BlogHer - Girls + Math = ??? - Comments

So Sad That We Women Have Made So Little Progress

Crimson Wife — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:04:05 -0600

Here we are three decades after the passage of Title IX and while most of the overt gender discrimination in STEM professions is thankfully in the past, the indirect gender discrimination is still a HUGE issue. I've always loved science, and also certain types of math such as algebra & calculus (though I thoroughly disliked others such as geometry and trig). But I made the conscious decision in college to not pursue a STEM career. Why? Because I wanted to have a bunch of kids and to start in my 20's rather than waiting until I was in my 30's. Those desires are simply not compatible with the career track for STEM fields.

It's really sad that we as a society haven't been able to figure out a more family-friendly career model for women like me who enjoy science & math but also love being a "hands-on" mom.

I experience it differently

TracyRosen — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:21:35 -0500

I teach high school math. In my class I see the highest rate of success among the girls. The majority of the girls take it very seriously and stay after school for extra help to improve. I have much fewer boys who do well (2 of the 8 in my class of 21 students) and those who do are not interested in improving. They are satisfied with what they can do.

Why is this? Not entirely sure. Math is seen as 'brainy' therefore not cool. Of course, it is much easier to say it isn't cool and pretend you don't want to do it than it is work really hard to succeed. Because, when it comes down to it, math is a lot of work.

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I don't think it's about school anymore...

kazari — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:16:30 -0500

Here in australia, girls do equally well, if not better than boys across the academic spectrum... at high school level.

Then somehow, at university it evens out, and the girls get filtered out of the ranks of engineers, mathemeticians and scientists. No matter, the graduate science ranks are slowly reaching parity.

But it's what happens in the next 10 years that's interesting. Women stop participating in research roles. By mid-thirties, they are massively under-represented. And nobody has a good answer for why.

PS: I Just Saw This Post

Megan Smith — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:26:22 -0500

PS: I just read a post on this topic at The Beauty Brains: Math Doesn't Suck and Neither Does Beauty Science. A teen guest poster, Teen Brain wrote a review of one of the books you mentioned, "Math Doesn't Suck" by Danica McKellar. Teen Brain, the reviewer really liked it.

Megan

Megan Smith

BlogHer CE, TV/Online Video

My Personal Blog: Megan's Minute

Math enrichment for everyone

KathyGeekMom — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:06:58 -0500

Thanks for mentioning my GeekDad post about the NYT story, Leslie!

I don't have daughters (just two boys) but I agree with Megan that being a female role model who isn't afraid of math or science is valuable.

I try to do my part by writing about STEM on GeekDad (where I am the token GeekMom), in Home Education Magazine and in my monthly column Family Online. I also teach enrichment classes for upper elementary and middle school mixed and all-girl groups, where projects include wind-powered electric generators, experimenting with wing size on cardboard boomerangs, and learning to add 5-digit numbers on an abacus they make out of popsicle sticks and pony beads. It's great to see the girls dive right in, whether there are boys around or not!

Anyone looking for a math/technology/craft projects for girls is welcome to download the directions for a quick beaded abacus pin at my website Crafts for Learning. And many of my projects are collected in my book Around the World Crafts: Great Activities for Kids who Like History, Math, Art, Science and More!

Kathy Ceceri

I Think It Starts With Moms

Megan Smith — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:43:12 -0500

As someone who was always good at math, I think like Judith said, parents are key, but especially Moms.

You know how some studies have shown that if a Mom is always talking about how much she hates her body, her daughter absorbs that whether her Mom is saying it to her or not? Well I think that sometimes happens when it comes to math and science. When Moms say, "I hated math" or "I was never good in math," but don't point out to their daughters that doesn't have to be the case with them, I think girls absorb that and assume they're not going to be good at math because they're girls.

Games and positive encouragement can definitely help with that.

Megan

Megan Smith

BlogHer CE, TV/Online Video

My Personal Blog: Megan's Minute

Obstacles to learning

Wilma Ham — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:13:06 -0500

Learning is an interesting activity, not well understood, I think.
I received very good marks for science, chemistry, calculus and algebra, however I hindsight I never understood what I was learning. It was more like Sekudo to me.
I am realizing that most of the things I learned at school were too far removed from my daily life. I grew up in a city with little experience to even get to physically experience what we learned at science.
The current education system creates obstacles to learning and understanding of life and as a result I found school boring and a chore.
Learning tricks like monkeys in a ZOO.
Going to school, university has made me dumb and of course not interested in science. I wouldn't have known what I was choosing, who wants to major in sekudo?

