One little girl wants other girls to feel free to raise their hands. So much so that she helped create a Girl Scout patch for the practice.
An op-ed in the New York Times today written by 10-year-old Alice Paul Tapper, daughter of CNN anchor Jake Tapper, talks about how she noticed that on a recent fourth-grade field trip that all the boys felt comfortable moving to the front of the group and raising their hands to ask questions, while the girls stood politely in the back:
I told my mom that I thought girls weren’t raising their hands because they were afraid that the answer was going to be wrong and that they would be embarrassed. I also think they were being quiet because the boys already had the teacher’s attention, and they worried they might not be able to get it. My mom and I decided that we should take the experience to my Girl Scout troop.
The young girls decided to create a “Raise Your Hand” patch, encouraging girls to have confidence and become leaders.
The troop presented the idea to the Girl Scouts in the D.C area, where it was approved as an official patch. To earn it, girls have to pledge to raise their hand in class and recruit at least three other girls to do the same.
The patch became available for troops to order this week, and Tapper is already wearing hers.