Girls-Only Computer Camps Formed At Behest of Top Google, Facebook Execs 449
theodp writes: Reporting on Google exec Susan Wojcicki's appearance at DreamForce, Inc.'s Tess Townsend writes: "The YouTube CEO said her daughter had stated point-blank that she did not like computers, so Wojcicki enrolled her in a computer camp. The camp made her daughter dislike tech even more. Wojcicki reported her daughter came back saying, 'Everyone in the class was a boy and nobody was like me and now I hate computers even more.' So, mom called the camp and spoke to the CEO, asking that the camp be made more welcoming to girls" (video). Fortune reported last July that it was the urging of Wojcicki and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg that prompted iD Tech Camps — which Wojcicki's and Sandberg's kids had attended — to spin off a girls-only chain of tech camps called Alexa Cafe, which was trialed in the Bay Area in 2014 and expanded to nine locations in 2015. Earlier this month, Fortune noted that Wojcicki's daughter attended the $949-a-week Alexa Cafe summer camp at Palo Alto High, which was coincidentally hosted in the multi-million dollar Media Center (video) that was built thanks to the efforts of Wojcicki's mother Esther (a long-time Paly journalism teacher) and partially furnished and equipped by sister Anne (23andMe CEO) and ex-brother-in-law Sergey Brin's charitable foundation.
$949/week? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: $949/week? (Score:5, Insightful)
My son wouldn't be interested anyway. He's at the all male nursing camp.
Not that he's interested in nursing, but as long as we're willing to force kids to do things they hate, why not start with my kid? It's just his life and all.
Re: $949/week? (Score:2, Insightful)
What about all of the transgender children?
They need attend a computer camp and be isolated from all other gender identities too! So they can be ready for the real world. Which by law is also segregated right?
Why won't someone please think of the children?
Re: $949/week? (Score:4, Funny)
Good thing they're all so stunning and beautiful
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Really, if we want to make this "fair", we should put every precious unique snowflake in their own class. And spare me all this Western CisHetWhiteMaleShitlord "STEM" crap - If they want to learn computers - or for that matter, brain surgery - by coloring pictures of pretty rainbow ponies, what the hell gives us the right to impose our beliefs on
Re: $949/week? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Addicts always make up stories to justify themselves. It's _always_ someone else's fault.
Re:$949/week? (Score:5, Funny)
Daddy, daddy, computer camp was so great, we uploaded Justin Bieber videos, we connected to Wifi while riding a pony and I even convinced a really gross dork to fix our computers ! All the girls were just like me, cool, popular, white and totally not poor.
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i think they're wondering why the people that think there is a need for an all-female computer camp don't think that there is a need for an all-female computer camp that isn't more expensive than college.
949*52 is 49000.
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Cost to high??
Sign hear to start a student loan.
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Here is a transcript of how I think the whole thing went down:
Wojcicki: "My daughter doesn't like the things I want her to like. Can I pay you to force her to like them?"
iD Tech Camps: "Absolutely! Just give us lots of money."
Wojcicki: "Can my friends give you lots of money to force their daughters to like stuff too?"
iD Tech Camps: "Sure!"
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Re:$949/week? (Score:4, Funny)
"Hey, I know we just clipped the far side of the road over there, but you shouldn't be over-steering in the other direction"
"False equivalence, shitlord"
*crash*
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Separate but equal didn't work previously, why is it ok when it is the left doing it now?
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You should perhaps visit a Teachers or Nurses college.
I wonder when there will be a push for more males there, as they are obviously far more heavily disadvantaged than women in tech.
In fact you dont need to go that far, since women are over represented at College level (yes, really, go check the numbers) where is
the male only higher education push?
Or perhaps we should go the other way - men are hugely over represented in high injury risk/low pay jobs, such as commercial fishing, forestry
work, and construct
And.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, I'm betting she still doesn't like computers.
Some rich parents have this attitude, that if their children don't do well in school, there must be a problem with the school. They can't accept that their children just don't do well in math, biology, Latin, or whatever.
It seems here that the parents are trying to push their daughter into something where she has no interest at all. How about if they ask their daughter:
"We would like to send you to a summer camp where you can learn something. Where would you like to go . . . ?"
Re:And.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get to be CEO by accepting reality. If you don't think you can mold the world as you want it to be, you're not even going to become middle management. Luckily for the offspring, there's enough money to make up for their parent's delusions.
