The Power of Encouragement
I recently heard an expression used in the context of overcoming the diversity issues in the IT and computing fields - what we need to combat the lack of diversity are 'circuit breakers' or practices that can truly break the cycle, or circuit of inequity. Put together with Google's CS research paper "Encouraging Students Toward Computer Science Learning" and a book called the Power of Our Words , I came across a circuit breaker that is so powerful, yet so overlooked - the power of encouragement. Consider the following from Google's paper - that students who have been encouraged by a teacher or parent are three times more likely to be interested in learning CS. Here's the clincher though - that not all kids do not have the same likelihood of receiving this critical encouragement. The report highlights the role that unintentional biases in well-intentioned parents and the very best of teachers have that in turn lead to inequity in terms of expectations, ins...