School Defied Google and US Government, Let Boys Program White House Xmas Trees

theodp writes This holiday season, Google and the National Parks partnered to let girls program the White House Christmas tree lights. While the initiative earned kudos in Fast Company's 9 Giant Leaps For Women In Science and Technology In 2014, it also prompted an act of civil disobedience of sorts from St. Augustine of Canterbury School, which decided Google and the U.S. government wouldn't determine which of their kids would be allowed to participate in the coding event. "We decided to open it up to all our students, both boys and girls so that they could be a part of such an historic event, and have it be the kickoff to our Hour of Code week," explained Debra Knox, a technology teacher at St. Augustine.

Comments

Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Shadow of Eternity]

they really should be reversing most of those programs. Girls are utterly dominating every aspect of education, including almost all STEM fields, to the point of being nearly 2/3rds of college graduates. At this point they're not "helping" girls, they're blatantly doing nothing more than sabotaging boys even further.

Re:Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Fwipp]

Boys are loosing in education a lot.

Clearly.

Re: Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[retchdog]

uh, yeah, i've had extensive elite education in STEM, in the US. it's mostly a sausage fest. statistics will back this up and, no, they're not fabricated by teh feminist conspiracy.

i have to conclude that anyone who's bitterly complaining about women having taken over STEM is just a delusional loser who probably just couldn't hack it.

Re:Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Shadow of Eternity]

Nerd culture isn't remotely plagued by sexism, it's one of the least sexist cultures out there. That's nothing more than the latest straw man in a long line of straw man invented by bullies to justify shitting all over nerds as the root of all evil. A hundred years ago pinball made people alcoholics and gamblers, thirty years ago D&D made people worship satan and molest children, ten years ago videogames made people violent, and today it's the misogyny-apocalypse on the internet.

Meanwhile actual female nerds say the opposite, and are promptly called "house ni**ers" and doxed by the latest round of hipsters who've found a new target for their bullying and mendacious handwringing.

Re:Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Shadow of Eternity]

No, it's definitely teachers actively screwing boys. They're literally being graded worse just for being boys.

Re:Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Shadow of Eternity]

Women are within 5% of parity in Math, Statistics, and the Physical Sciences three years ago. They're nearly SIXTY PERCENT of all biology graduates and at least that many if not a full 2/3rds or more of fucking EVERYTHING else.

The only one changing the subject here is you and the other shameless FUD spreaders trying to wave a red herring like CompSci that's only 10% of conferred degrees. You're a bunch of mendacious dissemblers screaming "pay no attention to literally every measure of academic success and every other degree out there, look only at our dishonest cherry picked outliers!".

It is an indisputable fact that women absolutely DOMINATE every aspect of the US education system from start to finish and top to bottom. There is no disparity anywhere in the education system which FAVORS men, only disparities ranging from profound to catastrophic which harm them, and it's disgusting that this is still not enough for people like you. It's not fucking derailing to point this out on a news story specifically about boys being openly thrown to the wolves.

Re: Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[NoKaOi]

uh, yeah, i've had extensive elite education in STEM, in the US. it's mostly a sausage fest. statistics will back this up and, no, they're not fabricated by teh feminist conspiracy.

I agree, but that sure as hell doesn't give them the right to be sexist, and disallow certain people from participating based solely on their gender. The Civil Rights Act, which has been law for 50 years, specifically disallows it. Just because it's in favor of a minority doesn't change it. And they weren't just favoring girls in cases where otherwise the merit was equal (affirmative action), they were specifically disallowing boys.

How would people feel if the sentence had instead read: "This holiday season, Google and the National Parks partnered to let boys program the White House Christmas tree lights," and instead they banned girls from participating? How is one direction of sexism moral, ethical, and legal, if the other isn't?

Re: Considering how few boys graduate at ALL

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the fact that most teachers are women demonstrates that indeed something is actually broken and needs fixing.
Also, most nurses are female, such a monoculture cannot be healthy. And most garbagemen are men, and surprisingly nobody tries to change that name into garbagehumans.
The problem is, how do we measure what the actual problem is? What is the non-broken ratio of the sexes? And how do You know that it is 50-50? If it wasn't 50-50, how would we know? If less women apply, how can we know the reasons for it -- is it the sex bias of the employers, or is it a free choice of the individual?

Congrats to the school, and mostly to the kids

[argStyopa]

...for their terrific job and a wonderful tree display.

And kudos also to the admins with the balls to tell the administration and Google to fuck off with their politically-correct bullshit.

Discrimination *is* discrimnation

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you like it or not, discrimination against boys is discrimination

By trying to exclude the boys from the team, Google and the Democrats are telling the world that it is okay to discriminate against the boys

Dear Ms. Knox

[Tokolosh]

Thank you for restoring my faith.

You have:
1. Showed that discrimination is not cool.
2. That disobedience is sometimes appropriate.

These are most valuable lessons,

I look forward to the day when there is gender parity among teaching staff at all public schools.

Re:Makes things worse

[ShaunC]

We do need more women in the tech field

Why? Honest question.

No one seems to be up in arms over women being underrepresented as, say, firefighters or airline pilots. No one's pushing men to become hair stylists or librarians. Yet millions and millions of dollars are being spent on exclusionary girls-only events like this, telling girls that they must learn to code. I don't get it. What's wrong with just encouraging kids, whatever genitalia they have, to follow their interests, whatever those may be? If a girl is into tech, or a boy is into makeup, encourage them to pursue those careers and bust up the stereotypes. I don't find sense in telling girls they need to be in the tech field, any more than telling boys they need to grow up and be cosmetologists.