geek grrls: the next generation

Imagine, if you will, a young girl, stepping into her high school chemistry class for the very first time. She's one of those straight-A, over-achieving students, on track for class valedictorian. True, she's more of the reading and writing type, but she loved her biology class, even the required dissection of the fetal pig, which she had to perform pretty much single-handedly after her squeamish lab partner threw up (just from the sound of the breastbone cracking and spreading apart). In junior high, she thrilled to ancient fossils and archaeological digs; memorized the major constellations visible from her suburban backyard; and occasionally fantasized about being one of those science types who help solve crimes (she is also an avid mystery buff). So she's rather intrigued about what this chemistry stuff is all about, thinking it'll be more hands-on fun in the lab.

That young girl was me, more years ago than I'd care to admit. And unfortunately, that high school chemistry class was so bad, it turned me off all of science for the remainder of my formal education.  Gone were the nifty hands-on lab experiments that typified my earlier science classes, replaced by dry, droning lectures and a lot of meaningless number-crunching. It was all presented devoid of any contextual framework: I dutifully did as I was told -- indeed, I earned the only "A" in the class -- but frankly, I took away no lasting knowledge, apart from a vague definition of a "mole." I've been highly suspicious of the standard metrics for measuring academic success ever since. (Really, isn't the whole point of education to learn, not simply to rack up good grades?)

More importantly, I loathed every minute of that class. The chemistry teacher -- rather than admitting that perhaps his teaching approach might need some adjustment, if so many otherwise decent students were doing poorly in his class -- simply told us that we clearly weren't cut out for the hard sciences, and that if we hated chemistry, we would really hate physics. It filled everyone with trepidation about senior year, if not outright dread. Physics phobia set in early for most of us as a result of one teacher too proud to acknowledge his own shortcomings.

Things didn't improve with the one introductory astronomy course I took my freshman year of college.  It's astronomy! The stars! Galaxies! Supernova explosions and black holes! How is it possible to make that stuff boring? And yet somehow, the professor did. Again, the focus was on dry, uninspired lectures, made even worse by the fact that on the first day of class, he told us that he didn't give a damn about the course, or whether we learned anything. After all, we were only there to fulfill some stupid requirement, and why should he bother teaching those who would never become science majors?

One wishes such contemptuous attitudes were rare among science teachers and professors, but they're more common than one might think, especially in challenging fields like physics. The emphasis is often more on "weeding out" the chaff from incoming classes, rather than encouraging all students to at least learn some science. And we're paying the price with an ever-widening gap between scientists and the general public. The situation is even worse for young girls. Sure, there's a lot of ongoing debate and study about innate "gender differences," but it's the cultural prejudices that are most crippling. I certainly internalized the message at a very young age that girls just weren't as good at math and science. Even if teachers actively encourage young girls (which is not always the case), they are often ridiculed by their peers for their "unfeminine" interests if they admit they like science or math. (Classic line from the film Mean Girls: "You can't join the math club! It's social suicide!")

In short, it's tough being a budding Geek Grrl. So I was thrilled to learn that the Feminist Press is working with the National Science Foundation to produce a series of books to encourage junior high and high school girls to persevere in their nascent scientific pursuits. I had the pleasure of meeting the "team" of women working on the project: women of all ages and backgrounds, with one thing in common: all of us had some interest in science at an early age, that was summarily squelched. And now they're trying to prevent this from happening to up-and-coming generations.

That's why Cocktail Party Physics is taking a break from our usual gossipy scientific fare to publicize the Feminist Press' just-released call for proposals:

Girls and Science: Call for Proposals

The Feminist Press, in collaboration with The National Science Foundation, is exploring new ways to get girls and young women interested in science. While there are many library resources featuring biographies of women scientists that are suitable for school reports, these are rarely the books that girls seek out themselves to read for pleasure. What would a book, or series of books, about science that girls really want to read look like? That is the question we want to answer.

You’ll find several requests for specific proposals at our website. One calls for scientific detective stories based on the life, research, and discoveries of real women scientists. Another calls for stories featuring real young women—aspiring gymnasts, ice skaters, actors, dancers--using a knowledge of science to help them become really good at what they do. A third recognizes how popular Manga and graphic novels are with girls, and asks for imaginative new collaborations between Manga writers and artists to create adventures about girls who use real science to accomplish their goals. If any of these three book ideas interest you, please check out our website (www.feministpress.org) for more information about deadline and how to submit proposals.

