INTech Camp for Girls with Khalia Braswell
In this interview with Khalia Braswell, we discuss the lack of representation in education, improving equity and inclusion in CS education, what Khalia has learned with INTech Camp for Girls, how Khalia iterates on her own abilities, the importance of self care, our thoughts on the future of CS education, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the CSK8 podcast.
My name is Jared O'Leary.
Each week of this podcast is either a solo episode
where I unpack some scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an episode with a guest or multiple guests.
In today's episode, I'm speaking with Caleb Braswell.
In our conversation, we discussed the lack of representation
in education, improving equity and inclusion, and see US education.
What CLEA has learned within Tech Camp for Girls.
How Clea iterates on her own abilities.
The importance of self-care.
Our thoughts on the future of science, education and so much more.
We do mention some organizations and podcasts and resources that are
relevant to this particular episode, and I include those in the show notes,
which you can find that chair to Lyrica
where there are hundreds, if not thousands of free computer science
education resources,
including a link to Buddha PD org, which is the nonprofit that I work
for where I develop 100% free coding curriculum.
And with that being said, we will now begin the interview with Collier.
Hello, I am Clea Braswell, the founder and current
executive director of Internet Camp for Girls, a nonprofit organization whose
mission is to inform and inspire girls to innovate in the technology industry.
I'm also a third year PhD student at Temple University, where I am studying
computer science education and essentially looking at the activities
we do within in tech to understand how to get more black
and Latino girls into the computer science industry.
I was born in
Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, but grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina,
and I talk about my Charlotte Pride a lot because Charlotte shaped a lot of who
I am, and it was where I fell in love with computer science.
So excited to be here and talk about computer science education.
Can you tell me the story of how you got into computer science education?
Absolutely.
So I would say that I fell into computer science education
and it was through my nonprofit intake that kind of led me here.
So informally was teaching black girls how to code through one day camps,
summer camps and different experiences like that, and realize
that this was something being researched in the academy space.
And I also taught the Google Computer Science Summer Institute
at Johnson C Smith University, the summer of 2018,
where I taught Python and data structures to incoming freshmen for three weeks.
And so I always had these activities, if you will, happening
in my life where I'm like in the classroom formally and informally.
Also served as an adjunct professor at Johnson C Smith University
in Charlotte, and so it was like all of these things happening, right?
And realized like, Hey, this is actually a research area.
And I went to Cixi,
which is the special interest group for computer science education.
I think that's the full acronym.
I went there in the spring of 2019 just to learn.
I knew this was like a really huge venue for researchers
in the computer science education space, and I was reconsidering
the path for myself and just wanted to go and meet people,
learn about what was happening in the computer science education space.
I mean, it was very fruitful, that conference for me in.
I later enrolled into a PC program looking at computer
science education and later published at 60, which was a goal of mine.
So super proud of that.
But it was a roundabout way, if you will, like I was already doing the work
and just kind of the education part
of computer science from a research area,
kind of came later and it was a really, really good match for me.
And what are the research interests that you're pursuing for your PhD work?
So I'm using intersectionality as a framework to look at specifically,
I've narrowed it down to black girls in tech focuses on black and Latino girls.
But from my research, because being a black girl is my lived
experience, I decided that would be the best route for me.
But looking at their different identities and how it impacts their experiences
in computer science, education spaces and I say spaces to keep it broad
because that can mean informal learning experiences like summer camps.
But they could also mean
more formal computer science education spaces like AP, Computer Science, or,
you know, whatever computer science classes that are offered to them.
But understanding, you know, what impacts their intent to persist, Like
do they come to an in tech camp and say, Hey, now I want to be a computer
scientist, I need to take an AP computer science class and fall in love with it?
What are the different things that have to be true for a black girl
to feel the spaces are safe for them to then
go on and study computer science in college or.
And I always say, like, I intend to persist in computer science, period.
Right. But it's like, what does that mean?
So that could either mean go in major in computer science
or it could mean being in a tech industry in some capacity.
It doesn't have to mean that they go to college.
Yeah, even a measure like I proposed to my wife by modeling a video game
and so like that is something that you could do.
Really? Yeah. I'm that kind of nerd
bit. What has
surprised you about your experiences in CSS education research?
Like what is being talked about
or not being talked about or things that you've learned?
So before I answer that question, I want to give a little context.
So when I came to it simple, I was in the computer science PhD program
and we were essentially trying to make up a computer science education
program for me.
So it doesn't exist. But we were trying to make it up.
So I was in the computer science Ph.D., but I was also taking education
courses unofficially, right?
And so I realized after my first year that
the computer science program was not a good fit for me.
It was very stressful and I could go on,
but I decided the education program at Temple was a better fit
and the powers that be let me switch over, which is not something you do in a Ph.D.
program traditionally.
Like it's not like changing your major, right?
But they let me do it.
So I give that context because, I mean, my mind has been blown right over
and over again in my education courses because now I'm like, I'm learning so much
about the education system in general and like how it works.
And then applying my computer science lens on it.
And so, you know, is, is interesting in my, my courses because, you know,
everybody think I'm brilliant because I'm like, oh,
you know, so the computer science is like what you know?
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like,
I don't know all the things the problem is.
