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New AP Course, "Computer Science Principles," Aims To Make CS More Accessible
theodp writes: "CS Principles," explains the intro to a Microsoft Research talk on a new Computer Science Toolkit and Gaming Course, "is a new AP course being piloted across the country and by making it more accessible to students we can help increase diversity in computing." Towards this end, Microsoft has developed "a middle school computing toolkit, and a high school CS Principles & Games course." These two projects were "developed specifically for girls," explains Microsoft, and are part of the corporation's Big Dream Movement for girls, which is partnering with the UN, White House, NSF, EU Commission, and others. One of Microsoft's particular goals is to "reach every individual girl in her house." According to a document on its website, Microsoft Research's other plans for Bridging the Gender Gap in computing include a partnership with the University of Wisconsin "to create a girls-only computer science Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)."
LAWSUIT!
Isn't this the same crowd that says there ARE no differences between boys and girls and therefore girls should be in represented equally in STEM careers?
Yet the way they intended to remedy the imbalance is to create curriculum specifically for girls, who are no different than boys.
I can imagine the kinds of comments that are coming, but I have to say that I approve of these women targeted programs because I believe they do create an environment that encourages more participation. Most people feel comfortable around similar people especially at younger ages, and telling a girl that she will be in a class with other girls as apposed to a class filled with men could be the difference in her decision making.
Put another way, if a nerd was told they would be working with other nerds they would feel more comfortable trying to work in that environment because common background and common interests fuel conversation. Hopefully these women targeted programs will help some talented women on the fence to take the plunge.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
They want to "reach every individual girl in her house." I foresee ten million restraining orders being issued soon.
I wish my sons had access to such things. They have the interest but these classes tend to be awfully expensive, plus I no longer have "open" computers they can play with (tablets are great at what most people spend time with, but they are also limiting).
Make them separate, but equal...Seriously how about you just make the regular classes more inclusive to women instead of making the silly "Girls only" club that reeks of adolescent idiocy. Where are all the we need male nurses outcries? I actually support encouraging more women to come into the field, but it's going to be a slow process. There are many awesome young female innovators out there, but you've got to let their work stand for itself, amongst their peers. If you can't compete young, you sure as heck aren't going to compete when you're older, stop crippling these girls into thinking they can't do it on their own.
We has a BASIC programming class. The class was taught by a woman, and the class was about 65-70% female (this is back when computers were still for nerds, and boys are incredibly superficial). The teacher knew I already knew BASIC, so she handed me a Pascal textbook and told me to do my own thing during class. If there was a benefit to having a "girls-only" high-school curriculum, and don't what it was. Some of the girls would ask for my help ("hey, smart boy" was my name in that class), and it was pretty clear that there was an intense lack of interest on their part in computing. The reason for this has nothing to do with class make-up or accessibility; this class had those in spades. We're dealing with inculcated social gender differences that start in the cradle, not the university.
GIRLS AND MINORITIES ONLY! Back to your trailer, white trash!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
A lot of the boys that become interested in computers also have problems relating to other people, epecially to girls their own ages. Given that they probably also don't have 'the right stuff' from the perspectives of a lot of the girls around them, they might become slightly embittered towards girls due to a lack of relationship success with them, and when these boys are grouped together, as it is cheaper to educate several students at once, the environment is generally hostile towards girls, so those girls that are actually intersted in computers are driven away both by their notions of the boys and by the boys own actions.
Unless you can find a way to break this cycle, I don't see anything else working as much more than a band-aid to the problem.
I'm actually in favor of gender-segregated junior high. Give the kids a chance to learn how to deal with their new hormones when there's not really much option to showboat for the other gender.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Making CS more accessible doesn't give us great CS graduates. it gives us watered down, useless graduates.
Also, unlike most career paths, CS involves critical thinking, which is difficult to teach. By college you either have it or you don't.
I am all for making any form of education more accessible to any group. But Separate but Equal seems short sighted. What's old is now new....
My experience with my children is that AP and accessible do not go together.
Can someone please explain to me what this whole "Let's convince/force/cajole/firehose women into CS" thing is all about?
*Why* is it so frikkin important all of a sudden? Why is there no similar push in any other field (think firefighter/truckdriver/constrution)?
