The part of the post that intrigued me was when she...
"[Looked] at her screen, she’d made significant progress towards finishing the project, but when she asked me a question she giggled and told me she had no idea what the project was about, or what to do.
Why?
I still don’t know the reason. Studies have shown that especially bright women have this reaction to difficult material and that women learning computer science do better in an single sex classroom (though those studies have critics)."
On a similar Hacker News post, "In Math You Have to Remember, In Other Subjects You Can Think About It" the author paraphrases from a book "What's Math Got To Do With It?", in which he states that a student
"... called Rebecca, was conscientious, motivated, and smart, and regularly attained A+ grades in mathematics. She was able to follow the methods her teacher demonstrated in class, and could reproduce them perfectly. But she did not understand what she was doing, and as a result she regarded herself as not good at math. When Boaler asked her why she thought that, she replied, "Because I can't remember things well and there is so much to remember." [p.164.]"
Coincidentally both subjects are female but I think it's part of an underlying theme on learning and developing critical thinking skills that is playing out across this country. And the consequences of this lack/challenge differs on how one is taught.
"[Looked] at her screen, she’d made significant progress towards finishing the project, but when she asked me a question she giggled and told me she had no idea what the project was about, or what to do.
Why?
I still don’t know the reason. Studies have shown that especially bright women have this reaction to difficult material and that women learning computer science do better in an single sex classroom (though those studies have critics)."
On a similar Hacker News post, "In Math You Have to Remember, In Other Subjects You Can Think About It" the author paraphrases from a book "What's Math Got To Do With It?", in which he states that a student
"... called Rebecca, was conscientious, motivated, and smart, and regularly attained A+ grades in mathematics. She was able to follow the methods her teacher demonstrated in class, and could reproduce them perfectly. But she did not understand what she was doing, and as a result she regarded herself as not good at math. When Boaler asked her why she thought that, she replied, "Because I can't remember things well and there is so much to remember." [p.164.]"
Coincidentally both subjects are female but I think it's part of an underlying theme on learning and developing critical thinking skills that is playing out across this country. And the consequences of this lack/challenge differs on how one is taught.