Code like a girl

 



Code Like a Girl

Throughout my years in education, whether that be during my years in college or during my undergrad I have always found it difficult accepting the fact of being the only girl on my course. It never made sense  to me why computer science related subject was seen as male dominant subject. It raised the question to why it is seen as a male dominant subject? It is quite shocking that even today in the 21st century an eyebrow is always raised when I introduce what kind of background I belong to. Something which I defiently want to change.

Whilst researching I came to know that women were in fact one of the very first computer scientists to exist. In the era of the WW2 women were mostly known for working within software and being one of the first every computer scientists? All we need to do is pay attention to this matter, we are always to quickly name famous male computer scientists but what about the famous female ones? None of can even think of a name. All we need to do is to put a stop to the huge gender gap in computing in todays society is to talk about the famous female historians that existed as computer scientists. 

Implementing it in a classroom 

As a female computing teacher I have already it made my mission by pushing girls to get themselves involved in computer science. During my placement if i noticed any female pupil who actually enjoyed computer science I would always question whether they would choose it as a GCSE option and encouraged that they should. 

In my own classroom, my plan is to have a wall display which displays information on female computer scientists, similar to the image posted in this blog. My aim is to do this in the very first computing lesson I teach for KS3. My plan will be to have a female computer science display up in my classroom and have my pupils discuss the issue of why we don't know these names and also have my pupils see if they could research their own. In my opinion, I feel that if I could implement the idea of computer science not always being a male dominant subject as this might encourage girls to choose computer science as an option in their GCSE years.

I really hope that I can make this change as a teacher as it is something which I am very passionate about. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure I can make a difference in this huge gender gap we have in computer science. 










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