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Interviews: Ask Adora Svitak About Education and Women In STEM and Politics

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-ask dept.

samzenpus writes Adora Svitak is a child prodigy, author and activist. She taught her first class on writing at a local elementary school when she was 7, the same year her book, Flying Fingers was published. In 2010, Adora spoke at a TED Conference. Her speech, "What Adults Can Learn from Kids", has been viewed over 3.7 million times and has been translated into over 40 different languages. She is an advocate for literacy, youth empowerment, and for the inclusion of more women and girls in STEM and politics. 17 this year, she served as a Youth Advisor to the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC. and is a freshman at UC Berkeley. Adora has agreed to take some time from her books and answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.

3 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Child prodigies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To what extent do you believe child prodigies are merely products of their environment?

  2. A message to Adora Svitak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dear Adora Svitak,

    At 17 years of age, you do not have enough life experience to say anything of real importance about anything involving the greater issues facing society. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are or think you are. It doesn't matter how much of a rep has been manufactured for you by spinmeisters. You are simply too young to have any real perspective or ability to identify the machinations of those around you.

    One of the most dangerous things in the world is for someone to believe their own hype. Don't make that mistake.

    Incidentally, What Adults Can Learn From Kids ~ {null}, which is why society would function much more smoothly if the voting age were raised back to 25.

  3. Re:So ... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He has a point. Every story about women in STEM is plagued with posts trying to disrupt any effort to improve things. Typical arguments include:
    - There is no problem
    - Girls just don't like computers
    ...

    Is it possible that either of these are true, even in a general sense? There are gender disparities in several fields. The median salary for nurses is $65,470, whereas the median salary for IT Technicians is $42,992, but you don't hear a whole bunch of FUD over the fact that 90% of nurses are females. And when it comes right down to it, nurses are far more valuable to society than IT techs. Meanwhile, oil rig workers, about 95% male, make on average $99,175. Why no big push for women in that field?

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.