By Sharisa Chan, The Voice – CSTA
Have you ever walked into a professional development experience thinking, “What version of myself will I be in this space?” Is code switching something that you have to navigate on a daily basis? As an educator, you’re well aware that students do the same thing as they discover who they are and explore new interests. Many identity components make a person who they are — name, interests, spoken language, ethnic background, religious beliefs, income, level of education, home experiences, friends, community, likes, dislikes, etc. All of these pieces, when put together, show the intersectionality of identity and potentially a multitude of entry points into computer science (CS) education.
As an educator, administrator, and computer science leader in the field of CS education, I have stumbled across the same barrier time and time again — many teachers, administrators, and students struggle with seeing how ‘computer scientist’ can be added as one of the intersecting layers of their identity. In the digital age in which we live, there are so many ways to consume information, but what about the flip side, where consumers instead become creators and contributors?
