Telling Women's Lives

Kailen Gore- Reader Response 3/20

Reading through the articles that were assigned to us, there were a few ideas that stuck out at me that I think would be interesting to everyone else in the class as well.

In the first New York Times article titled “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?”, I found the quote “You don’t need to be a genius to do what I do.” to be different and unlike many pieces of advice I have received in the past. I’ve been told that in whatever field I choose to work in when I get out of college, it must be something that I’m not only interested in, but also talented in. In college, I’m supposed to find the major and the work that I have a natural ability to excel in. But reading that quote made me realize that I don’t have to already be ‘gifted’ in whatever I want to do. This also showed me that I don’t have to know everything about my work to take part in it or make that my career. The questions we have in the presence of what we already know is what keeps all workforces expanding and moving forward.

In the ‘Science of Equality’ text, one of the suggested ways in which we can maintain female interest in STEM-related subjects was to implement more applied learning in the classroom. It says “unlike boys, girls are most engaged in STEM subjects when educational activities include communal work, hands-on learning, applied knowledge tasks, relevant applications, and problem solving.” I found this striking because I’m used to reading education stats that support all types of learning methods: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Stats that usually say the optimal learning methods for students varied or ranged across the board between boys and girls. I’m not used to there being one major teaching method that works best for the majority of a group.