Spring Break

24. March 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Spring break begins.  I’ve been sick for over a week now.  Mostly, I’m coughing up a lung.  It started as just a fatigued feeling.  Then a sore throat.  Then a cough.  Then the runny nose came.  Now I’ve got everything going.  I survived on drugs and my own adrenaline.  This week I ran a three-day course on e-textiles.  I had a fabulous group of kids. They all got along.  They were all fun in different ways and they all worked really hard.  After we completed the kits I’d purchased, I asked them to design their own projects, giving them the option of completing a bracelet I’d created based on this design.  Quite a few chose the bracelet, but a few others came up with their own creations.  We ran out of conductive thread.  I attempted to fedex more, but accidentally shipped via ground instead of next day.  Now I have more for next year.  Below are the pictures from our three-day sewing extravaganza:



I’m planning to stay mostly offline over the break.  For the next couple of days, I’m going to sleep and read, and probably watch bad tv.  I do want to do some work over the break–just tackling some programming problems I haven’t had time to look at–but mostly, I hope to truly escape, even though I’ll be at home.  I’ll see you all on the other side.

The Meaning of Life is over

16. March 2011 · 5 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

That is, I’ve turned 43.  I’m now truly into my 40s.  I started a new job near the end of my 42nd year.  This time last year, I’d sent off some resumes for teaching positions.  But the job I currently have had not been posted yet.  It would be another month before that would happen.

For 43, I feel pretty damn good.  I feel lucky to have been able to shift careers and to so far, be somewhat successful.  I have much to learn, but that’s keeping me young.

I keep having these nagging dreams about my weight, which isn’t bad, but I think I’m subconsciously worried about it.  I dreamt that I stepped on a scale and it zoomed up to well over 200.  And then I dreamt that I took off my clothes and my body just expanded, like one of those expanding animals you add water to.  I took my exercise clothes to work a week ago.  A colleague and I have been planning to work out together, but neither of us have managed it yet.  Friday is about the only day we don’t end up in an after-school meeting and we don’t feel like  working out on Fridays.  Sigh.

I was listening to the radio the other day and there was a local story about motivation to lost weight.  The main thrust of the argument was that if you’re doing it for vanity, it’s less likely to work.  Sadly, that’s where I am right now.  Intellectually, I can discuss the health benefits, but emotionally, I’m in it to look good in my clothes.

I’d make it a goal for the next year to lose x number of pounds, but I think I’m too focused on other things.  One day I’ll post here about going to the gym every day, but until then, I’ll settle for the way I look at 43.  It’s not so bad.

Even when it’s hard, it’s fun

10. March 2011 · 6 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I have had quite a few moments in my job where things are hard.  Dealing with the roller coaster of middle school emotions is one area that’s hard.  Figuring out that delicate balance between encouragement and discipline is also hard.  And, as I indicated a bit in my last post, dealing with society’s crazy gender expectations as they play out for my discipline is also hard.  I was starting to feel particularly discouraged by this until the last couple of days.  We have a special week just before spring break where each faculty member offers what is essentially a three-day-long course in an area they’re interested in–sometimes it’s a tangent to their actual subject area–a science teacher does infectious disease, for example.  And sometimes it’s completely unrelated–cooking.  I’m doing e-textiles.  And though I tried to make it sound as sexy as possible, I knew it couldn’t beat out the pastry making course.  I was hoping at least a couple of students ended up there, as their second choice.

And then, a student came up to me and said, “Ms. Blankenship, I hope I get into your course.  I put it as my first choice.”  And then later, another student told me she’d also put it first, but wondered if we could make horses instead of elephants.  Sure thing, I said.  To be fair, one of my homeroom students said it sounded cool, but she put it 4th.  At least she liked it.

The day before, a couple of rising seniors approached me to ask if there was any web design in my CS course.  Not really, I said.  They asked if I’d do it as an independent study.  Sure, I said.  Even though I knew that it would be extra work (It’s a course I’ll be offering after next year anyway.)

This morning, a student taking a Java course online sent me two programs she’d written that were failing to run.  My Java experience is 3 weeks sitting in on a class (it’s on my list of things to learn).  She’d come to me for help before and we talked in abstract terms about how to code the solutions–she needed nested loops.  I saw her programs and could tell they weren’t right, but couldn’t figure out exactly how because I didn’t know the Java syntax.  So I coded up how I would solve them in Python, went back to her Java, and figured out what was wrong (lack of initialized variables in one case and just a poor use of if statements in another).  I’m not sure yet if it helped her, but I was happy to provide some direction nonetheless.

As that last example clearly indicates, I’m often right at the edge of what I know when I’m teaching.  I haven’t been in this situation since my first couple of years of grad school.  Yes, it’s hard, but I like it.  I like having to push myself to figure something out, to learn something new.  Mr. Geeky said the other day after I was relating some other story to him, these girls will sure keep you on your toes.  Indeed they will.

Top Secret Rosies and Middle School

04. March 2011 · 8 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

On Wednesday, I went to see the film, Top Secret Rosies and participate in a Q & A with the director afterwards. The film is well worth seeing for anyone interested in the beginnings of computing and especially for those interested in women in math and computing.   During the Q & A, someone asked about getting women/girls interested in CS and the director’s response was that they needed to get to girls sooner, preferably middle school.  A couple of people around me poked me.  I wanted to jump up and shout, “Yes!” 

I don’t know that many people that try to teach CS of any kind in middle school, and I, myself, balance teaching applications and skills students need for their other classes and basic computing skills.  I’m especially proud of my sixth graders who work with HTML and CSS and who learn a little about web protocols and how the Internet works.  While that’s not strictly code, it introduces them to the idea that humans tell computers what to do through special languages–and we even talk about binary. 

And we begin learning about the logic of programming in eighth grade through Scratch.  I’m also doing an after school session for 4th and 5th graders where they’ll be doing a little of everything that I do across the middle school.  I’m planting seeds that I hope will grow into my future CS students and our future programmers and problem solvers.

The film made pretty clear that women have a long history of being discouraged from pursing highly technical and mathematical careers.  To some extent, I still see the uphill battle I’m fighting as some girls still tell me how “uncool” is it to be good at computer science.  That makes me sad, and I hope that five years from now, I won’t be hearing that as often.

I can’t

01. March 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Over my life as a technology “guru” of various stripes, I’ve heard some form of “I can’t.” 

“Oh, I’m not tech savvy.”

“Oh, I don’t know much about computers.”

“Oh, I’m not smart enough to do that [technology x].”*

Didn’t we just have a whole election campaign around the words, “Yes, we can?”  Sadly, I understand where these words come from.  I’ve said them myself.  I said them about Computer Science when I first encountered it.  I said it about Calculus when I first encountered it.  I’ve said it about numerous other things.  I don’t like this negative talk, from myself, from my students, or from my faculty.   And I want to overcome them.

This negative self talk comes from many places.  Sometimes it means, “I’m uncomfortable trying something new and failing.”  Sometimes it means, “I don’t want to fail because then people will think I’m not as smart as I seem.”  Sometimes it means, “This is not a priority for me.”  That last one is actually okay with me; I just would prefer that people said that instead of suggesting that their abilities are limited.  Sometimes I want to channel Yoda:

But then I don’t want to suggest that trying and failing is a bad thing. What Yoda says before is famous line is “It’s only different in your mind.” Learning math or CS or a new technology only seems different in your mind. It’s like learning anything. Yes, it can be hard. Yes, it can be frustrating. But it can also open a whole new world.

*Actual quotes