Girls and Science & Math

In response to Prompt #9, I have personally seen the discrepency between male and female math and science teachers. I am a middle school science teacher and I am one of the few females in my district. Also, remembering back to when I was in high school and college, most of my math and science teachers were men as well. I think that one of the major reasons thatthis continues is that as a society, we still reinforce values that steer girls away from these subjects. Most of the famous scientists and mathematicians that children hear about are men. It is not just the exposure to this kind of ideal in school that perpetuates this, think about clothing for kids. You would never see a little girl's t-shirt with huge bugs all over it, unless they are lady bugs or butterflies. I can remember girls in middle school who would pretend to be afraid of spiders not because they actually were, but because they thought they should be. These were the same girls who weren't afraid to touch or pick up a spider when they were younger. It just seems to me that in so many ways, we are saying to kids that science and math are for boys and english and reading are for girls. I think in order to steer kids away from these ideas, we need to break the mold and show the girls that it is ok to be good at science or math and that there are jobs in the world that they can get because of their success. Sorry about the rant, but this is a sensitive topic as a female science teacher.