Brooke Davis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gobrookeyourself) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2018-10-28 08:38 pm
gobrookeyourself) wrote in fandomhigh2018-10-28 08:38 pm
Entry tags:
Badass Women You Should Know- Monday- 2nd period
"Morning, everybody," Brooke greeted them when they got to the classroom. "We're going to have an easy class today, because I'm giving you an assignment to do." Well, Paris at least might appreciate that. "Today we're talking about Katherine Johnson, who you might've heard about the last couple years. She was born Katherine Coleman in West Virginia in 1918, and was super good at math early on, but because things were even more racist back then then they are now, the county didn't educate black students past the eighth grade. So her parents sent her to high school elsewhere... when she was ten years old. She graduated at fourteen and went to West Virginia State University, taking so many classes that they created more for her to take. She graduated, started teaching, did more school, started a family, and started teaching jobs that would get her into being a research mathmetician. In 1953 she started a job at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was the precursor to our current space program, NASA. She was part of a pool of women performing calculations, like reading black box data off planes, and one day Katherine was assigned to help an all-male flight research team and according to her, they forgot to put her back in the pool. She was stuck dealing with gender and racial barriers, but says she basically ignored them. Eventually, her work was critical in the success of the Apollo Moon Landing program.
"And I'm going to stop explaining there, except to tell you that she's still alive at a hundred years old, is still getting buildings named after her and all the accolades, and if you've heard of her lately it's because in 2016 there was a book and then a movie based on her experiences, along with two other African American mathmeticians, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. She even got a standing ovation at the Oscars for being there when the movie was nominated. And the reason I'm going to stop explaining is because for next week I want you to either read the book, or listen to the audiobook, and write up a summary of her history, at least a page. If you want to go longer, go for it. So you can pick up a book or start listening now here in class, or you can grab it on your way out and I'll see you next week."
"And I'm going to stop explaining there, except to tell you that she's still alive at a hundred years old, is still getting buildings named after her and all the accolades, and if you've heard of her lately it's because in 2016 there was a book and then a movie based on her experiences, along with two other African American mathmeticians, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. She even got a standing ovation at the Oscars for being there when the movie was nominated. And the reason I'm going to stop explaining is because for next week I want you to either read the book, or listen to the audiobook, and write up a summary of her history, at least a page. If you want to go longer, go for it. So you can pick up a book or start listening now here in class, or you can grab it on your way out and I'll see you next week."
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... That and a book. It kind of felt as though, if she was going to be learning about such a well-educated woman, it wouldn't hurt to try to follow along on the page while the words were read to her out loud. Maybe it would help her to cement some of that High Galactic in her mind a little better, too.
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Talk to Brooke
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