To my daughter's high school programming teacher

I think quite a lot about what is my daughter's best path to programming proficiency and a possible computer science career, should she be interested. The majority of primary ed, secondary ed (and undegraduate) programming courses are not very good and as parents we know this will likely be the case for our children, too, if we stop and think about what is likely. It is our responsibility to be meeting with the school ahead of time to determine what is the curriculum and influence it as much as possible, as soon as possible. Our children only have one chance at these classes when a bad experience can steer them away from computer science forever. But, advocating changes afterwards to benefit the upcoming students is also good to do.

Now, where I disagree is that I would not counsel a teacher to single out my daughter in front of the whole class for being a woman. I would counsel the teacher to require all students to treat each other as serious, inquisitive, students -- professional respect, if you will. This has the benefit of teaching that good workplace habits should be practiced everywhere, and that school can be realistic training, instead of teaching that a classroom is an unrealistic padded room, which is what I believe to be an effect of that announcement.

That said, many schools lack the culture to make a high expectation possible, so resorting to quick-fix gender policing may be a necessary compromise. And, I get hints this is the case here since your daughter is bright and accomplished yet falls into line so easily instead of challenging the dull class, classmates and teacher. Your daughter will certainly get further under the wing of an overprotective teacher than with an absent one in addition to cruel classmates and no compelling course content.

Thanks for writing!

I feel for your daughter - I remember my first programming class in high school. I was hooked for life. I hope she can recapture her enthusiasm. I'd be happy to help if she wants to explore programming on her own (C#/.NET, C, Java, even PHP and a little Ruby). I can answer questions, offer advice, point her to resources.  I can't promise it will be easy but I can promise that I will respect and encourage her (like I have my own daughter who just got a job at her University at the IT Help Desk).  I've done a bit of teaching at the University level and I'm currently a top 1% contributor on Stack Overflow.

Contact me on Twitter, @tvanfosson, if she is interested.

I'm sorry, but after reading this post, I couldn't help but feel turned off by what I feel was arrogance and repeated attempts to convince the reader how knowledgable you are about programming, but I was most upset by the repeated insults hurled at the teacher. You obviously are offended the class was about Visual Basic. Then why sign up for the class? Your daughter was obviously too advanced for the curriculum, even though you admit most of the other kids struggled with the curriculum. News Flash: not all kids are Tech Junkie's daughters and have been around computers their whole life 

Do you not understand the teacher has very little control over the curriculum selected and taught? Maybe he would have rather taught HTML, but the powers that . be at his school (more likely his State's Education commitee) decided that was what was going to be taught. Newsflash: Your not in Mountain View or Cupertino writing a story. You are in a terribly underfunded, terribly overcrowded Public School. Did you expect to find Linus Torvolds teaching the class?

If you're in fact, so qualified and eager to judge, why don't you put your self described awesome resume to use and go sub for a few days. Go see the roadblocks that teacher has in front of him on a daily basis. I think you will be 10 times as shocked as you are now. 

I'm sorry for the rant. But I'm a teacher and I get offended when "know it all" parents belittle a teacher who may not have deserved it.

Upfront disclaimer: I know that there are a lot of students today going to highschool but I believe that highschool will either change dramatically in the next 10-15 years, or parents will start putting their kids in different types of learning environments in a much greater way. It's already starting.

The type of teacher, the quality of the teacher generally that you are going to attract in public school systems these days, you aren't going to get someone who truely enjoys programing for the purpose of just playing around and writing software which makes some task more efficient. Most teachers who teach programming teach the language which they found to be easiest when they were in college, and are able to still remember how to do their basic logic statements. They tend to be math teachers, and the school decided to add an extra course and the only one who can remotely understand Comp Sci is the math geek. Their "heart & soul" is usually not in the material they are teaching, they may believe it is, but if it was, they probably would be writing code instead of teaching. Most of the comp-sci & I.T. courses I've taken in college were taught by people who were usually in the industry for many years, their "heart & soul" was in what they did for years, and then later decided to teach for what ever reason. It's better to learn from someone who is an expert in the field, than someone who reads a book which says this is how you teach. University work often times works this way, especially in community colleges.

As for being harassed, I'm really sorry to hear that. I think that your daughter should give programming another shot, but this time at a Community college or university level. Normally people take these courses because they want to improve their own skills, learning something new, or are majoring in the subject and are more focused on school than your typical Highschool student. In fact I'd argue that highschool is just a glorified baby sitter, and that someone who does well in high school setting does so regardless of the general stress it puts on a persons emotions.

