programming. But that wasn't the worst part. For guidance, he turned to his brother-in-law, who was a manager of developers at Motorola. He stated as much the first day of class, boasting "You're going to have the rare treat of learning how programming is done in the real world!" All the joy of programming was quickly sucked out as we had to meticulously document our code. Sub routines needed 2-3 paragraph plain-English explanations of what they were doing. Each variable's purpose needed to be stated. And before you could write a single line of code, you first had to write it out in a form of "pseudo code" which had its own syntax rules that we had to follow. Lots of emphasis was placed on the process of what we should be doing instead of the how and why. Students struggled. I understand what he was trying to do: having us write everything out gave him a window into how our minds were breaking down the problem. But in the process, he turned what should have been a fun, exploratory class into a grind. The notion that programming could be a fun activity, and not just mindless, process-driven office work was completely foreign to him, and I suspect the same is true for many teachers who are stuck teaching Programming classes in both public and private schools. Edit: And on the issue of gender, my class had 25 students, 11 of whom were girls. I remember being amazed at how a programming class could have a 50/50 ratio. I didn't notice anyone being bullied or teased. I imagine once women reach "critical mass" women won't be singled-out to the same degree. A few bad apples or even a sexist teacher can't "single out" 44% of their class. Why were there so girls enrolled? I don't know, but the class did have a reputation for being an easy A, so perhaps it was viewed as less intimidating.
• grandalf 13y ago
  I think the key point is having a zero harassment policy. It should not matter if the victim/subject of the harassment appears to be tolerating it (or even enjoying the attention). Chances are he/she is just being a good sport and is socially intimidated. The worst thing about harassment culture (even when it's largely good-natured) is that it creates and reinforces a power dynamic and subtle "law of the jungle" status hierarchy where the most inappropriate, brazen harasser becomes the dominant figure. In my opinion, this is particularly dangerous in the way that it obstructs critical thought and group problem solving. Not necessarily relevant to high school but highly important if a team of coworkers evolve toward such a culture.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    • peter-fogg 13y ago
      Yes, none of the teams you've worked on have needed any explicit bans on behavior that's considered unacceptable in society. That's because you've worked on teams with adult humans (maybe assuming here), who don't need to be told the rules. High school kids still need some reminders that there is a normal way of interacting with others, like not suggesting that the only girl in the class be relegated to the kitchen. A bit of extra regulation is absolutely called for among teenagers. That being said, your general point is good -- absolutist policies like zero-tolerance rarely work well, simply because human behavior is complicated and difficult for the policy maker to predict in advance.
      • consultutah 13y ago
        I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies. How many poor kids lifes' have been ruined by pointing their finger and saying, "Pew, pew" by idiot school administrators that are too stupid to think objectively? That said, this teaches does need to be reprimanded at very least for laziness and not paying attention to what was going on in his class and possibly for creating the environment where it was allowed as well.
  • 13y ago
• nullgeo 13y ago
  I also had a teacher in HS that taught Visual Basic in a computer programming class. Not VB.Net, but VB6, and this was 4 years ago. And they removed AP Computer Science that same year, when I was about to take it, that's why I had to settle with the class that taught VB. The state of HS education in this country makes me sad.
  • JoshGlazebrook 13y ago
    Four years ago? Jesus... Back in 10th grade (2007), I had the option of choosing a programming course, but I chose not to. But at least the class was teaching C++ and not VB6.
  • yeukhon 13y ago
    It used to be C++ for AP Computer Science, no? Anyhow. It used to be C++ for my high school and just a year or two before I was a freshman (that was 2006) it became Java.
    • pflats 13y ago
      C++ was a short run, something like '99-'03. It was Pascal beforehand and Java afterwards. There's no AB course any more either. It's just one course, the equivalent of the old A.
      • yeukhon 13y ago
        When did the whole VB thing come to the table? Probably left over from the old days in intro to cs in undergraduate?
        • pflats 13y ago
          I imagine VB classes came for the most part in the mid to late 90s where it made GUI applications nice and easy. Compared to console applications and Logo, it was a nice way to give a first-time programmer a more fulfilling experience. I taught at a school with a VB 6.0 curriculum at the end of the last decade. The (veteran) teacher just continued using his old materials; he was a math teacher with some CS experience. He kept it because budgets were tight, everything ran snappily, and new computers and textbooks are expensive. As long as a teacher is teaching programming fundamentals, it really doesn't matter (in the long run, educationally) what a student's first language is. They'll get it. Better to go with something that the teacher's good at and that interests the students.
• bangbang 13y ago
  I cringe reading this. Since when it is alright to tell teachers how to do their job in bullet pointed letters? * Be an adult and talk about any issues, complements or concerns during the class. * Talk with them in person or on the phone. * If you wish, post to your blog after the issues have been resolved. To put a global context on the situation should be supported with evidence as it pertains to life as a women in the IT industry. (See what I'm doing here with the bullet points?) Parents theses days... --edit-- As I'm reading some of the responses to my post, I have to ask, what pillow soft existence did many of you grow up with? Kids (and people) say terrible things. This isn't the sign of a bad teacher, it's an opportunity for this blogger to prepare her kids (Not just the girls) for the real full-contact brutal reality known is the the real working world. Life gets waaaay harder than this.
  • danso 13y ago
    Two things: 1. The OP did reach out to the teacher: > I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class. Finally, my daughter decided to plow through, finish the class, and avoid all her classmates. I hate to think what less-confident girls would have done in the same situation. 2. Well, the issues were, in one way, "resolved" because the daughter passed the class (with an 'A') despite her apparent unhappiness. If you mean that the parent should wait till the issues are actually fixed before blogging...well, if the teacher doesn't respond, then I guess the parent should not blog at all? edit: My bad, the sentence in context would indicate that OP offered to go talk to the teacher, but the daughter declined. Whether or not the OP should've gone ahead and met the teacher is a whole other issue.
    • bangbang 13y ago
      When this child grows up, there will be no parent to write a blog post. My point being, we all have to learn to navigate this difficult world. Stern letters from mom eventually have to stop.
      • 13y ago
• yeukhon 13y ago
  EDIT Seems like people generally are agreeing with my interpretation. I am rewriting my comment. First, it seems to me that she simply told her daughters what she could do. When her daughter said no the mother just left it to her daughter to deal with. After the semester is over, she's publicly denouncing the teacher. So this is a little bit wrong because she could correct the issue by letting the teacher know the problem when it first occurred. Let's not really speculating whether the teacher is old, simply doesn't care, sexist or what not. The daughter still got A. According to the mother, she assumed this was due to her daughter's long-term involvement with technology. I am sure she is a bright girl too. ' So can we just say there are two possibilities: (1) the girl had hidden her sad face when she was in her classroom and since she did her homework and continued to excel on her quizzes and exams, the teacher didn't notice much (2) the girl did show her sad face but the teacher failed to acknowledge that sign If #1 were to be true, then we should say the mother has a bigger responsibility here than the teacher. First of all, she did not take action. Kids are weak but they wanted to play strong so they often hide their true feelings. I think any parent should step up to help solving bully issue right away. Not in a public way to name a few kids, but work with the teacher in a very constructive way (such as bringing in more women to talk about tech industry. That's better than bringing a man in.... if you want to show women can do the job too). We don't know much about how the kid actually behaved in the classroom so we really shouldn't blame the teacher too much at the moment. What we need to realize is poor communication among the kid, the mother and the teacher. It's tough because half of the parents don't use email or they don't have time to talk to the kids or speak with the teacher reguarly. PTA is usually dead with a couple parents from time to time. So the mother should learn her mistake, help reconstruct her daughter's confident and stop making her rants public now. It's not helping. It is sort of one-side if I had to be really harsh (you can downvote me if you want), but that's how I feel as I read through the post again and again. Also, please, please, be careful when your daughter adds people she is still not very familiar with to her FB.
  • jessedhillon 13y ago
    From TFA I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class.
• esperluette 13y ago
  Wow. Feeling pretty good about my HS Pascal class (yeah, I'm old, so what) now. I was only ignored and dismissed, not harassed and told to make sandwiches (!). The OP's daughter sounds awesome. The OP's daughter's teacher sounds like a real idiot.
  • anaphor 13y ago
    Nothing wrong with Pascal though, it's probably much better to learn with than say C++ or Java.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• cookiecaper 13y ago
  So, was this article about the student's experience or the mother's? Because it reads like it's about the mother. The guys in class suggested that their peer go make a sandwich. That's the only accusation actually made against the class and the teacher. While I don't endorse such teasing, it's certainly in no way specific to computer programming, and it's not anything like the intensity one would expect when trolls find an article. Minority entities will be teased practically any time they exist, regardless of sector or age, and they need to be taught to handle it well. We can continue to attempt to stop the teasing altogether, but in the meantime we have to live in the Real World, and if this child quit programming because a few guys made a kitchen joke, the mother is really misdirecting her efforts by writing a letter to the teacher. It's hard to imagine that any rape joke would be allowed to fly in our classrooms where students can hardly wield pencils anymore, and if you read carefully, you'll see that it doesn't appear to have occurred. It appears to me that the author is attempting to use some clever wording to create an impression that the "harassment" was much more intense than it actually was by subtly crossing over into her personal experience with online trolls.
  • stefantalpalaru 13y ago
    It is about the student's experience reflected in the eyes of a mother. Parents are not known for their objectivity when it comes to children, but in this case the (rather far fetched) idea that the evil boys and their sandwich jokes made her daughter dislike programming found fertile ground in the whole "designated victim" narrative of women in online environments. There is no violence and rape in this story, there's only a mom with an axe to grind and a daughter who might not be interested in programming.
    • etfb 13y ago
      This is a learning moment for you, Mr stefantalpalaru. What you've just said, although I know you meant it sanely and sensibly, has been interpreted as lacking in compassion. This is not your fault; what happened is you have made a comment from a position of unrecognised privilege. For your own good, and the good of any women you may have any kind of relationship with now and into the future, it would be a very good idea for you to read up on the concept of privilege, with an open mind. You will find it uncomfortable, and you will probably prefer to fight back rather than acknowledge a flaw in yourself, but in the long run it will prove to be the best thing to do, and you'll be glad you did. Best wishes, and good luck!
• stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  trigger alert: Linux user at 11 asks for MacBook Pro at 16
  • sanxiyn 13y ago
    Many people run Linux on MacBook Pro.
  • coolnow 13y ago
    Also, is it common for 16 year olds to ask for a car in the US? I asked my mum to make my favourite food, and some money so i could go out with friends. Compared to "a car" or a Macbook Pro, it sounds like i had a deprived life.
    • gojomo 13y ago
      If you're in a community where driving is common/necessary, and most family incomes are high enough for teen drivers to have a car – that is to say, lots of US middle-class suburbia – then yes, it's common. There are some indications that denser-development, economics, safety-concerns, and the rise of alternative attention-demanding status-objects like mobile phones are now shifting the norms. See for example: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/08/young-people-arent-buying-cars-because-theyre-buying-smart-phones-instead/2873/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/08/young-pe...
    • alistairSH 13y ago
      Yes, very common, at least in the wealthier regions. Many kids have a car available as soon as they can legally drive. That said, I've noticed a trend among my son's peers. Many of them delayed driving until they left for college. Not sure why. When I was that age, everybody skipped school on their 16th birthday to go take the driving test.
      • daxelrod 13y ago
        NPR did a piece examining this phenomenon: http://www.npr.org/2013/08/21/209579037/why-millennials-are-ditching-cars-and-redefining-ownership http://www.npr.org/2013/08/21/209579037/why-millennials-are-...
• smoyer 13y ago
  Is Visual Basic really any worse than what you'd be exposed to at a Drupal conference? I think you'd be hard-pressed to explain why you chose anything beyond a 4th generation scripting language if you were starting a new class with an unlimited budget. Schools are often behind with this sort of technology, so depending on the development environment available, isn't one language as good as the next to explain concepts like assignment, boolean operations and program flow? (My high school computer classes were BASIC on a Burroughs B3300 mainframe and my first COMP SCI class at college was Fortran on an IBM s360 mainframe, so maybe I haven't got a clue!)
  • glesica 13y ago
    I don't disagree with you, strictly speaking, but I do understand how VB might not be the best way to get people interested in programming. While JavaScript is, in my very humble opinion, a rather poor "first language", I understand why so many people seem to want to use it as such, because it is easy to get "neat" results. When I was a youngster, I thought the copy of VB 5 my dad got me was the coolest thing ever, because being able to create "real" computer programs like the ones I used every day was super-awesome-sweet. Today, kids are much more likely to interact with mobile apps and web sites. So teaching them to make those things is more likely to be exciting, the way Windows GUI apps were for me in the 90s.
    • Achshar 13y ago
      Not only is it easier to get neat results in JS but it has a very low barrier to entry. Everyone uses the internet and is just a shortcut away from executing javascript code in console of their favorite browser on a live page. That and the language itself is very "loose" when it comes to rules and strictness. It just gets the work done. Nothing like cpp for example. Now it can be both good thing because the results are easy and instantaneous and a bad thing because this gives a false notion to newcomers of how programing is done (but then again js is pretty ubiquitous on any modern computer, so it is as "real world" as it gets.)
      • c1c2c3 13y ago
• kevinmchugh 13y ago
  These situations are always regrettable and awful. High school strikes me as the place to expect immaturity and shittiness the most, and because of that, I would expect teachers to be all the more committed to fighting that shitty, dumb sexism. By not stopping the shitty, dumb sexism dead in its tracks, the teacher also did a huge disservice to the boys in the class. They've now had a chance to learn that treating women in CS this way is okay. I hope that in the <5 years it takes them to get to the professional world, they have realized how damaging they were. More importantly, I hope the author's daughter finds the personal strength to pursue CS.
• ef4 13y ago
  The author's main point is well-stated and deplorable. As for the ancillary issue of the class material itself being crap: yeah, duh. And it's not just computer programming. You only notice how bad that class is because you have relevant expertise. It's a safe bet that the other courses are similarly terrible. Send a biologist or physicist or mathematician or historian to observe a randomly selected high school class and they will find that their subjects too are being taught by people without the slightest appreciation or aptitude.
• pyj 13y ago
  I got a feeling that the OP was ranting due to her own hurt feelings rather than her daughter's. I failed to see anything out of the extraordinary that made the teacher deserve such harsh criticism. Yes she was harassed by some boys, I agree that sucks and the teacher should do something about it. I have a baby daughter my self and can imagine the feelings if I heard she got harassed by her schoolmates, but then I would write a letter that focuses on THAT problem and not criticizing irrelevant points like the teacher's choice of programming language and overall teaching methods. Also, if the girl truly has an interest in programming than years of encouragement is not even necessary, she will naturally be attracted by it and there is no parent who can stop her from it.
  • Pxtl 13y ago
    > I got a feeling that the OP was ranting due to her own hurt feelings rather than her daughter's. I failed to see anything out of the extraordinary that made the teacher deserve such harsh criticism. The classroom culture is the teacher's responsibility. If a student is being harassed and has a hostile environment in this classroom, the teacher has failed in a serious way. Doubly-so when the harassment is driven by bigotry.
    • pyj 13y ago
      Then she should have kept the criticism relevant to that and not attacking the teacher's technical judgement: "Visual Basic? Seriously?? Yes, I know I said I'm not writing to complain about your choice of programming languages, even though I'm still scratching my head on this one" That only moves the focus from the real problem and creates a dispute that is not even relevant and necessary.
    • jeltz 13y ago
      She provides almost zero details of the harassment and lot's of details on irrelevant things. How will that help the teacher to stop this from happening again if he is not told what went wrong?
• ChrisAntaki 13y ago
  It's too bad the teacher was too weak to protect your daughter's honor, and ensure decency in the classroom. High school can be a cruel place. I hope she realizes those hurtful comments didn't represent her at all. It was just scared boys searching for some semblance of masculinity they may never find.
  • rossjudson 13y ago
    Johnny, you did great in my class. You did well in the assignments and were heading for a nice B. But you know what? I'm knocking that down to a C for one simple reason -- you acted like a sexist fool towards Susan and created a hostile environment. You're not the only one. Karl and Larry and getting downgraded too. This isn't on your permanent record...yet. Don't do it again. Grow up. What made you think this behavior was acceptable?
    • pflats 13y ago
      Believe it or not, most teachers can't do this in the real world anymore. Grades are supposed to be objective and based on a student's demonstrated work. In the schools where I've worked, a teacher would find him/herself in a world of pain for knocking down a kid's score by an entire letter grade for being a jerk. These days, school policies generally insist on separating disciplinary and academic issues.
    • kaitai 13y ago
      That is also terrible teaching. A good teacher sets up a productive classroom environment from the beginning, with expectations set out in words and also modeled in behavior (calling on a wide variety of students, modeling how to ask questions about a student's thoughts, modeling how to give praise and criticism, giving a continual example of how to work through problems). When issues like negative interaction between students come up it's easy enough to set up a group work lesson that separates problem personalities, put people in groups with supportive folks, leave alone students who want to be left alone and try to channel energy in the right direction. I've worked with nerdy teenage boys and socially awkward types of all genders, and it's a matter of skill to deal with this but that is after all the job! For instance, I had a student (13 yrs old?) in an advanced math class that was all male (I'm female) and he had a habit of starting to blurt out mildly veiled sexual comments to me. I said a few things to him about what was appropriate in class, in a kind way and privately, and I also arranged for a male administrator to chat with him. It stopped. Grades have nothing to do with this -- they're not effective in any way in setting classroom tone, especially as they're feedback far after the semester ends. I'm sorry for all these Hacker News readers who had shitty high school experiences, but you do need to grow up and realize they were shitty. Turning around to dump the shit downhill -- or indulging in some sort of Stockholm syndrome -- is not going to make the world a better place and it does not make you a better person. I don't always do things perfectly; I remember one female student who was being aggressively and unwillingly courted by a football player in one of my classes and I wasn't able to prevent all the distraction. But I noticed and did what I could, and commented to them separately about what is and isn't alright in the classroom. Seriously, folks, it's not that hard to have expectations for appropriate behavior and enforce them.
• zenocon 13y ago
  My favorite comment...a tad subtle: > During the first semester of my daughter's junior/senior year, she took her first programming class. She knew I'd be thrilled, but she did it anyway. Edit: before anyone harangues me, I don't mean to take away from the shitty circumstances surrounding the core message in the post, just got a chuckle out of the subtle dad/daughter humor inserted.
  • yanowitz 13y ago
    Agreed it was a clever comment, but it's a mom/daughter thing (not dad/daughter).
  • glesica 13y ago
    > dad/daughter humor inserted. Not to be a dick, but you may be guilty of a little benign sexism yourself there... the author is a woman.
    • johndavidback 13y ago
      > Not to be a dick Not to be a dick, but doesn't saying Not to be a dick mean you're being a dick but saying it's okay?
      • glesica 13y ago
        Hehe, yeah... sorry for that.
    • zenocon 13y ago
      sure, i assumed wrong..stand corrected, but benign sexism...i'm just going to respectfully disagree.
    • evincarofautumn 13y ago
      She first mentions such halfway through the article, and her writing style is masculine. Even I guessed (not assumed) male until that point. <shrug>
• Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
  High school kids can be mean. Film at eleven.
• Pxtl 13y ago
  Maybe it's an age thing, but is it just me or is this phenomenon really new? When I was a kid, geeks were inclusive. Weird and horny and therefore prone to awkward creepiness, but not hostile. Was it always like this and I just need to "check my privilege" as a dude or has the 4chanification of geek culture invaded real life? And as for the VB, VB.Net is actually an okay language if you expose them to modern features. I mean, the boolean algebra syntax is weird, as are the array sizing, and the "Dim" keyword is just dumb... but other than those legacy issues the rest of the language is just "C# with words and a smaller community". Not great, but not that bad - there's modern closures/lambdas and full OOP and generics and all that great stuff.
