Jewliebots: Teaching Girls to Code, and Subverting Gender Norms, via Jewelry

There's been growing interest, in certain quarters, in addressing the dearth of women in technology. Since one of the important roots of the issue lies in the lack of girls pursuing STEM fields as students, improving STEM education and outreach in the early years is critical. To that end, two female entrepreneurs have developed an educational toy, Jewliebots, that taps into traditionally feminine interests, such as fashion accessories and overt peer bonding, in order to pique preteen girls' interest in computer science.

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/jewliebots-friendship-bracelets/

http://www.bustle.com/articles/52546-jewliebots-friendship-bracelets-teach-girls-to-code-would-make-christmas-shopping-much-easier

Much like GoldieBlox, a comparable product engaging girls in engineering-related play (most well-known for the company's successful advertisement during the broadcast of a major sporting event), Jewliebots incorporates coding components into toys that are otherwise quite feminine (pink!) in appearance and function. It integrates engineering concepts into otherwise normal-looking toys, making this type of learning a natural element of play for young girls. I find this encouraging (and practical) on the one hand, but also problematic, on the other.

On face, the rationale for this seems obvious: bridge the gap between boys' toys that cultivate interest in engineering and girls' toys that don't, by creating toys that look like girls' toys, but encourage the same sorts of skills that the boys' toys do. However, this approach carries an unfortunate side-effect of catering to and reinforcing gender norms (i.e. pink toys for girls, blue toys for boys). It all-too-easily leads to the segregation of male and female constructive play, the idea that girls' toys ought to be distinguished by clear visual markers and are somehow inferior to boys' toys. (You'd be hard-pressed to get a boy to pick up a pink toy, for fear of schoolyard ridicule, whereas it's much easier for a girl to be a tomboy and play with masculine-looking toys; the latter is sometimes seen as an upgrade in social status, whereas the former is almost universally perceived as emasculating.) This reinforces the problematic social norm of masculinity as superior to femininity, establishing early in children's lives a secondary class of "female engineers" separate from the extant pool of predominantly male engineers. By creating engineering-related toys that cater specifically to girls, Jewliebots engenders in young and impressionable minds the idea that girls who code are somehow "other" and different from boys who code. This is the sort of thinking that very likely leads to gender discrimination and pay discrepancies in the engineering field.

It's important to note, however, the power of incremental change. There is still great social pressure (from peers and from authority figures) for girls to conform to a certain outmoded understanding of femininity. In the same way that girls are told not to dirty their dresses climbing on the jungle gym and catching insects in the park, girls often subconsciously internalize the idea that engineering-related play is "unladylike," or worse, "not for you." As girls are conditioned to be more vulnerable to social pressures, the perception of doing something wrong or unacceptable discourages them from pursuing science and engineering. If, by subversively making engineering-related toys conform to certain acknowledged stereotypes about childhood femininity, we can make it more socially acceptable for girls to play with said toys, it's a step in the right direction. At least, it gets them thinking about possibilities they may never have entertained otherwise.

So, if you're doing your last-minute holiday shopping, and there's a young girl on your list, consider buying her an engineering-related toy, like Jewliebots or Goldieblox. (And of course, be mindful and supportive about teaching gender roles and social norms the other 364 days of the year.) You may very well change her life.

I Am Very Real: Kurt Vonnegut's letter on censorship

This week is Banned Books Week, which I am celebrating by reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It's a book that has frequently been censored and banned for its critical treatment of religion (true), and, more laughably, for its misogyny and its depiction of polygamy and violence (these are all elements that the book portrays negatively). There are many writers who communicate eloquently on the subject of censorship, Atwood included, but I am particularly struck by the following letter, written in 1973 by Kurt Vonnegut to the man who burned his books:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html

We live, as Vonnegut points out, in a country that prizes and was indeed founded upon the ideal of freedom. Freedom of speech and of knowledge is enshrined in the very documents that form the fabric of our government. But true freedom only exists with unfettered access to information. It's horrible that teachers -- those who are responsible for the youngest, most impressionable members of our society -- would seek to restrict any child's learning.

