Too Much Tech in High School?

At first glance, Senate Bill 155, promoting on-line high school classes in California, sounds like a 21st century step in the right direction.   The bill, introduced by Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado, Republican from the 15th District, makes it possible for every student in California to receive an hour of classroom instruction on-line as part of his or her normal school day.  Proponents of the bill state that on-line education prepares students to be technologically savvy and enhances course selection regardless of school district or location. 

Since on-line learning is increasingly prolific in corporations, community colleges and universities, why not extend the model to California high schools — especially since California is home to Silicon Valley, the epicenter of the wired world?

While the bill targets “every high school student,” the likely initial recipients of the on-line classes are not those in disadvantaged school districts but rather those schools that already have computers and Internet access in place.  Frankly, the kids in these districts are wired enough.  They IM, text-message, and do on-line research with the greatest of ease.  They have learned the art of being in the same room without being present, focused on the latest text message from their cell phone buddy in much the same way we adults “listen” while checking our Blackberries.  Internet games like World of Warcraft have moved beyond passion into near-addiction.  Our 14 year old would forego basic hygiene and probably food if we’d let him devote more time to get to the next level.  

While the intent of the bill is noble, I object to the emphasis:  getting kids to spend one more solitary hour interacting with a machine.  The high school experience should be broader than one’s coursework.  It is also the time when teenagers develop deeper, lifelong skills in making friends.  This fabric of friendship is built through daily interaction with peers, not with a computer.   Friends help our kids maintain balance and perspective in a world that is increasingly pressure-filled with Honors and A/P classes, SAT tutors, and top college competition. 

Some people are fortunate enough to form bonds in high school that last into adulthood.  My sister married the man she met in seventh period study hall her senior year.  My husband still watches Monday night football with his former high school football team mate.  But even if the friendships don’t last, the skill of making and maintaining real relationships is vital to one’s well-being.  This is especially true in a world where technology has made it easy to share information without communicating, and where we tell ourselves that meeting someone virtually is just like being there.

Global Teams

It’s hard to find an organization that isn’t comprised of global teams. In today’s global marketplace, partnering within global teams is critical to a company’s success. And we all know the challenges: making communication effective, creating high-performing teams, developing trust among team members, having fun.

There are two really interesting programs that provide different takes on working virtually with others.

This month’s ATW Silicon Valley program provides tips and tricks for working as part of a global team. The program promises to be interactive and provide tools to develop healthy working relationships, understand individual partnering styles, develop solutions for sub-par teams, quickly build consensus. The program features Dr. Barbara Belk, a corporate psychologist.

The ATW program is on February 22, 2007, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at KLA-Tencor in Milpitas (Building 3, 1 Technology Dr.). More information about the ATW program: http://www.atwinternational.org/chapters/silicon%5Fvalley/upcoming_events.aspx

The following week, eLearning Forum is hosting a program called Wikinomics: How the Smartest Companies Create Value in the Age of Mass Collaboration. 

What’s mass collaboration? It’s today’s phenonenom of large teams, in the hundreds, thousands or millions, coming together to create value. MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Linux, the Human Genome Project, Wikipedia, and the Chinese Motorcycle Industry are all examples. It’s the power of social networking in a business context. If companies can harness this collective and genius they’ll be able to spur innovation and success.

The event is a conversation with Don Tapscott, a business strategist and co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

The Wikinomics program is on February 27, 2007, 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., at Cisco Systems in San Jose (Building 5, 325 East Tasman). More information about this eLearning Forum program: http://www.elearningforum.com/index.cfm/go/m_events/ei_1042/.

Harvard President

This past Sunday, February 11, 2007, Harvard University appointed its first female president, Dr. Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust. The New York Times published a good article about Dr. Faust and her appointment.

In her remarks, Faust stated, “I hope that my own appointment can be one symbol of an opening of opportunities that would have been inconceivable even a generation ago.”

The appointment is a particularly redemptive action on Harvard’s part after its previous president, Lawrence Summers, suggested the lack of advancement of women in science and engineering is because women have less innate ability than men in some fields. 

I found two of Faust’s comments interesting. She shared advice received from her mother: “This is a man’s world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.” Faust explained the advice was perhaps “a bitter comment from a woman of a generation who didn’t have the kind of choices my generation of women had.”

However, I would argue that in spite of the choices available to women today, it’s still a man’s world … and the sooner we women learn that, the better off we are. It’s been precisely that recognition of the true state of affairs that has allowed us to have such choices.

Her other comment I found interesting was, ”I’ve always been surprised by how my life turned out. I’ve always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor — I never would have imagined that. Writing books — I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. — I’m not sure I would even have imagined that.”

She’s not THAT old. Okay, she’s 59, which might seem old to 20- and 30-somethings. But I’m only half a generation younger than Faust, and I always imagined I could do anything if I wanted it.

I remember my father telling me I was lucky to be female, because I had the choice of either a career or staying at home (presuming I married a man who didn’t). Implied was that males didn’t have that choice. That fatherly advice hasn’t turned out to be true; housing prices necessitate two incomes, and I know several women whose husbands have decided to be stay-at-home dads.

The irony, though, is that Faust never imagined she had so many choices and has reached the pinnacle of her profession. Whereas I imagined my choices were limitless, and have been quite content to remain in the middle of the pack.