  • glesica 13y ago
    The money probably has something to do with it. In the distant past (80s, 90s, earlier I'm sure) there perhaps wasn't quite the connection between computer programming and money in the eyes of the general population. Of course there were the Jobs-types and such, but the whole thing really moved into the public consciousness in the early 2000s I think. This has, perhaps (this whole comment should be read as speculation that seems reasonable to me) driven up the level of competition and general testosterone and brought in people who are less likely to see themselves as underdogs and more likely to look on their "competitors" (classmates) with disdain.
  • acjohnson55 13y ago
    I highly doubt it's a new thing, unless it has evolved simultaneously in young and old people. Look at the constant debate on these forums on whether or not it's productive to treat coworkers like shit. I think the root cause is the same: people projecting their anger from their own mistreatment onto others and people looking to establish someone else as the runt of the pack in order to prevent themselves from being the weakest link.
  • prawn 13y ago
    I think part of it is new. Perhaps more exposure online to typical, brainless retorts?
  • navait 13y ago
• voltagex_ 13y ago
  "how were you even able to make programming boring?" Puts into words the question I've been trying to ask some of my teachers for so long, but haven't been able to. I know programming isn't intrinsically interesting to everyone, but I think there is still magic to be found in seeing your instructions (in VB, Pascal, C, Logo, whatever) translated to something on the screen.
  • tsumnia 13y ago
    The basics are not always interesting, especially when you 'get them'. But its through this repetition you build upon the knowledge. Eventually every fancy thing falls back to the basics. Think about Chemistry; the instructor can show all these cool reactions but you eventually have to sit down and mindlessly run through on paper the chemical reaction. Now think programming-wise; I can show you wireless communication between two Arduinos and some XBee radios, but eventually you have to explain how variables are stored in memory, or how the communication is made, or some other basic. Intro classes can be boring because there doesn't seem to be an endpoint, but that's why everyone encourages open source communities, they offer that real life feel to everything you learn.
• nsfyn55 13y ago
  My experience in the professional world is that its full of assertive, aggressive individuals men and women included. There are only so many slots at the top and the ones not occupied by the CEO's nephew belong to thick skinned individuals who have endured a careers worth of mental/emotional abuse. How many times have your heard someone utter the words "My boss/colleague/lead is an idiot." Is it a disservice to create these mushy teeball environments where everyone gets to be an astronaut?
  • daxelrod 13y ago
    I understand that you're advocating for helping people develop a thick skin. Where I take objection is when you start talking about abuse. There's enough other kinds of adversity out there to be resilient against. > My experience in the professional world is that its full of assertive, aggressive individuals men and women included. It's possible to be assertive and aggressive without being abusive. > There are only so many slots at the top Not everyone wants to get to the "top". > Is it a disservice to create these mushy teeball environments They certainly sound better than environments full of mental/emotional abuse. Why can't we create abuse-free environments in the real world, too?
    • nsfyn55 13y ago
      Obviously I use the term "abuse" facetiously. However, no one buys the memiore about the individual that coasted into prosperity with the love and support of everyone around them. > Not everyone wants to get to the "top" sure, but how about you let them make that decision rather than taking the liberty of handicapping them in advance. >They certainly sound better than environments full of mental/emotional abuse. Why can't we create abuse-free environments in the real world, too? Sure but they will need to compete against the environments filled with vicious, agogi-bred cutthroats who are there by choice.
  • racl101 13y ago
    I agree. You can't protect kids from each and every threat. you cannot fight their battles for them all the time. But what you can do is prepare them with the confidence and the knowledge to begin fighting. At some point your kid needs to build character by encountering adversaries. The boys telling the girl to make sammiches are one of many that she'll encounter in life.
• GhotiFish 13y ago
  I would of posted this in her comment section, but the requirements for signing up are beyond the pale of acceptable. "Thanks to my career, my daughter's Facebook friends list includes Linux conference organizers, an ARM developer and Linux kernel contributor, open source advocates, and other tech journalists." I, am so jealous right now. "but I was unprepared for the harassment to start in high school, in her programming class." but her mother seems to have an interesting idea of what High School actually is. "Did you not see her enthusiasm turn into a dark cloud during the semester? Did you not notice when she quit laughing with and helping her classmates, and instead quickly finished her assignments and buried her nose in a book? What exactly were you doing when you were supposed to be supervising the class and teaching our future programmers? " That's hard to notice for a specific student when that's happening to 30% of the class, don't you think? That your god child should be spared, because she's female? I wasn't spared, why should yours be? She didn't get subjected to anything that I haven't gone through. At least from your description. "I'm no teacher, so forgive me if you think I'm out of place when it comes to telling you how to do your job. But I am a mother, and I've spent years encouraging girls and women in IT" and he will have to forgive you, up to him though. "Recruit students to take your class. Why was my daughter the only girl in your class? According to her, she only took the class because I encouraged it." Because women are free to do what they want, and they're choosing not to. This discrepancy manifests everywhere. More deeply in countries with a focus on personal liberty. There are few male orderlies in hospitals. "My daughter said she [didn't know] about the programming class ... Have you considered hanging up signs ... asked the school counselors to reach out ... spoken to other classes, clubs, or fellow teachers ... asked the journalism students to write a feature ... asked current students to spread the word" It was a full class. Wasn't it? "Set the tone. On the first day of class, talk about the low numbers of women and lack of diversity in IT" You do not understand teenagers. Evidenced by that the teacher should single someone out to lessen harassment. "Don't be boring and out-of-date. Visual Basic? Seriously??" You also might not understand schools. I can tell you four things that have a high probability of being true: 1. The professor doesn't have a choice. 2. The professor doesn't care. 3. This is all the professor knows. 4. There is no one to replace him. "Check In ... Follow Up" How many students? ~30? In one class? In the ~5 classes he teaches every day? "my daughter learned why there are so few women in IT" They choose not to be, and because they are so few, the ones that remain are singled out. There are few male orderlies in hospitals too, despite the fact that there's an "objective" demand for them (I was furious when I was confronted for the reason. It's to help lift patients, and help deal with patients experiencing an episode.
• Datsundere 13y ago
  >learns linux >wants a macbook pro
  • brandoncapecci 13y ago
    Whose to say she didn't install linux on the MBP?
• h4pless 13y ago
  I am sorry to say that I assumed the author was her father for most of the letter. Her arguments made much more sense to me after rereading it with that information, but I guess it's a statement in itself that with the discussion of her technical background and her strong assertive tone, I assumed her a man. Reality: checked.
  • jsmeaton 13y ago
    I'm in the same boat, but I don't think there's anything wrong with me (or you) for making that assumption. It's a male dominated industry, and it makes sense to make that assumption without extra information, especially when the authors gender isn't really relevant to the story.
    • ArtDev 13y ago
      I assumed it was written by a man at first as well. Would you take the accusations of sexism stronger if it was coming from a dad? I would.. and there is something wrong with that.
      • jsmeaton 13y ago
        Late reply, but no I don't think I would. I thought the message, a school kid having to tolerate sexism without the support of the school/teacher/class, more than shameful enough. Willing to agree with you that the gender of the author having a greater impact, either way, is probably wrong.
• gcatalfamo 13y ago
  I would pay to know if that teacher read it and what his answer would have been.
• waveman2 13y ago
  According to the author she did nothing about the problem at the time ie did not talk to the teacher, but is now more than happy to create drama by the track. The author's qualifications in teaching appears to be zero, and her qualifications in programming seem to be that she is a tech journalist and author of a work of fiction. Why should the teacher have any notice of her? The extent of the problem is that some people said things like "go make me a sammich" etc to her daughter. I would suggest that this is actually not a huge problem. I recall my days in high school, when I was beaten up on a regular basis for the sin of being good at Math and Science. I mean hard punches to the head and body, possessions destroyed, etc. I spite of my complaints to parents and teachers alike, nothing was done until I managed to create some bad publicity for the school. But it seems it only hatters if it happens to a girl (TM). Bear in mind also that the salary of the teacher is probably around 60% of the salary that a production programmer can earn. So unless the teacher is a very idealistic soul, it is likely the teacher is struggling and knows little about programming. Which makes the teacher's job all the more difficult. Finally, there is no proof any of this actually happened. Given past feminist false claims, it is quite on the cards that it didn't happen or is exaggerated... particularly given the acknowledgement that she did nothing about the problem when it counted.
  • tptacek 13y ago
    You were bullied viciously in high school, and the perverse result appears to be that you've become in adulthood a defender of bullying.
    • waveman2 13y ago
      No I am saying that trivia is trivia. What happened is at worst micro-bullying. Actually I suspect the daughter did not want to do the course, was pressured into it by her mother and pickup on on this minor incident as an excuse to stop the course.
      • cnp 13y ago
        Given how common such bullying is, particularly in relation to such a male dominated field (and class), you are absolutely wrong. And having a group gang up on you is anything but "micro-bullying".
• morgante 13y ago
  This seems to be a vast overreaction. The only actual "harassment" is about making a sandwich, which is pretty low on the scale of insults. In fact, the teacher was probably right to not intervene. For two reasons: 1) Regardless of your gender, being the person who caused adult intervention isn't likely to win you respect in high school. If he had intervened, she would likely have been further ostracized. 2) Growing up is about learning to interact with people. A big part of this is categorizing what matters and what does. If I made a fuss every time someone made a slightly off-color joke about my religion (I'm Jewish) I'd have both no friends and no job.
• broodbucket 13y ago
  I think this has bugger all to do with women in IT and everything to do with abhorrent high schoolers and a lack of discipline. This kind of harassment should be strictly punished and for some reason the article only discusses the culture and not why it wasn't dealt with. At university my computer science classes are about 1/4 females and I've never seen anything close to disrespect over gender. This is just a bunch of high school guys picking on the only girl.
• ryanmarsh 13y ago
  As the father of daughters, one of which has an engineer's mind like her Daddy, this kills me inside. I really want my daughter to be able to express her meticulous deconstructing brilliant mind through software. I pray that her first experience with computer programming outside the home isn't like this.
