"An Ancient Tale": The Humanist Response to a values-based assignment

Trigger Warning: rape.

One of the interesting aspects of Business school (B-school, what have you) is that you get to discuss all sorts of hypothetical situations and you usually do it first in a small group (my team has 5 members) and then as a larger class -- where it's usually much more difficult to voice your opinion or have a good, thorough discussion. My team is composed of 4 incredibly sweet and gentle individuals (5 if you include me, though I'm not sure that's quite a fair assessment of me) with rather varied and diverse backgrounds. For future reference, our team composure:

A: Male, American Military, Married with 1 child
B: Male, South American, Married, Background in Supply Chain
C: Female, Indian, Married, Background in Marketing
D: Male, American, in a steady relationship, Background in Public Policy
E: Female, American, Single, Background in Technology.

I'm E. In case you hadn't guessed.

For tomorrow's assignment in our Teams class, we were asked to read and discuss An Ancient Tale by J.B. Ritchey. You can read the assignment as well as the first four questions here: An Ancient Tale

As soon as I read this story, I knew I'd be bringing an unpopular opinion to the table at our group discussion, particularly since my first reaction to this story was pretty visceral. Well, not the story itself, but the implication of the questions.

The link above actually does a good job of explaining the reasoning behind the exercise: help people understand different weighted ethics and moralities that others impose on the world around them. By assigning blame in a situation like that of the princess in the story, we can better understand the relative weights of the beliefs of our peers.

A summary of the case at hand: A princess is married to a wealthy lord who's always out visiting neighboring kingdoms and she thinks he might be cheating on her. A handsome vagabond comes along and she's all, "yeah, you're kinda cute!" and they go gallivanting off to do some away-from-home cheating. But the vagabond leaves her and she realizes the only way home is through a dangerous forest. She goes to her god-father for help and apologizes for her actions, and he forgives her but refuses to help her through the forest. She goes to a white knight who says he'll help her, for a fee, but she has no money. So she decides to brave the forest on her own, where she is found by an evil sorcerer who has a dragon eat her. The End.

Ok. So the big questions on this case are who is at fault? The case only provides you the options of the princess, the husband, the vagabond, the godfather, the knight, or the sorcerer.
Who's the second-most at fault?


My team was split between the fault lying with the princess (personal accountability, yo!), and the sorcerer (guy is convincing dragons to eat people. Not cool, bro).

The reasoning my team delivered was that the sorcerer told the dragon to do it. Alternatively, if the princess hadn't left home with the vagabond, she never would have been in the position to have to go through the forest in the first place. 

Firstly, I want to address that I recognize that the point of the exercise is to generate discussion and high levels of emotional response. The author wants to encourage a conversation about personal values and how it affects decision-making. And in that way, this assignment does exactly what it's supposed to.

BUT. It's problematic because it reinforces harmful societal norms.

I agree with none of the given options. And the dragon isn't an option, but even if it were, dragons don't really exist, which means their relative morality and ethical basis is not exactly a given. I guess I can't really buy that the sorcerer is the end-all-be-all of a dragon's actions. I've read plenty of stories where dragons can talk, reason, and have moral values. I've also read stories where dragons have entirely different moral structure than human society. Them's the breaks. 

Moral aptitude: unknown

What DOES exist is society pressure and victim blaming.  You may have guessed this from my trigger warning up top, but what I see here is an allegory for rape.

Here we have a girl. Maybe she  spends an evening with a guy friend when her boyfriend didn't know what she was up to and maybe she got drunk. She made some bad decisions. When she's ready to go, she realizes she's on the other side of town and she's got to get home. There's a bad neighborhood in between here and there. She calls a family member and admits her wrong-doing but he says he won't help. She calls a taxi, but it turns out she has no money to pay for a cab. She decides to brave the walk and go on her own. A stranger sees her walking home and encourages his friend to rape her, which he does.

Who's at fault here?