Men in the News

Following up on yesterday’s post, I find Gavin Newsom’s recent media attention interesting. His affair made the front page, above the fold, of yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News, and was covered on the local CBS news two nights in a row. I’m sure we could have a lively conversation about how or whether Mr. Newsom’s love life affects his leadership. Personally, I’m inclined to agree with Arianna Huffington; there are many more important and news-worthy events happening in the world today (global warming, Iraq, Iran, to name a few). Why spend air time and column inches on some sex scandal, the San Francisco mayor’s or someone else’s?

But what I find most interesting about media coverage of Mr. Newsom is that it tends to be typical of the way the media covers women in public positions. Case in point: the comments about whether he’s using mousse on his hair, and who he’s dating (San Jose Mercury News, March 2, 2006, page 1B).

Is it just that youthful, single, good looking men get the kind of coverage most women get? Or is it something special about Gavin Newsom?

Either way, it’s drivel.

Women in the News

I’m on the email list of The White House Project, a non-profit that advances women’s leadership in both the public and private sectors. The name of the organization refers to the goal of having a woman as U.S. president.

The following question comes from one of their recent emails.

Which of the following headlines appeared in national and regional newspapers the week of January 21, 2007?
a.  Obama Announces Exploratory Committee in Powder Blue
b.  Sen. Brownback Cuts Hair Prior to Formal Declaration
c.  Stylists Interpret Messages of Senator Clinton’s Accoutrements
d.  Richardson’s Suit Choice Reveals True Colors

Did you guess C? Yep, thank you New York Sun and writer Christopher Faherty. Here’s the link if you want to read Mr. Faherty frivolous, vapid, stupid column:  http://www.thewhitehouseproject.org/v2/press/2007/January/20070131-NYSun.html. Not a single word about the content of Senator Clinton’s video announcement, or the issues she raised, such as restoring respect for America, ending the deficit, becoming energy independent and free of foreign oil.

When Katie Couric became the first female anchor of the nightly news and had an exclusive interview with President Bush the first week on the job, the media wrote about Ms. Couric’s appearance. Read Marie Wilson’s Op Ed in the Chicago Tribune.

The same thing happens when women take the top jobs in industry. Think Carly Fiorina. In Ms. Fiorina’s words, “After striving my entire career to be judged by my results and my decisions, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and perceptions of my personality would outweigh anything else.”

To quote from The White House Project, “Research shows that when it comes to female candidates, media tend to focus on the superficial – women’s hair, hemlines, and/or husband. Only by increasing the numbers of women in leadership will we prevent this kind of negative coverage. When we have numbers of women in power, more attention will be paid to their agenda, not their gender.”

If you’re as incensed by the media’s double standard as I am, then take action and get your voice out there. Be a careful reader and listener. Write a letter to a journalist who “speaks first of an outfit and second about agenda,” and tell him what you think about his pathetic reporting. 

The Gender Chip

Film maker Helen De Michiel created a documentary film called The Gender Chip Project, which follows five female students from Ohio State University (Columbus) over a period of three years. These particular students majored in sciences, engineering and math; and the film chronicles their college experiences in traditionally male domains.

To quote the film literature, “When gender collides with our cultural assumptions about who can flourish in these fields, how are young women changing the real and practical terms of engagement?”

It’s an interesting film. And what I find most noteworthy, even startling, are some of the statistics published in the documentary and accompanying toolkit.

The majority of undergraduates in the U.S. are women, yet only 20% are earning degrees in engineering and computer science.

In 1977, 36% of math or computer science B.A. degrees were awarded to women. In 2000, it was 32%. It’s gone down! And yet that’s where most of the job growth is, not to mention where most of the lucrative jobs are. My own work experiences mirror this trend. When I worked in the software engineering field in the mid-80′s, there were a lot of women in my organization; my recollection is somewhere around 40%. In 2000, I worked in a small software engineering organization (approximately 10 engineers), and only one was a woman.

Women are over 50% of our population. Yet in the work world, women make up 10-20% of high-tech workforce; 20% of engineering workforce; 27% of computer science workforce. A lot of us know what it’s like to be the only woman in a meeting.

And in terms of wages, in 1997 the median salary in science and engineering was $52,000 for men and $36,000 for women. Very disheartening; although we can only hope this wage gap has decreased in the intervening 9 years.

There’s a ton of other statistics in the literature that goes with the film, and none of these statistics are very good news for women. The point of the documentary is to engender action around addressing the issues that discourage girls and women from pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math. The documentation cites research that shows boys are more likely to attribute failure to external factors (e.g., “The teacher is a hard grader.”), and girls to attribute failure to internal factors (e.g., “I’m not smart enough.”).

Boy, doesn’t that sound all too familiar.

Women and Risk Taking

Risk-taking and how to deal with risks are the topics of an upcoming ATW Silicon Valley meeting (Thursday, 1/25/2006). In my day-in and day-out life, I don’t usually think consciously about risk, although I suppose that has a lot to do with the fact that I feel pretty safe. But when you stop to think about it, we deal with risk many times a day. Little things like should I really walk downtown after dark? If I take 101 to work at the height of rush hour, will I get there on time?

Lately I’ve been thinking about risk and career more. Mostly because I’m ready to do something new with my life. Like working on a presidential campaign in a staff capacity. Or spending the summer in Italy (doing I don’t know what, but I really like Italy).

According to the write-up for Thursday’s ATW meeting, “Risks are inherent to any worthwhile endeavor, but how you deal with them determines if you’re successful or not.” So I guess not taking risk generally translates to less chance of success. Scary thought, particularly if you’re not a risk taker!

The meeting is at Intuit in Mountain View. For more information, check out the ATW Silicon Valley website: http://www.atwinternational.org/chapters/silicon_valley/upcoming_events.aspx