Empowered women on screen

My husband and I saw The Incredibles 2 on Saturday and Ocean’s 8 on Sunday. Both brought tears to my eyes as I watched strong female characters do brilliant things.

This was my second time seeing Incredibles – the first time I took my nearly-5-year-old niece. On the walk back to the car she was darting around the sidewalk being Elastigirl, and insisted we listened to Elastigirl’s theme song multiple times on the car ride home while she did more elastic moves in her seat. She asked me for an Elastigirl costume and wig, and to talk to her mom about changing her birthday to an Elastigirl party.

The fact that, in a cartoon superhero movie, she could choose to play the lead hero and that that lead hero was a woman made me emotional. She’s got pajamas with Batman (and Batgirl – is she an actual character?) and Spider-Man on them, and she’s got Wonder Woman wear but I don’t think she knows who WW is. I think Elastigirl might be the first superhero she’s actually seen in a movie – and she kicks butt!

Ocean’s 8 was a similar experience for me; I got choked up watching the incredible cast of women be as clever as their male Ocean counterparts. And I loved that Rhianna was the best hacker in New York – not the stereotypical nerdy white male basement-dweller. I loved that about Black Panther too – T’Challa’s sister Shuri was the tech genius that had me crying with her brilliance.

My husband asked: “would you have seen Ocean’s 8 if it had been a male cast?” I said no. I’ve seen brilliant men do things on screen my whole life – another heist movie with male leads is a drop in the pond. But my bigger problem with these movies is that when men are leads, women are often side-pieces – the sexy romance part of the story that has nothing to do with her intelligence and everything to do with how attractive she is. I’ve heard it so many times: the romance is added for the women seeing the movie with their husbands/boyfriends/dads/brothers/friends. Well I was certainly able to follow the heist plan without romance in Ocean’s 8.

It’s been a great time for women in movies and on tv. Here are some other recommendations (that I have seen):

Movies:

• Black Panther
• Hidden Figures
• The Incredibles 2
• Ocean’s 8

TV:

• Big Little Lies (HBO)
• Empire (Fox/Hulu)
• Glow (Netflix)
• The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

What other recommendations do you have?

Featured image from IMDb

How high school students changed my life

Earlier this school year, our school community was greatly affected by 3 teen suicides at nearby schools.  Many of my students had gone to middle or elementary school with these students, and were devastated by the loss.

In September, I received an invitation in my inbox to participate in “Offline October” – and to invite my students to do the same:

“Offline October” is a movement by a few students from schools around the state (including our school) who are passionate about living life rather than experiencing it on social media.

Can you please play this quick video (1:30) for your classes following prayer after lunch? It will be announced during prayer.

I signed the pledge without hesitation and went offline for the month of October. I did not check Facebook or Instagram for the entire month. And when November came, I still didn’t. And 4 months later, I’ve checked Facebook once a month to catch up on tags and notifications. It’s been amazing. With the amount of time I don’t waste swiping through picture after picture, and self-doubt I save comparing myself to others, I truly believe it’s changed my life and made me more positive and aware of the people right in front of me.

Last week was the Florida high school shooting, and high school students there have gathered and rallied to speak to lawmakers to make some positive change in the wake of tragedy.

I find these students’ reactions to heartbreaking events to be so inspiring. High school students have the power to make a difference when they can come together for a cause they believe in.  They give me great hope for our future.

return of the jedi

I’m baaaaaack!  I haven’t written in a long time, and much has happened in the meantime.

I am in my 3rd year of teaching CS, and in addition to teaching ICS I’m also teaching AP Computer Science Principles using the BJC curriculum.  I am loving it.  It’s great to have the variety of trimester-long ICS courses where I get to meet new students every 12 weeks as well as the consistency of my 19 awesome AP students and challenge of learning more big-picture CS ideas.

I’m also starting an online Bachelor’s in Software Development from Western Governors University.  I started listening to the Free Code Camp podcast and heard an episode done by Beau Carnes that totally inspired me and I just went for it!  I applied for free that day, and my assigned mentor CJ guided me through the entire process with weekly calls to check in.

In order to be accepted I had to pass the MTA 98-361 Software Development Fundamentals certification exam from Microsoft.  I studied my butt off over Winter break – about a week and a half straight – and passed the exam on my first try (so proud).

And to help me in my role as Coordinator of Professional Development for Technology, I did the Google Certified Educator Certifications for levels 1 and 2.  I completed both in a period of about 2 weeks – I use Google a LOT and most of the stuff was pretty common sense for me, but I did learn a lot that I could share with my colleagues.

So I’m starting my online program now (I got access to the study materials 2 days ago) and am using Beau Carnes’ guide to WGU to pace myself.  I hope I can complete the program in 6 months like he did!

how to teach computers without a computer

I wrote this post 26 days ago and just realized it never published! So I’m publishing it now. 
Yesterday was my first day teaching computer science. It was an interesting first period with little to no connectivity, and half my plan went out the window. It wouldn’t be teaching without something going wrong! I came home completely exhausted (and I only teach 2 of 5 periods!) but energized at the same time. My students were wonderful and rolled with it all. I spent the entire evening putting together today’s PowerPoint and activity, and my fiancé (oh right, I got engaged during the summer!!) helped me cut out paper apples and bananas for today’s finite-state automata activity. 

I began yesterday nervous. I begin today excited. It is thrilling to be able to learn something so different from what I studied, and to then find fun ways to teach it. My co-teacher has been an incredible collaborator, and I have always been the only teacher of my subjects so this is something new and very cool!

🙂