So I'll say all that to say that, like again, you know,
I grew up in a public school system and learning the laws
that have been in place, like the policies
that have been put in place and like the different structures,
if you will, that have been put in place, how this stuff works.
So I again, I grew up in Charlotte,
I grew up on the west side of Charlotte, predominately black area,
and I had administrators that were black like principals.
I had teachers that were black.
My AP computer science teacher was a black woman.
I went to a technical high school in Charlotte,
and a lot of my teachers in the tech program were black women, right?
So I get into this program in mind.
You like, you know, I finished my undergrad in 2013.
So fast forward now to 2019,
I'm now like realizing like, hey, this is a normal
my peers who are black students who went through public
education in K through 12 like I did, they didn't have these experiences.
They can count on one hand the amount of black people
that existed in their school period that wasn't like,
you know, a custodian, you know, like to have an administrator.
You know, like one of the things that kind of let me hear was
it was a tweet like someone tweeted and were like,
you know, how many black teachers did you have growing up or something like that?
And I'm like, huh,
So you all didn't have any, you know, like it was like mind blowing.
So then I look at the data in the classes that I'm in and I'm like, Wow, you know?
And I say all that because at intake as much as possible
and our camp experiences,
we try to make sure that majority of our staff are black women.
They're not exclusively black women.
We have folks from all walks of life that sign up to teach or run our programs,
but we try to make sure that majority of the folks that are running the camp
and doing the teaching and things of that sort,
the speakers are exclusively black women, and we do that on purpose, right?
Because we want to make sure they have that representation.
But that still blew my mind.
You know, that there aren't a lot of black educators
in the catering 12 space in general, and then you narrow
that down in computer science and it gets worse, right?
So that's something that I've been like or just just mind blown by rather
in the education space at large.
Yeah, it wasn't until my undergrad
when I actually had a black educator in my life, in my K-12 tenure,
there's only one black teacher at the high school that I went to,
but he taught a class that I ended up not taking. Wow.
Like it was just not part of what I was doing.
It was some kind of other math class.
And this is in Arizona, so like nationwide stats, like
especially in the elementary space, it's like 80% are white women.
And then I had no idea.
I had no idea.
Yeah, it was like hearing what you were talking about.
It's just like, yep, that resonates.
Like it wasn't until literally my undergrad and I had a percussion
professor who I happened to work with for like all four years, and
I finally had a black mentor, a black teacher in my life.
Yeah, this was Arizona and like a major high school and university.
Wow. Well, I think it's still cool that you had one at the university level
because I didn't even talk about that.
Right? Like, that's a whole nother discussion.
And I don't think I had any black professors in undergrad.
And I'm saying it slowly as I'm trying to think I know my best friend did.
So I went to NC State to do computer science.
I went in computer engineering.
So I have this habit,
I guess, of coming in and doing one thing and being like, No, that's not it.
So computer engineering.
When I first
got to NC State as a freshman, but I switched over in that time though,
my best friend did have a black woman teach him for computer science.
But I missed it because I didn't go in as computer science
and it just kind of like makes me think, you know,
about my time at Varsity Smith as an adjunct.
Nancy Smith is a HBCU, historically black college, and I would go to class.
I was teach an intro to networking.
And, you know,
my students were like, You're the professor.
And I was like, Yeah.
And, you know, it was just really puzzling to them.
And I said, Well, you ought to have professors that look like me.
And they're like, No.
And coming from a predominantly white institution, I was surprised that
that was their reaction and their answer.
And I was going through some old stuff yesterday and realized that like,
all right, like posted on Instagram where my students like, clapped for me
at the end of the semester and I didn't think I did a great job, by the way.
So but I think it was more so that like, you know,
when I first started, I came in dress like a professor, right?
Or how we think of professor dresses, right?
But at the end, by the middle, I'm like, All right, I'm in the jeans and Jordans.
So I think that, you know, they could relate to me
a little better, but I don't think I really understood the impact
I was having on them in that experience, even at a black school.
Right?
So I think largely from education perspective,
these are things that are like
just blowing my mind when I'm learning how at large these are how things are.
You know, my lived experience is different.
Yeah, I mean,
while I was fortunate to have studied with the particular percussion
professor for a few years, like their only other person of color
was a grad student who taught an undergrad class and he was from the Navajo Nation.
And other than that, it was all white individuals
and like all the way through until my dissertation defense,
I had a reader who is happened to be a black professor like.
Other than that it was all white outdoors.
So it's and again, major university so it is it's crazy
pretty stark difference between like what the demographics of the nation look like
and even in the community versus like where I went to and like Arizona,
there are a lot of Hispanic and Latin ex individuals here, but I did not have
any professors who were Hispanic or Latin X, and it's so crazy.
It informs my work a ton because I just realize
how privileged I was to have that as an experience.
You know, by the time I got to college where obviously
the number of black students and black women
taking computer science courses drop off
and then we just had that professor discussion.
By that time, you know, there was no convincing me.
I already knew that I could do it because I had seen it so much,
you know, in those prior four years in high school.
Like literally we had an academy model, a NAF academy model at my high school.
So there was like an ICE academy engineering and health I.T.
Academy lead was a black woman.
But I remember majority of the teachers were black women in that academy.
And again, like, maybe computer science is just like phenomenal.
That that was my experience. Even the I.T.
at for the entire school was a black woman.