Vonnegut rightly takes censorship as an insult -- to the writer, to the reader, and to the children who should be presumed intelligent and independent enough to read a work and think critically about it. A reader should be free to read -- and disagree with -- whatever she chooses. A reader who is never challenged by concepts that are difficult, disturbing, or opposed to her own perspective will never gain the rich education that reading offers, and will never learn to think for herself. No child should be denied that education on the whim of the adult at the front of the classroom.

And this is why Banned Books Week is important. It reminds us every year that this is an ongoing battle, that censorship still happens in this country, and that ignorance and bigotry must be fought at every juncture.

Thoughts on Higher Education, Opportunity, and Systemic Inequality

Education is one of the cornerstones of the American Dream. As a society, we have come to see it as the great equalizer -- a mechanism that, however imperfectly, levels the playing field for children born into different socioeconomic backgrounds and allows individuals to achieve based on talent and effort, rather than on circumstance. This is universally seen as a social benefit. However, the way we discuss education as a culture requires more nuance, particularly with respect to disadvantaged students. This article in The Atlantic raises some interesting and thoughtful points:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/the-danger-of-telling-poor-kids-that-college-is-the-key-to-social-mobility/283120/

It occurs to me that there are several different but intersecting camps of people who value education: those who see knowledge as a tool and those who see knowledge as a goal; and those who pursue knowledge for themselves and those who pursue knowledge in the interests of the broader community. I conceive of it something like the below (and pardon the primitive ASCII graph):

                    | Self                  | World                      
Theoretical  | Truth              | Intellectual Discourse
Applied       | Advancement | Social Change          

In theory, anybody should have the option of choosing any of these four paths (or even multiple paths, if they can manage it) without being told that one is better or more applicable to their situation. It's problematic that a vast population of American students is steered towards the "applied + self" box simply because of the circumstances of their birth. It's inherently unjust, even if it makes sense (especially within the Andrew Carnegie model of the American Dream) that a talented child growing up poor would prioritize climbing the socioeconomic ladder over other intellectual goals, especially compared to an equally talented child growing up in better conditions, for whom such advancement is not as crucial. The latter child is more likely to pursue one of the other three options simply because she wants to. The former child, however, faces significant societal pressures to choose "applied + self," even if she would have chosen one of the other three if fully informed and separated from external influences. After all, people tend to perform better in fields they find genuinely interesting.

This is a fundamental problem because it allows us to perpetuate -- and feel justified in perpetuating -- the systemic limitation of the free will of an entire population of our most vulnerable citizens, disadvantaged youth. It's similar to the idea: "People vote with their stomachs. Only when they are full do they vote with their minds." Just because, in practice, education allows the hungry to fill their stomachs, does not mean that education should be sold to the hungry as a means to fill their stomachs, while it is simultaneously sold to the well-fed as a means to enrich their minds. This, in itself, is a pernicious way that children of different family means are treated unequally, a way that is thus far completely sanctioned within our society. Rather, a truly just society calls for informed and educated citizens who freely choose their life's paths, and whose progress down those paths is determined not by how far behind they started, but rather the distance they are able and willing to walk -- and this will only happen when all children start on a more level field. All students should be allowed to pursue the path they find most rewarding, and to have their successes and failures reflect upon their own effort and talent, rather than on conditions beyond their control. And all students should have the opportunity to make an informed and unencumbered choice for themselves, out of the posited four, at the beginning of their journeys.

Write Your Own Academic Sentence (or, the Problem with Academic Prose)

Academic writing is notorious for its opaque (sometimes unreadable) prose. This contributes greatly to the common perception that academia is irrelevant to the concerns of the general population, who don't care to puzzle through the stylistic challenges of academic papers to get at the often interesting ideas within. It's a tragedy, because our society would be so much richer if everyone -- not just specialists, not just the people with advanced degrees -- were engaged in the culture of ideas and had access to the latest developments across a variety of disciplines.

I recently found this amusing little program that parodies academic writing:

http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/randomsentence/write-sentence.htm

It's surprising how many of these randomly-generated declarative statements seem to make some semblance of sense. (Of course, the ones that don't are hilariously bad.) What's rather tragic is that a broad swath of society actually believes that all academic writing reads something like this -- and for the most part, they're not wrong.

