my dad died alone in a hospital room
while most of the people he loved were
at a Christmas party
3x prior he had been on the job
installing telephones which required him
to climb up a telephone pole and in the
climbing he fell he fell 14 feet which
wasn’t deadly at the time but he did end
up in the hospital but the doctors were
confident that he’d be home by Christmas
instead a blood clot traveled up his leg
in his heart and he died when my mom got
the phone call she became hysterical
justifiably so and eventually her
hysteria got to such an extreme that the
police were called because no one knew
what to deal with this one when flailing
around right and so the police arrived
and one of them had the nerve to look
her in the eye and say ma’am what seems
to be the problem she looked him back in
the eye and said it’s Christmas my
husband just died and I’m pregnant and
then she punched him right in the face
you can’t tell this you can’t tell the
story of my father dying without telling
the story of my birth I was that baby
that my mom was pregnant with and this
is how everyone found out that she was
pregnant with me including my father my
father didn’t know she had a card for
him for Christmas that said Merry
Christmas were pregnant and this is
tragic obviously but if you fast forward
maybe four years you find a house full
of females my two older sisters and I
and my mom and we’re making ends meet my
dad was the sole breadwinner and when he
died he took that income with him and so
my mom did things like taking in sewing
and ironing and babysitting but also be
sure to get a little bit creative with
her finances and so when she when things
would break in our house she would try
to fix him my mom was not very
mechanically inclined and so she would
hand those things off to us when she
couldn’t fix them herself she figured if
it wasn’t gonna get fixed we might as
well give it a go right
well the gifts that my father gave us
we’re number one the gifts of being a
little more mechanically inclined than
our mom but also he was a very
mischievous guy and he was very curious
and he passed that along to us
especially my middle sister Bridget who
was pretty much a troublemaker and also
my idol
I followed her around wherever she went
and I did whatever she told me to do he
also left us a garage full of tools he
had been building our house that we
lived in when he died he’d also been
kind of limping along three different
cars that he was always working on
having one going and having the other
two kind of waiting in the wings and so
we had all these tools so we had time
and we had these appliances that our mom
was saying give it a go and so we did we
would we would open up toasters and see
what was inside and see how the springs
worked and see if we could see it was
broken the VCR see if we could fix it
most the time we couldn’t but sometimes
we could and that was enough to make us
feel confident that it was possible to
fix anything that we opened we also took
those tools and did some creative things
building we went in our front yard
we wanted a tree house our mom’s afraid
of heights and so we built a tree house
which was just basically a piece of
plywood on some two by fours in a tree I
remember cutting the two by six that we
used for a swing using hand saw from
that house when I was five so it’s
pretty little we also very importantly
installed a cat elevator because we
wanted our cat table to get up into the
tree fort and how else was she supposed
to get up there so we had the cat
levator and we were very proud of it and
and basically these gifts of curiosity
mischievousness it made us very
confident little girls and I didn’t
realize that that’s what it was doing
the whole time but our failures and then
our sometimes our successes made us feel
like we could kind of do anything and so
we did and so what happens when you take
that curiosity and you give it to an
eight year old girl so I run a nonprofit
called girls build and we have summer
camps for girls and after-school
programming
and during this program we teach them to
build during our summer camps we have 40
girls per week and what that looks like
is on the first day of camp the girls
arrive and if you picture 40 little kids
8 to 11 years old you think it’s gonna
be loud right like they’re all talking
and they’re getting excited no it is
dead quiet because they show up to camp
we throw a hard hat on and then safety
glasses ear protection tool about bucket
tools and they’re kind of looking at
each other like what did we get into
fast forward one week the last day of
camp over the course of that week of
camp we’ve done 20 different building
workshops with them they’ve learned over
ten different building trades and so you
look at that Friday afternoon when
they’re leaving camp and we invite their
parents to join us we have a big
scavenger hunt at the end of camp and so
the girls are running around all 40 of
our parents we’re running around and
they’re looking for these little tags
that say drill screw in here hammer and
now do this out of these fractions for
us whatever it might be but my favorite
station to watch is the chop saw so a