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Do you have any evidence that girls are being pushed into CS? There are lots of published, peer reviewed studies where girls are interviewed, express and interest but say that they feel unable to pursue it for various reasons.
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Do you have any evidence that girls are being pushed into CS?
It's in the damn summary, FCOL! Did you not even read the summary?
Re:And.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually I read TFA. I see you didn't which is why you are confused.
Wojcickiâ(TM)s daughter at first had a negative experience, and it took some elbow grease on Wojcickiâ(TM)s part to get her to stop turning her nose up at computers.
Once she sorted out the thing that gave her daughter a negative experience (being the only girl in a class full of boys who were not nice to her) she seems to have been fine with computers.
Her mother identified an area where her daughter was weak. Her daughter most likely didn't like computers because she had had similar negative experiences at school. She arranged for a class for girls, and with the barriers removed her daughter changed her attitude towards programming.
Why is this so hard to understand?
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So... fight discrimination through positive discrimination?
Fight fire with fire, CS edition.
Re:And.. (Score:5, Funny)
She arranged for a class for girls, and with the barriers removed her daughter changed her attitude towards programming.
Perhaps Mommy can arrange a girls-only life for her daughter too so she doesn't have to deal with, you know, stuff.
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Devil's Advocate: I used to tell my parents I liked shit all the time when it was obvious to me that not liking shit would mean they were disappointed and/or would continue hammering whatever it was in my face all the time. See: piano lessons. So, while she may think her daughter now totally loves programming, it could just be she's going along with it to make mom happy-ish.
Re:And.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems simple enough to me. The girl will have a wildly unrealistic idea of what being a software developer is like, so that when she enters the working world, she will be totally disillusioned and hate it, and have to re-focus her education in her mid 20s.
As opposed to the boys who go to computer camp and spend all day in meetings and screwing with build errors, merge conflicts, and management changing the requirements mid-project?
Re:And.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some rich parents have this attitude, that if their children don't do well in school, there must be a problem with the school. They can't accept that their children just don't do well in math, biology, Latin, or whatever. "
I'm not sure it's necessarily wrong though. My parents aren't rich, but I didn't do well in math at school. I did however end up getting a first class honours degree in maths all the same though.
The problem is that there was a massive disconnect between how the school taught and how I learnt. Throwing a textbook at me and telling me to solve 40 meaningless problems achieved nothing and I learnt nothing. When I eventually sat down in my own time however and wanted to figure out how to build me a 3D engine, suddenly all the calculus and stuff had a purpose, it meant something, it could achieve something.
I'm not saying schools should teach 3D engine programming, but the point is that schools do very often get it wrong, they do an incredibly bad job of teaching for lots of kids. Mindless repetition of meaningless equation solving works well for kids who are capable of doing boring, repetitive tasks without asking, but some kids have a thirst for understanding and explanation, they want to know that what they're doing has some meaning, what it's for, where they'd use it. Statistics is an obvious one - teach boring stats for the sake of teaching boring stats and you'll have a problem getting through to many kids. Create a scenario whereby they're running a business selling shirts, and they need to figure out what sizes are going to optimise profit letting them know how much the overhead penalty is for creating additional sizes, and give them a bunch of data on measurements of people and you'll teach them not just the stats, but about business, about problem solving, and optionally even about team working.
So I do agree with what you're saying, but I think we should also be careful not to give bad schools and bad teachers (which for subjects like Maths is the vast majority of them in my experience) a get out clause for their incompetence. I did well in maths in spite of my teachers at school, not because of them. It was only at university where the teachers really seemed to get how to teach, and even that wasn't a universal truth.
Hedy would approve (Score:3)
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Segregation not the answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Not convinced segregation is the answer here -- if girls aren't "getting it" then a lot of the boys won't be "getting it" either...
Besides, my junior high school computer science class 25 years ago was one-third girls and everybody learned Pascal just fine =P
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, well let's give segregation an experimental try on Slashdot. A few years back, on April 1st, Slashdot featured a "girlie" motif with pink ponies. Slashdot could revive this again as a parallel site. Then after a few months, we could ask the female users on the parallel site if they like computers better now.
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Hey, well let's give segregation an experimental try on Slashdot. A few years back, on April 1st, Slashdot featured a "girlie" motif with pink ponies.