I think you make one major general point, and that is the lower level learning institutions don't focus enough on modern technology. Because they are so focused on money, they are usually extremely out of date on the material that they can even teach. Their idea of fundamentals is to teach a student advanced concepts minus the application. As in teaching the students visual basic which is extremely out of date, especially if it's vb6, last update was like back in 2003 or something? The schools need more / bigger R.O.P(Regional Occupational Program). courses which tend to have people who are more-up-to-date on the current trends&technologies, and I believe these courses need to be more important in the general teaching of students since they offer "trades" to students which may help them one day make a career for themselves. R.O.P. courses focus on application of what is taught...

Anyways, just my 2 cents.

@Rikki Kite Just wanted to say I have a lot of respect for what you do. Hope your daughter is not too tramatized by a much of A-holes.

I'm not a teacher but aren't you expected way too much from a (public?) school teacher? Their first responsibilities are that of a police-person to keep the children from overt violence and on school grounds (so the district gets paid).  Children are cruel: teachers can't respond to every instance of verbal and psychological abuse.  Your list is great but I don't see it falling within the purvue of the typical overworked underpaid educator.

Ultimately I hope your daughter will be able to recognize and deal with similar situations appropritely in the future. However they will probably never be as overt as you describe. High school is brutal.  

Thanks for this excellent article about a difficult subject. Truly sorry that your daughter had to go through this, and even more sorry it will probably not be the last time. Hope she tries again and gets a better environment/teacher at University. My daughter eventually became a CS major after a bad HS experience, but it wasn't until late in her Junior year she took another programming course and fell in love with it. She ended up shifting majors and going an extra couple years, but is now happy with what she's doing.

I am sorry that I can not speak on behalf of the male population of programmers to apologise but I can not.
As A father I am appalled at the behaviour of these boys and would clip my son over the back of the head were he to do the same.
Geeks are usually socially inept (I know that is a generalisation) but having worked with many of them it's also largely true and especially in young boys.
Don't allow the inept to determine your path or allow them to have won in putting you off.
Your Mum is right, the teacher failed you and the boys were .... (well I am going to assume that if I swear this letter will be moderated).
This, of course, may be what your Mum wants and not your choice, in which case, choose your own life.
Sadly though this is a largely misogynistic society, so whatever your choice you will face this rubbish again. You will have to deal with it, so do so.
Choose your life's course and don't be deterred by other people's social ineptness, bullying or misogyny. It's your life not theirs.
You are stronger, choose to be.
Good luck and while you may or may not realise it, it looks like you have a pretty fabulous Mum.
regards,
John. (A older male member of the geek population)

I am sorry that I can not speak on behalf of the male population of programmers to apologise but I can not.
As A father I am appalled at the behaviour of these boys and would clip my son over the back of the head were he to do the same.
Geeks are usually socially inept (I know that is a generalisation) but having worked with many of them it's also largely true and especially in young boys.
Don't allow the inept to determine your path or allow them to have won in putting you off.
Your Mum is right, the teacher failed you and the boys were .... (well I am going to assume that if I swear this letter will be moderated).
This, of course, may be what your Mum wants and not your choice, in which case, choose your own life.
Sadly though this is a largely misogynistic society, so whatever your choice you will face this rubbish again. You will have to deal with it, so do so.
Choose your life's course and don't be deterred by other people's social ineptness, bullying or misogyny. It's your life not theirs.
You are stronger, choose to be.
Good luck and while you may or may not realise it, it looks like you have a pretty fabulous Mum.
regards,
John. (A older male member of the geek population)

I'm going to start by apologizing on behalf of the horrible students that were found in your daughter's programming class. As a male barely out of his teen years I will admit to having made some similar comments before (though not for a very long time and not I suspect anywhere near the amount your daughter received.) I'm not a programmer by any stretch but I do plan to begin a career in IT and I plan to do my very best to make it a safer and more inclusive environment for all.

Now, on to my main points. I suspect you might already be aware of these but I feel that it would be best if others were informed of it as well. For the most part I agree with your suggestions as far as they're possible. Asking a teacher to be more interesting with his or her curricula is often very difficult. They may have a district or state mandated curriculum that specifies what needs to be covered (eg. Visual Basic). Asking a counsellor poses it's own problems. Sometimes they may not be able to disclose to a teacher conversations they've had with a student without the student's consent. Teachers also see upwards of 150 kids per year. Would you be able to notice changes in highschoolers with only 2 or 3 hours a week with them? I'm not saying you can't but it's not always the simplest thing especially if you don't already have a good rapport with that student.