And I remember, like, wanting to be like her, you know,
because she's like Olivia Pope.
But for tech, I was like, Oh,
the computers are down, let's call me Suggs.
And she would come save the day.
And I was like, I want to be like her now. I don't want to be like her.
But high school, college definitely wanted to be like,
So what recommendations do you have
for how we could potentially improve like equity and inclusion in CSS education?
That is a loaded question.
Yeah,
that's a good question though.
So the reason why I kind of hesitate is only because I
the reason why I say it's a loaded question is because, you know,
you have to figure out at what level first,
because I think the recommendations vary per level.
You can't even really say K through
You have to break that down even in elementary, middle, high school
and then college and then, you know, at the Masters, as you know,
policy level, I think some of the smaller things could be more one,
making sure everyone has access like that's the equity piece.
So there are schools that are 1 to 1.
So every student gets a laptop like that kind of thing, but every student also get
wi fi at home, you know, like if I have a Chromebook, that's nice,
but if I can't do my work when I go home, like, you know, there's a debt in there
which obviously COVID I think has forced districts
to have to solve that problem, which is good for industry
to tap in and, you know, make sure students have what they need.
But I think that's the first step because our first computer was
when I was in fourth grade and we had Internet.
And that's what sparked my curiosity
with computer science and tech and just kind of getting, you know,
I'm just learning just by trial and error at that time.
And so the access is key.
First, I try to think of like the lower hanging fruit.
And so in addition to the access, I think the representation part,
I think folks are kind of getting better at.
I mean, if you have and I used to work at Apple, but photos and posters
of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and that's all the studios are seeing
in at that point, they're not able to kind of imagine themselves.
And I think, you know, movies like Hidden Figures touched on that
and kind of shifted that for a lot of folks.
But it really could sometimes be that simple.
Like if there's not a physical person that looks like me
in this school building doing the tech right,
but I can see them on the poster and learn about you know, Mae Jemison
or Katherine Johnson or, you know, all these pioneers.
And they don't have to be black women, but women in general.
Either way,
I feel like that's a small thing, like just kind of like the classroom set up.
And in fact, we used to do before the pandemic,
we would reach out to teachers and reach out to the women in our network,
hear them together and send them as guest speakers into classrooms.
For one, our experience and in the presentation at the beginning,
like as we're going through, well, what is information technology?
What is computer science?
Whereas computer engineering, that would be a black woman on the slide
also that, you know, works in that industry.
And then the second half of the presentation,
the person that's in the class giving the presentation will give their journey
right in.
So now you've met, quote unquote, four or five different folks that are in
computer science that are black women that you didn't know before.
And that was a small way of us kind of
just getting the exposure out there and I think is impactful.
I'm doing a little bit of research
now on my representation and its impact on informal
and like more formal mentorship for black girls.
Yeah, those are some of the things off the top of my head on, like the equity
and inclusion space, just being intentional, right?
I think sometimes people try to over
complicate these solutions and it's really like,
no, it doesn't have to be that intense, you know, following
different Instagram accounts that promote diversity.
And this is a good start, right?
Because then you can pull that stuff into your classroom.
Like there's multiple ways.
Those are the things that come off right away.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
It's one of the questions that I ask of like every guest, because it's shocking
that is that a Kapor Center released a publication
on the basically the state of sex education across the nation.
I commend teachers
It was like 40% of teachers didn't think we need to talk about social
justice issues or equity and inclusion in a classroom.
So it's like, okay, we need to continue to have these conversation
because some people don't believe we need to talk about it.
I disagree. It's unfortunate.
So you've mentioned in tech
a couple of times, can you expand upon what is in tech camp for girls?
In Tech For Girls is a nonprofit organization whose mission
is to inform and inspire girls to innovate in the technology industry.
And so the way that we do that is by a few different experiences
has kind of shifted some of these.
But we host a summer camp for middle school girls
where they build websites about social issues of their choice.
So we put them in groups they code in, they learn HTML, CSS in the morning time.
By the end of the week, they have a finished product.
Before covi, we would go on company tours and so they would actually go out
and, you know, visit companies and hear from their employees.
We would work closely with the different employee resource groups to try to get
either the women's group to a sponsor or, you know, there's rarely
like a black women's.
BRG But or the black related, you know, employee resource group at the company
to host either like a panel and or hands on activity
with our students With COVID, we switched to a virtual model.
And so we still host our summer camps.
Obviously we can't do the company tours, so we just bring in black
and Latino women in tech to speak to.
Our students are going to do like a Q&A during their lunch time.
We also hosted in Tech Academy, which is our high school program,
which was born out of our middle school girls aging out of our summer camp
like they would come to 7/8 grade and then say, Hey, Michaelia,
so if I want to come to intake next year, how is that going to work?
And so we got to the point where we had enough
high school students to sponsor that.
The intake academy is ever evolving, but the goal for it is literally
to be a training ground for girls to go deeper into web development.
So A.L.S.
is JavaScript, but actually learn the ins and outs
and the vision for Tech Academy is for them to then
get internships because that is something I was able to take advantage of
as a high school student.
And I don't see programs like that much anymore,
particularly in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But because we're virtual, we do this everywhere.
But the goal is for them to meet peers but also get mentorship
for women in the technology industry out in Tech Academy.
But I mentioned before, we used to do mini camps.