chop saw is about that big about that
tall with a 10 to 12 inch blade on it
and girls who are over ten at summer
camp are allowed to use it and so they
walk up very confidently parents in tow
and they read the little tag they grab
it to you by four they grab their their
a tape measure they measure it they mark
across foot they get out their speed
square they mark a line they drop it
onto the table push it up against the
fence and they put their hand on the
trigger and their parents are looking at
them with their eyes bugged out like is
my little girl really gonna do this and
a lot of times they say are you sure you
can do this at which point the camper
iral is introduced she looks at her
parents and sighs and says of course I
can use a chop saw like they’re idiots
right like this little girl who’s only
about this big it’s just totally fine
but she is and so she puts her hand on
the trigger and
she brings that blade down and she cuts
the wood and it’s really cool to watch
and what you see from the beginning of
that week to the end is confidence
they’re curious they learn about a bunch
of different things they also fail they
mess up over the course of the week I
watched two little girls one time hammer
one nail for 90 minutes it never went in
but they were super proud of themselves
right they’d they were installing the
trim they were doing it and so they see
themselves you know fail at a lot of
things and they realize that it’s not
the end of the world right and when they
do that over and over again they get a
little more confident and they think
like if I can do this maybe I can do a
lot of things and they do and I have
parents who write me afterward and say
you would not believe the change in her
confidence after she’s done with camp
you don’t believe the things that she’s
trying to do now at home after camp and
that’s what we want and sort of what
happens if you take that curiosity in
that confidence and you give it to a
high school girl so I taught high school
for two year high school construction
actually for two years on my first day
of class I had one female student in the
entirety of all of my classes so I asked
the boys to recruit more girls I wanted
more girls at my classes and from that
recruitment we got four girls so we had
five which was great and it was so
interesting watching the girls versus
the boys
if you’ve ever hung out with 17 year old
boys they are the most confident group
of human beings I think I’ve ever met in
my entire life they may not have ever
heard of something before but they will
tell you like I know honey I got it I
know I do I don’t do that don’t worry
about it and they’ll go do it
but the thing that was interesting was
the boys had been working toward a
career in construction since they were
this big
they had uncles and neighbors and
whoever teaching them this is what your
goal is this is where you can go with
construction and so they did
and the girls were walking to my
classroom for the first time saying what
is this picking up a hammer for the very
first time and so they’re ten years
behind there
no way they can catch up and that was
driven home for me one day when one of
my students when my female students came
in and she said Miss Hughes I want you
to know I would not have graduated high
school if it wasn’t for this class and
this light bulb went off for me she
wasn’t saying like miss U’s you’re the
best teacher in the entire world she was
saying this class is really cool
and I thought about the boys in my
classes and those boys were spending
their days they had like woods 3.then
metals three and then automotive three
and then construction like that’s not
that’s a pretty great schedule for your
senior year and so the boys were we’re
waking up in the mornings and they’re
excited about what they’re gonna do for
their day they’re gonna start a project
they’re gonna finish a project the other
thing I saw them doing was coming to
school and saying miscues I was thinking
all night about that problem we’re
having with XYZ I think I figured out
how to fix it and then they go do it
they’re excited about that what they’re
learning at school and when we don’t let
girls have that opportunity we’re
robbing them of the of the opportunity
to actually be excited at school and to
graduate from school right suspend their
days building things they don’t get to
do that and so what happens if you take
that curiosity and like confidence and
you give it to a girl graduating high
school so both of my sisters are
dyslexic and they struggled tremendously
throughout high school
my oldest sister Marina didn’t learn to
read until she was 12 my middle sister
Bridget she and I were in the same math
class when I was a freshman she was a
senior algebra – can you imagine how
horrible that would be for a dyslexic
person like why would you ever want to
take that class and so they both
graduated barely and they hated it and
the thought of going to college was
terrible Bridget even cried I remember
my mom asking her if she wanted to go
and she was like why would I ever want
to go there why would I ever want to do
that and so my sister Maria graduated
