Mad Scientist

About that scientist drawing. Most people, when given this assignment to draw a scientist, draw someone with many of the following characteristics. A white male with glasses, wearing a labcoat, possibly holding some test tubes. He usually has either a beard or crazy hair and is sometimes even labeled "crazy" or "mad." This assignment has been given to first graders in the US with the same results. I haven't scanned in my scientist yet, but I drew myself, with lots of those characteristics. A white female with glasses and a lab coat, smiling, holding a test tube, question marks coming out of the head, and "sense" lines coming from the ears and fingers. She's surrounded by a cloud, a mountain, a flower, and an animal.

So what's the point? Kudos to Chris for figuring this out. At such a young age, children have internalized this stereotype of a scientist. Research has shown it only grows stronger as they get older, especially with people drawing white males. This can really discourage individuals who are not white and male from seeing themselves as scientific. My textbook says that this is one thing that leads to the gender gap in science. Anyway, good job for participating, and next time you want to see a scientist, look in the mirror. (cheesy grin here.) My ego about my science skills led me to draw myself. I bet a bunch of my friends did too, right MikeB?

One interesting thing I've discovered hear is that most people trying to be elementary school teachers don't like math and science. I am a tiny tiny minority. My textbooks are actually apologetic, and they take the job of convincing people to like math and science. Granted I have some liberal textbooks that insist that the old ways of teaching by rote memorization created a generation of math & science-haters, but it's discouraging when I do my reading. Over and over I have to read stuff like "You probably didn't enjoy mathematics yourself as a child." or "If you don't like science, your students never will. You need to reflect and find your inner scientist." I want books that LOVE math and science like I do. Why doesn't my social studies text apologize?