The whole world and education is not geared to make life work for humans, it has anohther agenda.
And as long as that is the case women who normally have to make life work because of children, miss out on careers as children come first.

There is a school in Holland that has my attention, where the children are left to learn at their own pace and are learning from expreience. This is the link
http://www.aventurijn.org/english.php.
Children are naturally good learners and interested in their environment which will naturally covers language and science.
These children will learn from love and at a lightening speed and they will not be stopped by cultural or gender issues if you let them.
They will also be more capable of coming up with solutions and alternatives to life issues and be less stopped by obstacles imposed by society.
They will not end up dumb, they have kept their ability to think and solve problems.
Gender and cultural issues relating to STEM will disappear fast that way.

not that bad at math

spirituality — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:08:11 -0500

Wasn't it in the news recently that girls and boys were performing equally well on math? Finally! Culture changes like this take time, the fact that girls are now performing as well as boys in math means that they are no longer culturally expected to do less well. The next step is, as you suggest, getting them to study math or technical subjects in college as well.

I did study math and chemistry in (teachers) college - and was always one of the better students. But I don't use that at all - go figure :)

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Parents are key

Judith in Umbria — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:55:23 -0500

I believe. We played math games around the table when I was a kid. I did it with my kid in turn. I was bad at geography, so we also played geography games with her. When a subject becomes part of your life in a fun and challenging way, you do not think of it being anything but natural and good.

I think family life should be less about driving the kids to various social and sport interactions and more about growing up together.

http://www.judithgreenwood.com/thinkonit/

Girls + Math = ???

Leslie Madsen Brooks — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:33:48 -0500

If there is one thing at which I really, really suck, it's math. Sure, I can balance my checkbook and even do some pre-algebra, but what little math I learned in school has largely gone poof! from my brain. Although my math failings embarrass me, I don't care about them much these days--I have established a happily math-free career--but I do worry about the math and science education of today's girls and young women in the U.S. I have plenty of reasons for apprehension.

Writing in the New York Times, Sara Rimer cites a study (PDF) by Titu Andreescu, Joseph A. Gallian, Jonathan M. Kane, and Janet E. Mertz that suggests legions of girls who have a natural aptitude for math are going unindentifed. From the study:

While the USA has been producing many more women mathematicians in recent years, they remain poorly represented among tenured professors at the very top-ranked USA research universities and people identified as profoundly gifted in the field. This article presents for the first time a comprehensive compilation of data, including cross-cultural comparisons, regarding young people identified during the past twenty years as possessing profound aptitude for mathematics based upon their performances in extremely difficult examinations in mathematical problem solving. We show that many girls exist who possess such extremely high aptitude for mathematics. The frequency with which they are identified is due, at least in part, to a variety of socio-cultural, educational, or other environmental factors that differ significantly among countries and ethnic groups and can change over time. Girls were found to be 12%-24% of the children identified as having profound mathematical ability when raised under some conditions; under others, they were 30-fold or more underrepresented. Thus, we conclude that girls with exceptional mathematical talent exist; their identification and nurturing should be substantially improved so this pool of exceptional talent is not wasted.

The obstacles to girls' achievement in math and science are multiple. There is a reason, after all, that the path to a career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields is often referred to as a "leaky pipeline." Girls and women (as well as boys and men from other groups underrepresented in the sciences) fall out of this pipeline at a number of points, but most notably in middle and high school, where math is perceived as a nerd's pursuit; in college and grad school, where institutional and disciplinary cultures may further discourage women's participation in these fields; and during the search for a tenure-track job, when women may be filtered out at the application stage or fail to prosper once they have secured a tenure-track position (but not tenure).

Earlier this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Mary Ann Mason asked the question, "Do Babies Matter in Science?" Of particular concern to Mason are institutions and disciplinary practices that are unfriendly to family life:

Discrimination against job candidates who are pregnant or have children is a very real part of gender discrimination. Some scientists may believe that women who have families cannot be serious scientists because academic science demands exclusive attention to research. But they do not hold the same beliefs about male scientists with kids. In fact, research shows that male scientists are far more likely to have children than female scientists; two years after their Ph.D.'s, nearly 50 percent of men, but only 30 percent of women, had children.

