Anyone who is in the field of education is well aware that
there has been a huge push for STEM education in the past decade or so. Recently, attention has been drawn to the
fact that women are highly underrepresented in the field of STEM, and girls are
not pursuing classes in science, technology, engineering or math. This week, I discovered an article that made
me realize that this lack of diversity is not just in regards to women. The tech industry is made up of only 8%
Hispanic workers, and only 7% black workers.
One organization in the city of Durham, North Carolina, is working to
change that.
In “Code the
Dream in Durham helps immigrant and refugee communities give back and diversify
tech world”, Anne Blythe visits a Saturday morning coding class filled with
immigrants, minorities, and refugees from the surrounding communities. The article describes successful students who
have created apps or landed jobs with tech companies or universities after
completing the program. The program not
only introduces the students to programming and coding technology, but it also
connects them with mentors in the technology industry.
These students are not only benefiting personally from the
opportunity to take these classes, but many of them are developing apps and
programs that give back to their own communities. One such program is called Student Action
with Farmworkers. A pair of Code the
Dream graduates worked together to create a portal to help farmworkers find
services they need in North Carolina. In
either Spanish or English, farmworkers and their families can find nearby health
care, education opportunities, legal and immigration help, government agencies,
housing and job information.
While this organization currently only exists in Durham due
to the wonderful collaboration of some motivated people with a goal to help
immigrant communities in North Carolina, I see no reason why it couldn’t serve
as a model to be used in any town, anywhere.
If nothing else, we can take away the lesson that our English language
learners have so much to offer.
Shouldn’t we offer them the opportunity of technology education so they
can have a change at jobs in the tech industry?
I know it is a daunting task, on top of teaching English and everything
else we are required to do, but it seems that incorporating tech into their
lessons a necessity.
Read more about the program at www.codethedream.org
What a great program. I agree that this would be a great program to duplicate in other places. So often immigrants are marginalized because of their inability to speak the language. If they have language ability, they will be able to contribute so much more to their communities while increasing their confidence.
ReplyDeleteGreat program. Often ELL gravitate to STEM programs because math, logic, programming is a constant "language" that cuts accross all language learners education and more easily adapted in a foreign language environment particularly in older students. It would be interesting to see if this program will be succesfully replicated as an initiative beyond North Carolina.
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