Obviously, part of the opacity of any academic discipline is a product of the specialized vocabulary required to discuss said discipline -- they need words to describe concepts that might not even exist elsewhere. As the sum total of human knowledge has increased over the centuries, each discipline is now much more specialized than in the past. Newton, for example, could give public lectures about cutting-edge physics and expect to draw sizable crowds that included a diverse swath of of upper and middle class London, the vast majority without formal science training. Today, the equivalent would be a Brian Greene or Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture -- which seems to appeal to a more niche audience.

We're seeing something of a reversal of this trend with the online democratization of education (e.g. Coursera, Floating University, Crash Course, SciShow, &c.). So far, that hasn't gained much traction in the realm of written research (though who knows what academic journals will look like in a decade or two?). Given that the audience of said journals consists primarily of other academics, it's unlikely that they'll change drastically. Public outreach, on the other hand, has never looked more promising.

BBC: This is Why We Should Let Young People Sleep In

This article reminds me of a diary entry I from my high school days:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7932950.stm

I think this warrants some explanation. See, I used to keep a diary in high school. Looking back at it, I realize I may not have been very good at actual diary-keeping. There are entries written entirely in Tengwar -- which, while a good system for maintaining secrecy, is also somewhat inhibitive to actually reading said entries -- and long digressions about Napoleon and epidemiology and black holes (different entries), and not actually that much about how my day went. So, while I can't read these diaries and get a particularly good sense of what daily life was like in high school, I now remember that for a brief period in 2005, I thought that the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was the most fascinating event of the millenium. Or something.

Anyhow, in said diary, there's an entry from 2006 wherein I complain about how early I had to wake up for school (6:30 am). In that entry, I came up with what I thought was a pretty logical theory explaining why teenagers didn't like to wake up early. I postulated that it was an evolutionary advantage for adolescents in hunter-gatherer societies to be awake late in the night in order to keep a continuous lookout for the tribe; this would have been necessary because people were still living in fairly un-defended dwellings, where they could easily be attacked by carnivorous predators. Naturally, it seems like the elderly go to bed early and wake up extremely early (just look at all the old people doing Tai Chi in the park!), and real adults keep what society considers normal hours. Therefore, it would be up to the adolescents to bridge the gap between say, midnight, when the adults go to bed, 5:00 AM, when the elderly wake up. Nighttime is when the big nocturnal predators hunt -- and also when mammalian prey, which included homo sapiens, was most vulnerable, because of their reliance on sight over the other four senses. Adolescents tend to have the best night vision and the fastest reflexes, making them the ideal group to keep watch in the darkest hours.

Of course, this evolutionary advantage is no longer so advantageous, as teenagers now have to operate on a largely adult schedule. I think it causes a lot more teenage stress than adults generally believe. (I think this applies to people in their twenties, too -- like me.) This program sounds like a good way of addressing it, and it's a pity I didn't have something like this when I was in high school: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7932108.stm

Now I'm a "real" adult, so I guess I have to stick to the nine-to-five, even though it's not natural to my biorhythms. I guess it's better than eight-to-three.

Poetry vs. the Inquisition

A thought on the power of poetry, or perhaps just the abstruseness of some of the stuff:

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

~ Thomas Hardy

Of course, if Galileo had written the Dialogue in the style of Vergil, he might never have achieved the posthumous scientific success that he did. (Then again, there were Renaissance men in his day, scientist-poet-philosophers. I wish our modern education system allowed for that -- but that's for a different post all together.)

Hardy was himself a great poet, so he knows whereof he speaks.

Today

is the 253rd birthday of Noah Webster, who is most famous for his contributions to education and language, especially for the contemporarily eponymous dictionary (formerly American Dictionary of the English Language). Like most prominent men of his day, he was involved in politics (particularly immediately post-Revolution), and was also a champion of a number of sociopolitical causes. While I would not want to understate his contributions to the country on that front, it's safe to say that his seminal work was in reforming and standardizing the usage of English. It was a phenomenal achievement, and well worth commemorating today.

Academia in the East and West

I was reminded of this quite excellent article, which I'd bookmarked a long while ago, after catching up with my friend over the summer:

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/08/the_status_of_science_we_have.php

We were discussing sciences education, and the differences between the culture of academia in (East) Asia versus in the West. We observed that in Asia, there is a lot more interest in the sciences among students (grade school and undergraduate) than in the West. However, it seems that academia (in the sciences and otherwise), is dominated by Western institutions and Western publications. There have been attempts at many levels of institution and government to correct for deficiencies in each area; Western governments push for better science education, and Asian universities for more prestige in international academia. Both deficiencies, methinks, are problems endemic to their respective systems.

