Pennsylvania school district bans Girls Who Code Book

The index, which is linked in the article, reveals that the banned books are not How to Code books but a series of chapter novels that feature girls who are interested in coding but know nothing about it. Furthermore, they are only banned as classroom curriculum books, not banned from the library, which makes sense because the first book appears to contain no classroom merit whatsoever -- just like most chapter books aimed at kids.<p>I skimmed through the first book. It&#x27;s cute. A bunch of girls who are excited to learn to make apps join the coding club and get tricked by their female teacher into solving a bunch of coding trivia outside the classroom in order to develop friendships. They finally learn some actual coding from the protagonist&#x27;s older brother. There really is no merit to this as a classroom assigned reading book, and it would probably be a drag for boys to read. The writing style and thoughts and feelings of the main character are obviously directed heavily at girls, except for the older brother who&#x27;s a cool prankster and who actually knows how to make basic utilities.<p>The Girls Who Code textbook by the same author, Learn to Code and Change the World, is not banned.

&gt; “It felt very much like a direct attack on the movement we’ve been building to get girls coding.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s because it <i>explicitly is</i> such an attack:<p>“What we are attempting to do is balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature&#x2F;materials that are <i>too activist in nature</i>, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.” [Emphasis added]<p>The problem here, of course, is that activism is very much in the eye of the beholder, and so banning books on the grounds of being &quot;too activist&quot; effectively give you license to ban anything you want.

Looks like it is not the case: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;centralyorksd&#x2F;status&#x2F;1574388246569795590" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;centralyorksd&#x2F;status&#x2F;1574388246569795590</a><p>It’s a shame the article doesn’t mention that.

Ah, the irony of modern English usage: &quot;Moms for Liberty&quot; pushing for book bans.

This is absurd. As an educator, there is no excuse for banning books like this. To get the best thinkers in tech, we need to welcome everyone into tech, and these kinds of book provide on-roads for non-traditional pathways (i.e. representation matters).

Horrible activist outrage click bait writing.<p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cysd.k12.pa.us&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cysd.k12.pa.us&#x2F;</a>:<p>&gt; The District was recently made aware of a national article published last evening falsely claiming that Central York School District has banned the book&#x2F;series Girls Who Code. The information published in this article is categorically false. This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries. If you have any questions, please email communications@cysd.k12.pa.us.

A question: has anyone here actually read this book?<p>While I&#x27;m frustrated that books like Maus are being caught up in these book bans, I&#x27;m more frustrated that books like &quot;Gender Queer&quot; are being treated as important books that should be in school libraries and accessible to fourteen year olds.<p>But most of all, I&#x27;m angry that whenever this discussion happens, people try to gaslight me into believing this is just bigotry, or ideological boogeyman that don&#x27;t exist, or partisan politics.<p>It would be far more tolerable for someone to say, &quot;Yes, books that teach and advocate queer theory should be available for children at X age.&quot; That, I can tolerate. Being told this is all a figment of my imagination, I cannot.<p>Where this leads? Because of the rampant intellectual dishonesty and outright lies about what&#x27;s happening, it&#x27;s very difficult for me to believe that &quot;Girls Who Code&quot; is JUST a book that aims to introduce women to software development.

I don&#x27;t think anyone can really say if the grounds for banning those books are legitimate until they&#x27;ve actually read them. In any case, I have had women complain to me that software conferences I&#x27;ve recommended they attend (because they are focused on bringing more women into programming) were <i>too activist in nature</i> and turned them off programming.

Any school library has limited space and must decide what books to stock. I don&#x27;t know if the book in question is good or not. I will say that public schools should not be supporting clubs that discriminate on the basis of sex, as the Girls Who Code organization does. My daughter has been able to participate, but my son has not, which is unfair.