Anyway, I hope my rambling has made a bit of sense and I hope that we can all change the world of tech for the better.

I'm sorry to hear about what happen with your daughter. I'm a programmer and a programming student and I would've glady stuck up for her. If she enjoyed the programming class outside of childish boys, I highly recommend her keeping up with programming.  It's sad that this shit still happens and I would prefer more women in the tech field. The god complex by some of the people I work with really gets old.

Sad, disheartening and disgusting.

We know that the road to gender equality in our industry has to start in grade school. Clearly we have a very long way to go :-(

I hope your daughter will reconsider programming as a profession. I would love to introduce her to more programmers who also happen to be women, if it would help.

I've got to say I was outraged by this is so many ways. First I want to say I can't believe this happened to you or your daughter but I believe I heard you tell most of the story about your daughter before at a convention and I was shocked but didn't know about your ordeal. This is exactly why I want more women in Tech. As you know when my 11yr old daughter spoke at WiAC I stuck around to hear some of the talks and was not shocked by this because I'm a black male. I was in a Pascal programming class in a culturally diverse high school and was the only black kid in the room. The same in college in a programming class in a very diverse college and was brushed off by a student that told me I wouldn't understand what they were doing because it was a programming class they were in. I tell my daughters these stories because I know how to laugh at idiots and have taught her the artform very well. To have to scold my daughter by saying, "and don't even THINK about hacking his account because you're mad at him" was such a good feeling but denies me the priviledge of smiling while saying opens a new era for me in a new form. Your daughter's courage to stay may make other girls stay. A black guy a year younger than me at that high school now works in Redmond at Microsoft.

This leads me to where you're wrong. "...but what teachers do has the potential to change the world. No article I write will ever do that, but the daughter I raise might." This is incorrect because I was told and always believed the world isn't changed by just the big things but the small things. I show my daughter at conventions that you and a couple other women are there and in this industry. Soon a class with no women will be like a town without a McDonalds. They're not elite just so unimportant that some of the important people don't find it interesting enough to invest the time.

I completely agree that the situation you describe is a huge issue, and also that from the sounds of it, the teacher could have done much more (I.e. anything) to create a safe, egalitarian learning environment. But it's also important to address this as a systemic problem (unfortunately) that requires change on many levels. For example, your point #2 above, while important remediation for young males, seems like it would be really challenging for a young woman to hear and still choose to finish the class, unless done extremely deftly. And, jokes about the subject notwithstanding, in my experience, many computer scientists are not the most socially deft individuals. That is not to absolve this teacher, but to say that this is a problem that we as a society need to do more to address (I.e. educating young men to respect women, in tech and out), and that this blog piece is one starting point to chip away at a huge issue.

I guess what I'm rambling about is that while the teacher is complicit and could very well make a big difference by changing his practice, that there a much bigger villain, and that's a society/culture where this sort of thing is OK. So while I don't condone the teacher's obliviousness and inaction, I also think it's incumbent on us to demand better at all levels from policymakers, to superintendents, to principals, and so on to the individual teacher.

Respectfully yours,

Josh

Do you really thing that "develop a phone app / Program a Raspberry Pi / Create a computer game" are things students, who may never have been have even been exposed to the basic concept of programming, should (or even could) start with? You think that C is the way to start learning basic programming concepts?

Do you realize that someone who has understood the concepts can easily switch to a different syntax? But if they never reach that point because they give up before that time then it's over. While an experienced programmer might appreciate C like syntax, a beginner will likely have an easier time with basic syntax. That is what it was designed for.

If the IL code of a C# program is identical to one created in equivalent Visual Basic syntax, is there really a good argument for recommending C# over VB for beginners? Again, that C# syntax is more commonly used is not a good argument because the syntax is not what matters. It's the basic and advanced concepts that matter.

In my opinion, for a beginner, a good IDE is very important, it should have fast and comprehensive auto complete and build in help. It should have a good easy to use GUI editor. I used to be a GTA for Java (basically left to fend for myself / had to actually teach the course). Trying to explain the static main with specific signature (and what all that means) is not a good starting point for beginners. Spending the entire first class to get a dos box that writes out “Hello World” is not very exciting. However, creating a form based project when you can just hit run and see the form and any components you just dragged onto it is, in my opinion, more rewarding and therefore more useful to the goal of teaching basics to beginners. Use events. Yes, events are easy to understand concepts, you click something, a certain region of code gets executed. You can use it to start with the basic code concepts (flow control statements, loops, operators, etc) inside events and even continue into explaining object oriented concepts (see that button is accessible as a variable of a certain type, that type has members you can use, see the auto complete, that is what you can use, see that color one? Yes you can use it to change the color).