The girl's just trying to get home. The actions (or lack of action) of the people around her is not a reflection on her or her previous actions. It is NOT karmic payback. It is NOT deserved. A girl (or guy) walking home should be able to walk home unmolested regardless of their previous decisions, regardless of their character. It's is not the girl's fault for being on the wrong side of town, for being out late, for taking that path home, for wearing something revealing. It is not the boyfriend's fault for not being attentive to his girlfriend. It is not the guy-friend's fault for not escorting her home or kicking her out. It is not the relative's fault for deciding not to take her home (yes, it's a dick move, but his personal accountability in this situation is nil). It is not the taxi cab driver's fault for not driving her home when she had no money. There may be some maleficence to the stranger who encourages the misdeed of his friend and certainly, he's not a good person. But the person who is at fault here is the person who harmed the girl, the rapist.

This representation did not play well with my team. In fact, it made them very uncomfortable. As a graduate from an all-women's liberal arts college, this kind of interpretation is front-and-center to me, but my peers at this larger co-ed institution are less inclined to lean this way or be comfortable with a discussion centered around a topic like this. Some would say this is a feminist issue, to which I say it's not. It is a humanist one: Be a human being. Treat others like human beings. These rules, regardless of gender should result in something like a happy ending for stories like the one above.

What makes this such an interesting case is the lack of availability of the dragon as an option for the person at-fault. You're given any other choice but I suggest that the choices provided are an unacceptable reflection of victim-blaming and apologist behavior in our society. The consequence of being drunk is a hangover. The consequence of being on the wrong side of town is sore feet from walking home. The consequence of cheating on your husband is guilt and maybe STDs and/or pregnancy if you didn't use protection. Not getting eaten by a dragon. By accepting the options given as our only choices, we're continuing a myth that a person's actions are a defining aspect of their 'story' and that karma is an acceptable defense for bad things happening to people, rather than addressing the real problem of those who acted in or performed roles in the negative event.

From a humanist point of view, I reject these options. Let's change the narrative and the followup questions to ask: As a human being, what are my rights? As a human being, is it ok for my rights to infringe on others'? As a human being, what are my responsibilities?

Review: Mrs. Washington goes to Smith

As a graduate of Smith College, I'd been looking forward to the Hallmark Channel's summer presentation of "Mrs. Washington goes to Smith", a story about a woman in her late 40's (played realistically by Cybill Shepherd) returning to her (and my) alma mater to finish her degree.

Yes that's a map of Smith's campus. Not that it matters.
It's the only time you see the campus at all in this movie.

Let's get this out of the way: Because I'm a Smith graduate, I expected a lot more from this movie than I do from standard tv-movie fare. The Smith campus is beautiful, the academics are intense, and the students are intelligent and well-spoken. Though I know that Hallmark Movies are generally known for their tear-jerking, I figured Shepherd had the acting chops to pull off any kind of gushy plot. Yet even she couldn't save this overly-emotional mire.

Part of the issue might be that there was so little discussion about the program she was enrolled in; the Ada Comstock program for 'non-traditional' students. Three of my 4 years at Smith were spent in Northrop house, which had a surprisingly large population of Adas, and they were ALWAYS given singles. They interacted with traditional students in (might I say it) a traditional way. That is to say, they did not treat other students in the house as daughters, but as other people who happened to be in the same place for the same purpose as they were. Like going to the bank, it hardly matters if the person in line in front of you is ten years younger or 30 years older. Hallmark Channel's script, glossed over the entire interaction between students.

My own disappointment was heightened by the filming location which was clearly not Smith's campus, or even Northampton. Location for the film is listed as Los Angeles. I found myself straining at every shot, trying to find some semblance of Smith's architecture. And it was there. Barely. Hallmark's Smith College has a lot more stairs than the real version, I noticed. Shepherd's Alice Washington was always going up some stairs or down some stairs, noticing a professor on the stairs, calling out to someone on another floor.