did some minimum-wage jobs she got
married she had three kids she got
divorced
one day she calls me on the phone and
she says I’m applying at this video
store and at that point I had gone to
college I’ve spent a year volunteering
with Habitat for Humanity learning some
real carpentry skills and then I’d
become a carpenter that was now helping
women get into the construction industry
and I’m talking to my sister on the
phone and I’m like why am I haven’t made
this connection before and so I say to
her have you ever considered a career in
construction and she says I’m listening
she’d no idea what I was talking about
one year later through a lot of
determination and focus she started her
first day as a first term electrical
apprentice it’s been almost 10 years and
she’s now a journeyman electrical
apprentice and when you talk to her and
you ask her what she does for a living
she says I’m a journeyman electrical
apprentice and she’s excited about that
if she was still working at the video
store or the gas station the pizza place
or one of the million places that she
worked she would not be happy telling me
that she made over a hundred thousand
dollars last year and the reason I bring
that up is this someone is finding value
in her skills
finally and someone is paying her what
she’s worth finally and she is finding
value in herself finally and the other
cool part is her daughter who is now 19
recently told me oh I tell everyone my
mom is a badass and I thought if you
think your mom’s a badass then maybe you
think that you could possibly be a
badass one day too
right and so we need to think about how
we can bring that curiosity that
confidence and that value to girls at a
young age so how do we do that well for
starters when you’re working around the
house
when you get that IKEA desk or a dresser
or whatever it might be you hand her an
allen wrench right super easy
you’re changing a lightbulb let her
screw that live open that’s the easiest
thing in the world right you’re
repairing your fence drills are the
easiest things for kids to use they’re
so easy and it feels so good to them
they love it and so there are these
little things that you can evolve them
in right now that gets them thinking
outside the box and gets them using
their hands and once they start doing
that the world opens up the next thing
you can do is engage them in the classes
available to them within their own
schools you look at the school the
classes that are offered at most schools
and girls are not enrolled in them those
hands-on classes woods metals automotive
even like FFA those things
girls are not enrolling in those classes
and those are free classes available to
them and the sooner they start them the
more excited that they can be about
their education third we can support the
nonprofits and other organizations that
bring this work to our children right
whether it be science related wilderness
training any of those things we support
them and finally we look at the gifts
that my parents gave us the gift of my
mom of really not having enough money
and being confident that we can play
with some appliances open up a toaster
and be cool with it the gift from my dad
of being a little bit mischievous and
curious and using tools and let kids
know that what they’re building is
really cool the process of making
something is really cool but it’s the
doing it the process of doing it that’s
the important part thank you
[Applause]
while most of the people he loved were
at a Christmas party
3x prior he had been on the job
installing telephones which required him
to climb up a telephone pole and in the
climbing he fell he fell 14 feet which
wasn’t deadly at the time but he did end
up in the hospital but the doctors were
confident that he’d be home by Christmas
instead a blood clot traveled up his leg
in his heart and he died when my mom got
the phone call she became hysterical
justifiably so and eventually her
hysteria got to such an extreme that the
police were called because no one knew
what to deal with this one when flailing
around right and so the police arrived
and one of them had the nerve to look
her in the eye and say ma’am what seems
to be the problem she looked him back in
the eye and said it’s Christmas my
husband just died and I’m pregnant and
then she punched him right in the face
you can’t tell this you can’t tell the
story of my father dying without telling
the story of my birth I was that baby
that my mom was pregnant with and this
is how everyone found out that she was
pregnant with me including my father my
father didn’t know she had a card for
him for Christmas that said Merry
Christmas were pregnant and this is
tragic obviously but if you fast forward
maybe four years you find a house full
of females my two older sisters and I
and my mom and we’re making ends meet my
dad was the sole breadwinner and when he
died he took that income with him and so
my mom did things like taking in sewing
and ironing and babysitting but also be
sure to get a little bit creative with
her finances and so when she when things
would break in our house she would try
to fix him my mom was not very
