I have decided to write this blog to answer all those numerous questions I can read in the eyes of so many parents. I am running robotics and coding classes and happy there are many girls attending them. More of it I can see a very promising trend. There are more and more girls joining our robotics and coding STEM school classes. Still the proportion is not 50/50 however it looks like it is going to change very soon.
So, what I would like to tell parents who have girls?
- All girls attending my coding and robotics classes are very smart. In most of the cases they outperform boys.
- Girls are very focused. While boys quite often switch between following me and their imaginary world of super heroes, Minecraft friends or next big projects comparable only to the mission to the Moon, girls are following, answering questions and asking me questions as well.
- Girls want to understand how things work. They don’t think in terms of “mission completed” but rather want to understand the root cause. One of girls students asks me so many questions (and all of them are good questions by the way) that sometimes I think I should have been a robot. For example, girls want not just build a robot but also understand how robots can be applied in real life. I am not saying boys don’t want to know about it. Boys are more focused on finishing the thing.
- Girls are very creative. During coding classes they spend more time on creating cool backdrops in Scratch or building impressive and colourful worlds. So they use coding as a tool not look at coding as just coding. And it impresses me a lot every time I see a design masterpiece paired with proper code.
- Girls are screwing robots as fast as boys. Nuts, bolts and screwdrivers are not a problem at all. Sharp edges? Who cares. 😊 Who said screwdriver is not a good present for a modern lady?
- What’s also very important are those feelings I can read in eyes of girls students. When they are coding or building robots their eyes say “How cool it is!!!