Mostly, the biggest issue with "Mrs. Washington goes to Smith" was the ridiculously flat script. The plot, which centers mainly around the interaction of Mrs. Washington, her 20 year old roommate and their poetry professor (omg, We both have a huge crush on him! That is sooooo wrong!), feels stiff and over-acted. The viewer has a hard time becoming really engaged with this movie, since at no point does the plot really leap off the screen.

The realest moments came at the Thanksgiving scene when Mrs. Washington returns home to create a holiday feast for her two children who are by turns impressed, proud and completely horrified by their mother's insistence on living her own life and finishing her degree. This intimate portrayal of a mother doing something for herself for a change and the critical reaction of her self-absorbed daughter are perhaps the most interesting points of the whole movie. These reflections on adult education probably ring true for many Ada Comstock students.

The rest of the story, alas, was too saccharine to reflect upon. Every moment seemed heavy with things unsaid. And every interaction between the poetry professor and roommate Zoe or Mrs. Washington verged on too painful to watch. What might have been a poignant tale of an autonomous woman finally doing something for herself becomes an awkward love-triangle that has nothing to do with the setting or characters involved.

The backdrop of Smith College becomes less than even a backdrop; it becomes a set-up for the title's cutesy switch-a-roo of 1939's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". Had the former movie not been made, this movie would be of no more interest or notoriety than any other tear-jerker hosted on Hallmark. And as "Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith" shares no more attributes with that old classic than the title.

Ultimately, the only word that sums up Hallmark's "Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith" is "disappointment".

Summer TV Preview Countdown #3

3) (It's a tie!) Monk & Royal Pains

Monk is saying goodbye. Maybe even to wipes? We can hope.

With this summer comes the 8th and final season of Monk. And, I'm sure, quite a few revelations. Monk may have lost me as a viewer around season 4, but that won't stop me coming back when I have a feeling that a lot of old strings will get tied up this season (well, they'd have to, right?).

My dad and I have some theories about what will happen this season:

Plot line the first
a) Monk will finally confront Trudy's murderer.
b) Trudy's murderer will be killed in some way that is only marginally Monk's fault.
c) Because Trudy's murderer is dead, Monk will start making headway on conquering some of his OCD
d) Monk will be reinstated to the police force
e) Natalie will be paid, in full

Plot line the second
a) Monk will finally confront Trudy's murderer.
b) Monk will fall in love with a secondary or tertiary character
c) This love interest will help Monk get over some of his fears.

In any case, it looks to be a nice little wrap-up. And I'm excited to see how the whole thing concludes.

As for Royal Pains . . .

Concierge Doctor with denial is a hottie.

I caught the pilot of this little gem last week. Frankly, for the most part, USA could take just about any actor and any plot and keep their writers the same and I'd be all over it like iguanas on a warm rock. Royal Pains is slightly different from their usual fare. The camera work is slick and clean. The main character isn't the wise-cracker but the straight man, while his brother is the main comedic force of the show.

The pilot was actually a very nice balance of drama and comedy. And you really get the sense from the show that you'd love to punch some of those rich people right in the face. If that's not good story telling, I don't know what is.

Potential down-sides: Will Americans want to see rich people living high-on-the-hog and throwing away money on fancy cars and postage stamps, particularly in this down-turn economy? I'm not really sure. This is definitely a slow-starter series. And I can see it either being pulled late-season, or becoming a sudden break-out hit. In the case of the latter, the writers WILL need to step it up. This is not really a medical mystery show so much as a interaction drama. We get to sit and watch all these rich people relate to one another and money change hands, but for right now, none of the major characters (save one, the female hospital doctor) have a long-term goal.

It can be truly unnerving to watch these people prance around the screen in their yuppie/preppy suits, acting on whims and not on future plans. So Royal Pains is a waiting game. As it stands though, I'll be tuning in each Thursday to catch it (perhaps even at the cost of missing "The Fashion Show").

Summer TV Preview Countdown #5

Alright folks, now that I'm moved back to New Jersey and have most of my stuff in order (and I'm unemployed), the unofficial GG hiatus is over! And we're starting the summer off with a bang to talk about some of the upcoming TV shows (and a few that are already in full-swing) that I'm looking forward to watching. Let the dizzying array of TV-brain-meltiness begin!