Have I missed something important? Are women no longer considered smart enough to make their own choices regarding careers? Must we big smart men carefully explain to them why they *want* to go into CS?
What happens when this magical girls-only experience ends and suddenly the real world rears its ugly head with (God help us) *men* in the actual workplace? Perhaps we need to have some girls-only workplaces as well? But wait, what about when the workday ends? There might still be some *men* out and about. We need a girls-only city to make sure no disgusting boys hang around with their home-grown CS interests...
And now I'm all out of sarcasm. Thanks internet.
I guess my question boils down to: "Why force this interest? Why force this new brand of 'make-no-sense equality quotas' to *everyone's* detriment?"
I'm so glad to hear this news, so glad because I was so worried Thanks so much Slashdot. I'm terrified with the progress we've made in software to date, it's definitely one we should all be ashamed of. To think of the days when all we had was a commodore 64 or some other, and look at all the worthless garbage we've made we learning from those roots. Hopefully now we can get the legions code.org demands. Maybe there's hope for humanity after all.
Well good. The fewer excuses womyn-born-womyn have the better.
This will certainly be more effective than handing out creeper cards or assigning gender to programming languages. Hopefully.
So... when you *specifically* want to create a class *for girls*, your though is "Hey, let's take out the hard parts, and make it more of a course about all the stuff *around* the actual hard part". You just basically told girls "don't worry yourself about the really hard parts. This is what *you* need to know." Are you sure you don't just want to make it a typing class instead?
Fuck that noise.
Basic computer education needs to be mandatory - early, like 1st grade, alongside math and reading/writing. Our style of educating hasn't changed much since the early 1900s. Schools need to get with the times.
society 40 years ago: learn a trade. computers are for nerds and bean counters.
society today: jesus christ everyone, from day laborers to housepets, must learn to write code.
The problem isnt that CS isnt accessible, its that its fucking hard. its why everyone isnt a mechanical engineer, or a physicist. and the demands arent exactly clear. Do you want C coders who churn out low level device drivers? or do you want devops hackers that write auto-reply python scripts for email farms and stand up python salt pillars? its two rather different skillsets. Or shall we get right to the point: profiteers are sick to death of paying a disproportionately living wage to a set of highly skilled workers.
and it wouldnt be slashdot without an obligatory rant from my front lawn as a greybeard. have you seen kids today? i mean actually seen how they use technology? they want E and I devices, cookie clicker and kesha. Kids today dont want to learn how or why their cloud storage works, but they want to maintain the illusion that they are somehow profoundly skilled users of their technology for getting garageband to install and upvoting the latest dreck to come out of their favourite pop star. Theyre divorced from everything but the most fervent memes, so unless you can propose a way to make object oriented reusable code as popular as kony 2012 or the latest malala freedom fighter, this wont work. Things like Pi, adafruit, and any other flavour of linux except ubuntu will forever be the love affair of the neckbeard. You cannot turn a herd of children beaten into blind tech consumerism into an organized group of kids that want to learn transcoding and class instantiation.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So, why all of a sudden are we taking input from Microsoft and Google on the education system?
These are companies, with their own agendas, and who only see the world through their own myopic view of making money with technology.
In what way do we consider either Google or Microsoft to be qualified to be involved in education?
The same clowns who are driving usage of foreign workers are suddenly going to cure the world by making sure more girls know how to code? Why, so they can not get hired because they expect a higher wage than someone in Mumbai?
Sorry, but taken as a whole, Microsoft is doing as much to undermine the point of getting an education in CS .. because they're actively part of the bits of using H1Bs, colluding to keep wages down, and making it more difficult for workers to be mobile.
So you'll excuse me if I see this as little more than some self serving PR.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
that thing was discussed yesterday!
"to create a girls-only computer science Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)."
If I attended a class called "Establishing Patient Rapport and Empathy, Males Edition" as a potential future RN (truly "underrepresented" by us males), on the notion that males need "special help" with such interpersonal skills, would I -really- feel confident I had reached skills parity with people in general in this skill? Would recounting that I had done well in the "for males version" impress someone as a potential employer or co-worker?
Oh, hold on, I forgot this all is entirely a cynical cash-grab by major software companies to increase the pool of programmers, whoever they may be, and thus depress wages--no actual social or philosophical validity present, intended, or needed. Never mind.
that the way to do it (ant they MUST wear hijabs)
So it is ok to be sexist when you discriminate against men. So in some cases it is good to discriminate.