So during Computer Science Education Week or engineers Week,
we do a huge push where we get like 20 to 30 women in tech
in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina, to go out and do classrooms
and do these presentations and these computer science
unplugged activities with students because it was only an hour
just trying to rally them up and get them exposed.
And so it's been quite the journey we've been around for about seven years
and we're just now getting to that point where students who've come to us either
in middle or high school, are now in college.
So we have a rock star student that I'd like to talk about, Maria,
who got a full ride to Princeton for engineering, which is like amazing.
She was also valedictorian.
I could go on and on, but we have quite a few students at North Carolina, AT&T
State University, as well as Spellman
University and the student at Spelman that I mentioned.
She actually wasn't an intake student formally. Right.
She actually worked at one of our camps between her senior year
and freshman year of college.
After working at intake, she changed her major to computer science.
I'm under the impression that she was already in tech,
but that's another discussion.
And so
she's, you know, gone to intern at top companies.
And I think this is her senior year
now and she's going to look into software engineering.
And so it's one of those communities where it's like even if you talk with her
as volunteer with us or was a student in one of our programs
like, you know, we try to keep in touch and really look out for folks.
Either way, I've done recommendation letters
for people who've worked at our camps and things of that sort.
And so it makes the community special in that way.
What's something that has surprised you about your experiences within Tech?
I mean, that surprised me is that we created something
that the students actually like in summer camps, especially a lot of times
parents on their students up and you just kind of have to go, right?
So we've had students that were like that.
They just kind of came because their mom signed them up.
But at the end of the experience, they were like, I loved it, you know?
And my professional background is actually in user experience, design and research.
And so I'm always interested in, okay, well, what do the students
want to get out of this?
Because we can whiteboard and plan and do what we think should happen.
But at the end of the day, you know, we have to create an experience that the
girls are going to want to come to.
And that has surprised me, like I told you, like
we literally have students that will come every year for middle school
and they literally like, okay, Miss Cleo, like I'm in high school next year,
how can I be involved within tech?
And I was like, Oh, okay, you know, let me figure that out.
I don't know right now, but I'll, I'll get an answer for you.
So yeah, that really resonates with me.
The idea of starting with what students
want to actually get out of a class or an educational experience.
That's one of the things when I talked about how Facebook
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is like the way that classes, curriculum
or even standards are structured can be a form of
like epistemological colonization or even ontological colonization
where it's, hey, you are lesser than we are the no cause.
And we are going to tell you this is what you need to understand
and how you need to behave and what you need to do in a class.
And it creates this like like your mission.
These like systems or the structures of oppression,
hopefully unintentionally, but either way, it still exists.
And it's one of the things that, like we need to talk about more
as a field to figure out, well, what can we do to try and prevent this?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it reverberates down, right?
Like from the policies all the way down to the teacher
being in control, if you will, of the classroom.
Yeah, I 100% agree with you.
Where do you hope in tech will go in the future
and what are your plans in August?
Announce my resignation, if you will.
So we're actually in a search
for a new executive director, which I can come back to in a second,
because I want to answer your first question.
I hope that in tech truly becomes one
that bona fide safe space for black and Latina girls to come to.
And they know that like, hey, if I want to learn something
tech related, I can come to intake and do it.
And there's resources for me.
But my again.
Grand, grand, grand, grand vision
is for our high school girls to get paid internships.
There's a lot of red tape in doing that.
When you get to like corporate companies and things of that sort, sometimes
it's a little easier with like I hosted a high school intern.
My friend runs the nonprofit America on Tech, so they're based in L.A.
and in Brooklyn,
and they had a huge internship program this summer, and we hosted an intern.
And I think there's the city of New York actually paid for her stipend.
Those kind of things are cool, but I know they take a lot of work
because we've tried to partner with our corporate sponsors to get, you
know, more senior girls into some kind of experience,
even if it's like four or five weeks or something like that.
It's just hard, right?
It's a heart problem to all.
But I think it's necessary because they can automatically learn
what they like and what they don't like.
It sets them apart from their peers because now they actually have figures
on their resume about like, okay, you know, like for me, I came out of high
school saying, Yeah, I worked on a network engineering team at once was Wachovia.
Now with Wells Fargo, my peers didn't have that kind of experience, right?
That wasn't my dream. First job.
I wanted to work at a grocery store.
And then there's the economical impact, right?
Like as a senior in high school, having that internship experience
before my senior year and then later during my senior year,
I was able to like pay for a prom cause I was able to pay for
like college cause I think all of my fees were way for applying.
But there's other stuff that comes with college just being a senior, right?
That was a relief for my parents.
So I always think from tech, like the economical impact,
I just really hope that, you know,
we can solve that for our high school students through intake.
I am in the final stages of my Ph.D., You know, that's always hard to say, right?
Like, when is it over? I don't know.
Yeah, I get that.
I know you can. Really.
I'm in a weird spot, especially since I transferred into a different program.
So when my qualifying exams are finished, I'm still in coursework,
so I can't propose and I can't defend.
It's very weird space, but I hope to graduate,
which I will continue to publish research in this space.
But I think right now I want to go back into the tech workforce
and do either if I'm a larger company, user experience research,
if I'm at a smaller company, user experience, research and design, I'm
not sure if you're familiar with Kodo, but I interned within the summer.
