There has been some discussion in the media lately about girls and science. Last week, the Tribune ran an article about a physics professor at the U of C Lab School who is known for treating girls and boys equally in the classroom, challenging every student to learn and grow. I see no reason to restate the discussion in the article (check out the last page or two--it has some really interesting statistics about the numbers of men and women in scientific fields), but I will discuss my personal experience with science education.
I heart science. I read science-related magazines and books. I love the science and natural history museums, I visit the zoo when I can, and I spew random facts about soil or tsunamis or octopuses (yes, that's the correct plural form of octopus. Ask me why. I dare ya.)
Okay, so I'm secretly (or not so secretly) a science nerd. Why am I not working in a science-related occupation? When I was in high school, I wanted to be first a marine biologist, then a zoologist. I wrote to Jack Hanna, zoo guru, about how to get into an occupation like his. He wrote me back. So junior year, I was debating which classes to take to prepare me for college. "I could take AP Bio (taught by the teacher I had for regular bio, and it was a tough class) or journalism. Hmm, writing is easy. I'll take journalism and maybe I can write about science stuff." My 8th grade English teacher told me I should be on the student newspaper, and my freshman bio teacher was a bitch. And that decided everything.
Support and encouragement from teachers often decide the fate of easily-molded students. Science teachers often simply answer questions from girls while challenging the boys with more in-depth questions. Instead of requiring equal collaboration during lab work, they allow the boys to take over the physical lab and let the girls take notes and write the reports. Girls are encouraged to succeed in "emotional" subjects like English, art, and foreign languages while boys are challenged and nurtured in science and sports. Fewer women enter advanced degree programs in science because they are intimidated or frustrated or bullied or just never empowered, which means fewer women are qualified to teach science. Girls don't have many role models in scientific fields, so they don't realize that it doesn't matter if they look funny in chem lab goggles if they're making a difference in the world of science.
My parents never told me I couldn't do things, in fact they let me follow my every whim. My teachers never treated me like I was incapable of succeeding in any of my classes (maybe because I was in honors classes and was obviously a good student). I almost never felt like I was treated differently from the boys, but maybe I wasn't paying much attention to that. But none of my science teachers, except maybe my chemistry teacher, ever prodded and challenged me in a good way. I was intimidated by science, even though I have always been passionate about it, and no one taught me not to be intimidated. Unlike the teacher from the Trib article, no one found a different way to teach something. Regret is a nasty little thing.
Maybe this generation of students and teachers will be better. As each generation moves away from the 1920s, the gender roles blur more and more. There's hope for our kids.