"to create a girls-only computer science Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)."
Oh yeah, brilliant answer to equality in IT.
Don't suppose we could find enough common sense to short-circuit this process before the lawsuits start flying...
...by telling us what "AP" and "CS" mean.
Nah, just kidding this time. About CS, at least. AP I don't know.
One of Microsoft's particular goals is to "reach every individual girl in her house."
Oh, I see, it's okay when Microsoft says it, but I get a lecture from the cops. Typical!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Feminists are always saying there are no mental differences in men in women. And because of that, the gender disparity in CS must be due to sexism.
Now they're altering the content of CS curriculum to appeal to women, and it is apparently working.
So if women do actually need to be taught CS differently, why is all that dark matter sexism still necessary to explain it?
White/asian males do not need the dumbing down of CS program. Which problem are we trying to solve? Dumbing down only helps dumbest people. I have got hard time to believe girls and categories are stupider. Girls won't be helped if they are not stupider. Anyway, do they really need to be helped? So cliché, save the princess. I neither think that the girls need to be saved.
Math is hard -- Barbie ; CS is math ; CS is hard. Barbie is right. Maybe time to say: "Yes, it's hard. But it's not a good reason for not learning it".
Perhaps the way to get folks interested in CS
is to let them try making web pages.
They can't do any worse that the Slashdot administrators.
The screen jumps from the constant auto reloads were annoying.
Now the reloads have multiple retrys to doubleclick, etc
so they slow down the keyboard and mouse response of the browser for no good reason.
I would not want to think about what is happening on the network connection to keep this circus flying.
Because this is a bunch of baby boomers projecting their perceptions on the younger generations. See, back in their day, women were actively discouraged from math, engineering and other science subjects - my mother's cousin was actually locked out of classrooms.
Anyway, the perceived lack of women in tech is more of a symptom. This push to get more girls into tech is just trying to fix a symptom of a larger problem - why aren't more kids getting involved in math and science?
Not that everyone can or wants to be a scientist or engineer (I don't think they should because contrary to the policy makers and Silicon valley lobbyists wanting cheap labor, there isn't that big of a demand.)
And as far a MS is concerned, I think this is a way to get market share - build brand awareness in kids because you KNOW that everything will have "Microsoft" splattered all over it. Apple does the same thing with putting their machines in schools.
In fact I'm pretty tired of going over to talk to a (male) colleague and they either can't or won't answer the question but instead will ramble on about something slightly related but nothing to with my question; or they'll be so passive-aggressive about any question that you have to know the answer beforehand to be able to ask the question in the precisely right way that they are willing to answer (think about talking to Dick Cheney about torture).
Of course, I'm ignoring that Russian girl who didn't know how to formulate an if-statement. And then there are those brilliant guys I've worked with which I still can't figure out their code - but it works just fine.
What do you really need a computer for that wasn't achieved by teacher and books?
The ability to apply an algorithm to larger sets of data than can be done in reasonable time through pencil-and-paper calculation. Of course, you can teach computer science without the aid of a computer, as the late Dr. Dijkstra pointed out, but that happens not to be in fashion.
Some fundamental questions need to be asked in earnest - and obviously haven't - foremost among them:
Why do you give a shit that there aren't many girl or minority programmers? I mean, it's not as though they lack the opportunity. Christ, the entry barriers don't get much lower than programming.
Will throwing money from the top-down really fundamentally change anything?
Why are you conflating programming with Big Dreams? Or even little dreams? This is an error.
The main thing that's needed is patience. This is a DNA-of-Society issue, not an attitude or education issue. I mean really: if you like messing with computers, you're going to figure this shit out on your own. Whatsmore, because programming is really a craft and not a checklist, you really only learn on your own.
There isn't a quick fix for this, no matter how many resources are thrown at it.And again, I ask: why should we care?
The point of an AP course, in particular, is to get college credit for work done earlier. What college is going to give credit for a course like this? Maybe towards some sort of "Sociology of Computing" degree?