• tsumnia 13y ago
  Background: Currently teaching Intro to Programming using VB (not even 2012... cause our lead instructor's textbook is for 2010). I created a stir when I suggested we move to C, which we are next semester. Many of people have already commented on this, but from my understanding, this parent did NOTHING and it going a passive-aggressive route to complain. Going into the article, I was excited to read it initially because I was going to use it in a discussion piece in the class. When I got to the end... not so much. Does IT attract socially inept male students who resort to real-life trolling? Yes. Quite honestly, it is my opinion THIS is the reason why we have so few women in the industry. Tons of guys get interested via video games, well what happens when a female gamer 'slips up' and reveals she's not a male? Creepy PMs and sexism. People want to dance around the issue and say its from few role models and the like; no, spend 5 minutes acting like a female online (however you'd do it), you'll see it immediately. My Steam tag is an old MacHall webcomic joke ('Susan'). If I don't have my mic on and just do basic banter in chat, yes I get the occasional guy getting too friendly. Getting back to the article, not to defend the instructor, but they saw the female was (at one point) positively responding to the jokes. Should something have been done? Depends on the class dynamic, in my opinion. I can't accurately tell how the class ran based on this blog (as it is a biased one side to the story). Without getting into anymore of a rant, VB isn't bad, per say... it teaches variables, loops, and conditionals, the basics of any intro class. I'd only have a problem with this if it was a high-level college course.
  • jere 13y ago
    >Many of people have already commented on this, but from my understanding, this parent did NOTHING and it going a passive-aggressive route to complain. Did we read the same article? >I consulted with friends — female developers — and talked to my daughter about how to handle the situation in class. I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class. Unless I'm misunderstanding, the author claims to have spoken to the teacher and offer solutions... then writes a letter clearly outlining more solutions. >Without getting into anymore of a rant, VB isn't bad, per say... it teaches variables, loops, and conditionals, the basics of any intro class. I'd only have a problem with this if it was a high-level college course. Going to have to agree with you here. I think the teacher is going to have a much better impact than the language involved. For example, a friend and classmate took a Java course during high school. The teacher did nothing but force them to copy programs out of the book. I took a VB course and learned quite a bit. By the end of the class, I was writing games in my down time (pong, asteroids, a raycasting engine, etc.)
• FrankenPC 13y ago
  Passive aggressive preaching. If she REALLY wants to change things, offer to assist the computer department with digging up funding for a C based curriculum. It costs a lot of money for public schools to shift curriculum's.
  • icecreampain 13y ago
    Offering to assist with digging up funding is a lot harder than writing a blog post on your tech website. Besides, the hits taste sooo good.
  • Bar_Code 13y ago
    At my daughter's school I offered to run a computer club, speak in class, redo their website, all for free. I said I would pay for all teaching materials. The head of technology rejected all offers. His response, "We use technology to teach, not teach technology". "A computer club would only teach kids to hack". "Besides, Cisco sponsored one years ago to teach about routers and it was poorly attended". I wish it was just a matter of funding.
• acjohnson55 13y ago
  I feel for the daughter who (like many women before her) had a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world. I feel for the parent who sees her daughter possibly reject a very fulfilling career path after a bad initial experience, when the future could be so much better. But as a former high school teacher, I also feel for the teacher. Giving them some benefit of the doubt, I just want to point out a couple things: 1. As many others have mentioned, if this is a public school, it's quite unlikely that this teacher is college educated as a programmer, let alone has ever been a professional developer. I'm sure they're teaching VB simply because that's what they have experience with, probably making them the most experienced programmer on staff at the school. 2. High school bullies are typically quite good at restricting their bullying to times when they're unlikely to be spotted by an authority figure. As a teacher, you try hard to maintain awareness of the entire room as much as possible, but there are always tons of gaps. You might be writing something on the board, helping a student 1-on-1, addressing some other kid's behavior, or doing any of dozens of other tasks. 3. Most teachers try to keep tabs on their students on a personal level, especially when they behavior or attitude noticeably changes, but not all students open up. It takes a lot of effort to maintain an authentic connection. Parents have trouble connecting authentically with their children--imagine doing it with scores of students per semester. And when it comes to bullying, most teenagers downplay to avoid being though of as a snitch. Some are self-conscious to be bailed out even when they haven't "snitched". 4. For many of the author's suggestions, the teacher may be doing these things (recruiting, cross-promoting, etc.), to the extent that they have time. But these are outside the job of teaching. These are things the author could be doing at the school too, but presumably she's too busy. I'm sure the teacher can relate. Teaching high school was by far the most grueling and emotionally taxing job I've ever had. My work career also includes being a custodian at a health club, a baseball umpire, a senior software engineer, and and a startup founder. None of those jobs is anywhere near as demanding.
  • byroot 13y ago
    I totally agree with your comment, one thing though > a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world. It's a bit far fetched to call a high school level programing introduction class audience the "programming world". Given the amount of people that, even in totally CS oriented engineering school, give up, or aim at a management career after they discover what CS really is, I'm confident to guess that no more than 1 or 2 kids in this class will be one day professional programmers. I don't think this story as anything to do with sexism in IT. It's also possible (but we will never know) that she was bullied more because she was doing great in the course than because she was the only girl (which is still unacceptable of course).
• droithomme 13y ago
  I'm confused by the general scenario here - the daughter graduated high school last year, probably at age 16 - and is now repeating high school in India? The letter is to an Indian teacher in India? Is she going to a public school for Indian students there? It's the students in India asking her to make sandwiches? Is this some sort of student exchange program?
  • jazzyb 13y ago
    The letter is directed to the teacher who taught the daughter's programming class during her last year in the US, and all the incidents that the mother mentions occurred in this US class: "During the first semester of my daughter's junior/senior year, she took her first programming class." -- We are told she finished early; therefore, we can assume that the "junior/senior" usage denotes the last year she was in the US. The daughter is currently attending high school in India not because she necessarily needs to but rather because it is a learning experience before college: "My daughter ... is now attending high school in India as her 'gap year' before heading off to college."
• theyak 13y ago
  It is completely unclear from this rant what the daughter knew before entering the class. I don't care if she had used Linux, that doesn't mean she knew jack squat about programming. I taught an intro to computer programming course at a local community college for a semester. The curriculum was set, so I couldn't really venture off to my own thing. What I learned is that what we have to teach simply is boring. Sorry, but you have to learn about loops, conditionals, variables, and all those other mundane things before you can move on to more interesting things. And let's get real, how interesting are things ever going to be in a class? Not very. It gets exciting when you know enough to create a project on your own. An intro to computer course is not that course - I wish it were.
• krob 13y ago
  I think that programming in highschool should be left to R.O.P (Regional Occupational Program) courses. The people who teach them are usually much more modern than the teachers who teach english / math in the H.S. courses.
• aaron695 13y ago
  Parents telling teachers how and what to teach from only their childs perspective and thinking that's 100% ok. This is what's wrong with education today.
• maxinem 13y ago
  I experienced this kind of bullying not in school, but at work. I used to be very cheerful and helpful until in a particular work situation, I finally realized guys were randomly pinging me or stopping by to disturb me with how to write a quick unix command to do X or how to make some regex, just to see how cute I look when I'm stressed and how fast I can give them an answer. And I'm pretty good, and they joke with each other about it and keep doing it like you play with a dog. Its also the power thing, some people like demanding an answer from across the room. I totally relate to "quickly finish assignments and bury her nose in her book". Now I work in a less difficult environment, but this is basically how I deal with work now -- efficiently, then get out of there, offer nothing personal. I went to college that had a pretty good gender balance and was self-taught before that so I never experienced it before work. So in conclusion, this may be good preparation for your daughter good preparation for technical work in certain environments. There are many good workplaces but you can't be guaranteed that all your life, so dealing with this kind of thing is important to learn. You should tell her that this is a career that pays well. You may have to be smarter and a more hardworking than your peers to make up for the lack of networking, but actually the extra self-reliance that you need to exercise will make you a better and more confident programmer. Also as a woman, you need to be careful of accepting mentorship, especially male mentorship. Sometimes there's no reason for it other than the mentor wants to spend some time with a young woman.
  • BrandonM 13y ago
    Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry you've had such an awful experience. I gave you an upvote, but I want to emphasize that what you have experienced (and are experiencing?) is very wrong. I suggest either gathering evidence and reporting it to someone who will do something about it, or seeking a position at a better company that doesn't have such ridiculous behavior.
  • ceras 13y ago
    A big problem with experiencing it as early as HS is that you really have little reason to stick with it anymore. Who cares if it pays well if you're going to be emotionally drained dealing with harassment? She can pursue many other degrees instead. Perhaps as far as she's concerned, she's saved herself a lot of hassle and can now choose a career where she feels accepted. Or maybe she'll be strong willed and push through. But I know in my mind I would just think, "Why bother when there are other cool things to study where people will respect me more?" I don't really know what the right path is for her, but I hope whichever one she chooses brings her happiness. And I really hope in the not-too-distant future girls won't have to make this trade-off between programming and feeling respected.
• flylib 13y ago
  not sure why your criticizing Visual Basic, it is a good language for Intro HS courses
  • frozenport 13y ago
    Not in the US, where Java is required for the Advanced Placement exam in computer science.
    • newsreader 13y ago
      Are you serious? You want a HS teacher to teach Java?
      • Pxtl 13y ago
        Java's no more complicated than VB.Net, imho the only barrier for new users is its use of C-style Boolean operators instead of using words. Oh, and the danged checked exceptions. The problem with Java is mostly its enterprise-y frameworks. If you have a nice user-friendly GUI library that measures up to Windows.Forms for ease-of-use? Java's fine.
      • frozenport 13y ago
        Bigger Point: It is already being done.
    • flylib 13y ago
      sure I live in the US and most of my college classes are based around Java but there is plenty of options to pick from including Visual Basic for an intro course, not saying that's the right option (it's not) but at the end of the day, it is the teachers preference and what they feel comfortable in, the person criticizing VB doesn't even have the merit to do so it seems
• sologoub 13y ago
  When I first read that, my blood boiled. Regardless of the tech nature of the class, it's that kind of blatant negligence that really underscores the problems of many an education system. The myriad of excuses made for the incompetent teacher are even more maddening. If you do not hold people to a higher standard, but instead make excuses for them, their conduct will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. An educator was once one of the most revered professions. Whether or not they earned a comfortable living, educators of all walks of life were respected and took pride in their teachings. Today... not so much and by making constant excuses, we make it worse. I would hope the school board would be interested in why such clear harassment went unpunished/corrected.
