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Girls Doing Math

By gregladen on June 22, 2009.

This is a struggle I can relate to:

Perez Hilton thinks that hot chicks can't do math. I have taught math to children of a variety of ages. It is difficult to convince young women in our society that they can do math. Young women often lack self-confidence about mathematics. Many of them think that "only the ugly, unpopular girls" do math. One high school student once told me that she didn't want to go to a summer math program because if she did "everyone will think I'm uncool."

See this post for the big picture and the gory details.

I can tell you that there was a lot of stuff going on in my household this year regarding math, and anti-math socialization. Just so you know, Julia got a lot of helpful support in the nitty gritty of algebra from the household math expert, which of course is Amanda.

Tags
education

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"Perez Hilton thinks that hot chicks can't do math."

Eh? Natalie Portman comes to mind...

By Heraclides (not verified) on 22 Jun 2009 #permalink

Danica McKellar has, in fact, written book on the subject of math and they are aimed toward pre-teen and teen girls. If you're interested, they're called 'Math Doesn't Suck' and 'Kiss My Math.'

My kid sister is good at math. Which irritates me because I can't do math at all. *dyscalculia probably (I fit the symptoms to a tee* but to my dismay because of her social network, science is now uncool. Grr.

I am the math tutor in our house, too. My husband hated it as a child and still hates it. He manages, though, to use it even in his job (which is art direction).