Haven't you heard? Pink ponies are for guys now too!
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Maybe patronising and stereotyping women is not the best way to encourage them to read your tech news site...
Maybe not spewing anger and denial at every story about women in tech might be a good start though.
What anger and denial? Asking for a citation when you make the claim "when questioned a lot of girls say that parents and teachers told them computers were not a girl's thing," is what you consider anger and denial?
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Segregation is the answer. Sometimes groups need a space where they can be away from the things that are giving them problems, with the goal of later re-integration.
You heard it here first. Up next, white only bathrooms, and asian only programing camps.
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Can't you think of a difference between public accommodations and private enterprises? Where's the gender equality in the NFL or NBA?
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Segregation is the answer. Sometimes groups need a space where they can be away from the things that are giving them problems, with the goal of later re-integration.
You heard it here first. Up next, white only bathrooms, and asian only programing camps.
We already segregate in education.
We segregate by age, often sorting kids into arbitrary "boxes" depending on their birthdays. It's usually quite difficult and disruptive to break out of age segregation in the public school system.
We segregate by ability level, placing students in "honors" classes or better "sections" of students, which has both benefits (teachers can tailor lessons more) and drawbacks (once a kid gets sorted in the "lower" section, it can be difficult for him/her ever to catch up to the higher section, even if very motivated and a "late bloomer" in terms of interest/ability).
These types of segregation are based on particular beliefs about age-based schemes of development and supposed goals of tracking based on previous student performance. They're well-accepted as legitimate, but obviously they fail to provide the best benefit in many cases of particular students.
The question about segregation is whether or not the overall differences justify the separation. Generally, the differences in black and white humans, for example, would NOT justify separate bathrooms (obviously).
We know that boys and girls develop physically, psychologically, socially, and intellectually on somewhat different timescales as adolescents. We know that adolescence is often a time of heightened sexual tension and awkwardness, which can result in significant differences in behaviors between segregated sex groups vs. mixed ones. We have studies that have shown both benefits and drawbacks of segregating sexes in education -- for one example, adolescent girls often are more deferential or less likely to assert their own opinions in a mixed group compared to an all-girls group. This can impact whether girls speak up to ask questions or to offer their opinion in class exercises, etc.
So, the question is not whether we should allow segregation -- we already allow segregation according to some schemes based on broad criteria (like age). If we got rid of age segregation and went back to a "one-room schoolhouse" model, it would inevitably be beneficial to some students, fo example. (Many private schools and Montessori-based schools take this approach, having classrooms that span 2-4 "grade levels," which often benefits both the young kids, who learn by watching older kids, and the older kids, who reinforce their knowledge through teaching and explanation.)
The question is whether the differences in behavior, interest, and educational quality coming from segregation by sex in this particular education context are enough to justify the separation. I don't know whether they are or not, but acting like "all segregation is bad" or refusing to acknowledge that we already do it is needlessly inflammatory and unproductive.
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We segregate by age...
Not really, high school and middle school are made up of different age ranges. Those ranges have more to do with protecting the younger from the older and reflect the physiological differences in the ages because of puberty.
We segregate by ability level...
AP classes and skipping grades. Anyone can do that so long as they excel as opposed to what is in their pants (or lack there of).
Grouping by age is easy and accounts for 90% of students ability. For the car analogy, think Henry Ford. It is more efficient to teach the same stuff to simila
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Why does it make sense? By saying that you invalidate the feminist argument that differences between the two are simple social constructs that need breaking down.
Oh, we already have feminists trying to micromanage men in their bathrooms.
two random google hits..
http://www.theguardian.com/com... [theguardian.com]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
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It sounds pretty basic but when questioned a lot of girls say that parents and teachers told them computers were not a girl's thing,
Now that you've stopped repeating your *other* argument in the face of repeated evidence to the contrary, you go this one? I'm afraid I'm going to have to call BS on your "a lot of girls say"... citation needed on the survey you think exists.
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's sexist to girls to keep them out of computer science classes, then it's sexist to boys to keep them out of computer science classes. If girls feel uncomfortable being the odd ones out, then, being equally human, the same thing can be said for boys who are not allowed to have their own spaces to pursue the same interests. Therefore funds should be divided to service both camps. Any other position is sex discrimination. If funds are being diverted from classes where everyone is welcome to classes where only those with certain traits are welcome, especially traits that are argued as not being relevant in the first place, then that's systemic discrimination against those who are not welcome. You can't argue for 'safe spaces' for some and not others while arguing for equality. We're either all entitled or Either we're all entitled to 'safe spaces' or none of us are.