• anuragramdasan 13y ago
  I find this very weird. I wasn't even aware of such a situation until I started reading about it online. Back here in India, Computer Engineering is one of the branches of engineering with a high amount of female students. Thanks to that, I wasn't even aware until some point that there was a scarcity of women in tech.
• cranklin 13y ago
  Was this letter really written with the intention of giving the high school teacher a message? Or was this just a way to showcase her daughter's (as well as her own) accomplishments? What was the purpose of writing this as an "open letter".
• scotty79 13y ago
  You can't be different than other kids and visibly better than them without becoming a target of harassment. I've been better than other kids in anything computer, math, physics or chemistry related and I remember I had to tread very carefully even while I was helping them. Same way as when you give a good ideas to your boss, your concern should be not only about him accepting your idea but also about him not hating you for it afterwards. And I don't even have any discerning features that could be used as a trigger. Being only fat, short, tall, ginger, 4-eyed, girl can get you seriously in trouble if you don't pay attention to social dynamics. The thing is such targeting should be noticed and properly countered by the teacher and almost no teacher knows how to do that. I have no idea what's the proper response to usual lord of the flies school environment.
  • SwellJoe 13y ago
    Victim-blaming. Just because abuse happens commonly, and has happened to all of us at one time or another (to varying degrees; and I was certainly on the receiving end of plenty of abuse and bullying, as a kid), does not make it OK. So many responses here are of the form, "Toughen up! I did!" Would you not have rather had a safe, non-abusive, school experience? I certainly would have. Would you not rather girls (and boys) in school today have a better experience than you? I would. There are techniques teachers can use to address these kinds of behavioral problems in their classrooms. And, there are ways for schools to help prevent them in the first place. Smaller class sizes consistently reduces behavioral problems and increases success among students, for instance. I don't think it's useful to merely blame the teacher...the system as a whole is culpable (and, society as a whole is culpable on some level, if our budgetary priorities place making war over education). But, the teacher could certainly be better educated in his job and more responsive to a child who is being singled out.
    • scotty79 13y ago
      > Victim-blaming. Sorry. It was unintended. I was just describing my own experience as almost-victim. Personally I mostly place blame on lack of teacher training in detecting and properly reacting to harassment. I hate "Toughen up!" advice. I even hate term "bully". It sounds tolerant, even affectionate. I'd go with thug or hooligan. In my language there isn't even a word for bullying. It's called beating, name calling, stealing, breaking someones stuff, persecution. > Smaller class sizes consistently reduces behavioral problems That's because it's easier for the teacher to pay attention and react. Above some limit it's no longer leading the class, it's crowd control. > I don't think it's useful to merely blame the teacher I'm far from blaming teachers personally. For me it's mostly about what teachers don't get. Like psychological training, smaller classes, framework.
• joyeuse6701 13y ago
  The setting is irrelevant to the situation IMO. It could have been any environment that was heavily teen male with a teen female outclassing them, the animosity is sexist in nature. The tragedy is someone that had a passion seemingly lost it because of bullying. As a society what we can and should do is teach that this behavior is wrong and harmful. This has a lot less to do with the tech industry and a lot more to do with high school and lack of maturity. From an individualist perspective we can only encourage her not to give up on her interests because of the cruelty of others, and that she may receive this treatment often because she is above average. This is an unfortunately common scenario anywhere for anyone. If this was a white girl in a black history class or a guy in a women's studies class the tone to this thread may be a little more compassionate I would imagine. It just so happens that the anecdote of female encountering sexism in tech is so often repeated and posted here, it's made a number of us callous to it. As for the author: If she has a problem with 'get back in the kitchen' I suppose I can legitimately raise a concern with her characterization of all the boys in that class as brogrammers... which is just as sexist. Takes one to know one I suppose.
• grannyg00se 13y ago
  Didn't everyone grow up facing some kind of regular harassment in high school? I expected things to take a serious turn for the worse in this story and it actually doesn't seem all that bad. A mother is upset that her daughter was slightly harassed. In one class. In her entire high school experience. Obviously it doesn't make it okay just because many people have faced worse, but dragging the teacher through the mud for it seems unreasonable. " Sadly, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and you, sir, created a horrible one for girls in computer programming. " No, he didn't. Not by any reasonable definition of "horrible". Nor is it his responsibility to create any particular impression for any particular race, gender, or religion. Your own pet issue is not his concern. While on the topic of things horrible, that seven point list is horribly patronizing. Complete with little insulting gems like this: "Good grief, man — how were you even able to make programming boring?". So glad I'm not a teacher. Must be excruciating at times dealing with the entitled, self obsessed parents, let alone the students.
  • cnlwsu 13y ago
    First off I would expect a parent who sees their children suffer to lash out at someone when they have no way of controlling it. That doesnt mean it goes without merit though. If a child is bullied in PE to where every day he just tries to curl in a corner and try not be noticed not only does he not get anything out of the class it can alter the childs desire of becoming an active participant in sports. I think you can draw a lot of correlations between that and this. If we want to avoid and undo segregation between the sexes in our field having them attacked for it at a young age and have the idea indoctrinated in them that computer science is not for them is something that needs to be prevented. The only people really with the ability to do so in this scenario is the teacher and parents of the other children. The teacher is the single =individual= with the most ability to affect the lives of the children and although he shouldn't be held accountable he should try to be more attentive to prevent the bullying or at least try to make the class more engaging and fun. She was pretty patronizing and mean, but I associate that with her frustration and anger with her lack of control. In her shoes I would probably do the same.
• contingencies 13y ago
  Hey author or daughter, if you're reading this, try a hackerspace! Far more convivial environments for intelligent experimentation and learning than a classroom. Mother: Seriously? It was your fault to clinging to out of date notions of formalistic teaching.
• akg_67 13y ago
  I am wondering why author is not offering to volunteer to teach or help the teacher recruit students and do other things she is recommending. I guess it is easier to criticize than do something to make a difference. When I was in college and a class that I wanted to take kept getting cancelled due to low enrollment, I went out recruited students for the class. Did daughter report the bullying? Did the author report the bullying? Teachers and school admins are not mind readers and not tagging along with all students all the time. The whole article displays nothing but the arrogance and superior ego of the author. If you have a problem, get off your butt and do something instead of whining.
• Qz 13y ago
  I see a lot of posts here simply making excuses for the teacher, proclaiming why it wasn't really his fault or responsibility. So what? The situation presented is unacceptable, and we're kidding ourselves if we think that whether the details of this particular instance are sufficiently condemning or not makes a difference as to the fact this this kind of thing goes on all the time in our high schools. It's not okay. This woman at least made an effort to do something about it.
  • aka_butters 13y ago
    When it comes down to it, I have to agree with you. I think dealing with situations like this is part of growing up, and while I disagree with a lot of the points of this blog post, the main issue, harassment (of any kind) should not be tolerated anywhere (including and especially schools). On that same note, I think OP would be hard pressed to find an industry that isn't like this, if not towards women, towards some "different" group of people, possibly even men or Anglo Saxons. One of the things I have the hardest times with is when people say a specific form of harassment isn't tolerable (can't segregate based on color, can't discriminate against race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.), but don't get at the root issue, singling out anyone for being different. It doesn't matter that she was a girl or that the comment was sexist, what matters is someone was singled out for the sole purpose to make them feel bad and shameful for who they are.
• kazagistar 13y ago
  >> Instead, they pull away, get depressed, or drop out completely, just like they do in IT careers. Maybe it is just me, but this part came off as particularly sexist. Is the author claiming that women respond worse to negative social pressure then men?
• Uchikoma 13y ago
  I'm feeling sorry for the daughter. The poster is hard to take seriously, one mention of the harassment ("sandwiches"), at least three times he mentions "Visual Basic? Seriously??". He seems more concerned about language wars actually. So many people confusing programming and programming languages - the act and the medium. On top the "(violence and rape references)" that had nothing to do with the incident of the headline "To my daughter's high school programming teacher". This is a disservice to all people who work on more gender equality in tech. [Edit: As pointed out, it's a she. Thanks for pointing this out. Sorry for over reading this, I usually don't care about the gender of a person. Yes I've read the article very fast as it is 90% not about the headline]
  • DanBC 13y ago
    > at least three times he mentions SHE.
    • Uchikoma 13y ago
      Thanks. The gender of a poster seems very important to you. It's not important to me.
      • tcfunk 13y ago
        I actually missed the fact that the poster was a woman for the majority of the article.
  • zainny 13y ago
    Your post is the one that's hard to take seriously given that you continuously to refer to the poster as "he". Near the end of the article, she writes: "I'm a single mother working in tech publishing — believe me, I get it". My guess is you barely read it.
    • Uchikoma 13y ago
      Thanks. Sorry for attributing the wrong gender to the poster. Yes, I've tried to read the parts relevant to the headline because that was the reason for me to follow the link and skip the parts that described something else from the link bait headline.
• klrr 13y ago
  This is a bit ridiculous. The problem here is not "male-dominated" class room but more likely the ordinary bully problem. I had a friend who was bullied due to his clothing. He reported the bullies and they got suspended. Later they comeback to the school in an attempt for revenge. Fortunately a teacher witnessed the assault and they were later charged for their crimes. Also, you can't expect high school teachers to know any other languages than BASIC. It's high school, you don't become a programmer there anyway. Either you are self-taught or you seek higher education. I got many friends who have taken programming classes in high school and in all cases the teacher wasn’t even a programmer but solely followed a book written for high schools.
