[Tutor] Girls, women and Programming (- and Python)

[Sue Blake]

On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 02:22:49AM +0200, Gregor Lingl wrote:
> 
> 1) Why are there so few girl and women interested in programming?

> 2) How do I get them interested? Which kinds of material, approaches,
> examples etc. are appealing to female students?

I sent a long reply to Gregor directly, because the mainly social
causes and cures are only peripheral to the true topic of this mailing
list. If anyone really wants to see a rant, email me and I'll send you
a copy rather than cluttering the list.

For anyone who's curious about this issue, I'd like to encourage you to
follow up on that interest when teaching python. I ended my diatribe
to Gregor with some practical advice:


If everyone knew more about adult learning principles, everyone would
find it easier to benefit from the knowledge that they have to share,
and people of all learning types would get a lot of what they need.
For how it is applied, see http://www.daemonnews.org/199908/newbies.html

[...]

Accommodate differences where they are true and relevant differences,
and don't look for differences where they do not exist or are not
relevant to the task at hand. Be constantly dilligent to make no
assumptions based on gender. If our society needs improvement, that's
not the python teacher's job. Your job is to help all people who want
to learn, to discover how good they can become.


-- 

Regards,
        -*Sue*-