I have a better idea. Leave the camps open to everyone. This way kids learn that life is about getting long with the opposite sex, and that society is not obligated to isolate them from those they find 'uncomfortable' for whatever reason. If girls choose to opt out where they can't get privileged treatment, then that's a character flaw they need to work on. After all, this is what we tell boys (and men) all the time.
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No, that's not a safe space for boys. They still will get in trouble for doing/discussing things that offend the one girl. Even if there are NO girls in a given camp, it's likely that the material was created with at least the possibility of girls being present. Not so for the girls camp.
Look, if you want segregated camps, then segregate them. That's fine. Segregat
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"A place where anyone can relax and be fully self-expressed, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, age, or physical or mental ability; a place where the rules guard each person's self-respect and dignity and strongly encourage everyone to respect others."
"The concept originated in the women's movement, where it "implies a certain license to speak and act freely, form collective strength, and generate strategies for resistance...a means rather than an end and not only a physical space but also a space created by the coming together of women searching for community.""
So, a place where boys can be fully self-expressed... that means if they want to openly talk about how mean girls are for rejecting them, or talk about how useless girls are because they don't know math and can't code, or whatever... they can do that without feeling uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe. They can speak and act freely. They can form collective strength (meaning... boys against girls). They can generate strategies for resistance, which could be political or social... so stuff like talking about how women "trap" men with pregnancy or rape accusations.
You think that sounds crazy? I've seen safe spaces for women and LGBT people, and yes, absolutely fucking crazy things are said there. But that's what it is.
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Segregation is the answer.
No, it isn't. In the real world men and women have to work and compete together. How far into adulthood are you willing to coddle these children? We have safe spaces in college, we should expand that. It is totally normal for an adult to run from their problems and revert to a child-like state hugging a stuffed animals to cope with all the potential rapists/murderers/men and scary ideas, right?
Company's should be segregated too because safe spaces. How else can these employees work when there are different ideas in the same work environment?
It doesn't disadvantage boys...
Tell me more about all those male-only scholarships.
...it merely helps girls get past some issues they face
Because girls are too weak to overcome those "issues" without segregation? Good job modern feminism; arguing like the KKK because women are weak.
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:5, Informative)
Until adulthood. Children can't be held to the same standards of behaviour that adults can be. Once they become adults, if they made women feel unwelcome then they will be expected to correct the behaviour. Of course it's not a binary thing that flips at age 18, it happens gradually over the teenage years, I'm just stating the principal.
If only there was a place to learn how to deal with these social interactions. With authority figures to guide and discipline bad behavior that is not conducive to learning/working... Like a school! If the boys made the girls feel uncomfortable, then discipline accordingly. Just like the real world. The difference you won't lose your job or face a law suit.
Wrong metric. What is important is the number of scholarships going to each gender, and the effect that has on the number of students of each gender. Until men are getting less than 50% of all available scholarships and are achieving less than 50% of the academic success (number of graduates, grade averages or whatever it is you use in the US) then women-only scholarships are just reducing men's privilege, not disadvantaging them compared to women.
Congrats, we have beyond FTM ratio in colleges. Those scholarships have done their job. Lets reverse it as you say. Males don't have the privileged in the university because they are no longer > 50%... [forbes.com] They also make up more of the grads too!!! Academic success [amazonaws.com]
See how you made that comment about girls
No, you made this about girls. when you said: "Segregation is the answer." and the segregation was for the sexes and how you feel girls need a safe space to learn CS from those icky boys because privilege... Context is king.
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Segregated camps are a great idea, but these camps aren't segregated. The camp that is not a girl camp still has to accept girls, which means they still have to make it a welcoming atmosphere for girls. The girls camp does not have to make it a welcoming atmosphere for boys.
Re:Segregation not the answer (Score:4, Interesting)
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The funny bit is that the civil rights movement isn't that far out of memory, and yet these SJWs don't see the parallels. It makes clear the divide between men and women, regardless of what feminist may claim.
