Winnie Wrote a Math Book

SoyChemist writes "Hollywood is not known for providing a wealth of positive female role models. Danica McKellar, the actress that played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years and Elsie Snuffin on The West Wing, has written a math book for teenage girls. 'Math Doesn't Suck' is done in the style of a teen magazine. It even includes a horoscope, cute doodles of shoes and jewelry, and testimonials from attractive young career women that use math at work. It focuses on fractions and pre-algebra and uses mnemonics like calling a reciprocal a 'refliprocal', because you just take the fraction and flip it upside down. Wired interviewed McKellar about the new book and her crusade to eliminate the achievement gap between boys and girls in math courses. McKellar graduated Summa Cum Laude from UCLA. While studying there, she co-authored a proof and presented it at a conference. After she and Mayim Bialik — star of Blossom and a PhD in neuroscience — appeared in a 20/20 episode about intellectual actresses, several literary agents came knocking on her door."

Comments

Gap? What gap?

[Myrkridian42]

When I graduated high school, the top ten students that year were girls. That was true at 3 other high school graduations I went to that year. When I graduated college, the valedictorian and salutatorian were female. I don't believe these were rare cases. So what's this "gap" they talk about? Seems to me the guys are falling behind.

Re:Gap? What gap?

[shalla]

So what's this "gap" they talk about? Seems to me the guys are falling behind.

Let's see. This was a while ago, but of the top ten in my graduating class, two were male. They both had science and math majors. Of the eight women, only four of us did. Both of the guys have gone on into science and math heavy fields (MD and engineer). Of the women, only two did (veterinarian and dentist). So there is a gap in achievement when you look at that for math and science.

Why do I think that is? Well, I graduated high school with majors in math, science, social studies, and French. In college, I ended up with a history major and minors in anthropology and religious studies, but I took a number of math and science and comp sci courses for fun. I still love math and science. Numbers still are magical to me, and playing around with them to see what they can do can waste hours... But looking back, I realize I ended up focusing on areas where my abilities were treated less like a fluke and more like actual talent. I had higher science and math GPAs and took more science classes than the guys in my high school class (and helped them with studying and homework) and they got the science and math awards. I got the English and Humanities awards. (English? Have you seen my grammar? Seriously, it got lost somewhere around second grade.) The same thing continued in college, with certain professors (not all) handing out puzzles in math classes where I was one of two girls and acting surprised when I worked them out. Like I hadn't aced the last four tests in the class while quietly passing notes to my friends and keeping the freshmen in front of us quiet when they started to get bored and act up.

So women can achieve all they want, but it doesn't necessarily mean they aren't going to face subtle discouragement along the way that eventually does end in a gap. I'm a librarian who works with computers, which I guess is my way of compromising and getting to handle a wide variety of topics while still playing with math and science a bit. I play with my little electrical kits at home and build my own computers and whatnot, and I'm happy with my life, but I also suspect that had I been male, I might have gone for math or science as a career instead of a hobby because I wouldn't have been constantly getting the overlooked treatment.

Or maybe not. Still, it's hard for me to discount 20-some years of subtle discouragement in some areas and encouragement in others as having no impact on my life choices.

Natalie Portman's neuroscience paper

[FleaPlus]

Some of you might already know this, but slashdot-favorite Natalie Portman (birth name Natalie Hershlag) in 2002 was apparently co-author on a paper in the research journal NeuroImage, stemming from some research she did when she was an undergrad at Harvard. The paper is titled Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. Here's the abstract:

The ability to create and hold a mental schema of an object is one of the milestones in cognitive development.
Developmental scientists have named the behavioral manifestation of this competence object permanence.
Convergent evidence indicates that frontal lobe maturation plays a critical role in the display of
object permanence, but methodological and ethical constrains have made it difficult to collect neurophysiological
evidence from awake, behaving infants. Near-infrared spectroscopy provides a noninvasive assessment
of changes in oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin concentration within a prescribed
region. The evidence described in this report reveals that the emergence of object permanence is related to
an increase in hemoglobin concentration in frontal cortex. Also, a few choice Natalie Portman quotes:

* "I loved school so much that most of my classmates considered me a dork."

* "Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women."

* "I'm going to college. I don't care if it ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star. "

Re:Nice try, but...

[plague3106]

I was with you until you started on your sterotyping rant. Preppies aren't the kids that were doing well; they were the ones who had well off parents and never had to work. Kinda like the Paris Hilton you seem to hate.

Re:Barbie disagrees

[Prien715]

Like when someone feels the need to comment about how well Colin Powell speaks. There's an unspoken 'and he's black' that is left hanging for the listener to fill in by themselves.

It's funny how people choose which races to recognize and which ones not. You could've replaced the unspoken with 'and he's Scottish', which is an equally valid statement. But you didn't, and why it seems obvious that you didn't is the heart of the issue.

There's nothing wrong with marketing towards certain kinds of women though. There's been plenty of math and philosophy courses filled with sport metaphors to market to jocks. Why not one build one around fashion? Anything that gets people learning is good, whether or not I'd personally appreciate it.