This weekend, more than 300 girls in grades five through nine will converge on Charlottesville to compete in a program called GEM – short for Girls Excel in Math. Eliza O’Connell is head of the Village School – organizer of the event and America’s oldest middle school program for females.
“There’s more change between 5th and 8th grade than at any other time besides zero to one, so it’s really when there are so many things going on with both their bodies and their brains, and it’s the perfect time for them to be together," she explains. "It allows girls to grow and to find themselves – to build confidence and to be ready to go out into the world.”
And Village School math teacher Linde Tassell says there’s no reason why girls should not consider fields that require a fundamental understanding of numbers – fields largely dominated by men.
“There is research that suggests that their brains are different, but nothing that would suggest that we aren’t as capable of doing math. We might see things differently, but that’s exactly why we need more women in STEM fields.”
She says more women are going into science, technology, engineering and math. They now outnumber men in medical schools, but in more math-intensive fields like computer science, they’re still in the minority. Tassell blames a lack of role models.
“They don’t have as many examples in front of them of older family members or people that they know who are women in fields that are math intensive.”
At Saturday’s event, the kids will take part in three competitions – an individual challenge, team efforts to solve a problem and to make something by hand.
“Something like ‘Build a tower to get people safe from a flood, build a bridge that’s strong enough to carry the most weight across in the farthest lane. We’ve done wind-power tasks. We’ve done an egg drop. It’s really not about the answer. It’s about the problem-solving and the learning that helps you get there.”
Winners will go home with medals, trophies and memories of a good time engaging with math.
