Slashdot Mirror
How Melinda Gates Got Her Daughters Excited About Science (geekwire.com)
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Melinda Gates concluded a Davos panel discussion about gender parity with a personal story about her own family, explaining how she originally became interested in computer science, and how she later played Lab Manager to Bill's Mr. Wizard to help pass along their passion for science and math to their kids. "On Saturday mornings," Gates explained, "I wanted to sleep late. So you know what I did? I made sure there were science projects available, and that's what he did with our two daughters and our son. And guess what my two daughters are interested in? Science and math."
"On Saturday mornings," Gates explained, "I wanted to sleep late. So you know what I did? I made sure there were science projects available, and that's what he did with our two daughters and our son. And guess what my two daughters are interested in? Science and math."
"On Saturday mornings," Gates explained while looking down her nose at the little people, "I wanted to sleep late. So you know what I did? I spent your money on educational toys, after Bill and his company were convicted of abusing Microsoft's monopoly position to grow both the company and our personal fortune. And just guess how much better my kids did than yours! Now imagine how secure their futures will be, no matter how useless they are, since Bill succeeded in dodging taxes by creating a for-profit foundation!"
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Children learn by imitation. You have to give an example to children, so they learn from you, even if the example is how to look for something interesting to do. Just sit there and wait until the children pick something up themselves is a recipe for disaster. All your children will learn is how to passively sit there and wait until something happens.
Rediscovering Things of Science: For many years [1940-1989], the Science Service produced a monthly series of science kits called "Things of Science", available by subscription. When I was a kid (in the 60s), I subscribed to Things of Science for several years. I suspect that many of us who chose careers in the sciences found at least part of our inspiration in those blue boxes that arrived in the mail every month (well, almost every month; sometimes we'd get manila envelopes, filled with stuff that wouldn't fit in the boxes). Each kit ("unit") had a booklet of experiments, and usually everything needed to perform them.
Windows makes you pay through the $$$ just to ADD a c/c++ compiler.
Visual Studio Community edition - free.
Mind closing. Linux FTW!
Yeah, your mind got closed all right.