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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 dau

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).
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Be that as it may, I think it's pretty likely the daughter thinks of the class as being representative the programming world.
  - byroot 13y ago
    Since she is "friend with a linux kernel contributor, and ARM developer, etc", I wouldn't be so sure about that...
    - mjmahone17 13y ago
      But then there's all the women who take a programming class for the first time who aren't friends with industry experts. And even if this teenager is willing to give it another shot, I wouldn't blame her, or anyone, for feeling left out, and believing this is what the world of programmers is like. I know I made that mistake in high school: I actively dissociated from the male/techy-dominated "CS" kids in my school, due to the culture of the "nerdy male" that they cultivated, and only took my first course because I was lucky, and at a "Welcome to your new college's science programs" presentation was wowed by a CS professor's presentation. And I only stuck with it because again, I got lucky, and most the students in the intro course had little to no experience and didn't consider themselves computer geeks, and the course was much more about problem solving and new modes of thought, rather than being an exercise in "learning to program." And it didn't hurt that the course was taught by a woman who was excited about the material.
      - Tichy 13y ago
        You know how it feels if people dissociate from you in high school becasuse you seem nerdy? It's such a joke that feminists now try to turn that on the head and claim those nerds prevented them from programming for sexist reasons. No, those nerds did not become the bullies they hated in high school. You are still the bullies you were in high school, you just found new excuses (then: they seem nerdy, now: they are sexist). See, most male programmers stuck with it despite the bullying. They did not need special encouragement. Excuse me if I feel little enthusiasm for developers who need to be bribed into the profession.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I had people saying absolutely awful things to me in the middle of class, well within earshot of an authority figure who couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. Funny enough, by far the worst class I took was a networking class. I thought I'd be surrounded by smart people. Turns out, I was only surrounded by assholes, with a teacher willing to let anything and everything slide. The best class? Geometry. The teacher was more than willing to deliver an attitude adjustment when she had to, and she did, without even being mean about it. As a result, it's one of the few places I was ever comfortable interacting with people I didn't really know. Healthy attitudes can be taught, but people have to be willing to step up and do it. It's not just on teachers—it's something anyone who has the potential to influence others' lives should be working on.
- brokenparser 13y ago
  > it's something anyone who has the potential to influence others' lives should be working on Especially parents. Ethics should be passed on from generation to generation, religious or not. Somewhere in the past century, the art appears to have been lost. Or it may dilute with each generation, as can be observed in children raised by their grandparents when compared to children of the same age raised by their own parents.
  - acjohnson55 13y ago
    Every time someone drops the "generational breakdown of ethics" idea, I can't help but think that we really can't have fallen that much ethically when we used to have legal slavery, legal disenfranchisment of the poor, and so forth. On the other hand, in a lot of ways we have found more subtle and palatable ways for groups to seek power over others. In the end, I just think that over time, the "goodness" of human ethics has been more or less stationary. We've got wants and needs. We've got empathy. We've got conscious minds that seek rationalizable patterns of behavior that satisfy both of these things, but the end result isn't really a consistent normative ethical scheme. Even the most religious people (obviously) find ways to bend the spirit of the ethical schemes to their own benefit.
irahul 13y ago
> 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. VB is a fine language to get children interested in programming. Personally, I know many people who weren't able to grasp programming via C but were pretty excited about VB's gui designer and easy database connectivity. Most of the introduction to VB didn't teach them much programming, but at least it got them interested. > High school bullies are typically quite good at restricting their bullying to times when they're unlikely to be spotted by an authority figure. The author is being unfair when she is holding the teacher solely accountable for bullying. > 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". There is also the fact that being teacher's pet generally invites more bullying. If they can't harass you, they will begin isolating you. And of course, the general mentality isn't in favor of snitches even when the snitches are hapless victims. Children don't have a strong sense of right and wrong and peer pressure muddies it more. > 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. I haven't taught at professional level, but I do like teaching. And I like to teach people who are interested in learning. If I were a teacher, I won't really do much recruiting and promotion. If the job requires me to do it, I probably won't take it.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  I think that if I were going to teach programming to high school kids I'd show them the console in Chrome / Safari, because it's something they all have easy access to (I assume we're talking about a first world country, right). VB seems to me to be a poor choice because it doesn't intersect with the kids' lives. They likely won't go home and build VB apps (on their Macs...) The console is like lifting the curtain and revealing the motor underneath something we all use every day.
dclowd9901 13y ago
In re: bullying When are we going to start sterilizing people who raise shitty kids? I'm being intentionally provocative because I'm so fucking sick of this problem. It's the stupidest fucking problem in the world and it hurts so many people.