5) The Fashion Show

Boy Isaac, for someone who always complains
that the contestants don't use enough color,
you sure do wear a lot of black!

While Project Runway was being shuffled over to Lifetime Network, Bravo was scrambling to recoup their losses. "Let's make a copy of it," they likely said to themselves. "We'll set it in the same city, with the same number of contestants, the same number of judges. But we will change the shape of the runway. We won't give the designers a mentor. And we will make sure that when we critique a design, we will do it in the bitchiest and most inane way possible."

And while the producers were likely squealing with joy at their own "good" ideas, they probably also jumped up and down and hugged. That's my theory.

The Fashion Show is trying. It's trying soooo hard to be the new Project Runway, but despite my initial excitement over this show, it's fallen flat. The guest judges sometimes have no insight into fashion at all, a lot of the designers have NO sewing skills of which to speak, and the challenges are frequently pointless or of little consequence. Not to mention, giving someone immunity for designing a high schooler's t-shirt strikes me as the height of the inane. Bravo isn't even manufacturing drama for the sake of drama here.

Unfortunately, I really like design shows, so although I'm not happy with it, I'll probably continue watching it.

Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown!

Misti's Lists: Top 10 Timeless Educational Games

I'll be frank with you, readers. I was an only child. And as such, on various holidays and birthdays, I was frequently gifted with fantastically complex and fun board games. If only I'd had some siblings or the presence of mind to learn how to drive when I was merely eight so that I might drive myself over to my friends' houses to play with them. Since that was not the case, I was frequently relegated to playing games by myself. Thankfully, the majority of popular games available on the market today and yesteryear are profoundly based on luck. Monopoly, Trouble, Life. They all relied on dice, so it was very easy for me to create an alter-ego to play with.

But this entry is not about those Parker Brother juggernauts. My own parents always tended to gift me with something very different. My house was a haven for fun educational games which encouraged intellect and skill. And I want to share a list of my favorites with you. The items listed below are both fun and classic. They may be simple or have few pieces, but can create fabulously complex games. And most importantly, many of them are things you can do with children who have just started grade school.


10) Fluxx

I am sure there are people out there who don't consider Fluxx to be terribly educational. And for the most part, they're right. But it's certainly a lot of fun, and it does have that wonderful side effect of telling folks that sometimes, life just isn't fair! Aside from that though, here's a great way to talk to your kids about goals and rules. Why are they different now than before? What do you have to do to accomplish this goal. A crazy card game for those of us with ADD.

9) Bananagrams

Bananagrams is Scrabble for people who don't like interacting with others. You can play in a group, but it's just as easy to play this game by your lonesome. Use Bananagrams' 144 letter tiles to create your own free-form Scrabble board. It's actually a LOT of fun to play. There IS however a lot of luck involved in which tiles you pick. But what better way to learn more about spelling and arranging words? Even the carrying case is in the shape of a cute banana.

8) Carcassonne

To be honest, I'm not really sure how well Carcassonne translates for younger audiences. But for anyone older than 12, this is fun tile-based game requiring strategy and risk-assessment. There is an element of luck about it, but it's much more about interaction with others and your ability to understand complex land values.

7) Boggle

Boggle! One of my absolute favorite word games! Boggle combines reading, spelling, and pattern identification with speed (though you can get rid of the timer if you don't feel like being competitive). Extended boards are available for more advanced players. Younger players can expand their vocabulary and also start learning about prefixes and suffixes. And when the Boggle grid starts feeling too confined, you can take the letter dice out and use the dice to make your own word games.

6) 24

You don't even have to go out and BUY 24 to play it. Just get yourself a piece of paper, choose 4 integers and get cracking! The point of the game is to use basic math operations (+,-,/,*) with the numbers to get a result of 24. Older students can also use powers and roots or larger numbers. This is among my favorite math games and it can be dressed up or dressed down for any age.

