Analysis Of Teach Girls Bravery Not Perfection By Reshma Saujani

The title of this TED Talk is "Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection", and it was given in 2016 by Reshma Saujani. This video would be good for counselors to share with parents, educators, and classrooms of children to encourage girls to participate in gifted programs. While she speaks specifically to her work in the STEM field, her message is for girls to dream big regardless of their interests, and to not just play it safe their whole lives. Saujani begins with an anecdote about her leap of faith to run for Congress; she didn't win, in fact, she only received nineteen percent of the votes, but she believes her true failure is that this was the first time in 33 years that she bravely took a chance. She continues to say that girls are raised

to be careful, to be perfect, where boys, on the other hand, are taught to be risk takers. Saujani's next journey was in teaching young girls how to code, where she repeatedly observed girls worrying about making mistakes in front of others or showing they are unable to do or understand something. She gives three examples of girls who have learned to persevere in coding, who will more than likely take what they have learned about resilience and transfer it to other areas of their lives. She suggests showing young girls that they are loved regardless of what they are capable of, and challenges each person in the room to show this acceptance and support to each young girl in their life. In 2012, Saujani started her coding classes with twenty girls, and now 40,000 girls are part of this program nationwide. According to her facts and statistics, girls and women essentially own the internet, using social media at a rate of 600% more than men, so there is no reason for women not to take part in owning and creating the technology they use. This will all begin, though, by helping to break the cycle of perfection and fear of failure embedded within them.