There are gender differences; you don't see it so much in ability scores, but you do tend to see it in how boys and girls learn. There are, I believe, some advantages for separating boys and girls for some classes, but certainly not all. The tricky bit, however, is that, on an individual basis, some kids simply don't fit the gender stereotypes. Some girls like being hands-on and active; some boys prefer to get their answers from reading and watching.
In a perfect world, you'd pair the right kid with the right teaching method, but that's not always possible, so you make compromises ... like gender-specific classes -- which can also help boys in some cases. FWIW, a couple years ago, news and infotainment stories based on all-boys programs were all the rage in Canada (specifically that elementary school education had become too feminized with too many female educators), so, while the current media frenzy is focusing on girls' achievements, there is a degree of parity in the overall arc of the coverage.
As for the current controversy, Google and MS aren't in the business of being SJWs; they're in the business of making money. And the research strongly suggests that:
The financial benefits of greater gender equity are undeniable. Extensive global research conducted by Credit Suisse, Catalyst and McKinsey & Co. examining the link between women on boards and stronger financial performance of Fortune 500 companies has been cited in numerous publications. Examining the return on sales, return on invested capital, and return on equity, their research confirmed that companies with women on their boards of directors outperform those with the least number of women by significant margins in each category.
Source (with cursory review of the literature): http://www.theglobeandmail.com... Note: Credit Suisse is not some backwater, liberal college spouting pseudo-scientific gibberish; they're a well-run capitalist organization that makes no bones about being in it for the money.
You want people with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences working together. It might take longer to reach a decision (or finish a project), but it's likely that the decision will be better for it. Monocultures are suboptimal for decision making (the research from WWII on is quite solid on this). Google and Microsoft are not pushing forward with trying to get more girl coders from some sense of goodness and charity; they're doing it because they see a business case for it. The gender equity aspect is veneer slapped over a business decision to make it 1.) seem like a good thing for society and 2.) make it easier to shake money loose governments to improve their own workforces.
they want E and I devices, cookie clicker and kesha.
Tell me with a straight face that doing well at Orteil's Cookie Clicker doesn't need a knowledge of data flow.
When my 9 and 11 year old daughters (both are in the top 1% for their age on standard tests) are done with their mod design course (Minecraft) at http://www.youthdigital.com/mod-design-1.html then I'll determine if this course is of good quality.
Currently, the kids play games in Windows and learn/develop on Linux.
If you're wondering, my children are home schooled. I plan to teach them Python after their mod design course is done.
You know, us boys would still love to have some interesting courses in high school. I really don't see the point in making the course specific for girls. They learn just the same way as we do.
Women can make their own decisions and actions speak louder than words. Most don't like the CS field, face it, it's not the most social field. Myself, there are very few coworkers I want to hangout with after work in this field most are lacking social skills or just plain weird. I have friends in other fields, they have a much more social life with their coworkers. I get frustrated seeing statements where they are going to make a program base a specific gender, race, etc.... what are they going to do force the groups they want into these fields. When I was in college, there were maybe 5-8 women study CS. Most wanted to do something else with their lives and they like to to be social butterflies or raise a family. I had friends that were blunt about it and said they didn't like it because it required too much effort. Hell sometimes I wish I would have chosen something else at times, not due to the work or lack or interest but the vast Dilberts like characters I have to interact with. Let's face it IT takes requires a lot of after hours involvement there are a lot of individuals who rather not work all the time as it cuts into their social life. Take for example teaching, it appeals to a lot of people due to the fact they get the summers off. Maybe, the question isn't to force feed specific groups into CS field but rather make it more attractive to them or find out why they don't like it. If the college professors I had, had told me that my first job would require that I have a pager and that I am pretty much on call all the time I think I too would have passed.
I've skimmed through the Curriculum Framework, and it looks like a survey course on computers, technology, and society. I don't see anything about actually building software. It has a lot of ideas, and theories, but when does the rubber hit the road? There may be a match of this course in some schools, but most won't give any Computer Science credit. No one in the major would receive credit for this course.
As I look into my cloudy, crystal ball, I see anyone deciding to go into computer science based on this course to be shocked when they have to write actual code in Intro to Computer Science.
The real tragedy is that AP Computer Science AB hasn't been brought back. Schools need to stop catering to the lowest common denominator and should be providing opportunities to those who will take them.
