uses,” he was a man.
Unfortunately, this narrative of the “singular genius” is how too many of us learn about the history of scientific progress, and promoting an unattainable, idealized image that few girls can relate to may hold girls back from pursuing STEM. Scientists, engineers, and programmers are human beings, and they had to learn, work hard, and make lots and lots of mistakes. At Girl Scouts, you don’t need to be a “genius” to be good at STEM. Instead, we focus on developing skills that real STEM professionals use every day. We teach girls process-oriented thinking and how to work collaboratively.
More than any one math formula or programming language, girls need to know how to ask questions, break problems into smaller pieces, design and build collaboratively, and strive to create solutions that benefit everyone. Instead of telling girls that the triangle is the strongest shape, we teach them to understand and apply the Engineering Design Process, and the realization that the triangle is the strongest shape emerges organically from their own problem-solving. At all our STEM events, meetings, and camps, girls work in teams to solve problems. They learn that engineering is almost always done in teams—which means you don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to be able to listen, collaborate, and compromise.
Perhaps the most valuable skill a girl can learn through STEM is the ability to learn from failure. I think we are often scared to let our girls fail. Because we want them to feel confident and excited about STEM, it’s hard to resist helicoptering over their experience or telling them how to solve a problem. Research, and my own experience, proves that girls learn more and gain more confidence from being able to fail and try again. At the aforementioned Rube Goldberg event, one girl noted, “If something doesn’t work, make it again.” She gets it. Our STEM programming values failure—it means you tried something! It means you can learn something! It means you can do it better next time! That said, learning through failure is only possible in an environment where girls feel safe.
Does She Feel Confident?
One day in middle school science class, we were studying the planets in our solar system. Each student was huddled around their project on one of the planets, and I was very excited to be learning about outer space (always a favorite of mine). My experience kept being interrupted, though, by flying projectiles.
Several boys in my class were bullying me that year, and would constantly throw paper balls at me when the teacher was distracted. To add insult to injury, these boys carried themselves with a sense of effortless confidence in the classroom that made me second-guess my own abilities.
I felt alienated. I felt confused. I felt stupid. These emotions do not help a person to learn. In fact, research shows that—while moderate stress levels facilitate learning—once those stress levels escalate to panic, learning becomes impossible. Cut to the present day, where I mentor girls who are building catapults and even robots that launch projectiles into the air, and I can’t help but feel a little smug. Our program’s success is only possible because of the all-girl environment. Put frankly, when there are no boys to dominate the room, girls learn better. They are more likely to take risks, fail, try again, and feel comfortable doing it.
At the end of our robotics program, girls share the robots they designed and built with the rest of the group. They make posters detailing their design and do a demonstration, allowing other girls to ask questions. Last year, one girl wrote on her poster, “I must remind you, Joey 2.0 was programmed in 2-3 days, and yes, there could be a lot of tweaks, but no matter.” This, to me, encapsulated the freedom of that all-girl environment. Girls can show their works-in-progress, they can admit that things aren’t perfect—without apology!—and they aren’t worried about being judged by their peers.
In fact, I witnessed girls from different groups mentoring each other, giving advice, teach