It was kind of a hybrid role.
Like the intent of the role was to kind of get my feet wet in learning sciences
and like learning analytic, but because I didn't have a designer
in their company or, you know, someone with like design expertise,
I kind of took on some of those roles, which was exciting.
And then I also did a little bit of research.
So if I had a smaller company, I would love to kind of continue
having something hybrid like that.
But this larger company up, I would just focus on the research part.
It sounds like you have a lot of expertise or skills in different areas.
I'm wondering like I'm a bit of a practice nerd.
I really enjoy the art of like self-improvement, whether it's be like
playing the instruments behind me or like as an educator,
like how do I like, really refine this pedagogical approach, etc..
How do you like practice or iterate on your own abilities?
I think I could do better at practice.
I'm a like gamification person, so every year,
like for instance, I set a reading goal 20 books.
And so I try to make sure, you know, each quarter
I'm at least finishing five books, things of that sort,
and that reinforces my practice and I'm glad that I start
that goal before grad school because now reading these really long
research articles are easy, but writing is hard yet.
So I haven't really cracked
the writing practice, but I am in I have this black women writing group
that I'm in and we meet for 2 hours on Mondays and Wednesdays.
And so if I don't write any more during the week, I try to show up to that
and write something.
And so I need those kind of accountability and reinforcements.
I'm a Peloton nerd and I even use that
like they have challenges and badges and different things.
And I'm like, okay, like for instance, I'm trying to reach 50 mouse on my peloton
this month, so all right, like I need to make sure I'm working out
so I can meet that goal.
So for me, practice has to be I have to have like
some kind of accountability and or like the gamification stuff.
I mean, I don't know if you have accelerated reader,
but I remember I read a certain amount in my elementary school.
I got a free pizza, Pizza Hut.
So I was like, Well, how can I do this as an adult?
So when I was in Charlotte, there was a friend I know owns
a place called Pop Bar, and they make these like gelato
on a stick creations, but they like amazing.
And so when I reached five bucks, I would go get Pop bar.
I haven't figured that out for Philadelphia yet.
Those are my that was always that I practice.
I like that.
One of the things that I do whenever, like crafting questions
for guests is I just look at all
their different social media presence and accounts and whatnot.
And one of the books that I saw you were reading was The Body Keep Score.
And so I'm actually started listening to that.
I heard another podcast at that time, like that same day that was like, Yeah,
I listened to this book and it was a great book.
And I'm like, okay, I'm going to check it out.
And it finally just arrived.
I actually haven't started yet.
Is on my list.
Oh, really? Okay.
Because the same with you.
Like, I keep seeing it in places, right?
And I am in therapy and I, you know, I'm a huge advocate for therapy,
although I wasn't once before, even just not even reading it right.
Just from the title, I can feel that my body literally is keeping score.
You know, whether it's stress or nzd.
Like the month of August was very stressful for me
and it had physical impacts, you know, like I could feel it in a way, Huh?
Right.
If I want to change this, then I have to, like,
you know, implement my self-care stuff, right?
So that my body is like, okay, you know, But even through therapy,
I'm learning that like trauma, which I think that book really hits on.
Yep, we carry it in our body and like, that's fascinating.
Just even thinking about it, I think of my therapist in an old nutritionist
I had like told me like, you carry trauma in your body and I'm like, Huh.
Even like after the event?
No, like, yeah.
And like, well, it's crazy. Yeah.
I'm also a big fan of therapy.
My wife is a therapist.
I'm seeing my therapist tomorrow.
Like, it's something that I recommend for everyone.
Even if you're gone through good times.
Like it helps prepare you for the times where it's not so great.
And yeah,
because sometimes those sessions where you're like, Oh, everything's great.
Or like the best worst sessions, right?
Because it's like you go in there optimistic and it's like,
Oh, so I had this other thing I needed to work on, Huh?
All right,
then you think about that.
Thanks. Therapist You're great.
Yeah.
So you were mentioning, like,
the kind of unsure when the PhD will finish.
Like, I totally get that there's a ton of burnout and stress that comes
with going through a PhD program and especially going through a Ph.D.
program and having all of the other interests that you're doing.
Like I imagine you were still doing in tech
while you're doing the first couple of years.
Like how do you try and prevent that burnout?
To my own detriment.
It's funny because there was another nonprofit founder in Charlotte
that went to law school the same year I came to get my PhD,
and he stepped completely away at that time, which was a fantastic idea.
And in hindsight I wish I would have.
But one thing that I've been telling folks is that like in tech,
you know, it's really the little engine that could
and if I would have stepped away in the way that I am now
financially, wouldn't have been able to afford a new leader.
And so like, wow, it has been tough
to run the organization and try to be a full time student.
Like, it gets really crazy sometimes we're in a better position now
to transition me out and get someone in from a financial perspective.
But to answer your question around burnout, honestly, the fact that school,
the fact that grad school is
there's a lot of flexibility in it has worked in my favor.
But each semester I have to figure out like what
works for me, it literally changes each semester.
So semesters where I have two courses and then I'm doing
research, those are much lighter and I feel like I can breathe.
But then the semesters
where I have three courses, that's when it gets really crazy.
I really had to start saying no to stuff
like I was already saying no, but I had to like double down on No.
The pandemic helped and hurt me.