Everyone seems to be pointing to this as a gender issue, but the way I see it, it's a way to get more students interested in the stuff that _most_ of them will be doing with a computer science education.
The world has changed significantly since I graduated college almost 20 years ago (with a STEM degree that wasn't CS.) In 1997, the year I got out, the dotcom bubble was just inflating and all the protocols and "glue" that make Web applications work were just starting to be enhanced and built out. Fast forward to now, and there's so much abstraction in typical computer systems that many "coders" writing web applications don't even deal with system-level code. There are a billion web frameworks that keep getting cycled through every 6 months as the new hotness, and tons of new languages to run on them. This group of people will be better suited to learning enough logic to keep them from doing stupid stuff in their framework of choice, and this seems to be what the course focuses on. It acknowledges the reality that many CS grads aren't going to be sitting down in front of the terminal and writing hardware drivers, or doing embedded systems work.
Think about it -- to build a web application in the 1990s, you had to first design the entire database schema and set that up on a system somewhere. Then, you had to write code to have your web application talk to the database to get information in and out. Then you had the whole presentation layer with a combination of static and dynamic HTML plus all sorts of crazy CGI, Flash, ColdFusion or whatever glue code to get everything working. To build an iPhone app now, download XCode, pick a sample project and just glue together all the huge chunks of pre-built functionality. The focus on the app becomes the presentation layer because everything below that is solved for you. This is how a bunch of ex-fraternity "brogrammers" can build Tinder or Uber and make $40 billion in Monopoly money...there is obviously some technical talent behind it, but the app itself is relying on huge amounts of pre-integrated, well-documented libraries.
A student coming into CS now sees apps, social media and mobile devices. How do you keep them down on the C++ and data processing farm when this is the current face of computing? The reality of it is that some parts of software development are no longer only for the nerdy crowd. Apple put computers into hundreds of millions of ordinary peoples' pockets. They are now a consumer electronics company more than a computer company (and their current crop of Macs seems to reflect this.)
...are we letting Microsoft dictate our schools' syllabi and curricula?
By the same reasoning, a comparable number of people drive cars and other vehicles. "Vehicular science" is a central aspect, not only of American infrastructure, but also of the American way of life and vital to the US economy. Knowing about vehicles, how they work, how to maintain and service them, etc.should be a priority to ensure that the American economy remains competitive. Shouldn't we be teaching "vehicular science" in schools too?
Microsoft et al. really have no idea of what education is or what it's for. They're confusing it with training. If they're serious about attracting more women to come and work for them, they could start by addressing the overt, ferocious sexism and culture of impunity for sexist acts in their own company, and making it a more attractive environment for women to work in. The thing is, I can just see their senior management coming out with statements like, "I'm not sexist but... "
Girls drop off the tech track (CS, engineering, etc) because they are intimidated (wrongly) by the boys who come in with "bench skills" already formed -- the boys have been tinkering and taking things apart and building and coding and have their own toolbox (literal and figurative) already. The girls see that, and don't think they will be able to compete -- an inaccurate conclusion, because success in engineering school does *not* depend on having the resistor color code already memorized, nor on having memorized the API's to three dozen Python libraries already. Success comes from the deeper analytical skills.
Girls need tinkering opportunities that will build their bench skills. When they have their own toolkits (literal and figurative) then the boys will no longer intimidate them.
Math is a different issue. The critical years for developing the self-perception that you belong with the math crowd is the same years that girls are trying hard to fit in. The population density of girls in the USA (and it seems to be a problem for us, not for other parts of the world) who enjoy math is low enough that it is hard to fit in socially and be "mathy". For my daughter, we found a math camp (Mathpath.org) where the population of girls was high enough that she found a peer group of girls where it was *cool* to like and be good at math. That made a huge difference.
It's patently obvious that's the goal. The same people behind this shit are also pushing for H1B visa regulation to disappear.
at introducing females into ground combat forces (infantry/tanks/AAVs/LAVs/arty). The president told the commandant to make it work, and the jars are trying, but have yet to find a female that can make it through IOC. There have been some that have made it through the enlisted infantry training(MCT/ITB), but some exceptions were granted to physical requirements. The corps' first female combat attempts were the lioness/FET programs, which were a farce that caused a drain on regular infantry units operating in the area. The problem with modern combat is that you not only have to patrol outside the wire in independent small units with full gear in searing heat, but that you have to have all of your higher mental processing available. The FETs were restricted to areas with vehicular access, and where another patrol was available for assistance. None were able to conduct operations with full combat loads, and it was not uncommon for rolling stock to be diverted to FETs because they had become too physically stressed to operate.
