Look around this room and then look at who works in software. The two pictures do not match, and they have not matched for forty years. That is not a fact of nature — it is the result of a long series of small moments, and some of them happen in classrooms like this one.
Before we talk
Read Pathways After This Course, and come with one honest answer to this: when you pictured “a programmer” in September, who did you picture? Nobody is asked to share that answer.
What we are discussing
- A student is the only person like them in a computing class. Nothing hostile happens. Why might they still leave the subject, and what would have to be true for them to stay?
- Whose problems get solved first when a team all share the same background — and what goes unnoticed rather than unsolved?
- Does “anyone can learn to code” help or hurt? It is true. Is it the whole truth?
- What would you change about how this course runs, if the goal were that everybody who is curious in September is still here in January?
Groups that exist for exactly this
Several organisations across Canada work to open the field to students who are under-represented in it — girls and young women, Black and Indigenous youth, students with disabilities, and students in rural, northern, and remote communities. Among the national ones:
- Actua, which runs programs through a network of university- and college-based members across the country, with dedicated national programs for Indigenous youth, Black youth, and girls.
- Canada Learning Code, a national non-profit focused on digital skills for people currently under-represented in technology.
- Hackergal, a Canadian charity running coding events for girls in Grades 6 to 9, with a focus on rural, remote, and BIPOC communities.
- Black Boys Code, which runs technology workshops for Black youth.
Many of these have been supported through the federal CanCode program. Most run free or low-cost events, several run them online, and all of them are easier to join than students assume. If one of them fits you, the request in this discussion is simple: look up when the next one runs.
Why this is on the schedule rather than a poster
A field’s composition is decided by thousands of ordinary decisions — who gets the encouragement, whose question gets a real answer, who is assumed to already know. Those decisions are made by people in rooms like this, which means you are already making them.
Bring your thinking to your Code Journal afterwards: one thing you heard that you had not considered, and one thing you would do differently in a group project because of it.
Curriculum connection
D3.4
identify groups and programs that are available to support students who are interested in pursuing non-traditional career choices related to information systems and computer science (e.g., mentoring programs, virtual networking/support groups, specialized postsecondary programs, relevant trade/industry associations);
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D3.2
identify and report on opportunities for experiential learning (e.g., co-op programs, job shadowing, career fairs) in the field of computer science;
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