Danger of a Single Story – Twitter Chat Sep 17, 2014

What are the stories that we tell about engineering, engineers, and engineering education? How have those stories fed stereotypes? How are those stereotypes limiting access to and interest in engineering? How are those stereotypes fueling a status quo that no longer serves us?

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There are some single stories that we all know and have heard about engineering. In this week’s chat, we will discuss what some of those single stories are, how they limit us, aand consider NEW stories about engineers, engineering, and engineering education.

Join us for our weekly #BigBeacon Twitter chat on topics related to engineering education. This week the topic is drawn from the BigBeacon Manifesto: #28 Educational rewire is a personal, emotional, and cultural process that depends upon changing language and story.

Join us on Wednesday, September 17 at 8 PM EST for our weekly Twitter Chats. Follow #BigBeacon.

Curious about single stories?  Watch the TED talk where Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the “Danger of a Single Story.”

How to Twitter Chat

If you’ve never Twitter chatted before, don’t worry; it’s very easy. First, get a Twitter account if you don’t already have one, and log in. At 8 PM ET on Wednesday go to twitter.com and type #BigBeacon into the search box on Twitter. Thereafter all the tweets with the hashtag #BigBeacon will show up on your Twitter page. To participate, simply express your opinion by sending a tweet, and be sure to append the hashtag #BigBeacon so other members of the Twitter Chat see you are posting. Alternatively, automate the hashtag search and append feature by using the free service Tchat at http://www.tchat.io.

For more information on HOW to twitter chat, read a longer post here.

For more information on our weekly chats, read more here.

About Big Beacon

The Big Beacon is a Movement to Transform Engineering Education, and was organized to catalyze a global social movement around this goal. The Big Beacon connects dots among individuals and organizations to collaboratively disrupt the status quo, thereby bringing about change to align engineering education with the creativity imperative of our times.