On the other hand, have you ever tried to create or even just modify one of the iOS or ranspberry pi examples? Can you imagine doing that as a beginner to programming?

In any case, I’m sorry to hear that your daughter had a tough time in that class. I would imagine that the students that were making all the trouble were those that struggled and only took the class because someone told them it was good for them. Fortunately though, ‘these’ people usually don’t continue onafter beginner’s classes. If she takes higher level classes then I am sure that her experience would improve.

As sad as this is, it is not uncommon to happen. It starts to get common that teachers are simply overchallenged and can't handle what happens in class rooms. My dad is a teacher in germany and I think he actually does a pretty good job. I for myself am a guy who also always was on the side of being harassed so I know exactly how it feels. I wish your daughter good luck for the future and hope she can get the fun back in IT.

So disappointing! I am 26 - and although I am a stay at home mum to my 2 babies now I hold a degree in software engineering and worked as a programmer for many years and LOVED it! We did not have any opportunity to do programming at school although we did have ... wait for it... typing at our all girls high school. There's really no excuse that your daughter was being bullied in class and the teacher was sitting by and letting it happen - I would be writing a formal complaint to the school (and I really hope you will deliver this letter to her teacher too in person). The teacher has failed your daughter and it's not good enough. I hope she hasn't been put off permanently, you never know a few years and the realisation that (at least for me anyway) University is much more enjoyable than school may change her mind into exploring it as an option. I was still endlessly mocked at university but at that stage of my life it didn't bother me in the slightest in fact I started to find it quite humourous when I realised that a lot of it was because they were threatened. It was a very rewarding career path for me! 

Laura (laurasaur.com)

Well written and not un-common thing for a lot of females in IT endure at one time or another.

I have been actively working with the local schools, who have been really great about it. Luckily we also have a female Tech teacher which helps, and a male who supports encouraing females into IT. With both them trying and my input, we have now increased the amount of females in the IT class from nearly none, to almost 40%. We have a female robotics class, and a lot more willling to join now they see others in there.
It takes work, but its worth it, and its easy to make it fun and enjoyable. 

Yes, I would be the same person that tweeted you.  The self identified guy geek.

I am so sorry for you and your daughter.  There should never be situations/behavior like that.  EVER.  When I was younger, I did an abysmal job fitting in anywhere.  When I discovered geekdom, I embraced it as it seemed to be a place where no one cared about you except for what you knew and could get done.  No worries about appearence or physical ability.  I jumped in headfirst.

I know it is little comfort for either of you, but, as a male geek, I am sorry those people that share a gender with me can act so horribly wrong and treat a fellow with such callousness.  This should never happen to anyone anywhere anytime.

Just let her know that not all of us are like that, nor will we ever be.  We relish diversity and different viewpoints.  Please don't let this abudant idiocy discourage her, if this is what she wants to do.  It can't rain every day...

(As I tend to deal with discomfort by using humor, please don't hate me for saying I am also sorry she had to learn using Visual Basic.  I doubt that trauma will ever leave her.)

What a great letter - I hope the teacher reacted well and took each & every point on board?

Ms Endsley,

A wonderful piece, and you said, "No article I write will ever do that, but the daughter I raise might." Actually, your article will change many more parents, teachers and more girls, positively towards programming.  Tell your daughter, that I (someone who has been doing programming for 30 years) feel proud of her accomplishments in programming for a 16 year old.  Tell your daughter,  programming is an ART, SCIENCE, CRAFT, and DISCIPLINE. Without her knowledge she acquired skills in all these, and she should continue taking more programming courses, for the same reason you ended with.  I wish you and her the very best.

--Srinivas

Thank you for being a great parent who encouraged their daughter to go into programming. Though I am not a programmer, per se, it has always been an interest of mine and now I'm an Instructor in web design at a community college. My father always encouraged me (he is an engineer and took Fortran way back in the day) and it made all the difference. I am also now the founder of Women In Technology Hamilton, which not only helps women in the field, but encourages women outside the field of IT and computing so that it's not so scary. They in turn (we hope) will then encourage young women to pursue not only programming, but all fields in the IT sector. But it definitely starts with people such as yourself. Thank you once again.