• icecreampain 13y ago
  Parts of this article I can relate to. When I was growing up I had a mother that was constantly involved in what I was supposed to be taught at school: What are they teaching you? Why are they behind? Why are you behind? Why is the teacher so incompetent? This led to me changing schools quite often and each time that happened I lost friends. It didn't matter that the classes were beginning easy for the sake of revision, the classes were never good enough for her and I had to switch school. Note: not good enough for her, not me. I lost friends and only managed to learn to handle people in my 20's. Her destruction of my childhood ensures that I will never forgive her. The article does bring up several other things that I dislike: the child being herded into an elite echelon of society by a bossy mother, being surrounded by successful people, the high expectations of the mother upon the young child, the child's [forced] willingness to please the bossy parent, probably also a feeling of helplessness of not being able to say "no, I'm not interested in that extra course". But wait, there's more... I see the whole article as a bossy, sexist, entitled mother wanting to raise an entitled child: "my DAUGHTER deserves a better teacher", "my ANGELIC DAUGHTER should not have to face adversity", "my LIGHT OF MY LIFE DAUGHTER is so perfect, just like I want her to be, and is better than the rest of the class combined". The kid here is innocent. The mother needs to be put in her place. I will try and do so with a bullet list. * Fuck you and your snobby, antisocial attitude. * Fuck you and your criticism of teachers. If you think you can do a better job you're welcome to try. * Fuck you and your feminist entitlement. Your daughter is going to face far, far harder shit in her life than a couple of people making sandwich jokes. In Sweden we call your kind "curling parents". You're fucking up your kid for the sake of your own insecurity. * Fuck you and your "journalism". I see you ain't much of a programmer yourself, but you'll criticize others? Oh wait, that's what "tech journalism" is: complaining about other people's work and not having a public git repo yourself. * Fuck you and your egotistical "tech" blog. If you wanted some hits you could have just asked. You know what happens to people who are good in tech? They get hired because they're good at what they do. You don't have to be a white, american male to show well-written code to people. You know what happens to people who are mediocre in tech but are noisy as fuck because they want to be pampered and be treated all special? They write blog posts and hope thier kids are hired because mom's public shaming of everyone the kid comes into contact with intimidates people into not being able to say "no" when interviewing. When was the last time you asked your kid if she wanted to just go outside and fucking play with the other kids? Just ride a non-feminist bike with non-feminist neighborhood kids or sit on the non-feminist curb and talk non-feminist shit like normal people? You're too busy signing your kid up for extra-curricular activities and having her influences by successful WOMEN (not people mind you, because people includes men and I suspect that's a gender you're not quite hip with) that you aren't noticing that her childhood is passing by without her having the time to enjoy it.
• Tichy 13y ago
  Only girls have a bad time at schools. For boys it is just fun and games all the time. They also never target jokes at each other. Imagine if there hadn't been a girl in that class. Who would those boys have directed jokes at? It would have been a very dreary affair. Can you imagine a boy losing interest in a subject because school is so awful? I can't.
• EdgarVerona 13y ago
  I've got a couple of problems with the tone and where the finger is pointed in this article, though I sympathize with her plight. 1) I feel like attacking the teacher is unfair. There is a much more significant root cause that should be addressed, and the teacher's inability to detect her bullying is merely a symptom of that root cause. Bullying is terrible - I experienced that myself for alternative reasons in Middle/High School - and indeed, inexcusable. Little kids can be assholes, and I do hope that teachers get better at recognizing when kids are getting picked on... but it's a lot to ask when they're strained with multiple classrooms of students that they have to teach. With classroom sizes getting larger, it becomes a laughable proposal to tell them to "pay attention" or "check in" with individual students. These teachers are dealing with potentially hundreds of students every day. If you want to attack the real problem, attack the fact that teaching is considered and compensated as a "second class career," and thus causes the best and brightest to avoid it. Attack the low pay that teachers receive, the low respect in their community, and in particular the low budgets for public schools brought about by the continual demand for lower taxes. If schools got the budgets to hire good teachers and (most importantly) give them significantly smaller classroom sizes, they could do the kind of one-on-one mentoring proposed: and that would diminish the core problem significantly. Let's kill the root of the problem rather than blaming the already stressed out teacher at the tail end of said problem. This is a problem we can FIX as a society, if we can recognize that it's worth putting money into our community to solve the problem. This is a solvable problem, made difficult only by the fact that we refuse to give public school systems the funding that they need to sufficiently address it. 2) Far less important in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like people (including this author) belittle Visual Basic unfairly. It's a great teaching language, and the simplicity of its syntax is helpful for situations like high school where the majority of students don't even want to be there, much less programming. The author's daughter is enthusiastic, and that's great - I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of that class had absolutely no interest in being there. It's unfortunate, but true - and teaching a straightforward language can at least make the barrier to entry and the remote chance of getting through to some of these students just a bit less remote. Yeah, it's not going to be something that she'll likely run into in the real world - well, maybe, depending on the industry - but teaching programming in high school is about attempting to break through the oversized wall that is general student apathy. You want to teach an apathetic kid Objective-C so that they can make iPhone apps? Nope. You need something simple - something that will hopefully be simple enough that they won't feel like they're struggling against it. Is it sad that kids are so apathetic? Sure, but wishing they weren't isn't going to make it better. So you give them a softball intro, and hope they feel empowered enough with it to start actually caring about it. Or for that matter, about something, anything. This teacher also may have been teaching it because it's all they know. High Schools seldom (ever in the public system in America?) have the budget to hire a Computer Science teacher. This person was probably recruited as the only teacher in a related department who happened to know some kind of programming offhand. Lastly in the defense of Visual Basic, it provides a vast wealth of easy-to-use, easy-to-install, well-documented libraries that perform what (to lay people) seem to be magic. Not only is it easy to learn, but these libraries can be leveraged to very quickly make programs that feel like they're doing something interesting with minimal resistance or struggling against the tools. Learning how to struggle against tools without giving up IS an important skill - but when you're just trying to start by teaching kids to care AT ALL, it's more important that they feel like they're winning. They can learn how to properly struggle once they've learned that it's worth the effort. When they can throw the use of some advanced libraries together and come up with something fun in a single classroom session, they're more likely to also view programming as fun - and thus hopefully just a LITTLE more likely to actually care about it. In short, Visual Basic is a gateway drug - and a pretty effective one at that. Anyways, that's my two cents.
• progx 13y ago
  You are absolutely right! Turbo Pascal or Cobol AND Coding on Paper are the right places to start and learn programming. If students know the basics, they were able to learn other languages.
• Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  ITT: overprotective mother tries to shield daughter from the cruelty of high school. Link is posted on a site where a large percentage of the audience were nerds in high school when computers and an interest in science was considered uncool and grounds for getting dragged through shit. I'm all for gender equality in IT and the like, but again, high school. Put a girl in a classroom full of hormone-ridden teenage boys that probably don't see much of that kind very often, see what happens.
• baoyu 13y ago
  What's really sad: most of the comments here either say “Teachers don't need to be good, that's OK, we should never change it or complain about it or even worry about it” or “We need more vivid descriptions of bullying until we can agree there's some problem”.
• mosselman 13y ago
  Do any men have any experience in classes where they were the only man amongst many women?
• stigi 13y ago
  My girl friend and some of her friends had some bad experiences with their CS teacher too. Leading up to the point that one of her friends didn't dare to work with computers throughout her studies. She would even go so far to dictate texts and had her boyfriend type them for her when needed. It's hard to understate the impact a bad teacher can have on a persons life.
  • hnal943 13y ago
    She dictated texts to her boyfriend to type up? In my view, this is far more degrading than a "get me a sandwich" joke.
• Tycho 13y ago
  I think VB is a good choice for high school programming. As well as being closer to spoken English than most languages, it has excellent GUI development tools and also the by useful IDE features like Intellisense and auto formatting. But the best thing about it IMO is that it's the only programming language that most people might find useful later in their careers - via Excel's VBA. That shouldn't be underestimated.
  • brokenparser 13y ago
    VBA is almost universally the wrong tool for the job. MS-Office applications are COM servers, so you can interface with them from almost any programming language and throw useful frameworks into the mix such as Qt or wxWidgets. The sort of things that make a programmers life easier, in stark contrast to the abomination called VBA.
• lil_cain 13y ago
  >Talk to your students in private to see how class is going for them This shows that the author doesn't really know anything about modern teaching. Talking to students in private is probably a breach of the school's child protection framework.
• doctorfoo 13y ago
  > discussed illegal gender discrimination in tech Can't we just call it "bullying"? Illegal bullying. I experienced an awful lot of similar things when at school, in 50-50 gender split English classes and others. Sure, the wording was different, not mentioning my gender, but the effect was the same. I remember a particular group of girls picking on me consistently because I was so quiet and shy. Physical as well as verbal harassment. The bullies will choose anything that is different about a person: be the lone female, and they obviously choose gender. I really see the problem in all "discrimination" type cases, whether gender, race, sexuality, being: unpleasant people. Cure these people of gender discrimination, and they'll just be bullying the quiet kid instead. Or the poor kid with the cheap clothes. We need to be teaching kids to simply be nice and to accept everyone else for who they are. But like that's gonna work.
• Angostura 13y ago
  > I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class. Finally, my daughter decided to plow through, finish the class, and avoid all her classmates. Why oh why did they not bring it up with the school?
• kunil 13y ago
  > And then the threats of violence started: "The author of this article is a whiny bitch and needs a good beating to be put in her place." Ten minutes later, the rape threats began, and I shut down our comments site-wide. And then the emails started... Seriously? I am thinking a little exaggeration. I don't think trolls would send e-mails, what is the point if noone reads your trolling. And what is the fault of the teacher (other than visual basic). "Guys, please don't harass this girl", yeah tell that to a bunch of boys and see how that works. I don't think students would just openly harass her. He might be a bad teacher but harassments is not his fault. If there is one to blame, I would blame the parents. Didn't he researched the school before applying her daughter? Doesn't her daughter already above high school programming?
  • melindajb 13y ago
    " don't think trolls would send e-mails, what is the point if noone reads your trolling." Then evidently you don't go on the internet very often. And at least trying to stop the boys would have been a point in his honor. It's called doing his job as a teacher to protect a student from misogynistic bullying. You see, attacking someone BECAUSE of their gender ("fix me a sandwich") is the very definition of sexual harassment. If someone said, "hey (nword)! shine my shoes!" would the teacher also then be expected to do nothing? Questioning the author's veracity is a standard derailing tactic in discussions about this type of situation. Since you engaged with the article, you must assume the author is telling the truth, otherwise why bother discussing it?