If men and women were equal in all areas, they could operate as infantry Marines without a reduction in physical or mental competency requirements.
It's about time we told MS and other players to get their filthy paws off education. Who the hell do they think they are to pontificate that everybody should learn to code? It is of course good for their bottom line - legions of relatively uneducated code monkeys that be can be hired for a pittance to do their stupid coding with their stupid tools. I don't think so, MS. You can stick your stupid ideas deep up you ass, and keep them there indefinitely. I'll encourage my kids to develop critical thinking, and then, if they are interested in coding, I'll encourage them to do coding. But, I will never encourage them to become your lowly code monkeys.
There is no systematic barrier to women becoming programmers. They are free to do it and have equal opportunity to do so by law. In fact, I know some, and am glad that they did it. If there are not as many women programmers as men programmers, its due to the fact that no as many women want to do it. If more woman would rather do something else than program than men, why force them to, let them do what they are most predisposed to. We should have the same standards and educational program for men and women, that way everyone has equal opportunity and is free to choose their field without some sort of barrier being set up. If you make things EASIER for one group what you do is you disadvantage another group by creating all sorts of benefits they cannot access. This is wrong. It is a sick, disturbed mentality that we should discourage people who WANT to program from doing so, to try to shoehorn people who are not inclined to program into doing that.
Part of what is going on is mentally ill liberals who are unwilling to let go of victimization and guilt complexes that seems to be such a part of the Liberal mental complex that they cannot live without it, even though for the most part their original grievances have long been properly addressed. This is why well after we have created extensive legal gaurantees for equal opportunity, it is never enough for these people, which is why their agenda becomes ever more insane and shrill, they ran out of legitimate causes long ago. The mentality is that they are addicted to conflict just for the sake of it, that they have to pick new fights, since the legitimate issues are gone, they have gone beserk now demanding retribution and discrimination of their own against men, white people, American citizens, etc. They are unwilling to let go of the victimization complex even though for the most part in reality it is long past, with decades of equal opportunity legislation. In the process they have become what they claim to be against, they have become monsters who are out for blood and who have a hatred of and a malicious intent against men, and in some cases what approaches genocidal ambitions, for demonized majority groups. You can see this behaviour everywhere, by creating controversies and crisis where there is none, such as in Ferguson, just to keep the conflict alive when its legitimate beef has long been addressed and laid to rest.
Another fact which relates to this and to H1B Visas, is that numerous studies have shown that there is NO IT labor shortage in the US and that in fact we have large numbers of American college graduates who cannot find jobs becuase these jobs are being stolen by the H1B Visas. The H1B program is about suppressing wages and trying to replace american computer programmers with foreigners, this will actually discourage ALL americans, Men and Women, from going through the trouble of the CS degree when they are constantly being undermined by the corporate cronies. Microsoft would love to pay CS people minimum wage if they could, all they are concerned about is profits and are willing to ruin the lives of American CS degree holders by pulling the rug out from under them. Its not only CS but its also the Medical field as well.
You have American doctors who did the right thing by taking on the debt to spend $100,000 on a medical degree only to have their wages suppressed to where they are pushed into poverty, making far too little after they pay their loans to make it all worth the trouble, by third world educated labor who spent 1/9th of what an American has to on a medical degree. I know doctors who have watched the profession and the reward for the effort for american graduates destroyed by the third world H1B visa labor, it is killing them, the third world labor is poorly educated and did not have to obtain the same level of training as an American medical student and yet they are given medical licenses and allowed to basically steal jobs right out from under better educated American doctors. Add to this the Obamacare nightmare
What kind of a stupid objective is that? Couldn't try for something like "encourage excellence" or "increase quality" to help us become globally competitive? But, noooooooo......!!!!!! :)
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Strawman alert. Feminists acknowledge differences of all kinds in men an women, they claim that those differences should not be used to discriminate against women.