There are, broadly speaking, two distinct skill sets that academics ought have: that of teaching, and that of research. As argued in the above article, the Western system is skewed to reward the latter much more than the former. In every step of the process, from the new graduate student's first day to his becoming a respected professor, the Western academic is evaluated based upon the scholarly material that he produces. The quality of his teaching is secondary; the bulk of his effort is invested in honing his skills as a scholar, rather than as a teacher (so long as his teaching is not so poor as to inspire too much complaint). In fact, as the blog post argues, it is generally seen as a waste of time -- at least by the metric of career advancement -- to teach any more than is required, and certainly to engage in outreach beyond the university community. (My friend is a TA, so I'm inclined to take his word on this.)

Contrast this with academia in countries like China, Japan, and Korea. The culture in these countries respects and values good instructors at every level, so there is a lot of emphasis on effective teaching. This translates to interest in the sciences among students in middle and high school. In the Chinese system (with which I am more familiar, out of the three), this is further accentuated by the fact that students choose their emphasis -- a binary choice of humanities or sciences -- in high school. It's a pretty even split, and switching to the other side is discouraged. This ensures that about half the student population is at least nominally interested in the sciences.

But I digress. In Asia, at the university level, professors are expected to be able to command a lecture hall of hundreds. They're seen as founts of knowledge dispensing wisdom to their charges, essentially. Producing new knowledge, however, is a different kettle of fish. The system is such that until recently, professors didn't really need to publish. There was no real incentive for doing so; there's no need to gain legitimacy in one's field when one already has the support of an institution and a legion of awestruck students, and when there's no outside reward (or pressure) for such efforts.

The best system would be (as expected), some ideal combination of the two. Easier said than done, of course. But given increasing globalization (which is in itself another discussion), perhaps a merge of the two might yet be accomplished.

Adverbs, and the Killing Thereof

A humorous take on the not-so-funny problems with the way writing is taught in American grade schools:

http://www.therejectionist.com/2011/02/dear-superior-person_25.html

I remember, vaguely (it was a decade ago), the extremes to which grade school instructors went in instilling "show, don't tell" into the repertoires of their unsuspecting charges. It is, as with most rules, best applied in moderation. Fancy verbs and superfluous adverbs are annoying and frilly, and often make the text that much less readable. Beginner mistakes, to be sure, but ones that are utterly preventable -- and indeed, wouldn't crop up in the first place, if it weren't for these notions about grade school writing.

Mark Twain said it best: "If you see an adverb, kill it!"

NYTimes: Instant Ramen Saves Lives

In college (and in bachelor pads everywhere), cup noodles often become a dietary staple. Any sort of instant food, but especially instant ramen, is generally not good for the body, as it is usually full of preservatives, artificial flavoring, and the like. Make no mistake -- I have a box of ramen sitting in my closet right now. It's not a completely terrible thing; it's actually pretty decent as far as junk food goes. It's just not something one should consume too often.

This article, however, vindicates instant noodles for a completely different cause (certainly a much better one than college students pulling all-nighters):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20noodles.html?ref=asia

Cup noodles for tsunami relief! (I wouldn't mind sending my box of ramen to Japan and buying something more like carrot sticks. Also, Japanese cup noodles are probably a sight healthier than what we have here.)

Chris Baty at Stanford

My NaNoWriMo class has evening workshops every Tuesday, and this week, Chris Baty (founder of NaNoWriMo) came to dinner with us! He told us the story of how NaNoWriMo became what it is, and I got him to sign my copy of No Plot, No Problem!, and we did word sprints, (not necessarily in that order) and it was fun times for all.

And then, lo and behold, we were written up in the Office of Letters and Light blog (OLL is the organization that encompasses NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy.):

http://blog.lettersandlight.org/post/1536511865/nanowrimo-takes-stanford-by-storm

I'm all the way in the back in the picture, so you can barely see it's me.

