{"id":105038,"date":"2019-12-06T17:59:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T17:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=435554"},"modified":"2019-12-06T17:59:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T17:59:15","slug":"microsoft-ireland-teacher-on-the-impact-of-role-models-i-firmly-believe-you-cant-be-what-you-cant-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/06\/microsoft-ireland-teacher-on-the-impact-of-role-models-i-firmly-believe-you-cant-be-what-you-cant-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Ireland teacher on the impact of role models: \u2018I firmly believe you can\u2019t be what you can\u2019t see\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBluebell is in a disadvantaged area, and when I have kids come in from similar areas, I always tell them where I\u2019m from. And they\u2019re like, \u2018No, you\u2019re not!\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBecause to them, seeing someone from Bluebell working at Microsoft is a big deal. And I just hope that they think, \u2018If she works here, I can work here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After a recent class, a student thanked Amanda and told her that she\u2019d only seen men code before. The chance to code alongside other girls was something she\u2019d never imagined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was a \u2018whoa\u2019 moment for me.\u201d Amanda pauses and then sighs with disappointment. \u201cOf course, I know the statistics about women in the tech industry. But to actually have a student say that made the reality and the impact so much more real.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the next year, Amanda hopes to reach more students through DreamSpace by traveling to rural areas, training more teachers, and even creating mini-DreamSpace environments at <span class=\"emdash-wrap\">schools\u2014colorful<\/span> and comfortable corners within classrooms where students can learn together.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-37818\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/microsoft-ireland-teacher-on-the-impact-of-role-models-i-firmly-believe-you-cant-be-what-you-cant-see.png\" alt=\"A woman laughs while two younger women look at a computer screen and point. They are having fun learning.\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\"><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI firmly believe you can\u2019t be what you can\u2019t see,\u201d Amanda says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to show students that it doesn\u2019t matter where you live. It\u2019s doesn\u2019t matter what you\u2019ve done. It doesn\u2019t matter what your parents do. You can do this; it\u2019s possible for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<p>Back at Colaiste Pobail Setanta, Amanda hugs her former coworkers good-bye and heads out of her old science lab. As her hand swipes an empty student desk, she thinks lovingly about the past. She loves what she does <span class=\"emdash-wrap\">now\u2014growing<\/span> her own skills in new <span class=\"emdash-wrap\">ways\u2014but<\/span> she\u2019ll always remember where she came from.<\/p>\n<p>Making her way to the exit, Amanda walks past the front office <span class=\"emdash-wrap\">receptionist\u2014a<\/span> new employee who didn\u2019t work there when Amanda was a teacher at the school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHello, I\u2019m Amanda. I used to teach here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHmm. What do you do now?\u201d the receptionist asks, assuming Amanda has left the vocation as well as the school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I still teach,\u201d she says, her face lighting up with pride. \u201cBut now, I\u2019m a teacher at Microsoft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBluebell is in a disadvantaged area, and when I have kids come in from similar areas, I always tell them where I\u2019m from. And they\u2019re like, \u2018No, you\u2019re not!\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBecause to them, seeing someone from Bluebell working at Microsoft is a big deal. And I just hope that they think, \u2018If she works [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[134,50],"class_list":["post-105038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-microsoft-life","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}