5) The aMAZEing Labyrinth

When people think "Labyrinth", a lot of them think of David Bowie, or that weird, frustrating marble game where you have to get your marble through the maze. This puzzle game is far more intriguing than even David Bowie. Use the tiles to set up a grid board of hallways and items. with one extra tile, you push the halls around to get your piece to the treasures. This game is great for developing your spacial skills. There's a little bit of luck and a whole lot of logic. Depending on how the pieces are arranged, the game can range from very simple to maddeningly difficult.

4) Set

This game is great for pattern recognition. You've got 12 cards on the table and all of them are different. Can you find 3 where all their characteristics are similar or different. This is also a great game to help teach very basic skills for understanding "same" and "different". As kids get older, you can adapt the game to be more challenging by relying on speed.

3) Once Upon a Time

You have a kid, and they love stories at bed time. Actually, they love stories ANY time. How about a game that gets them to use their imagination and lets them make their own story in the process? Once Upon a Time is a card game that has a number of motifs and themes classic to fairy tales and fables. Each card has an element of a story; either a plot point, a character, a location, and so on. Your job is to use all your cards to create a cohesive and entertaining story. Kids as young as 6 will enjoy making their own stories. You can help your kids out by writing down their stories as you go along so they can read them at bed time in the future!

2) Mancala

A simple game but not for the faint of heart. Also not for very young children as there are a lot of small pieces. I've played Mancala with a variety of different rules, and each new set of rules requires a different adaptation to win. Try to get all the marbles in your own bank, and steal the marbles from under your opponent's nose. No luck here. All skill.

1) Quarto

Quarto is not only a fantastic game to exercise your mind. It's also beautiful. With 16 carved wooden pieces and 1 wooden board, minimalism is the idea here, and although the set can be heavy to carry around, it's a nice addition to a trip to the beach. Consider Quarto when you're concerned about getting sand in your Scrabble set. Quarto's 16 different pieces (like Set) are all different. They are light, dark, tall, short, round, square, solid, and hollow. Your job is to get any four in a row on the board with a similar characteristic. The catch? You choose the piece your opponent places on the board and vice-versa. You can teach the basic concepts of this game to children as young as 5 or 6. And by the time the child reaches 9 or 10, you can begin to introduce the concept of strategy. A gem.

So, enjoy these games. Go out there and better yourself! Click on the links below to go to the Amazon product page. And if there's any game you think that I'm out of my mind to have excluded, put it in the comments! I want to know what else is out there!

Fluxx
Bananagrams
Carcassonne
Boggle
24
The aMAZEing Labyrinth
Set
Once Upon a Time
Mancala
Quarto

Upcoming Film: Coraline

It's been a while since I was last psyched about an upcoming film release. Most notably, I'm seriously looking forward to X-men Origins flick, "Wolverine". But that isn't projected to come out until May this year. So until then, I'm going to have to sedate myself with the variety of twee tween fantastical-romances that are griming up the movie pipeline. And "Coraline", which the trailer promises to be every bit as amazing as Mr. Tim Burton's first clay-mation feature film, "Nightmare Before Christmas" (Burton's first clay-mation short was "Vincent" in 1982).

Careful, Coraline. Curiosity supposedly killed the cat.

What makes "Coraline" so much more thrilling in concept is that the story was created by Neil Gaiman, the same mind who wrote the brilliant "Stardust", and BBC's "Neverwhere". All the trailers I've seen so far indicate that "Coraline" is a very promising film that Burton's dark vision lends itself to perfectly.

Seeing "Nightmare Before Christmas" still imbues me with a child-like sense of wonder, so I'm certainly looking forward to more from both Gaiman and Burton. Not to mention that although I'm not really a fan of Dakota Fanning (or, admittedly, her voice), the voice acting in the trailer seems SPOT ON. I'm very excited for this and the release date is thankfully quite soon, to save us from "Twilight" dregs.

Coraline comes to theaters February 6th. See below for the trailer.