It's a vicious cycle: U.S. girls lack the encouragement necessary to succeed in math and science. A few girls find the confidence and mentoring they need, and seek careers in science or math. But they don't persist in these careers--particularly in higher education--because of family-unfriendly policies. The result? We either have women mathematicians and scientists who would be in an excellent position to raise girls to be more confident in science, but who don't have children, or we have women who do have children--but whose children see their mothers failing to thrive in STEM fields because of cultural biases against women and mothers. And then those girls become disinterested in STEM.

Lovely.

Not surprisingly, the blogosphere has plenty to say on the subject of girls in STEM.

Kathy Ceceri brings us a critique of the New York Times article from a mother, Mary O’Keeffe, whose daughter, Alison Miller, was featured in the story. Says O'Keeffe:

The article misses so much of what was most important about the Math Olympiad experience, which is the sense of belonging to a mathematical community which Melanie, Alison, and Sherry all got out of their Olympiad experiences. There's a researcher at SUNY, Abbe Herzig, who works on issues of math & women, and she has a slide show on her website emphasizing the need for women to get a sense of "belonging" in mathematics.

I know that Alison got an enormous sense of belonging out of her first math Olympiad summer training camp experience, and it literally transformed her life. Melanie Wood was a staff member at Alison's first camp and I think she deserves an enormous amount of credit for her leadership in transforming the culture there. Alison has tried to "pay that forward" by mentoring younger students and helping to create mathematical communities they could enjoy. For Alison and Melanie, I think coaching and mentoring has been even more fun and rewarding than competing.

(Note: Check out Herzig's presentation (PPT) for yourself.)

If you want to encourage your daughter (or any other girl or young woman in your life) to pursue math, you might visit the comments thread on a post by Joanne Jacobs. One commenter asked about math careers, and several others have jumped in with examples of careers and fields that require mathematical savvy.

Over at Science Consciousness, the blogger summarizes the study, highlights its implications, and makes suggestions for improving the U.S.'s lack of mathematical literacy:

In the future "flat world," the U.S. may no longer be able to depend upon hiring foreign workers to fill its jobs in the mathematical sciences and related fields. The report suggests that the economic well-being of the U.S. is at risk, and that it is crucial that steps be taken now to correct this problem. A good start, say Mertz and her colleagues, would include implementing the recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and fully funding the America COMPETES, "10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds" and Sowing the Seeds through Science and Engineering Research Acts already passed by the U.S. Congress.

Sorelle at kd-PhD wonders why it's OK for Americans to say "I'm bad at math" but not "I'm bad at reading":

[W]hen I was a middle school math teacher I received far more calls from parents worried about their child's progress than did my English or Science counterparts. Yet, I also became used to the standard response when I mentioned my profession - "I always hated middle school, and I was always bad at math." Can you imagine a reading teacher in a similar situation being told "I was always bad at reading?" Many math teachers are encouraged (or forced) to incorporate applications into their curriculum. Don't get me wrong, I see the importance of this, but can you imagine a reading teacher being told never to have the children read fiction because they won't see the relevance of learning to read? The desire for application-only math education and the belief that it's normal to be "bad at math" are both signs of the US failing to educate its citizens. That this failing impacts the math elite as well underscores the direness of the situation.

So, here's the million-dollar question: What resources can you provide to girls and young women with an interest in and an aptitude for STEM fields? As Mary O'Keeffe points out, community is key, so check out your local math circles, which are, according to the National Association of Math Circles, "a form of education enrichment and outreach that bring mathematicians and mathematical scientists into direct contact with pre-college students." On the NAMC site you can find information about math circles throughout North America.

You can also attend STEM-oriented gatherings such as Café Scientifique, a series of informal gatherings held in cafés, bars, and other public spaces around the country. The Café Scientifique website is currently down, but a Google search for "café scientifique" should help you find one in your area. If there's not one meeting in your area, find yourself a few scientists and start one.

If your middle-school-age daughter is more interested in reading than gatherings, get her copies of Danica McKellar's books Kiss My Math and Math Doesn't Suck.

Other resources: Girls Inc., Expanding Your Horizons, and the Girl Scouts Girls Go Tech site.

What are you doing to encourage the girls and women in your life to take math and science seriously?

Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.