Separate but equal didn't pass scrutiny in the past, and yet here we are, and that these feminist can claim with a straight face that they are oppressed and need this is the height of hubris.
"Separate but equal" was nonsense because there was no equality.
You are either retarded or a neo-Nazi, but I'm repeating myself.
I swear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I swear... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Here is a hint.. this has nothing to do with her daughter and everything to do with her mother.
Clearly her mom doesn't care what the daughter wants to do, she just wants to get her name in the paper with a "positive role model" spin, which she did.
No kidding (Score:2)
Different people have different likes and dislikes and we as a society need to accept that. Trying to force kids to like something isn't going to work. Nobody ever had to convince me to like computers, I was fascinated with them from a young age. Likewise nobody had to drive my sister away from computers, she never had any interest in them. It wasn't my parents pushing what we should do, they were extremely good about letting us choose our own path. My mom in particular was big on that since her mother had
Wow! (Score:2)
Do you go full "Dan's Brown's Body" for girls schools as well or do you reserve such an extreme reaction for computer camps?
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow! The only reason this is happening is because we've managed to fuck things up badly enough over the last two decades that we effectively have boys only computer camps currently. Do you go full "Dan's Brown's Body" for girls schools as well or do you reserve such an extreme reaction for computer camps?
Why single out computer camps? I'll feel the same repugnance if the girl in question was forced to go to fashion camp. We've spent the better part of the last 30 years convincing girls that they can do anything they want to, and now you expect us to applaud this behaviour?
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It seems you're saying that education has been structured to disadvantage girls. As a student who saw schools in the 1980s demand feminized curricula, I disagree. The prevalence of women in universities and middle-class jobs show that the modern curriculum aids girls. In fact, the evidence over the last decade is that modern school curricula severely punishes boys.
If you arguing the workplace is structured to disadvantage girls, you may be correct. But schoolgirls aren't in the workplace so that can't b
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You are just kidding yourself and seeing local swirls of activity as a pattern that is not really there. Yes, some people liked geeks, but society as a whole never really thought much of us.
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Year after year, the infamous "Science: It's a Girl Thing!" ad [youtu.be] looks more and more politically correct. They were misunderstood visionary geniuses :)
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You're not being fair. It wouldn't be permissible to the Yankees fans either.
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Well apparently your thoughts are very easy to terminate. So much so that your brain switched off and was unable to process the rest of the short post.
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stock phrases people use to label
I like labels. They're extremely useful for encapsulating a number of concepts and packaging them up in a single word so they can be referred to easily. In fact labels-for-things are so popular that they've got a whole label-for-things devoted to them and are called "nouns".
Labels are useful. What the GP was doing is precisely "concern trolling" and such things are common on topics such as this.
It's only enough to shut down a discussion for the weak minded and, frankly, I do
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white students have privilege (they are rarely affected by racism)
When it comes to the privilege argument, I find it intellectually lazy. It reduces individuals to the identity of a group. The individual either adopts the problems or benefits of the group. It also doesn't address what the individual has done for themselves.
There are places in the US where white is a minority but white is privilege. That might fall into your rarely category but who cares about the individual so long as you can reduce them to a group and pile on all the shit of that group, who cares right?
Re:I swear... (Score:5, Insightful)
YES IT IS. If you form groups based on race and exclude others, its RACIST. Now the degree of harm that racism causes varies, but its ABSOLUTELY racism to exclude others based on race alone and its wrong. What is the point of forming a Black Students association? Why would it exclude people? Why would you make a group with its sole intent of being exclusionary?
Hmm I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Did Sergey Brin go to computer camp?
How about Carly Fiorina or Sheryl Sanberg?
What is "computer camp" all about anyways? dumping your kid somewhere so you can have some time to yourself?
Maybe Wojcicki should ask her daughter which "camp" she wants to go to if any!?
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No, Carly Fiorina went to "How To Destroy a Corporation" Camp.
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Maybe a computer camp with boys in it actually is detrimental. Maybe not.
Still, I'd put a lot more faith in a segregated solution if the daughter had jumped up and down and begged and pleaded to go to computer camp and THEN come home saying "I hate computers".
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Still, I'd put a lot more faith in a segregated solution if the daughter had jumped up and down and begged and pleaded to go to computer camp and THEN come home saying "I hate computers".