I'm waiting for: Middleman (DVD)

I don't really watch all that much TV, generally, and when I do, I tend to gravitate towards shows falling into one of the following categories:

1) Unapologetically nerdy - Nature specials, History channel specials. You know the type. I'm the kind of person who could watch "Planet Earth" in HD for HOURS, and I have. I want to know about all the little intricacies of the squid life cycle, or the exact crushing power of a lion's jaws as compared with an eagle. Nerdy.

2) Orgasmically geeky - The type of show which has no problem referencing a slew of pop culture icons in under 5 minutes. I think a lot of people are attracted to shows like this, which accounts for the unprecedented success (and verbal speed) of Gilmore Girls.

Lorelei and Lorelei have average speaking speed of ~145wpm.
Liza Weil thinks that's pretty slow.

It's easy to categorize the latter type of shows into something you can dismiss because they're so pop-culture lite, but according to Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You, these kinds of shows encourage us to think on our feet and develop faster cognitive skills.

So it's no wonder that I was enthralled by summer 2008 new-comer "The Middleman", which was originally based off of a comic book of the same name. Writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach created a witty fast-paced dialogue that draws on ennumerable areas of pop-culture. Not to mention that all the main characters are hot.

Sexy AND Smart: Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar
are here to protect you from amazonian fish-eating zombies.

According to all the current news sources for the undeniably dorky, "The Middleman" is not currently on track to be released to DVD. And ABC Family which hosted the original run of the show has neglected to put up whole episodes for viewing. So there is currently no legal recourse for those who want to access this show and see what I'm talking about. However, I will certainly be offering up the contents of my wallet for anything else Grillo-Marxuach produces (as evidenced by my gleeful joy when I ordered a copy of the comic off of Amazon.com).

If you have a chance to see any episodes of Middleman, jump on the opportunity. I promise that it's worth it.

Cult Classics

Even though I felt traumatized by Rocky Horror Picture Show from an early age, I've always been drawn towards what society calls "Cult Classics". I remember wandering around video stores to the Cult section and wondering if there was something implicit in making a cult movie. Did you watch a film the first time around and just know? I've seen my share of cult hits, and I know they can range from irrevocably awful (Tank Girl) to bizarrely quirky (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) to just plain awesome (Office Space).

Wikipedia claims that a "Cult Classic" is a film that develops a strong, obsessive following after an initial failed release, and I'm sure that quotability must be one of those facets which yields obsession. But there must be more than this, or the entire James Bond series would be considered cult films. And it can't be based solely on the inital flop, because some things I consider cult films simply didn't do all that poorly to begin with.

Mostly, I'm thinking of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog which has three episodes totaling 45 minutes in length when strung together. Originally released directly to web, it has just made its first appearance on the DVD and BlueRay shelves, and when I saw that, I snagged a copy, ASAP.

The Dr. Horrible cast wants you to know that
writers' strikes can't be held accountable for poor media.
Got a strike? Go out and write it yourself.

When I first watched this online, I knew, INSTANTLY that DHSAB was going to be a cult classic. People would simply be unable to ignore the draw of Dr. Horrible's fantastic music and witty dialogue. Dr. Horrible is expertly played by Neil Patrick Harris, who was completely able to translate Billy's quiet, bumbling, unhappiness to the screen. This is certainly a film where the viewer is intended to firmly side with the 'villain'. Biggest complaint, as worded by my mother: "Wait, that's it?? Where's the rest of it?" (which, frankly, is how I felt about RHPS)

While it's true that DHSAB ends on a low note (not to mention somewhat out-of-the-blue), I don't feel it's unfair for the director Joss Whedon to ask his audience to stretch their minds a little bit and realize that DHSAB is a bit like life and you don't always get what you hoped for. And in this case, it's a good thing.

