Tiny steps
Via Feministing, I learnt that this year, girls won the first prizes in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, in both the individual and team categories. That’s really awesome news. So there, Larry Summers. It always irritates me when guys try to use innate differences between men and women to explain away the huge gap between the number of men and women pursuing academic careers. Whatever such differences may be, they are completely insignificant compared to the far fewer opportunities women are offered and the pressure on them to be good wives and mothers above all else.
All this reminds me of my own experiences in high school in India, trying to establish myself in a new school full of very conservative, highly intelligent, extremely motivated students. Until the 10th grade, I went to a very easy-going school, where studying for about half an hour before an exam was enough to do well. To be suddenly plonked down in this new school, with a different syllabus altogether, and a very different breed of student, was not at all an easy experience. I would do it all again though, because it gave me the confidence to know that I could survive no matter how difficult the environment and taught me the math and science skills I draw upon every day today.
Things were really bad at first. I bombed on the exams that whole first term and I am sure that most of my teachers were convinced that I was a dunderhead. The gender dynamics in that school were really screwed up. Boys and girls rarely talked to each other in school. Even at that age, the boys studying science far outnumbered the girls, while the reverse was true for accounting and finance. While teachers valued and praised the boys who were whip-smart and could solve a problem before anyone else, the only girls who seemed to be held in any sort of esteem by teachers were the "good" ones, who were docile, did what they were told and could be relied upon to babysit the class on the teacher’s day off.
I remember the day I first heard about the Intel Science Talent Discovery Fair. Of course the school being what it was, I did not hear about it directly, but a rumor passing around the class that our chemistry teacher had asked two of her favorite students to prepare a project for entry in the fair. These students were, of course, boys. She even had the project they could do all picked out and had arranged with nearby institutes of higher learning for her students to conduct their experiments there. I remember seething inwardly at the unfairness of it all. Who was my chemistry teacher to decide who was worthy of creating such a project? I remember the biology class we had that day very clearly. Biology was by no means my favorite class at school. My biology teacher was a well-meaning and good-natured woman whose idea of teaching a class was to read from our textbook in a droning, monotonous voice. In this class she went up several points in my estimation, by first telling us about the upcoming competition and asking us to come and discuss any ideas we might have with her. Finally, someone who was willing to take a chance on us poor stupid people.
I wish I could say that I thought about possible ideas for a long time and carefully considered all the alternatives before plumping for one project. In reality, the day before the deadline for project proposal submission my dad and I came up with the idea of measuring pollution levels using some sort of bio-indicator. Some frenzied Googling later, I had decided upon my project. A few weeks later we got the happy news — my project, as well as three others from my school had been selected to proceed to the next stage of the competition — the regional finals.
I had a lot of fun doing that project. Peering through a microscope at tiny little pollen grains, travelling around the city to collect samples from the various pollution monitoring centers around the city, taking photographs, making a poster. In the end, both I, and another of the students our biology teacher had mentored got to go onto the next stage of the competition, the national finals, while the team that our chemistry teacher had handpicked did not make it. I’ve always seen it as a vindication of my biology’s teacher’s methods — offering guidance to any student who wanted to participate, not making the whole competition a semi-secret hush-hush thing and allowing students complete freedom to choose what the wanted to do. In the end, both I and the guy who also made it lost in the national finals, but the whole thing generated enough cred to make school much more bearable from then on.
Lovely post. And believe it or not, I went through something almost identical to what you went through, only I was much younger. I can probably relate to almost everything you’ve said in here.
Comment by the wannabe Indian punkster — December 11, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
Hey, thanks a lot! I think we probably have a lot in common — I’m Tamil too and pursuing a career in science. I have to say I discovered your blog a couple weeks ago and have been reading all your posts instead of working on my finals. I love the way you write.
Comment by Administrator — December 11, 2007 @ 7:44 pm
hey … i can pretty much relate to this post … i never went for some bigy science competition but did go for some art ones .. and to say the least that particular teacher was hell bent on sending only a selected few who had the required knowledge … (yeah right sure ) and i was quite many a times the one left…last… always slated to go for the next competiton which never actually came .
then the fates changed and we got a new art teach much like your bio teacher and now i can say that its pretty much because of her that i know the art of schools in delhi .. just because she invited to apply rather than ordering the same handful of students
Comment by bluebutterfly — December 13, 2007 @ 12:41 am
Yikes, you actually have the perseverance to muck through my rambling, slightly embarrassing archives? You have earned my respect for your vast reserves of patience. Hee.
Oh and before I forget my manners, thanks!
Comment by the wannabe Indian punkster — December 13, 2007 @ 5:00 am
This totally happened to me, too! I was in 8th grade in No. California, struggling with algebra. The teacher offered a before-school study session, so I went regularly and vastly improved my grade. At these sessions were also people who were already doing well, and at one point, they were preparing for a math-camp up in another county. I was becoming into math! (didn’t last long), and I saw one boy, who I happened to know was getting the same grade as me (if I wasn’t actually doing a bit better than him), filling out the application for the camp. I told the teacher I wanted to go too, and he LAUGHED, AND TOLD ME I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH. I said that I was doing just as well as that boy, and he just looked at me, amused, as if to say “wow, she sure thinks highly of herself”. I felt crushed and betrayed, and never did well in math again, barely passing High School algebra II. I sometimes wonder, if I had been encouraged, how well I might have done, if I kept it up.
Comment by madaha — December 15, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
oh forgot to mention: THERE WERE NO GIRLS PREPARING FOR THIS MATH CAMP.
Only boys. I was so humiliated that I don’t think I ever even told my parents about this incident. Thanks a lot, Mr Gomes! (and I thought he was so cool…) Sad memories.
Comment by madaha — December 15, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
Wow, thanks for all the great comments on this post everyone.
@bluebutterfly: So glad you got a new art teacher who was willing to give people a chance. If all teachers do is reward people who have already show “results” how will they ever discover anyone new?
@tamilpunkster: No patience required at all, I assure you.
@madaha: Wow, it sucks that you had to go through that, and especially that you developed a dislike of math after that. I wonder how many girls have been pushed away from math like this. I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with math like that as well — once during the Math Olympiad and another time when I wrote an article with a friend of mine for a small math-based magazine. But the anecdotes are a bit long so watch out for a post about them soon.
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Comment by Jon — October 15, 2009 @ 6:55 am