But we do not want to limit our exploration. If you are a writer and have an idea for a book or series of books that is guaranteed to get girls excited about science, we want to hear from you. You may want to create a girl detective series featuring a set of friends—from geeks to sports nuts to mechanical geniuses—each with a knowledge of science that helps in solving crimes. You may want to create a story about a shy girl who goes on field trips with her favorite aunt, a forensic anthropologist, and helps to solve problems as she learns to think like a Dr. Bones. You may want to tell the story of a young science fiction writer who needs to study different fields of science in order to create her adventures. Whatever your vision, if you can write like a dream and can create works that are guaranteed to instill a curiosity about science in girls and young women, send us your proposals. We want to hear from you.

All proposals will be reviewed. Several proposals will be offered standard contracts.

Publisher: The Feminist Press at City University of New York as part of a National Science Foundation grant. (see feministpress.org)

Deadline: October 31, 2006

Format: Proposals should describe the project, the plot, characters, and length. No more than ten pages please.

How to submit: Electronic submission (word doc) to fhowe@gc.cuny.edu with the subject line "Girls and Science." Please include in the body of your email your address, phone number, email address and a short bio. Please also attach a brief sample of your writing (about five pages), and a resume that includes information about publications.

I encourage our readers to pass this information on to any writers, or scientists aspiring to be writers, of their acquaintance. Let's not abandon all the young Geeklings coming up the pipeline, just when they need encouragement the most.

Comments

[Jennifer Ouellette]

I hereby nominate Matt for "father of the year." :) Seriously, explosing your kids to poetry, literature, science, and encouraging critical thinking at a very young age will only help them navigate the real world that much more effectively, and withstand the inevitable peer pressure.

And Rob's anecdotal evidence of women assuming they're wrong even in graduate school strikes me as pretty accurate. I don't know where this tendency comes from, and while women grow more confident as we age and rack up a few encouraging successes -- to be honest, I still catch myself automatically assuming I'm wrong sometimes, even when deep down, I know I'm right... No idea how to combat this, but I doubt it's something that's "innate" to my gender.

[Mahndisa]

08 27 06

Hello there:
I think it is worthwhile to bring more women into the fray. There are so many things that women have traditionally done which involve physics in some way, but we are never taught that. Good example, my Mother and sisters like to sew. They make their own patterns. My Mother took two polygons and attached them together to make a pair of pants. This is second nature to her, but she didn't know about Teichmuller spaces and the pair of pants construction. I also know a lot of girls that braid hair or twist hair, and it is something that we have always done. However, many of us don't know about braid theory and its greater applicability to the theoretical physics etc. A few days ago, I chanced upon a young girl with braids and was so intrigued that I began to examine the symmnetry of each of her braids. Then I showed her a paper on braid theory. She was so surprised that such a branch of mathematics existed.

The point I am trying to make is that learning should not only be fun, but RELEVANT. A good teacher should be able to motivate the students with examples that are tangible to the students. With women, I think that is doubly true. One thing I am curious about is why chemistry and biology always have wayyyy more women than physics. Hmmm

Wonderful post, lots to think about and motivate....

[andy.s]

Another couple of datapoints:
There is a lot more of a macho-subculture in the sciences than appears at first glance. For example, the quotes "Nobody gets an A in my class!" Or "You guys aren't cut out for the sciences."

I don't know if you found those discouraging, but for young boys, those kinds of statements are challenges. They don't discourage extra effort, young boys get told they can't do stuff all the time, and it doesn't seem to stop them.

Check out this entry in Gordon Watt's blog (http://gordonwatts.wordpress.com/2006/08/23/stress/).

It's about the Quals for physics grad school. Gordon in the article and Dave Bacon (in the comments) wax nostalgic about how painful their quals were.

If the same message encourages the boys and disheartens the girls, maybe we should give same sex education another look.

[Matt]

Oh, this is so great! I'm officially the Cocktail Party Physics Father of the Year! Can I make myself a seal to put on my web page?

[Kristin]

Andy.S--

Re same sex education--I think it's a double-edged sword as far as preparing girls for a male-dominated world. I can speak from experience, having gone from attending two all-girls Catholic high schools, to majoring in engineering (10% female) at a university where overall the male-female ratio was 65:35, to being the only woman in my entering class of 25 in physics graduate school.

What was good about single sex education in my experience of it over 20 years ago is that girls are more open about studying together. There wasn't this pressure to put up a front of bravado to make it look like everything was infused knowledge--it was OK to be honest about not understanding some concept, because other students would be happy to help you figure it out. Competition was deemphasized, which was kind of frustrating to me in some ways because I actually was quite competitive then.