And anyway, the music is FANTASTIC. I have the soundtrack in my car and I listen to it pretty much constantly.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog can be viewed online for free at Hulu. Just follow the link. (NOTE: You must have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player to view the video)

Girls, Technology, and Confidence

As most people are aware, the female presence in technology is very, very minor. This is a result of far too many causes to discuss in a single post, but you'll probably be seeing a number of posts from me about this issue. These posts will likely be based largely on girls in the technology classroom, as well as how classroom experiences translate into the world beyond school. For the moment, a few recent experiences in my classroom have me contemplating confidence and self-esteem as one of the issues girls face in the technology classroom.

It would be great to get more girls starting out in technology. But at the same time, it's just as important to avoid losing the girls we've already got. In watching my students, I've been noticing that one of the things hurting my female students is that they don't have the confidence their male classmates have. One of the most striking differences I've noticed is how the students react to their own mistakes.

My boys tend to go right ahead and get started on an assignment, even if they don't actually know what they're doing. This tends to result in frequent (and significant) mistakes. I'll catch their errors and point them out, and the boys will say "Oh. Well, it's not that bad. I've got the idea, anyway." They know that they're talented and smart, whether or not they really are.

The few girls I have are usually more cautious when they get started. If they make an error, it tends to be a much smaller one than the boys make. Yet when I tell them they've got a minor mistake on their drawing, they don't say "Well, it's not that bad." The girls' responses are along the lines of "I'm really bad at this, aren't I?" or "I'm not very smart." They turn a minor error into a sign of a major personal flaw.

Unfortunately, my students aren't looking at this difference from the outside. The girls I teach see all their male classmates proclaiming their own awesomeness. Then they see themselves and each other saying "I'm not smart. I can't do this." They don't realize that the boys don't judge themselves in the same manner as the girls, so they take the confidence they see in the boys as a sign that the boys know what they're doing.

Not a single one of the girls I teach is incompetent, and most are quite good, but they're all overly hard on themselves. They don't have the confidence to say "Yes, I made a mistake. But I can fix it. And next time, I won't make that mistake." Instead, they tell themselves "I screwed up. I'm not good enough. I shouldn't be here." And if I can't convince them otherwise, they might not be here with me next year. They'll be with another teacher, taking a class they see as being more appropriate for a girl.

This doesn't apply only to my classes, or even just to technology. Girls in math and science are in a similar situation. Geeky girls tend to have some typically male interests, and we end up being compared to guys. We need the confidence to know that making a mistake doesn't make us inferior to them. Half the time, they're making the same mistakes, just not admitting to it. I can certainly understand the doubts my female students feel, having gone through the same thing all the way through college.

I was frequently the only girl in my classes, and even in college, the same issues of confidence applied. I was afraid to take risks for fear of messing up, and I was afraid to accept that I was a girl, because I felt like it made me inferior to my classmates. I did eventually learn to be comfortable with the idea that yes, I am different from the guys, but there's nothing wrong with that. And yes, they are better than me at some things.

I'm still not very comfortable with a table saw, and I never got the hang of soldering with a torch. Still, I have talents they don't have. Hand most of them an old SLR, and they won't even know how to focus it, let alone put together a good photo with it. Different interests. Different talents. This doesn't make me superior or inferior. Just different. It took me a long time to accept that, though, and I had to work through a lot of doubts about myself.

For a long time, I felt like I needed to be just like the guys in order to be good enough. I wish I could make the girls I teach understand that their best really is good enough.For now, I'm trying to figure out what to do to help the girls in my classes build up some confidence for themselves.

One of my girls has seemed like an entirely different person since the day she did something that got me thinking about this topic. One day, I walked over to see what she was doing, and she gave me a sad look and asked me "How did I mess up this time?" When I was able to tell her that she was doing the work perfectly, the change in her expression was amazing. I'd never seen her look so happy in my room before.

Later that day, when she finished the work before any of her classmates - and did a better job than almost anybody else in her class - she stared at me in disbelief when I told her how well she had done.

Ever since then, she's been an entirely different person in my room. She still makes mistakes, but she knows she's not stupid, and that she can do what I'm asking her to do. She's got the confidence I wish all the girls in my classes had. I want to find a way to give all my students, and especially the girls, that feeling of confidence.