I think like I feel like I missed out on those experiences
where you can go to conferences and meet new people, learn new things
because I don't know about you, but I got conference burn out really quickly.
So I was like, I don't even want to go to the conference if it's virtual anymore.
Again, I'm 60 right now.
Before I was able to meet so many people and like I literally used
to leave conferences, like with all of these ideas who now I'm siloed
because I'm at home, you know, hit or miss with going to the virtual conferences.
That was a miss.
But on the plus side, like my classes at Temple
for whatever reason, are from
there's no option for a daytime class in either of my programs.
But I think Temple designed it that way for folks who work.
Yeah.
And so imagine trying to like be a responsible human
and wake up at seven or 8 a.m., get your day started,
and then at 530, when you're ready to like, wind down, we
actually have to be on Zoom and be alert or be in class and be alert until 8 p.m..
So when I first got to temple,
I literally like I was I'm not a morning person, but at that time in
that season of my life, I was a morning person and I would get up and go work out.
So I was on campus by nine
and I had worked out shower in breakfast by nine and then by eight.
I'm like, Oh man, this is tough.
So then by Friday I'm like, Oh man, I have no energy to give to anybody.
And so it's been trial and error for me.
But and I was like this before, but I don't have email apps on my phone anymore.
That's actually new for me.
But I previously didn't have notifications,
so that helps with the burnout
because I'm not constantly like worried about emails.
I don't check my email until after I've had breakfast in my city for the day
and maybe even worked out.
So I might not get to my email until ten or 11 a.m..
That has been helpful because I realized when I was checking email
it would kind of ruin my morning if I'm like trying to respond
to something that I wasn't anticipating and I'm not in the headspace.
Therapy has been helpful
because my therapist kind of calls me out whenever I slack away from me.
So practices gotta make sure I work out so cost a lot of money.
But I bought a peloton bike.
I proved to myself that I would use it first, though. I got a cheaper bike
and then I was like, okay, I'm going to take the plunge.
I got to get the bike.
And so I, you know, try to like, reach out to folks and say, Hey,
you do this right?
And like I wrote before our conversation today, I was like,
okay, I have to get this in now or it's not going to happen.
And it's an unlearning experience, but I'm trying to get much better
at resting and truly resting.
I don't know when it was.
It might have been last year
where I realized sleep and resting are two separate things.
I think people miss that because I was like, Man, I need to get some rest now.
Like, Oh, you're not sleeping well. And I was like, That's not what I said.
I was like, No, I sleep great.
You know, resting means that I am not thinking about anything.
Like, you know, like I'm like laying on the couch, watching TV, like,
just kind of being aimless with my body and my brain literally to rest.
And I think a lot of people like me who are overachievers feel guilty
when you're resting. It's like, Oh, I should be doing something.
I have let that go.
It's nice
is hard, though, because of the systems that exist around us,
like capitalism being one, you know, you feel like you should be producing
and putting out output.
But I think that mentality helped me
get away from intake because I started this organization.
You know, ego would keep me here, but I want a lot of hats and I've burned out
and I know what that feels like and I don't like it.
And so I'm in a place in my life where I'm like, You are.
My therapy is actually what is 80% who you look like?
Because I give 150 to everything just by default, and it's killing me.
So, like, what is 80% look like?
What does it look like if I do one thing?
So the top of the year, I'll just be a student and I'm excited about it.
So yeah, there's so much good advice in there.
I like your idea of like kind of viewing like the semester almost as like a season
like, Oh, well this is a lighter season or a heavier season in terms
of like load and whatnot, but also just keeping the apps off the phone.
Like I don't get notifications and like that makes it easier.
I try and avoid email until like ten or 11:00 and like then
I'll check it one more time
at the end of the day, like before I'm done before I start to rest for the day.
And yeah, because you literally can feel your inside.
Oh yeah.
Like going up when you're like checking the stuff. Yep.
In a time where you shouldn't be.
I don't even think with my phone in my bedroom anymore.
I charge it in the kitchen or on my desk, and when I'm ready for bed,
I walk away from it and I'll figure it out in the morning.
And my family hates that, though.
Like, what is going to happen to them?
I will call the police.
Don't call me.
Yeah, I And your comments about rest,
like I engage in a process called Pomodoro.
So like the way I do it is like 50 minutes of work and then a ten minute break.
So like an hour chunks.
But what I realize, because I'm also very much like
I need to be working and progressing or evolving and whatever,
like those ten minute breaks where like, Oh, I'm going to practice
drums for 10 minutes or, Oh, I'm going to work on this thing
and improve this thing for 10 minutes, but it's not work.
And then I realize, no, I need to just take those 10 minutes
and just do some yoga like and do that throughout the day
and just shut my brain down because it's better for me to rest.
What do you wish there's more research on that could inform your own practices.
I wish there were more research on black girls here, so for
my qualifying exam I had to write a proposal.
and I wrote it as if it was like my
dissertation proposal because I'm tired of writing proposals,
frankly, in this program.
And before I
even got to start the process, I had to send my committee an abstract
of what I wanted to write about, for them to approve it,
for me to go ahead and write the proposal and actually switched it all the way up
because I started thinking and I'm like, You know what?
Because I had like proposed an intervention for our in tech academy.
But I basically was going to, you know, administer some surveys
and talk to some of our students about their experience.