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).

acjohnson55 13y ago
Be that as it may, I think it's pretty likely the daughter thinks of the class as being representative the programming world.
- byroot 13y ago
  Since she is "friend with a linux kernel contributor, and ARM developer, etc", I wouldn't be so sure about that...
  - mjmahone17 13y ago
    But then there's all the women who take a programming class for the first time who aren't friends with industry experts. And even if this teenager is willing to give it another shot, I wouldn't blame her, or anyone, for feeling left out, and believing this is what the world of programmers is like. I know I made that mistake in high school: I actively dissociated from the male/techy-dominated "CS" kids in my school, due to the culture of the "nerdy male" that they cultivated, and only took my first course because I was lucky, and at a "Welcome to your new college's science programs" presentation was wowed by a CS professor's presentation. And I only stuck with it because again, I got lucky, and most the students in the intro course had little to no experience and didn't consider themselves computer geeks, and the course was much more about problem solving and new modes of thought, rather than being an exercise in "learning to program." And it didn't hurt that the course was taught by a woman who was excited about the material.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      You know how it feels if people dissociate from you in high school becasuse you seem nerdy? It's such a joke that feminists now try to turn that on the head and claim those nerds prevented them from programming for sexist reasons. No, those nerds did not become the bullies they hated in high school. You are still the bullies you were in high school, you just found new excuses (then: they seem nerdy, now: they are sexist). See, most male programmers stuck with it despite the bullying. They did not need special encouragement. Excuse me if I feel little enthusiasm for developers who need to be bribed into the profession.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

LnxPrgr3 13y ago

I had people saying absolutely awful things to me in the middle of class, well within earshot of an authority figure who couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. Funny enough, by far the worst class I took was a networking class. I thought I'd be surrounded by smart people. Turns out, I was only surrounded by assholes, with a teacher willing to let anything and everything slide. The best class? Geometry. The teacher was more than willing to deliver an attitude adjustment when she had to, and she did, without even being mean about it. As a result, it's one of the few places I was ever comfortable interacting with people I didn't really know. Healthy attitudes can be taught, but people have to be willing to step up and do it. It's not just on teachers—it's something anyone who has the potential to influence others' lives should be working on.

brokenparser 13y ago
> it's something anyone who has the potential to influence others' lives should be working on Especially parents. Ethics should be passed on from generation to generation, religious or not. Somewhere in the past century, the art appears to have been lost. Or it may dilute with each generation, as can be observed in children raised by their grandparents when compared to children of the same age raised by their own parents.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Every time someone drops the "generational breakdown of ethics" idea, I can't help but think that we really can't have fallen that much ethically when we used to have legal slavery, legal disenfranchisment of the poor, and so forth. On the other hand, in a lot of ways we have found more subtle and palatable ways for groups to seek power over others. In the end, I just think that over time, the "goodness" of human ethics has been more or less stationary. We've got wants and needs. We've got empathy. We've got conscious minds that seek rationalizable patterns of behavior that satisfy both of these things, but the end result isn't really a consistent normative ethical scheme. Even the most religious people (obviously) find ways to bend the spirit of the ethical schemes to their own benefit.

irahul 13y ago

> 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. VB is a fine language to get children interested in programming. Personally, I know many people who weren't able to grasp programming via C but were pretty excited about VB's gui designer and easy database connectivity. Most of the introduction to VB didn't teach them much programming, but at least it got them interested. > High school bullies are typically quite good at restricting their bullying to times when they're unlikely to be spotted by an authority figure. The author is being unfair when she is holding the teacher solely accountable for bullying. > 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". There is also the fact that being teacher's pet generally invites more bullying. If they can't harass you, they will begin isolating you. And of course, the general mentality isn't in favor of snitches even when the snitches are hapless victims. Children don't have a strong sense of right and wrong and peer pressure muddies it more. > 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. I haven't taught at professional level, but I do like teaching. And I like to teach people who are interested in learning. If I were a teacher, I won't really do much recruiting and promotion. If the job requires me to do it, I probably won't take it.

Tloewald 13y ago
I think that if I were going to teach programming to high school kids I'd show them the console in Chrome / Safari, because it's something they all have easy access to (I assume we're talking about a first world country, right). VB seems to me to be a poor choice because it doesn't intersect with the kids' lives. They likely won't go home and build VB apps (on their Macs...) The console is like lifting the curtain and revealing the motor underneath something we all use every day.

dclowd9901 13y ago

In re: bullying When are we going to start sterilizing people who raise shitty kids? I'm being intentionally provocative because I'm so fucking sick of this problem. It's the stupidest fucking problem in the world and it hurts so many people.