Citation needed? I'm reading the course curriculum, and men would also greatly benefit from that approach to teaching computing. That men are more able to manage the standard curricula despite their many flaws doesn't mean that good, innovative approaches are only adequate for women.
I personally know several people, including relatives, who have degrees in CS and related fields and cannot even get job interviews. Others are offered pay that is effectively below minimum wage (after deducting for health insurance, commuting or relocation costs, and in one outrageous case a requirement to own, insure, maintain, and put gas in your own car to drive around all day for the minimum-wage job located in a high-living cost area with no reimbursement for those expenses and no compensation per mile.
Kids with CS education are out of school and still looking for their first jobs 1,2 and more years later. Plenty of low or no pay internships, but no jobs.
Tens of thousands of people, like myself, have dropped out of the tech job market over the last 5-10 years because applying for jobs was simply a waste of time, even with degrees and proven work experience (15 years ago I was making six figures as a developer and consultant.). Now, of course, no one would hire me because my skills are out of date and eroded.
Would I get certified, or pursue another degree, or take on additional training at my own expense to possibly, maybe be eligible for another job, please sir, may I have another? Hell no, I've gone down that road and it was a complete waste of time and effort.
IBM is cutting developers and not hiring new ones (at least not at first world wages) for fuck's sake!
Stop lying or misinforming.
Just stop it.
Might transition if they were forced to hire me.
Might be the only way to get a job in this fucked-up market.
So if women do actually need to be taught CS differently, why is all that dark matter sexism still necessary to explain it?
Because it allows people to assign blame to groups of people for problems, especially people who won't fight back. It's easier to have another round of beating the evil white male pinata, than to admit there's more complex reasons for the problem.
Captcha: systemic
Exactly, best summary analysis so far.
How do you get from here to there? What am i talking about? SEGREGATION as social engineering. Segregate 'blacks' from 'whites'. Segregate males from females.
Here's a line of reasoning for you Betas who are DUMB enough to take things at face value, like this 'girls in CS' crap. Forget this particular issue, and go study any other segregation movement in Human History, present or past. Take Obama's OTHER favourite nation, Saudi Arabia (which shares pride of place in Washington alongside twin depravity, Israel). Absolute segregation of males and females, but what is the EXCUSE the sheeple are given for this?
The EXCUSE and the REAL reason are never the same thing. Look at 'racial' segregation in the recent history of the USA. We know why EVERY powerful figure in the USA said 'black' and 'white' Humans must not be allowed to marry or have sex with one another (did you know Laws against 'miscegenation' actually INCREASED after the abolition of slavery, and continued in many parts of the USA BEYOND the 1960s?).
In the UK, fully body 'Burka' coverings for Muslim females started becoming a common place sight after Tony Blair gained power, and initiated a program to 'radicalise' a previously VERY moderate UK Muslim population. The burka was NOT a form of Muslim tradition in any Muslim nation whose people had rights to emigrate to the UK- Blair actually specifically targeted Saudi controlled Muslim populations for fast-track entry to the UK.
So-called ultra-Conservative religious groups in the UK, USA, Canada, etc WANT segregated existence between males and females- and see ANYTHING that creates "FEMALE ONLY" initiatives as a STUNNING sign of their success. Political correctness has ALWAYS been a key mechanism exploited by the extremists. The sheeple are far too thick to understand the REAL goals of political correctness.
A fair, equitable society goes so far is 'helping' everyone gain access to equality of opportunity, but does NOT break the system in the 'name' of social engineering. More females entered CS WHEN CS was largely REALLY bad rote programming in GARBAGE like COBOL, or brain-dead 'data entry' . When the Microprocessor revolution made CS real, dynamic and competitive, it no longer appealed to females with FAR lower technical ability than their male counterparts.
The best male engineers are insanely more talented than the best females. The lesser male engineers are FAR more interested in the conceptual aspects of their field than their female counterparts. Men and women are INHERENTLY different- and this is a GOOD thing. But this FACT does not, and never will, justfy segregation.
A 'FEMALE ONLY' online computer course is an OBSCENITY- and it is designed to be an obscenity- a mechanism to help take us from here to there- where 'there' is a society like that found in Saudi Arabia.
