#WomenInSTEM = A Band-aid on a Bullet Wound

According to media reports, politicians, corporations, various non-profit organizations, and social networking sites there is a problem with women in this country. The problem is that women are not as interested in pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers as are their male counterparts. It is a problem that is being talked about by organizations ranging from  The Washington Post to the Girl Scouts, to the American Association of University Women, to The White House. The issue even has its own hashtag (#WomenInStem), and the White House Office of Science and Technology has dedicated a web page to the issue. On the website it states:

"Supporting women STEM students and researchers is not only an essential part of America’s strategy to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world; it is also important to women themselves. Women in STEM jobs earn 33 percent more than those in non-STEM occupations and experience a smaller wage gap relative to men."

The past several years have produced many studies, reports and analyses into why the problem exists and The New York Times' article "Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?" does a fairly convincing job in explaining that the primary reasons women are less likely to pursue STEM careers is " from culture rather than genetics...beyond dispute." 

The same article along with others that have broached the subject point to institutionalized, cultural sexism from the time math and science become areas of academic focus, continuing through the university system, and ultimately into the job market. Essentially, outlining an "old, geeky, boys club with a glass ceiling" in which it is fairly easy to maintain the status quo because so few women are trying to collectively knock down the door. Consequently, the few women that are trying, are easily marginalized, alienated, or ignored.

A major shortcoming of the "old, geeky, boys club with a glass ceiling" argument is that it isolates the argument to STEM careers. As a country have we successfully tricked ourselves into thinking that gender equality exists at acceptable levels elsewhere in our society? The White House statement above openly admits that gender inequality is rampant when it lists a benefit of STEM careers as having "a smaller wage gap relative to men." Isn't that kind of like telling a woman that a benefit of learning self-defense is that she will take "less of a beating" from an abusive partner?

It seems that before our education system tries to get girls interested in a career that will marginalize them even more so than society already does, we should first learn to stop marginalizing females as a general way of life. Maybe the cultural system in which we operate should avoid embracing and enforcing the culturally accepted fallacies that cause the vast majority of girls to feel afraid of being fat at the age of ten and to be dissatisfied with two or more of their own body parts by the time they are in middle school.

It seems that if most girls entered the higher grade levels confident in themselves, their abilities and their standing as equals alongside their male peers, then those girls would be more inclined to collectively begin ignoring the ignorance that inundates them on a daily basis. And, it seems that if boys entered the higher grade levels not already indoctrinated into a system that accepts and perpetuates institutional and generational misogyny, then girls would have a lot less ignorance they would have to ignore.

The good news is that educators have as much of an opportunity as anyone else, to start changing the gender equality conversation, and they can do it across the curriculum. One of the great benefits of the common core standards is that they are skills based, not necessarily curriculum based. With that mindset, as discussed in a previous blog post, the freedom to truly begin empowering students awaits educators across the country. While educators adjust their pedagogy to meet the demands of common core and technology in the classroom, it would make sense to also investigate significant adjustments in curriculum.

Understanding that curricular shifts are not always at a teacher's discretion, as they may be hindered by department, school, or district mandates and/or resource adoption processes, progress can still be made through less monumental shifts in focus. For example:

• 2nd grade teachers can begin to create awareness of outdated, cultural gender expectations by using standard RL.2.3 (Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.) to have students analyze and discuss the differences in how female characters in stories respond to challenges in comparison to male characters.

• 6th grade math teachers can use standard 6.SP.A.1 (Recognize a statistical question as one that anticipates variability in the data related to the question and accounts for it in the answers.) to bring light to body image issues by having students formulate statistical questions correlating national averages for eating disorders or body image issues to the population of their own school community.

• 11th and 12th grade history teachers can use standard RH.11-12.6 (Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence) to have students evaluate differing arguments as to why our representative democracy does not even come close to accurately representing the gender demographics of the people congress purports to represent. Further analysis could be done on how that under-representation affects the laws and policies our country adopts and enforces.

While the teaching examples above might seem small and somewhat simple in relation to the ridiculously large scope of the problem, they do represent a starting point. Hopefully they scratch the surface of the creative directions in which teachers can implement new standards and curriculum into their practice.

Until we, as a society, stop consuming and perpetuating the 20th century paradigms of girl/boy, pink/blue, princess/warrior, or nurturer/provider, it seems unrealistic to expect large cross-sections of women to want to endure years of marginalization in academia so they can ultimately spend the majority of their adult life in a workplace filled with men who share in equal credentials but not equal pay or respect. Additionally, it seems equally as unrealistic to expect men in STEM careers to suddenly realize the "error in their ways" when practically everywhere else they turn, our culture openly embraces the inequality, objectification, and implied submission of women.
 

Too often education is reactionary as students learn about what has happened and how it has created existing political, environmental, social, emotional, and cultural problems. If teachers truly do want what is best for their students, then it is time that more teachers find the courage to proactively prepare students for the world in which we all collectively exist, so students can prepare and protect themselves from the age of six instead of trying to repair and correct themselves at the age of sixteen.