Depends on what they did at the camp. I mean, if I had to spend two weeks sitting in scrum meetings I damned sure wouldn't like it either...
Uhmmm... actually sorta yes (Score:3)
Sergy Brin went to CTY [wikipedia.org] a program promoted by Johns Hopkins and Princeton. Also affectionately known as Nerd Camp (and the subject of an upcoming movie).
Our daughter is enrolled in CTYOnline and will be going to camp next year. This is a wonderful program. There is no gender/race bias and while somewhat costly, there is financial aid for low income families. However this is a tough program to be admitted to, you need to take special testing, and you better be in the top 2% of the population test score wise.
And...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some women (like Sandberg, who I'm fairly certain wasn't raised in girls-only environments) push for this sort of thing, neglecting a vital truth of the matter: the workplace requires just as much in the way of soft skills as it does hard ones.
If it's true that boys are a "distraction", or at least "different enough" to be a problem* then girls-only camps serve only to kick the can down the road: girls don't know how to deal with boys. So what's to happen when they go into environments with boys? They get disappointed and leave.
*which, if the environments are so hostile to women, why are we setting girls up for failure by asking them not to worry about it instead of training them from a young age to deal with it and make it more natural? Or for that matter, teach boys that it's natural for girls to be in this environment either?
(Yes, I know as well as any of you that these "progressive" measures are not about equal rights for anyone but about flooding the marketplace of job applicants and driving down wages. But Slashdot seems to not be getting that feel-good crusades like this one aren't rooted in practical concerns.)
Re:And...? (Score:4, Interesting)
If it's true that boys are a "distraction", or at least "different enough" to be a problem* then girls-only camps serve only to kick the can down the road: girls don't know how to deal with boys. So what's to happen when they go into environments with boys? They get disappointed and leave.
I wonder if that's really the case. My two teenagers go to single-sex Catholic high schools (the public schools s-t-i-n-k) and they seem to be able to function well around teenagers of the opposite sex. (Note, though, that I don't push either into tech, and neither shows interest in it.)
Thus, I blame parents for coddling their kids too much.
Re:And...? (Score:4, Funny)
Fair enough. However, I also went to single-sex Catholic high school, but having been more comfortable around boys, the whole business made me four years' worth of miserable.
Agreed on the coddling, though.
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(Note, though, that I don't push either into tech, and neither shows interest in it.)
Yeah, I guess so. Sending your kids to a cult brainwashing school to believe in invisible space monkeys is about as far from science and tech as you can get. Some would say that teaching children those kinds of lies about the world is not just a failure as a parent, but also child abuse.
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Nice troll, but you're running on false assumptions [wikipedia.org] (which probably explains why you posted AC...)
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Well put. As the father of all daughters, I would not push them into any type of all-girl camp. I want them to function in society...which consists of males and females. You are spot on with the supposed "distraction" of having boys with them. As it is, they are as comfortable dressing up and being princesses as they are playing sports or tearing down a PC with me. I see no reason to single them out by their gender.
like boys and sports (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the equivalent of fathers that insist that their boys play a sport. Sometimes the kid really isn't interested in computers.
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You have to try and get past the "I don't wanna", sometimes. I was one of those kids who "doesn't like sports". Tried hockey and baseball (hated it), and my parents figured I might enjoy individual sports more than team ones, so they made me try track (liked it but it didn't stick), horseback riding (showjumping and dressage; I kept at that well into my college years) and a few others with varying success. Point is: I would never have tried those if they hadn't made me. Same with computers: if a child doesn't show much interest in programming, perhaps they'll enjoy the more artistic side of web design, or other technical hobbies. Stimulating a child means exposing them to all manner of sports, hobbies and intellectual pastimes. And sometimes it's ok to make them try something, as long as you keep in mind that's it about them, and not about your idea of a perfect childhood or spending Saturdays on the bleachers drinking beers with the other dads at little league. And of course you have to understand your child a little bid, and get good at picking activities they might like.
The trouble with this line of reasoning is that you can use it to justify making the kid do any number of stupid things. "How do you know he won't enjoy mining for coal if you won't let him try it? No no no, not just once - it will take at least a month of working in the mines to see if he takes to it."
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The challenge sometimes is figuring out what a child does not like something. Does he/she not like computers because the only exposure has been boring/mundane things?