• simias 13y ago
  When I read articles like these I often get the impression that we don't have the full story. How do we go from "After she finished, she'd help classmates who were behind or struggling in class" to "my daughter emailed to tell me that the boys in her class were harassing her"? Those two statements are one sentence apart. I was in a technical cursus in high school, there was exactly one (1) girl in the class. And not for a single course, for all the classes. I don't remember her being harassed, but I can't speak for her obviously. I'm not saying that "she asked for it" or anything equally terrible, I'm just curious to know how things degraded seemingly very quickly? It seems important to understand what's the core issue here. I'm obviously not very familiar with US education, maybe the culture is just different over here.
  • vickytnz 13y ago
    I was at a girls' school. As a straight-A student in a rough school, helping fellow students was a tactic for not being bullied. But all it takes is one kid to decide to take an exception to you and it can all go horribly wrong. And you might have done absolutely nothing (I know I didn't, many years later the bully apologised and admitted exactly that) but it's the one wave that can turn a tide. And that was with all girls!
• Fuxy 13y ago
  Ok harassing is out of line and as a teacher he should have intervened. WE all agree on that. Pointing out that the reason the other students were saying that is because of envy that she is so far ahead of them should have been enough. But talking about the low numbers of women and lack of diversity in IT is like saying we should treat women special because there's not many in our field. We should treat the like a fellow human being and colleague but stop making us idolize women, that rubs me the wrong way. Bottom line the teacher had no passion for programming and shouldn't have been teaching in the first place.
• rorrr2 13y ago
  This whole situation is such a huge WTF to me. I've been in the programming industry for more than a decade, and I have never seen this happen. It's the lack of women that always sucked, and most of my dev coworkers agreed. Any time we had a girl interview for a programmer position, it was like a breath of fresh air. I'm not saying it didn't happen or doesn't happen in general, I believe this story. I just find it strange. We live in 2013, it's unbelievable this shit still happens.
• marcuspovey 13y ago
  This shit has got to stop. Seriously. As MEN in our industry we need to take a stand against this sort of behaviour which is truly endemic and all pervasive in our industry. This is not a women in tech issue, it's a problem with MEN.
  • VladRussian2 13y ago
    Is the situation/problem in our industry special? If yes, does is mean the MEN in our industry are special or the industry is special?
• pc86 13y ago
  > I'm no teacher, so forgive me if you think I'm out of place when it comes to telling you how to do your job. And yet, here we are. > But I am a mother, and I've spent years encouraging girls and women in IT, so perhaps my perspective will help you. Being a parent does not qualify you to discuss anything other than being a parent. It's no different than saying "As a mother, I feel that we need to bomb Syria." It's just patently ridiculous. > Here are seven suggestions for teaching high school computer programming: I'm not a teacher either, but at least I know enough not to pretend that I can rattle off ways to "fix" the teaching of high school computer programming.
  • cnlwsu 13y ago
    Isnt this kinda ad hominem? in fact the first 3 paragraphs explain she has more expertise in the topic than most. She more then has a right to an opinion and her points make sense it was not "dont foster an environment that belittled and harassed my daughter because I am her mother" even though that alone is perfectly reasonable.
• mosselman 13y ago
  This article is very sexist. What happens is that there is someone 'bullying' and you assume that it is just because they have a penis and your daughter doesn't.
• optymizer 13y ago
  I went to school in a third-world country. We had girls in our CS classes - because CS was mandatory in high school. No one made fun of the girls. Most girls weren't interested in CS, but the few that were, kicked so much butt at coding, no one would dare make fun of them.
• jheriko 13y ago
  this is depressing ... but i can't help but wonder if this analysis isn't sexist itself. if the sexes were reversed i think it would be a case of saying "well son, women are just like that - you'll have to learn to live with it" and be on your way. is that sexist? i'm pretty sure there are natural and cultural tendendcies for men and women to behave certain ways. the behaviour described is not unique to programming, when there is one girl in a group or even school... its just people.
• baak 13y ago
  This is less a "women in tech" issue than it is a standard bullying issue. You think the "go back to the kitchen" comment is limited to just programming class? So this mom never brings this up with the teacher, presumes if she does it won't help, and then writes a letter at the end of the year detailing all the problems? Mother of the year, right here. Also, "VB? Seriously??" got funnier every time I read it too. Jokes never get old.
• loahou04 13y ago
  Thats a shame. Some of the best developers i've worked with and worked for are women
• RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  The entitled and largely unconscious male privilege in most of these HN comments is pretty hard to stomach against the large and steadily-accumulating picture of just how very different this industry presents itself to men and to women. Just because you don't directly experience or see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you haven't been (consciously) chauvinistic to a woman doesn't mean women don't experience deep and pervasive chauvinism. It's not a fucking "free choice" that women are making when they steer away from programming in the face of the grotesque pastiche of misogyny and bullying that underlies our vocation, in which most of the people who aren't actually bullying women are falling over themselves to deny its existence or make excuses for it. Male programmers need to stop congratulating ourselves on how "libertarian" and "meritocratic" we are and start taking responsibility for how profoundly hostile and off-putting we have allowed this field to remain for most women.
  • mathattack 13y ago
    The danger of some meritocratic systems is that weak leadership will put up with bad behavior just because someone is clearly a star. "Yes, he's hard to work with, but the code would fall apart without him." This is even worse in finance. "We can buy off any kind of lawsuit, after all, he made us $50 million last year!" The problem is that this causes a moral decay. Once a firm accepts that this behavior is acceptable, the slippery slope starts. Well, a couple fudged expense reports isn't bad. Oh, what the client doesn't know won't hurt them. No need to be entirely up front with government. Management doesn't get it, don't share anything with them. Criminal complaints from the government, we're just the victim!
  • astrogirl 13y ago
    So, you're saying that women need special treatment as the more delicately nurtured sex? I completely disagree. The tech environment is what it is, and I don't want to be treated differently than my male co-workers. Also, I've never seen anything resembling a "grotesque pastiche of misogyny and bullying" in my 17 years of working as a programmer or systems analyst.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
• astrogirl 13y ago
  I've been a programmer/analyst for 17 years, and I have never experienced anything like what's being discussed by these women. I am older than they are (I'm a Gen-Xer), but still. I've worked in web development shops, and I currently work for a regional grocery store chain, but most of my time was spent working for companies that own an internet backbone doing statistical reporting for the web. I can assure you, those places were heavily male and heavily geeky. No one ever suggests that I should be getting them coffee, much less making them a sandwich. If anything, the younger, nerdier guys find me a little intimidating. I wonder if some of the women in question are simply getting their ass handed to them in a code review and they think it's sexism. It's the opposite, actually. That's equal treatment!
• kbart 13y ago
  Common, seriously? Blaming teacher (and even tell him how he should do HIS work) just because other kid said something to your daughter? That's just hilarious and wrong in so many ways.. Kids are rude and cruel - always have been and will be - it has nothing to do with programming or teachers or schools. If you really want to make a difference, go to that school and teach them yourself (if you are such a talent, I'm sure school board will gladly accept). Then you can even choose the programming language to teach! P.S. Haven't read such bullshit for a long time..
• X4 13y ago
  That's absolutely, absolutely, absolutely true!!! When I was in the first semester I knew that we had lots of women in there 20 in 200. What I also knew was that some damn idiots, (who I'd punch up, if I knew) would cause them to quit. Honestly just 6-8 girls stayed, the other girls left CompSci to study something "better". Those who stayed stopped having contact with anyone in class. They told me that the people are weird, which is mostly true, but they also got treated badly and excluded from anything which would help to make them look stupid. A year later or so, I wanted to redo a course from the first semester that I didn't pass back then. To my surprise there were even more girls and admittedly hotter ones, like a gf that I knew from before univerity and some of her gf's. However I tell you, all of them, with only a few exceptions left CompSci after the first semester again! I still have a good relationship with them, but it annoys me that some idiots managed to make almost all girls leave this time. They had so much potential. If you ask me, that's nothing else, but pure mobbing. Hey don't think that only the students were at fault!! The Profs made such ugly and shocking jokes about women (and gays), that I wondered if they ever had sex with a women in their life... Things like: If the last man on earth would be gay, it would still be better than a women, but also not be a (hu)man. (Only a handful people boo'ed, that's courage huh?)
• jayrox 13y ago
  The start of this article started off very similar to my experiences with programming class, we also used vb6. Going into the course I already had several years of programming various languages including vb6 so I wasn't really learning anything new. Just like her, I only took the class to make my parents happy and maybe, just maybe get something out of it. I didn't. Just like her, when I finished my assignments I would go around and help struggling kids with their stuff. I wouldn't ever do their work for them, more like guide them into the right direction, helping them figure it out on their own but with a little nudge from me. Just like her I was bullied, except I wasn't bullied by other students. I was bullied by our teacher, a female. The teacher was the only female in our class. I would venture to say she was pretty intelligent. I mean she could write the day's lesson on the board in backwards cursive. I nearly failed the class because she insisted I was cheating. There was no way I could know what I knew at that age. I had to prove to the principal that I wasn't cheating in order to get an entire semester of zero's reversed. I'm pretty sure that was about the time I went from wanting to be a professional programmer when I grew up to never taking a paying programming job. Here I am, 30 years old, doing IT support instead of what I really enjoyed doing.
• zekenie 13y ago
  Wonder what the response from the teacher was...
• cbp 13y ago
  I had a pretty bad experience in highschool (and elementary school) because of a small deformity on my face that I was born with. That didn't make me hate programming because I was getting bullied on programming classes. In fact it made me love it more because it doesn't have to be a stupid social activity. It did make me hate school up to the point that I got "expelled" from college for skipping classes. If the author is so concerned with her daughter being pulled away from a profession that she claims to like then work harder at home. Or you know, not assume that her daughter is an impressionable idiot and let her choose whatever she wants.
• nopal 13y ago
  I really wish the mother would have contacted the teacher, even if her daughter had decided "to plow through." I'd like to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't knowingly let a student endure a semester of harassment. He probably didn't see or recognize the issue. Open communication from the mother could have helped the teacher recognize the problem and deal with it.