But I decided to zoom out and look at tech as a whole.
And because we've collected data like from the start select interview participants
based off some of their responses and their experiences in our programs.
That's what I ended up proposing.
But I like went deep in just
what is the research on black girls in education?
Right?
Is an emerging field from a lens of it being positive and not negative.
Right?
Because there's a lot of research
about black girls being pushed out of education by girls.
I mean, it's a spin. They're being disruptive.
And I'm like, where are the positive research studies that it's coming?
There's actually found a field
called Black Girlhood Studies that I had no idea about.
And so that process for me was exciting and sad at the same time
because it was like, Oh, like there are scholars
starting to publish in this area and I understand how publications work.
So it's like work may have been done, it may not be published yet.
I was able to find some things, but I'm like, okay,
because this is broadly thinking about black girls in education,
but then when you narrow it down to stem narrowed down in computer science,
you know, you start finding the same articles over and over.
And so there's a catch 22, right?
Because that means like, oh, well, more work needs to be done in this field.
Cool. I can help contribute to that.
But I wish there was more groundwork.
Like, what I found is that there is research
around black girls in science and math, but the technology
and engineering part has a long way to go to catch up with that.
So yeah,
one of my favorite things to do on this podcast is to unpack papers
from outside of the field because I feel like the field could
benefit from exploring different lenses, like there is an ice or paper
that came out this year that actually used like a partizan lens
to look at power structures and whatnot in education.
And it's like, this is the first time
I've seen anyone mention Bourdieu, like in anything related to CSC education.
And it's just it's fascinating.
Like there's all these other fields and disciplines in education
that talk about these interesting things that are very relevant,
but it's not being discussed in relation to the US education.
Yeah, in that honestly, like let me ask a question around like,
you know, just my experience in like things
that have been happening for me studying this stuff.
I struggle in these theory classes
because I'm like, What are you all talking about?
But then I realize like, Hey, this actually is important for my research.
I think the disconnect
is that I've been reading so much articles and I feel like in our space
is not required for you to use a theory to drive your research.
It's just like,
All right, we did this intervention and here are our results, you know?
And so part of the struggle is that I've never heard of some of these
founding folks of these theories before.
I'm not used to thinking in this way.
And so when I resisting it, I realized like, hey, this actually can help make
my research stand out if I'm like, Hey, this is my theoretical framework, right?
That's guiding my inquiry.
Actually, my first semester at Temple, when I was not in education,
I took a I think it was called Philosophical Foundations of Education.
I hated that class. I hated it.
I'm like, I don't know what you all are talking about.
I don't even need this class. Like, Oh, this is mad.
But then I would get to class and my peers would be like,
Yeah, and I struggle read that article too.
And I'm like, Okay, cool, cool, cool. We all struggle.
Yes, Interesting is very interesting. Yeah.
And a lot of those authors like FICO and Purdue, like when you read their stuff,
it's like, okay, I need to read that again and again and again.
And then I read like their five
other books to make sense of this one sentence, like contextualize it.
And I found a YouTube video or something breaks down like, right,
where is a cliff notes of this?
Please help me.
Oh my God.
Your own Bruner is the one that I just was like, I can't.
I don't even know what's happening here.
Do you have any questions for myself or for the field?
Yes, I have a question.
I kind of want to know your thoughts on where computer science education is going.
Like, you know, I feel like there have been trends.
And one of the things that frustrates me sometimes is like the difference between
digital literacy, computational thinking, computer science,
like, you know, like people throw these terms out
and they mean different things to different people.
What I'm learning and I want to get your take on where you see the field going.
Yeah, the different terminology thing is fascinating.
I went to like a I forgot what it's called,
but it's like a summit talking about computational thinking.
There's a bunch of like teachers and scholars
all interested in computational thinking and there's no like unified definition,
like everyone had their own. Like, No, you need to include this.
No, you don't need to include this other thing in
CC as a whole, I
think is often conflated with technology in general.
Like, Oh yeah, we learn like Microsoft Office.
Okay,
well that is not really us unless you're, you know, changing the code, maybe, etc..
But then also conflate things because it is often presented
as a thinking framework decontextualized from application in relation
to computer science or even like simulation or anything computational.
It's just a thing of,
Oh, well, I engaged in decomposition or debugging or something.
Okay, great.
But does that necessarily the greatest way of problem solving, like in your domain?
I don't know. Maybe or maybe not.
So I hope as a field we kind of come together
and recenter around what does CSS for all actually.
And when we say all y like if it's
just for jobs, well, not everyone's going to get a job in CSS.
It's very important for those who do.
But if it really is going to be a for everyone and hopefully we actually mean
everyone, including like kids with disabilities and things like that,
well then we need to focus on other ways of exploring and using your understandings
computer science in a way that's relevant to you and your future life.
Like if I have no interest in going into this,
how can I use this classroom required to take and apply into it?
I actually am interested in doing it for a career.
Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, I agree.
You know, because even at intake, we I realize I know I have all the degrees
at this point and they're all technical, whatever.
But I know that's not the reality for a lot of our students.
And that's okay. Right.
Because even when we're in-person like a host, our campus at in-state
or at UC Charlotte, so they're on a college campus and,
you know, they're meeting folks that have these majors and things of that sort.
