Celebrating women in STEM education
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
As we close off Women’s Month it is important to acknowledge women in education, especially those in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as these are often male-dominated sectors.
Future Nations School educator, Xoliswa Mahlangu is the Computing Curriculum Developer and Co-Ordinator Computing educator for grades 4-9 at the Lyndhurst and Fleurhof campuses.
Mahlangu is the robotics coach at the Future Nation Schools and says she enjoys being a young educator in STEM education.
“I would like to think I influence all the students I interact with. I am always experimenting with fun technological devices in the classroom that amazes the students and leaves them with a sense of wonder.
“I especially influence the girls in the robotics club at Lyndhurst. They think it’s very cool to see a female teacher who is so comfortable with technology, who is always trying new things and is not afraid to fail at times, as long as she learns something new,” she explains.
Mahlangu started teaching at Future Nation Schools in 2017, with the opportunity for her to create a computing curriculum for Grades one to nine and implement it.
“It seemed like a fun space where we could enable students to use computing power and computational thinking to solve problems and be innovators,” she said.
Teaching can be a thankless job and ensuring that you are inspired every day to teach young students is not always as easy as you would hope. However, Xoliswa says that she is excited by the idea of enabling students to be content creators and innovative problem solvers.
“The smiles when students finally figure something out and have that ‘ah ha’ moment is purely amazing. When students realise that they can make things that they previously thought only geeky adults could do like building websites, creating apps and robots, they feel empowered and they can see their education come alive,” she said.
With South Africa having only 40% of women scientists according to UNESCO statistics (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) educators like Mahlangu play an invaluable role in motivating young girls to follow in the same steps and eventually increase this statistic.
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