• mncolinlee 13y ago
  I spent a year as a high school computer science teacher back when the AP exam was in C++ and I had one young woman in my classroom. The OP's comments are reasonable as a parent, but like many she doesn't properly comprehend the difficulties encountered by a modern day teacher. When I was teaching class, I had to contend with numerous learning obstacles and then had to leave after class for my other full-time programming job. The idea that I could preempt kids from saying a comment is something only a parent could believe. In the minds of high school students, policies were made to be tested. The OP further wants to make young women into white elephants by reminding them how rare they are on the first day of class. I had a far more interesting and engaging introduction to algorithms on the first day of my class using paper airplane folding instructions as an example of how literally computers interpreted your instructions. The students loved it. The one salient point of the piece was the fact the teacher did not respond properly after the harassment occurred. We can all agree on that.
  • mathattack 13y ago
    The one salient point of the piece was the fact the teacher did not respond properly after the harassment occurred. We can all agree on that. This is the key. People don't expect teachers to control what comes out of the mouths of their students. They can't stop the initial bullying from happening. What teachers can do is react once it happens. Edited to remove: "It sounds like the OP went out of her way to help the teacher turn this into a "teaching moment". The teacher refused to go along." as this was based on my misreading the OP's "I consulted with friends — female developers — and talked to my daughter about how to handle the situation in class. I suggested that she talk to you. I offered to talk to you. I offered to come talk to the class. I offered to send one of my male friends, perhaps a well-known local programmer, to go talk to the class."
    • Wizecoder 13y ago
      Wait, how did she help the teacher turn it into a 'teaching moment'? What I got from it is that neither of them contacted the teacher at all about any of this, and then expected him to be able to spot the issue and understand that it was a problem with his class rather than an issue of burnout or other normal teenager problems (I doubt the boys in the class harassed her in front of him). My guess is that he was actually less worried about her because she was actually doing well in the class and I imagine many of the students weren't. Sure, it is a real bummer that she was turned off of the programming industry because of her classmates, but if he had devoted most of his non-teaching time to just her, imagine the struggling students in the class who might have wanted to learn but couldn't get any of the teacher's time or help? Odds are they would be demoralized and unlikely to continue programming as well. It most likely could have been handled better, and it would have been great if the teacher had noticed the problem, but I don't think it is fair to place all the blame on him and suggest that they were helping him do the right thing.
• agentultra 13y ago
  "Deal with it," is about the worst advice I've ever heard. I've never had to deal with sexism. When I was bullied in high school my car was vandalized, I had to take time off from exams because my face was a wreck and I was being monitored for brain injuries. I skipped class because I didn't want to hear, "fag," for the thousandth time. I didn't want to deal with the food being thrown at me in the cafeteria or the snickers as a I walked past the gossiping kids in class. I've never had to deal with being discriminated against because of my gender but I cannot imagine that it hurts any less. I was lucky. A friend of mine was beaten into a coma. The bullies showed up to his benefit concert to throw pennies and harass the attendees. He has been living the rest of his life with the effects of severe neurological trauma. Yeah, kids are mean. It has been more than a decade since I escaped that hell-hole. I've since read articles about other unlucky kids who've died being stabbed to death by a mob. I've read about girls who have committed suicide because they couldn't deal with the slut shaming. Sure these cases are beyond the norm but I wonder if they are not indicators that things are just getting worse for kids these days. It doesn't have to be this way. We can single people out who make sexist jokes and correct them, loudly and publicly, and try to help them understand that they're not funny, clever, or cool. I agree with the author that teachers can be a part of the solution. But I don't think that is the final word (and it never is when trying to change prevailing attitudes and norms): parents need to tell their kids to stick up for people who are being bullied, that it's not funny, and that it's dangerous to not say anything when they hear someone spout off something hateful.
• the_watcher 13y ago
  It's fantastic that this article has stayed on the front page so long. Regardless of your thoughts on the author's claims, I don't think anyone can deny that this was a thoughtful, reasoned take on sexism in tech. We need more of these if anyone wants to take the discussion back from the Gawker's/Valleywag's of the world. There is an intelligent discussion to be had here. Personally, I lean towards advising women to take the Booker T. Washington approach of focusing on becoming as competent as you possibly can, but also working to change the culture as much as possible. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but I just think that teaching girls and women to learn to love programming over encouraging them to fight a culture war will bring more women into tech than the opposite, which will bring more into activism (not a bad thing, but I am approaching this with a goal bringing women into tech). I found this author's approach to be one of the best attempts at what I described I've ever seen.
  • masmullin 13y ago
    "I don't think anyone can deny that this was a thoughtful, reasoned take on sexism in tech" I can. It was a reasoned, thoughtful take on a single teacher's inability to effectively discipline a male dominated classroom, and how this lack of discipline severly impacted a woman's hopes for her child. Nothing more. To say that this is "sexism in tech" is an extreme reach. I dare say dishonest. Back when I was in grade 9, my friend and I were the only two boys in 'home ec.' It was always only us two in the cooking groups because the girls wouldn't ask us to join their groups. Should I take this to show the inherent Misandry in the entire culinary arts field? Of course not.
• doctorwho 13y ago
  If a kid being bullied/harassed doesn't speak up and it doesn't happen right in front of the teacher, how is the teacher supposed to know what's happening? Kids lose interest and get depressed all the time, it could be bullying, they could be having problems at home. Teachers are not therapists. They are not trained to recognize warning signs of anything. That's why schools have guidance counselors and principals for kids to talk to. Yes, there could be some preemptive measures taken at the beginning of the class but that often gives the little bastards doing the bullying more ideas. If the OP had been more involved (not just interested in bragging about, but really involved) in her child's life and recognized the warnings signs (that she easily picked up on months later) then she could have done her job as a parent an intervened. It's your job as a parent to watch out for your children. You should know them better than anyone. If you didn't see the signs, how could a teacher who barely knows your child pick up on them?
• swamp40 13y ago
  Sad. Her suggestions to her daughter's teacher seem reasonable and useful for other teachers. I hope sending her daughter to India (of all places!) for her final year of high school wasn't a mistake.
• racl101 13y ago
  Another parent in America blaming someone else for how their children turn out or what they experience. Seriously, how is it the teacher's fault that other boys were raised to be chauvinistic? Maybe the mother might want to raise the issue with the parents of other kids because, as always, the state and the values of kids begins with the parents. Leave the teacher out of it.
• yongcat 13y ago
  After reading this, I will make sure and constantly remind myself that I will respect everyone. Doing any more will make one more of an activist than before, doing any less will make one less of a decent human being.
• sthommes 13y ago
  Shame is really hard to assign and even more difficult to self apply. So while society (let alone our small, sometimes dark programming/tech back lot) is a long way from where we should be, each of us does have a responsibility to more than our own self-entertainment. Trolls are not unique to HN and blogs, they exist in real life too - they're called bullies. And with regards to this story, there's not really a 'both sides' here. There are females and males. And of the males, there are men and boys. Deep down and up close in your own personal mirror, you know which one you are. Instead, why not be awesome and redirect negative, petty energy and do something productive. Change the World, it's clearly needed
• bcRIPster 13y ago
  I can speak for this, my daughter has already shunned programming in any capacity. While my wife and I have spent our time encouraging our children to excel at math and sciences, where my two older boys sailed through, my daughter (who used to love math) feels so isolated that half-way through high-school she now is talking about how she sees no value in the knowledge because of the social repercussions of showing math aptitude as a young woman. This seriously pisses me off.
• slashdotaccount 13y ago
  Now that the circlejerk is over, I thought I would post a reply that did not pass moderation on by Rikki Endsley on her blog (I posted it after she wrote that she didn't moderate a single comment - I should have known better). Perhaps those who find this story via search will find the comment useful. ---- Here are some facts that the readers might not be aware of while reading your post and taking your obviously subjective point of view for granted. Your daughter graduated from a mostly white (80%) highschool with low student-to-teacher ratio (14/1, IIRC) and high per-student spending (~$10k per year). This is not a school where kids are bullied. Your daughter apparently liked the highschool. I took the liberty of contacting the institution's principal and asking him a few questions. You or your daughter never raised any concerns regarding anything listed in your post. Your claims about lack of class promotion are not factually supported, and the school even has an advisory board that provides advice and direction towards appropriate practices and curriculum. This boards includes community members with expertise in relevant fields. Your daughter's studies were apparently quite important for you. Did you volunteer to be on the advisory board? So how does it all look? Your daughter had some tensions with other students when you were away. It happens with kids. You did nothing of substance. Perhaps she was not even that interested in programming. Kids who are interested, rarely limit themselves to the curriculum, and their interest rarely sparks at the late age of ~15. Your stories of her doing such and such tasks at an early age are so typical that I will not comment on them. Other parents will understand. Your gripes about Visual Basic are nonsensical, and suggest that you were not that involved in your daughter's studies through highschool, otherwise you would have acquired some perspective. If your daughter indeed quit programming due to some minor tensions in the class, it is nearly completely your fault, because you apparently taught her to quit. Maybe it is partially her fault. It is certainly not the fault of the environment. The environment gave her everything that is necessary. You are a typical member of Western privileged class. I won't say, however, that some people have it much worse. This is irrelevant - the issue here is not that as conditions improve, society strives to fulfil needs that are higher on Maslow's hierarchy. Your situation is much simpler: the need for an enemy, someone to accuse of your misfortune. Nobody is guilty that your child did not grow up with the talents you wanted her to have. But you are guilty of failing to properly take advantage of the environment instead of accusing others around you. ---- Note that in the second update to the blog post, the daughter claims that she did talk to both the teahcer and the principal. Either she or the principal is lying. My guess it's her, since it's quite typical for children with overbearing parents (e.g., "I was really, really embarrassed and fighting back tears"). Note also that on daughter's Facebook post about the story, the mother comments: "Hey, gotta pay the bills somehow". Pick one of two: the mother is a typical journalist attention seeker, or the mother treats her adult daughter as someone who is not to be taken seriously.