But it's like what I know to be true in tech is that the degrees,
I mean, is debatable, but
you could get a certificate like there's just so many entryways into tech.
I thought my studies would go the teacher route because I feel like
if I help teachers, they're going to reach more students
than I ever will and that might come back around.
I just chose to use intact as my dissertation work, but I'm like,
What does professional development look like for teachers teaching
computer science that don't have this background?
Like that was my question.
When I first got here, I had to put it on the wayside.
But I'm just like, I remember when I taught the Google Computer Science
Summer Institute course in Python data structures, and I hadn't
looked at that stuff in a long time and I had an all star student in my class
would ask the deeper level questions and I had to say like,
Let me come back to you.
You know, I feel like in education you can have like a rockstar teacher
that has the pedagogy stuff not knocked out
and like knows how to interact with students and can work a classroom.
And you have like the subject matter experts, right?
And it's like, how how do you marry the two?
I never had formal teaching training, right?
I would learn picked up things
along the way, but in some cases I am the subject matter expert.
And so it's like, well, okay, I can get by in teaching this course,
but what if it was the other way around
and I was hired because I'm a rock star teacher, necessarily know the content.
Right?
And I have this all star student in my class asking me like, deeper questions.
You know, I know an expert teacher wouldn't know what to do with that,
but it's just like, how do we get them the training that they need so that,
you know, they can answer the question or the student and, you know, move forward.
So that's I mean, I'm
still kind of like curious about, but we'll see how that manifests itself.
Are there any questions or topics
that we haven't discussed that you want to chat about?
So the topic around like teacher training is still fascinating to me.
Know I know, like the premise of
this podcast is professional development, but I really wonder
even, you know, thinking about like matching industry to what's taught,
whether that's in K-through-12 or in academia,
I feel like there's often a disconnect in the technologies.
In the technologies move fast, right?
Those kind of hard to keep up.
But it's like,
how are we preparing students, you know, and what computer science program?
We weren't learning anything that I could go back to Apple
with or back to Twitter or, you know, like is archaic almost.
It is like, when are we going to shake things up
so that we can prepare students to go into these roles
if that's what they want to do in a useful way.
So especially like if you think of like kindergartners,
by the time they finish high school, that's like 13 years later.
So odds are things are going to change.
Yeah.
And it's curriculum doesn't a lot of times I once had an idea
that I never really went for it with a lot of folks that are in industry
want to give back in some way like they want to be useful.
They want to use their knowledge either with students or with teachers.
And it's like, Well, how can we connect it to, you know,
it was like, okay, this could look like a select group where.
You have educators and software engineers.
Educators are teaching software engineering, but they have a question,
a specific to a certain technology or whatever, and they could like
just ping some of the engineers like, Hey, can you help me out with this?
Maybe the engineers don't know how to teach it,
but they can kind of like break it down to help with the teacher.
I don't know.
I just feel like there's this disconnect with the working world, with like the tech
workforce and education as a whole,
and that frustrates me because I don't know what the solution is.
Yeah, almost like a StackOverflow for educators to communicate
with people that might be more content, knowledge heavy or whatever.
Yeah, I'm just like, where could that go?
You know, like, I don't know.
I'm not saying that I know all the things and I've seen all the things,
but that is something that has felt like a disconnect
even just through my work with in tech, even when we hire, right?
Like we always try to strike that balance like or at least pair
someone who works in industry with an educator
that may not be super knowledgeable, but it's like they know how to manage
a classroom.
So we're going to make sure they're the lead.
You're there to help them with the technical stuff,
and it's always interesting how that works out.
Yeah, in our PD, it's been hard sometimes to get some teachers to let go of that.
Like I need to know everything in advance.
Like, no, you just need to learn how to learn.
Like that's the more important thing because kids are constantly ask questions.
It's like, I don't know that yet.
Let me come back to you tomorrow and or let's work through it together, etc.
And it's hard when, like you're speaking to somebody who might have degrees
in a subject that they're teaching and they feel very knowledgeable of,
and then you're asking them to add in a whole
nother language and platform and ways of understanding and creating that.
They're like, But wait, I don't have a background in this.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
I realized that like as a privacy student, you have about ten different ideas
and you just have to pick the one that get you out.
And so I'm actually happy that we're having this conversation
because it's given me something to think about as I go into the job market
where my people go to connect with you and the organizations that you work with.
Yeah, so you can find me pretty much anywhere as clear.
Braswell, k, a, a, b, r, s, wtol, clear breath.
WorldCom, Clearasil on Instagram.
Clay Braswell on Twitter.
I mean it all the same a long time ago.
I do not check LinkedIn and Facebook as much, so those are not the best places.
And then intake in tech camp I in t
camp Dawg is our website
also in tech camp on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
So definitely look forward to engaging with folks.
Right now we're still virtual, so we welcome students from anywhere.
We had a student in Canada last summer, which was nice to tap into our program.
And with that, that concludes this week's episode of the Season
eight podcast, and she visit Jared Salary.com to check out the Shownotes.
You get all the links to Clea
and in Tech's social media handles and websites,
and if you enjoyed this particular episode,
make sure you check out all the others.
There are over 100 episodes right now that discuss a variety of publications
and have some really awesome interviews with some pretty cool people.
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to this.
Stay tuned next week for another episode.
And until then, I hope you're all staying safe and are having a wonderful week.
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