Here's the (to Yank sheeple) UNPALATABLE truth. The ability to gain knowledge ANONYMOUSLY online, and to have access to the best computer hardware and software tools INSANELY cheaply has eliminated ALL excuses for would-be female 'computer scientists'. IF females suffer (and they do), it is NOT from a failure of the 'TEACHING MACHINE', but from the attitudes a 'nerdy' female will get from family and 'friends'- it is the attitude of the non-nerds in that females life that will push 'conformity'.
Look, for you Betas, let me make this easier with a sideways example. Recently I read a thread titled "do your parent play computer games?". I, as a person older than most of these 'parents', who has 'gamed' for as long as access to computer games was possible, was most interested in what the kids had to say. Almost entirely their response said "no, my parents hate computer games". And yet they would frequently mention they kind knew their parents used games when they were young. Societal pressure had ENDED the gaming of a whole generation- old Betas proud to say "gaming is childish rubbish for kids".
People, in general, limit one another with CONFORMITY peer-pressure. The masters of any soc
... unless we segrigate the genders again which I think might be reasonable from grade school to highschool.
The hormones and learning patterns are different enough that it is problematic to have a one size fits all education program for both.
The boys operate under different rules especially at that age. Separate them out and it could improve all sorts of things. I think most of the experiments with sexually segregated education have shown dramatically improved educational performance. So... no reason not to do it really.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I support the goal to "reach every individual girl in her house" and will make this an action item for 2015.
These feminists are stupid. There are physical differences in men and women and they are quite enough to explain the gender disparity. While CS, on the surface, seems to be a purely mental activity, the larger situation matters. One thing is that CS is _hard_. Quite a few women these days still sell their reproductive capabilities in exchange for a meal-ticket or at least go for a less demanding education because they know that have this fall-back option. Yes, it is not politically correct to say so, but it _is_ happening. That is a pure physical (not mental) factor right there that reduces the number of women in any thing that is hard to learn. Sure, men and women are on average probably equally lazy, but men do not have this convenient and traditional way out of that quandary and hence need to try harder and know that.
As I said, these feminists are stupid. Ignoring relevant facts leads to faulty conclusions.
As to "women need to be taught CS differently", just no. That is patently false. I know quite a few women in CS and none of them found that they were somehow taught "wrong". Sure if was hard work for all of them to learn, but that is just as true for the men. Sure, getting women _interested_ in CS may have to be done different in order to overcome cultural factors, but once they are, there is no need for a different style.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Indeed. Being a victim is _convenient_. You do not have to change anything on your side. (Well, you should if you want to get your agency back, but that is not the public perception...) It however has extreme drawbacks, such as far less control over your life. No smart person goes that way.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If "girls" are busy programming, they sure aren't having a lot of sex and procreating the world with more dastardly children! Bill Gates is the guy who goes on record as saying vaccines are needed to REDUCE the world's population.. I wonder why he wants more girls in the programming trade? To lower the prevailing wage by flooding the market with additional laborers willing to accept less money? To focus their minds on work/computers instead of raising families? Out with it Bill... tell us what the world looks like, through your Billionaire globalist eyes....
I'd break the cycle by ending segregation by gender.
Unify bathrooms and locker rooms, and stop identifying toys as 'for girls" or 'for boys'.
Get boys and girls used to the idea that they're not all that different while they still think kissing is gross and they won't have to approach each other like they're making first contact with aliens when they start to realize the physical differences are functional not cosmetic.
Kids today dont want to learn how or why their cloud storage works, but they want to maintain the illusion that they are somehow profoundly skilled users of their technology for getting garageband to install and upvoting the latest dreck to come out of their favourite pop star.
Part of the problem is that their parents project this onto them. The kids' own egos are only part of it.
When Billy has enough savvy to navigate the visible tasks of software, then--because that's all most people can see--older folks extrapolate that into "Billy Is Good With All That Computer Stuff".
Businesses need more developers, and they haven't got them. It's as simple as that.
True, but the real reason is that almost everybody's hiring/evaluation process is a fucked up bag of random guessing.
You can't blame it on "low supply" when the market is broken.
Check out udacity.com and get your sons to do one (or many) of their courses.
Unless you're concern-trolling. But you wouldn't be doing that, now would you?
Programming takes logical thought processes, something women have consciously decided to eschew. So until you change the thinking of EVERY woman on the face of the planet, you are kind of spinning your wheels on this issue.