<When was the last time you saw any parent encourage their little Susie to be a great physicist or scientist or mathematician?>
I haven't seen a great number of parents and don't know what they encourage their daughters to do, but our daughter Melissa I nicknamed Maths played maths with her and she could solve little equations in her head [when she was about 10 or so]. But she bailed out of school and is now something much better than a half-baked mathematician.
Speaking of which, she and I and her son Hayes [3 months old] are going for a walk up Mt Eden soon, so I'll leave you to your "nobody knows" world and go and encourage Melissa in her mothering world. Hayes is a bright and physical little boy and I'd say will be very good at maths. Already he loves a bit of zoom and motorbikes and stuff. His 11 month old cuzzy, Jake, went nuts on my motor scooter the other day. Brrrmming away.
Here's an email I got from him afterwards: <HOwdy,
I had a lovely day with Great Uncle and Cousins Melissa and Hayes. Thank you so much for the ride on the motorbike, I can't wait to save up for my own (Don't tell Mum!).
Hope I can see you all again soon.
love Jake > Actually, I suspect he dictated it to his mother because I don't think he can type.
When our son was born, I got him "Pete", a little doll for a buddy, but he had zero interest in Pete. We have 4 adult offspring. 3 Females. I've seen up close and personal plenty of child development in our children and their friends.
Actually, on reflection, a few of our daughters' friends are scientists and have had plenty of encouragement to roll out their talents.
<It's bigoted to see the end products in the world and say they were preordained by genetics. I say bunkum. We don't know if they were or not. Until we do know however it's repressive (which you say is a bad thing) to automatically assume that women are going to be bad at math and science while men are going to be brilliant. > Griffe's reasoning was much more convincing than your "nobody knows" and "bunkum" and "baloney". Bunkum and baloney are not reasoning or data. Nobody knows isn't much help either.
Gotta go,
Mqurice |