_________________________________________________________________________________

A song with the sentiment: As  a lover of music I get many ideas and much inspiration from the music around me. As a result, I aim to include a song or video with each blog post that echoes at least some of the ideas shared in that particular posting. This week's entry is "A Song for the Ladies" by Good Clean Fun. Enjoy! 
 

 _______________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading. Please share your opinions, comments, stories, strategies, suggestions and well articulated criticisms. Follow me on Twitter @teachtothetruth or contact me via email at teachagainst@gmail.com
 

#GoogleEdu = Profits Over People

Technology is a for profit industry. Let's make no bones about it. Technology companies innovate for the sole purpose of gaining or maintaining an edge on their competition. With that in mind it is important to acknowledge that the recent focus of technology companies on the field of education is based on a premise of profit. While educators are reveling over the amazing transformations that technology has brought to the classroom and the industry of education, it is important to balance that enthusiasm with a cautious understanding of the motivation behind the innovation and avoid blind brand allegiance that has become an all too familiar phenomenon in mainstream culture.

The brand in particular that seems to be clearly winning the edtech race is Google. After Apple enjoyed a  brief surge out of the gate it became clear that iPads, in addition to being significantly more expensive than Chromebooks, are not an ideal solution  in a 1:1 classroom where multiple classes are accessing the same devices throughout the day. Additionally, Google has been extremely aggressive, focused, and effective in courting educators with innovative solutions that impact students, teachers, and district-level technology personnel.

One way that has happened is Google has allowed districts to free up resources by partnering with districts in creating Google Drive accounts for all teachers and students. In doing so, districts do not have to concern themselves with purchasing, updating, maintaining, and consistently expanding internal server space. Meanwhile, teachers and students gain all the benefits of accessibility, collaboration, publishing, and real time feedback associated with cloud computing.

In addition to alleviating much of the data management issues of districts, Google has done an admirable job in actively developing products and initiatives aimed at enhancing the teaching and learning experience. Google Apps for Education, Google Classroom and the Google Certified Teacher process are all examples of Google's outreach that is solidifying its brand as the go-to solution for the edtech community. If you need proof, simply search Twitter for #ChromeEdu or #GoogleEdu to see an endless stream of how teachers are enthusiastically embracing Google's suite of products, apps, and extensions in the classroom.

This is where the situation becomes sticky. Embracing Google wholeheartedly in the classroom should raise some ethical issues. First and foremost, Google is a company that survives and thrives on data. And let's face it, data is the new corporate currency. The primary reason "the cloud" exists is to facilitate the collection and manipulation of as much consumer data as possible, so that data can ultimately be sold or traded.

Consequently, Google uses data it receives through its "free" services in order to create accurately targeted advertising strategies for its paying clients which generate the vast majority of Google's revenue. Ultimately, Google's perceived altruism toward the education community is essentially providing the company a platform through which they can gain infinitely more data on a significantly expanded scale while convincing educators to voluntarily act as facilitators of indoctrination for increasingly younger and younger students.

Another area of concern is Google's intimate relationship with the NSA. Regardless of whether or not the relationship is based on legitimate and pressing national security concerns, should teachers in good conscience encourage or possibly even mandate students to populate a shared corporate and government database with personal thoughts and ideas before those students, and parents for that matter, have a chance to fully comprehend what is being done with that data?

Finally, the Google Certified Educator program, seems to be a bit disingenuous and self-serving on Google's part. In order to receive the certification, teachers pay to take and pass a series of tests (or have someone else pass the tests for them since there is no oversight in the testing process). The tests cover Gmail, Calendar, Sites, and Docs and Drive and teachers must pass each exam with an 80% or better.

Once a teacher passes all the exams, they receive a certification as well as the  "privilege" of advertising for Google by placing Google's name on their blog, website, Twitter feed, resume, and wherever else the teacher deems appropriate. At that point, Google certified teachers that choose to market themselves as such, are  voluntarily aligning themselves with a global corporation which directly profits from student data that the teachers are responsible for generating. Furthermore, many of those teachers seemingly become  corporate mouthpieces that fill social media with unpaid advertisements as they tout the arrival of new Google products and updates in real time across a variety of social networking sites.

Google certification also opens up opportunities for teachers to advertise themselves as "Google Certified" so that they can pursue engagements presenting at conferences and  provide professional development on Google products. While in and of itself the process seems relatively harmless, the potential for a conflict of interests arises when teachers seek independent personal gain by using their teaching methodologies, and student data and work samples, while leveraging the power of the Google brand.
 
Understanding that the process and concept of certification is fairly new and the promise of edtech is exciting for educators, I doubt there is harmful intent or malice on the part of teachers, but in the larger scope of things there seems to be a significant ethical gray area regarding the role students and parents might play in advocating for protections or even ownership of student work that exists in the cloud.