NYTimes: How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks

Most of this is common sense (and accumulated knowledge), but it is rather timely for incoming freshmen, many of whom are going to college in the coming weeks:

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/how-to-find-cheaper-college-textbooks/?src=me&ref=homepage

At Stanford, we have the ASSU Book Exchange (you'll need to log in with your SUID), which makes things a whole lot easier.

NYTimes: College Dorms -- Britain's New Hostels

This is a great idea, especially seeing as most of Britain's major universities (and their dormitories) have centuries of history behind them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/travel/01journeys.html?src=me&ref=travel

I would love to stay in an Oxford dorm room for a few nights one summer. They say it looks like Hogwarts -- what's not to love?

BBC: Education Secretary of Britain is "Open to Atheist-Run Schools"

This is very, very interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10791997

I'm with Prof. Dawkins here; teaching children atheism would be just as counterproductive as teaching them religion. "Free-thinking" schools would indeed be the best choice. Teach the children critical thinking, and then let them decide for themselves which religion (or lack thereof) they choose to believe in. If they choose religion after such an education, then they choose freely, by the dictates of their own consciences and intellects; it would be their choice, made with a rational mind and informed judgment. I, for one, certainly wouldn't begrudge them that -- that would destroy the entire point of free-thinking education.

NYTimes: Unlikely Tutor Giving Military Afghan Advice

This is wonderful. It's extremely promising. For once, someone's getting something right in the Middle East:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/world/asia/18tea.html?ref=books

Greg Mortenson, of Three Cups of Tea fame, is a great person to have onboard with regard to Afghan strategy. He's someone -- and probably one of the only Americans on the ground -- who's not only concerned with America winning the war, but with the ordinary people of the area winning the war. Here is a man who can advocate for them, for these people whose cause few others would step up to champion, who commands enough respect in America to make a difference for these people where they themselves cannot. I'm glad he's there, and I'm glad the military (and especially the military wives who pushed for him) is listening to him.

Incidentally, one of our imprints publishes Three Cups of Tea. I already read it, or I would have snagged a copy.

Today

is the 85th anniversary of the Scopes Trial. This is one of the most famous trials in American history, pitting legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow against populist crusader William Jennings Bryan in a battle over academic freedom and separation of church and state. (To anyone who read Inherit the Wind -- which is, by the way, a wonderful book -- this may sound very familiar. It should.) Darrow's defeat was a tragedy.

Of course, without his defeat, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would never have been founded, and the world would have been the poorer for it.

NYTimes: Robot Teachers

This is pretty awesome:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/science/11robots.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fscience%2Findex.jsonp

Robot teachers! Who would have thought? Some of the marvels of technology, in this day and age, make me feel as though I'm living in a science fiction novel.

NYTimes: Bell Telephone's Brief Flirtation with Humanistic Education

At Stanford, all freshmen are required to fulfill a three-quarter course requirement called "Introduction to Humanities" (colloquially known as IHUM), or the equivalent thereof. I loved every minute of it -- mine was Ancient Empires, a survey of the major civilizations of the ancient world, taught in part by the brilliant and brilliantly funny Ian Morris, of the archaeology faculty. There were, however, a number of not-so-fortunate techies (students of a maths/sciences persuasion) who did not enjoy their IHUMs nearly as much. This is a story for them, a tale of the IHUM idea, fifty-six years ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16davis.html

I think the world at large could do with a little more humanistic education. There's time to learn a trade -- afterwards.

The New Yorker: Excuses, Excuses

Technology in the classroom:


http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2010/05/03/cartoons_20100426#slide=15

I think he gets points for creativity.

NYTimes: Oxford's One Word Exam, Abandoned

This sounds really interesting, like something I might have enjoyed, but I suppose it never would have affected me anyhow...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/europe/28oxford.html?hp

I agree that it's not necessarily the best way to test intelligence, in that some of the most brilliant people probably did really terribly on it, but on the other hand, I think that a truly inspired essay would definitely have helped reveal some hidden talent in people who might otherwise have appeared intelligent, but not extraordinary, on their applications. Anyhow, it's an interesting exercise, and perhaps they could have offered it as a prize essay, rather than for admissions, if they really didn't see its value.

A sample exam: http://documents.nytimes.com/the-fellowship-exam-oxford-universitys-all-souls-college