Hi. Some thoughts about your article. It seems that you daughter can not defend herself at all. What did she do in response to those phrases about kitchen and sandwiches? If she is so confident, and if she knows programming, why hasn't she suggested a competition to that boy for example - whoever is the last one to complete the next programming task of their teacher, makes a sandwich to a winner :) And if she's so good at programming as you say, she would win and make that boy respect her. And even if she would loose, the boys would respect her because some of them are definitely not so good as programming as she, and they would think twice before trying to pin up her next time. And what did you suggest her? To complain to the teacher? That would make her an outlaw in this class and the boys would never become her friends (as it happened after all). *Never* advise her to appeal to authorities! And never do it yourself. This is just stupid. She must learn to manage conflicts herself (and you too) and make friends instead of enemies. It seems like your daughter is trying to meet your criteria very diligently. If she was growing without a father, it is quite understandable, but you must give her more freedom. Stop sitting on her like a mother hen over an egg. She is 16 already, isn't she? Have you ever asked her what is she interested in? Is she really interested in programming, conferences, Linux, ARM development and all of that stuff? I'm not sure about that. From the article, it seems like it were you who really wanted to lead your daughter into the programming world. "...she took her first programming class. She knew I'd be thrilled, but she did it anyway.", "I'm adding this to my "parenting win" page in the baby book." - poor child. Sounds like she does everything to let you add something to your "parenting win" baby book (heck, what baby you are talking about - she is 16?!?!) Sounds like she had no another choice except that class. And as a (logical) result, she ended up being a foreigner to the environment, in which she found herself. And this is more of your fault than teacher's. Think about it. Thinking a bit more about that, it is *GOOD* that she failed at that class. Maybe this will make her to choose a better profession in her life - the profession that would make her more happy. In this case all of you whining is not worth a dime. On the other hand, if she's already good at programming and likes it (i do not exclude such a chance despite the previous paragraph!), she will not care too much about some not-so-clever old teacher and pair of stupid boys who are probably too young to judge other people. As a bottom line: stop complaining, learn to make friends instead of enemies, stop teaching teachers, teach your daughter to cook tasty sandwiches (she will need it after all), give her more freedom (stop treating her like a baby!), find yourself a man, live happily ever after. Thanks for reading.

Rikki,

I've been in tech all my life (more than 25 years now).  I'm a white guy holding a CTO position of a large, independent tech consulting company.  I have a number of female friends and co-workers in the tech industry and have heard similar stories from them with regard to demeaning comments and gender bias.

I consider myself to be very progressive especially because of my daughter.  This is her first year in high school and she has always been a very strong math and science student.  I suspect she would excel in the tech industry if that were where her passion lies, though she unfortunately could not be less interested in "computers".

As I was reading your story, I was hit with a revelation that startled me and I had to share it with you.

I was scanning Hacker News when I came across “To my daughter's high school programming teacher”.  As my daughter’s just starting out in high school, I decided to click the link. It was only half-way through that I realized that I had made a horrible assumption.  I assumed this was an article written by the father of said daughter.  It was then, at that moment, I realized it doesn’t matter how progressive I am, or how fair, gender-blind and unbiased I consider myself, I can still fall into those mental traps of gender stereotypes.

I apologize for my unfounded assumption and I thank you for sharing this.

Rikki,

I've been in tech all my life (more than 25 years now).  I'm a white guy holding a CTO position of a large, independent tech consulting company.  I have a number of female friends and co-workers in the tech industry and have heard similar stories from them with regard to demeaning comments and gender bias.

I consider myself to be very progressive especially because of my daughter.  This is her first year in high school and she has always been a very strong math and science student.  I suspect she would excel in the tech industry if that were where her passion lies, though she unfortunately could not be less interested in "computers".

As I was reading your story, I was hit with a revelation that startled me and I had to share it with you.

I was scanning Hacker News when I came across “To my daughter's high school programming teacher”.  As my daughter’s just starting out in high school, I decided to click the link. It was only half-way through that I realized that I had made a horrible assumption.  I assumed this was an article written by the father of said daughter.  It was then, at that moment, I realized it doesn’t matter how progressive I am, or how fair, gender-blind and unbiased I consider myself, I can still fall into those mental traps of gender stereotypes.

I apologize for my unfounded assumption and I thank you for sharing this.