Monday, October 18th 2010
Two DonorsChoose projects you must support: Girls are good at math, and Technology tools while pregnant
There are two projects on my DonorsChoose Giving Page that I want to draw special attention to today. If my statcounter is correct, if all my readers gave just five dollars each to these two projects, they would meet their goals.
Girls are good at math
The first is Girls are good at math! We will PROVE it! This project, which only needs $190 more dollars, is to buy math manipulatives for students at a new girls’ academy in Houston, Texas. Access to these resources will give these young girls the kind of material they need to learn math in hands-on ways, from a probability spinner to ‘Smath. Encouraging girls to succeed in science and math has serious repercussions for them all the way through secondary school. I won’t cite too extensively, but there have been studies of how students’ effort versus ability are rewarded, and the implicit biases teachers often hold about male and female student abilities in math — even in six year olds in the first grade, and even when they directly contradict evidence about which students are actually the best at math (Alessandri and Lewis 1993, Fennema et al 1990).
Please give to this project to continue to give girls the tools they need to succeed in math, and thus to give them the confidence to consider math and science specialties as they get older.
Finishing school, supporting your family
The second project I want to highlight today is Technology tools while pregnant. I have friends who had trouble finishing degrees because of their pregnancies and caring for their babies. And I know two people who have served this population in the past as teachers. I know how hard the job is, how isolating it is for the instructor and the students, and how few resources are usually allocated to these programs. These students will be on the right track to being able to financially support their children if they are given the resources to finish their high school degrees.
The teacher for this project is asking for a few netbooks and graphing calculators for her students, because many of them live in high poverty areas and do not have access to these products. This project will help these students do their homework, and will provide an interesting medium on which to do it, which should help with retention.
Please give to this project to help young women who are pregnant or recently given birth, so that they can finish high school and go on to college or secure better jobs than they could without this degree.
It only takes five dollars from each of you!
References
Alessandri SM, & Lewis M (1993). Parental evaluation and its relation to shame and pride in young children Sex Roles, 29, 335-343
Fennema, E., Peterson, P., Carpenter, T., & Lubinski, C. (1990). Teachers attributions and beliefs about girls, boys, and mathematics Educational Studies in Mathematics, 21 (1), 55-69 DOI: 10.1007/BF00311015
