🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BvnJnx.52y@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> dooley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Kevin Dooley) writes:
>In article <stone.718289960@cwis> stone@cwis.unomaha.edu (Travis Stone) writes:
>> ...
>>Mattel may be doing the nation's kiddies a service
>>by protecting their fragile self-esteem.
>>...
>>See? A little good can come out of every dark situation, nicht?...
>>
>
>NICHT!  This is a very bad thing!  Kids do badly in math not because
>it is hard, because it isn't, but rather because they perceive it as
>hard.  This is especially true with girls who are repeatedly told that
>they should not be good at math or science courses because their brains
>don't work that way.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Let's
>not permit marketing idiots to create yet another generation of math
>anxiety and women who believe that they are somehow inferior!

    Most kids who do badly in Math do so because it *is* hard, just
    as English is hard, Chemistry is hard, Social Studies is hard.
    Also, I hardly think that most girls are told that they should not
    be good at math.  If you want to change math anxiety,
    you're going to have to replace the teachers that instill it, but
    don't think that it it is a recent phenomena for either males *or*
    females because the subject *is* difficult in a number of ways.

    Further, do you actually believe that the words of Barbie hold
    such sway over the delicate collective psyche of American children?  
    Do you hunch in fear when someone says 'boo' at night?
    
    By the way, my wife was a math major who got her master's degree
    in Computer Science, not because math was too hard, but because it
    was not lucrative enough.  If you want women math majors, simply
    make the profession pay an average of $140,000 when one walks out
    of four years of graduate study and two of journeymanship.  After all,
    there seem to be plenty of women doctors.

    Don't hold your breath on society making this offer.

                                   dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926