DAD22,
I apologize that I came across too strong in my response to your comments. “Tearing down” was an overstatement and was inappropriate. What I understood from your several posts on this topic so far was that because this program appears discriminatory that you thought it shouldn’t happen at all and I went too far in describing my perspective. In retrospect I also apologize for coming across as too personal with the questions about your mentoring. I overreacted by questioning your actions when I perceived your criticisms as not constructive.
I really do not want you to keep your opinions to yourself, as I did honestly ask you in at least two posts for constructive suggestions. Rather than bickering amongst ourselves, it would be so much more useful to figure out either how to make a program like this achieve its goals while making suggestions to address discrimination, or otherwise propose an alternative plan to reach these goals that is not perceived as discriminatory. I can’t see that most who support this program would object to making it better, even if some of us like it the way it is. We may disagree on what ‘better’ actually is, but that shouldn’t stop the discussion.
Having said that I still respectfully disagree that the program is discriminatory because it has been set up to cater (not exclusively) to girls. The application page clearly states that it is open to “students”. They can market it to girls by calling it NASA Girls or they can call it NASA Mentors and paint it with pastel colors and add lots of hearts and flowers to the web site and the application page or they can find some other way to appeal primarily to girls (I’m exaggerating for effect based on the LEGOS for girls mentioned upthread). None of those things actually discriminates against boys, they simply seek to grab the attention of a particular audience.
I also want to clarify our side discussion about illogical conclusions – judging a book by its cover. I actually agree with you in principle that it is illogical, but as I said before just because it is illogical doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen – it does – all the time, in nearly every aspect of our lives. And children are generally far more susceptible to that illogic than adults. They often can't get to the logical conclusion that appearances can be misleading, they draw their conclusions based on what they see and experience.
In an attempt to provide an admittedly poor analogy and maybe add a little levity, I'm curious how well logic works with your little ones in the midst of a tantrum. I will freely admit that it frequently didn't work well with mine as preschoolers (although it did sometimes) and it still has something of a tendency to go in one ear and out the other with my elementary school-agers even in a very calm discussion.