The all-boys' schools my brothers attended played up competition--sports, math teams, debate, you name it. That whole one-upsmanship thing that's part of male culture was just totally absent from my high school experience (I did speech and math teams, but no sports). Even though I had seen my two brothers and their friends in action, it was still a culture shock to get to college where guys just projected confidence all the time, even when it wasn't justified.

The competition for dominance is the way of science and business, so girls should be prepared for that as much as possible, even though I think the world would be a far saner place if people could be as open and honest with one another as they were back at my all-girls' schools.

[Jess]

As a few people have mentioned, it's not even necessarily a matter of teachers -- it's a matter of girls being socialized to lack self-confidence. I had some great science teachers (and some terrible ones), but I never even considered the fact that I might even plausibly have the brains to be a scientist. Just never even crossed my mind. I loved high school physics, for instance, but I got an 89 on my final, so I figured I must be dumb. Even doing well in college physics didn't change my mind.

I certainly hope Feminist Press manages to fund and promote some excellent books for girls, but I don't know how hopeful I am... my press just put out a series of books about women scientists aimed at roughly middle school girls (http://newton.nap.edu/catalog/was/index.html), and it's just getting no interest whatsoever (at least at the bulk level). They're great little books, in my probably-somewhat-biased opinion, but organizations don't seem willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to encouraging girls in science. Makes me really sad, actually. Hopefully Feminist Press' NSF grant will allow them to provide some free copies to people who might be theoretically interested but practically unwilling to spend the money, because this is looking like something one has to force people into.

[Phillip Alvelda]

Perhaps I can help reconcile the hard vs. fun camps.

One of the biggest barriers I have had to surmount across my years in academia as both science student and teacher is frustration. One of the biggest and most important frustrations has been that of failing to immediately comprehend something.

Different people respond differently to frustration. Some give up and try something else that is perhaps a little less challenging. Others, who are more comfortable remaining in that frustrating state of not-quite-understanding might persist and continue to work on their problem at hand. I am completely convinced that “Math Anxiety” is simply an inability to withstand the frustration of NOT KNOWING something long enough to actually learn it. (Note that this can be both willful or subconscious, but I have had great success in surmounting this particular claim.).

For some, the prospect of that anticipated spark of inspiration or delight that comes from persevering to the point of enlightenment drives them through the uncomfortable uncertainty period. Over time, students learn to be more comfortable and less bothered by NOT KNOWING, and can progress through harder and longer problems as their tolerance and comfort increase. Ultimately, people can learn to anticipate the challenge and revel in the idea that if they can just concentrate long enough, they are sure to eventually learn something and eventually delight in the whole process start-to-finish.

I happen to believe this is NOT an innate ability. It is a learned skill. If there is no properly self-aware teacher available to guide and settle the student through the early frustrations, and the educational environment fails to foster the mental discipline or world-view of intellectual reward through calm persistence, we end up with people who equate “hard” with suffering, who give up on ever achieving profound and potentially life-changing realizations, and who will never know the real joy of figuring out complex and interesting things.

Our schools need more teachers who understand this sort of thing.

Cheers,
-Phillip

(p.s. check out my blog at Alvelda.blogspot.com for more similar musings.)

[donna]

I'll blogwhore my old website for anyone who is interested in my past thoughts and a book I wrote ages ago (never published, though) about this topic. Feel free to explore it for background materials and ideas, and if you find busted links, please let me know. I really haven't bothered to update it in quite some time now.

http://www.sdsc.edu/~woodka/donna.html

[Jennifer Ouellette]

I am always happy to plug science blogs. :) I like Phillip's take on math anxiety: "simply an inability to withstand the frustration of NOT KNOWING something long enough to actually learn it." The more passion and enthusiasm we can instill in kids about a given subject, I'd argue, the better we can help them get past that natural sticking point. And becoming comfortable with not knowing, thereby developing mental discipline and (one hopes) more rigorous critical thinking, can only serve students well in the long run. And this is probably not an innate ability, as Phillip also points out.

[Jenn]

"simply an inability to withstand the frustration of NOT KNOWING something long enough to actually learn it.

Or in the case of higher level mathmatics and Quantum Mechanics - withstand the frustration of not understanding until you get used to the idea and stop expecting it to make sense ;) Anytime I want to blow my own mind I sit down and really think about wave-particle duality and the like. Paradoxes can be fun!

[Elayne Riggs]

At the risk of admonishing people for wanting to reinvent the wheel:

Every girl should have a copy of Dignifying Science in her library.

For more info: http://www.gt-labs.com/dignifying.html