Yes, I am well aware of the irony inherent in this blog post, my attempts to promote it, and the platform on which I am publishing it. Therein lies the problem. For many of us, relationships have been established, technology has been paid for and implemented, and work is well underway. With that in mind, how do we now balance and even more importantly minimize personal and professional contradictions in a way that protects and honors the students we teach? And, how do we effectively prevent the public service of teaching from becoming a free advertising platform for corporations that, at the end of the day, are focused on improving profits, not people?
 ________________________________________________________________________________

A song with the sentiment: As  a lover of music I get many ideas and much inspiration from the music around me. As a result, I aim to include a song or video with each blog post that echoes at least some of the ideas shared in that particular posting. This week's entry is the Ryan Lewis video for "Fake Empire". Enjoy!

_________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading. Please share your opinions, comments, stories, strategies, suggestions and well articulated criticisms. Follow me on Twitter @teachtothetruth or contact me via email at teachagainst@gmail.com

STEM - Systematic Transmutation of Empathetic Minds

(From Mike Rutherford's lyrics to "Land of Confusion" by Genesis)

STEM in education circles stands for Science, Technology, Education, and Math. It is a significant factor in the justification for many of the education reforms we are undergoing as a nation. Common core standards, technology initiatives, project-based learning, and a focus on cross-curricular collaboration are all closely associated with a nationwide focus on STEM. Sounds like a logical, worthwhile, and beneficial endeavor.

STEM is being championed as an initiative that will provide our younger generation with the marketable skills to succeed in the global workforce by preparing students with the knowledge to obtain careers in the fastest growing and most influential industries on the planet. In doing so, the success of STEM initiatives will also play a large part in helping the United States regain a dominant position in the global economic marketplace. Sounds like some more pretty legitimate reasoning. In fact, it almost sounds too good to be true.

And wouldn't you know...it probably is. When digging a little deeper, as usual the devil lies in the details. It's true that development of STEM skills is essential if our future generations want to live a life of prosperity, because regardless of where people stand on the technology divide, the inevitability of a sci-fi reality is practically unavoidable. The question is: Will STEM skills and the people that employ them be used to continue creating prosperity for a few, or to try and create peace and prosperity for all?

Currently, the situation is bleak. An article published by Forbes, titled The Companies With The Most STEM Job Openings Right Now, begins to tell the story. Those companies are:

1) Amazon
2) Lockheed Martin

3) General Dynamics

4) Oracle
5) Diverse Lynx

6) CSC

7) Northrop Grumman

8) AppLabs

9) IBM

10) JP Morgan Chase Co.

Of course it is completely logical that the largest demand for technology jobs comes from some of the world's most successful and well known technology companies. It is equally logical that there would be a high demand for engineering skills in the "defense" industry.

The grave concern arises, however, when considering what these companies collectively contribute to society. The list above is a one-stop shop of corporations that continue to create, develop, support and refine the processes, protocols and infrastructure that encourage people to readily accept:

• unreserved mining, trading, and exploitation of of personal data
• government agencies' unmitigated intrusion into citizens lives with complete disregard for people's constitutional rights
• the degradation of the natural world as a necessary part of "doing business"
• a military industrial complex which uses profits as justification for perpetual war

With that in mind, it seems that some serious thought and discussion needs to happen regarding how we educate students on the ways in which acquired STEM skills are focused. Are they going to be used to perpetuate the accepted norm or to do quite the opposite? Are STEM skills going to be used as a means of achieving individual, financial success at all costs, or as a means to acquire financial stability while also contributing to global economic, political, and environmental stability? Are they going to promote the spread of equality, compassion and global political transparency, or are they going to ignorantly fuel a system that, on a daily basis is quite literally destroying personal freedoms, a sustainable future, and individual lives?

STEM is here and its evolution is accelerating. Unfortunately, it exists in a world littered with history's naive attempts to move society forward with inventions and advancements that were initially designed to benefit humankind, but were eventually co-opted as a means to consolidate power, exacerbate economic inequality, destroy natural resources, and perfect the institution of war.

As it is often stated, "With great power, comes great responsibility", and ultimately, STEM is designed to help students access the global economic and political power of the future. Consequently, an integral part of a STEM education needs to balance the skills being taught with ways to use those skills for responsibly meeting humankind's true needs. Perhaps STEM should be encouraged to grow alongside a set of classroom initiatives that could be labeled TREE (Tolerance, Respect, Equality and Empathy).  Since there are no curricular mandates, federal funding, or educational standards on the horizon to address basic human decency, it is imperative that educators integrate TREE values as a vital component in STEM education.  

For the sheer sake of having fun with acronyms, how about this: Lets prevent STEM from becoming the Systematic Transmutation of Empathetic Minds and instead co-opt it to Sustainably, Technologically Empower the Masses. Hell, it's worth a shot.

_______________________________________________________________________________
A song with the sentiment: As  a lover of music I get many ideas and much inspiration from the music around me. As a result, I aim to include a song or video with each blog post that echoes at least some of the ideas shared in that particular posting. This week's artist is Disturbed doing a metal inspired cover of the Genesis song "Land of Confusion". Enjoy!

________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading. Please share your opinions, comments, stories, strategies, suggestions and well articulated criticisms. Follow me on Twitter @teachtothetruth or contact me via email at teachagainst@gmail.com