Dave Templeman

I am glad you had the opportunity to teach me some programming, although I believe I am not a textbook example for Gen Ys. I do not believe this experience was written about correctly.

Also, I don’t know if it is simply because of gender prejudices among teachers, as Christie suggests, but for some reason this does seem to be a much larger problem among intelligent females than intelligent males. I wonder if it has anything to do with what parents expect from their children as well. For instance, I think there can be more pressure for females to get good grades than males since boys are often excused by the “boys will be boys” phenomenon, making it perfectly acceptable for them to excel in sports instead of in school. While this might seem to have the opposite effect, I think this can make girls more results-driven and more likely to focus on completing assignments (which most would agree are not problem-solving oriented) instead of learning the material/exploring the world around them. I also think fathers may be less likely to joke around with daughters/use sarcasm when speaking with them; both of which I believe help to develop a more critical mindset, where you not only must listen to authoritative figures but process and analyze what they said and decide for yourself if it makes sense based on your past experiences with them. Whatever the cause of the general problem, and the intensity of it among females, I think nothing is being done to correct the problem by our education standards.