Does he/she not like sports because he/she was put in a league with kids more advanced and was not able to keep up?
Does he/she not like math because the teacher didn't like math and didn't compel an interest?
I can't count the number of times I've sat down to dinner with my kids and they have declared they don't like something we're eating befo
Re:like boys and sports (Score:5, Funny)
You play Magic the Gathering too?
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Except that in this case she knew that her daughter had no interest in computers, but sent her anyway.
Horrible and misguided (Score:2)
What they should do instead is accept anyone but make it more comfortable for everyone. What about the Hispanic and black males that are even more under represented than women in CS? Why is it ok to throw them under the bus based solely on thier geni
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I, along with anyone from the 21st century, should have a strong distaste for anything like this where if you swap out the groups it becomes incredibly distasteful. It's like having women only gyms but look what happens when you try to have a men only gym.
What about the Hispanic and black males that are even more under represented than women in CS? Why is it ok to throw them under the bus
Score 10 points for disengenuous arguments! No one has thrown anyone under the bus. This camp only adds to the things av
and now, she hates computers even MORE (Score:2)
Totaly makes sense. (Score:2)
Obviously, that is the right approach.
What the hell? (Score:2)
"My did didn't like computers so I sent her to computer camp and she still doesn't like computers. Something is wrong with the camp."
Seriously??? My God. Somebody with that kind of mentality is a CEO?
MAYBE YOUR KID JUST DOESN'T LIKE COMPUTERS!!!
If your kid doesn't like broccoli, are you going to send her to broccoli camp? And if she comes back from camp still not liking broccoli, will it clearly be the fault of the camp?
Do kids even use computers these days? I thought they did everything on their pho
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Your kid just doesn't like computers (Score:2)
The YouTube CEO said her daughter had stated point-blank that she did not like computers, so Wojcicki enrolled her in a computer camp.
I wonder if she even considered the possibility that her kid just really, genuinely, doesn't like computers and never will.
Maybe she should try asking the kid what she does like. Hopefully she likes cars and engineering, then mom can relax and tell herself she's raised her gender-non-comfortist child well. But I pity that kid if she actually does want to go into nursing or fashion, because mom is not going to like that.
why? (Score:3)
Wojcicki made her career in marketing, after studying history and literature. She evidently didn't like computers either. But now she sends her little girl to computer camp?
Seems to me the girl wants to step into her mother's footsteps: she doesn't like computers, but she has already figured out which buttons to push to get her mother to jump.
Freedom of association (Score:2)
There are situations where segregation makes sense, or should at least be tolerated. For example, there is a long tradition of girls-only schools and boys-only schools. A girls-only camp? Why not. You are removing a host of complex inter-gender issues from the picture, possibly allowing the students to concentrate more on what the camp is supposed to really be about.
However, if you accept this, there are two important principles that must be followed:
- This is something each person should be able to decide
I don't like computers either (Score:5, Funny)
And I'm a software engineer!
If some one had called for all-male camp, rioting! (Score:3)
There'd be calls of sexism, racism, every kind of -ism imaginable. People would be protesting at Google headquarters.
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (Score:5, Funny)
Hello poodle,
Here I am at
Camp by Google.
Camp is very
Highfalutin
Cause it's all-a
'Bout computin'.
"Try to like it",
Mama told me.
If I diss it,
Then she'll scold me.
All the boys are
Banned from coming
Since Mom finds their
Presence dumbing.
Since they do this
Just for funsies,
Makes us look bad --
Hence the shunsies.
This is stupid
I lack interest.
I would rather
Be on Pinterest.
'Stead of sitting,
Making faces,
Can't a boy just
Trade me places?
I would encourage some entrepreneur... (Score:3)
...to open a 'Boys Only' computer camp and watch the feminists rail against it's exclusion of girls, as they should...
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Just noticed your post after mine. Yeah I agree. I've seen parents sign up their kids for baseball or whatever and the kid is stuck doing something they hate 3 days a week. Parents need to learn: just because I like something doesn't mean my kid "should" like it too whether it is food, sports, jobs, or God.
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You must not live in the America I see. Way too many kids are happy being pets, as long as they have their sex and drugs on a regular basis. The few who avoid that lifestyle still have a better chance of being slaves of the robots rather than the owners.
Yeah, it's all going to Hell. But at least some privileged girls will go in a group with no boys allowed.
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