mechanically inclined and so she would
hand those things off to us when she
couldn’t fix them herself she figured if
it wasn’t gonna get fixed we might as
well give it a go right
well the gifts that my father gave us
we’re number one the gifts of being a
little more mechanically inclined than
our mom but also he was a very
mischievous guy and he was very curious
and he passed that along to us
especially my middle sister Bridget who
was pretty much a troublemaker and also
my idol
I followed her around wherever she went
and I did whatever she told me to do he
also left us a garage full of tools he
had been building our house that we
lived in when he died he’d also been
kind of limping along three different
cars that he was always working on
having one going and having the other
two kind of waiting in the wings and so
we had all these tools so we had time
and we had these appliances that our mom
was saying give it a go and so we did we
would we would open up toasters and see
what was inside and see how the springs
worked and see if we could see it was
broken the VCR see if we could fix it
most the time we couldn’t but sometimes
we could and that was enough to make us
feel confident that it was possible to
fix anything that we opened we also took
those tools and did some creative things
building we went in our front yard
we wanted a tree house our mom’s afraid
of heights and so we built a tree house
which was just basically a piece of
plywood on some two by fours in a tree I
remember cutting the two by six that we
used for a swing using hand saw from
that house when I was five so it’s
pretty little we also very importantly
installed a cat elevator because we
wanted our cat table to get up into the
tree fort and how else was she supposed
to get up there so we had the cat
levator and we were very proud of it and
and basically these gifts of curiosity
mischievousness it made us very
confident little girls and I didn’t
realize that that’s what it was doing
the whole time but our failures and then
our sometimes our successes made us feel
like we could kind of do anything and so
we did and so what happens when you take
that curiosity and you give it to an
eight year old girl so I run a nonprofit
called girls build and we have summer
camps for girls and after-school
programming
and during this program we teach them to
build during our summer camps we have 40
girls per week and what that looks like
is on the first day of camp the girls
arrive and if you picture 40 little kids
8 to 11 years old you think it’s gonna
be loud right like they’re all talking
and they’re getting excited no it is
dead quiet because they show up to camp
we throw a hard hat on and then safety
glasses ear protection tool about bucket
tools and they’re kind of looking at
each other like what did we get into
fast forward one week the last day of
camp over the course of that week of
camp we’ve done 20 different building
workshops with them they’ve learned over
ten different building trades and so you
look at that Friday afternoon when
they’re leaving camp and we invite their
parents to join us we have a big
scavenger hunt at the end of camp and so
the girls are running around all 40 of
our parents we’re running around and
they’re looking for these little tags
that say drill screw in here hammer and
now do this out of these fractions for
us whatever it might be but my favorite
station to watch is the chop saw so a
chop saw is about that big about that
tall with a 10 to 12 inch blade on it
and girls who are over ten at summer
camp are allowed to use it and so they
walk up very confidently parents in tow
and they read the little tag they grab
it to you by four they grab their their
a tape measure they measure it they mark
across foot they get out their speed
square they mark a line they drop it
onto the table push it up against the
fence and they put their hand on the
trigger and their parents are looking at
them with their eyes bugged out like is
my little girl really gonna do this and
a lot of times they say are you sure you
can do this at which point the camper
iral is introduced she looks at her
parents and sighs and says of course I
can use a chop saw like they’re idiots
right like this little girl who’s only
about this big it’s just totally fine
but she is and so she puts her hand on
the trigger and
she brings that blade down and she cuts
the wood and it’s really cool to watch
and what you see from the beginning of
that week to the end is confidence
they’re curious they learn about a bunch
of different things they also fail they
mess up over the course of the week I
watched two little girls one time hammer
one nail for 90 minutes it never went in
but they were super proud of themselves
right they’d they were installing the
trim they were doing it and so they see
themselves you know fail at a lot of
things and they realize that it’s not
the end of the world right and when they
do that over and over again they get a
little more confident and they think
like if I can do this maybe I can do a
lot of things and they do and I have
parents who write me afterward and say
you would not believe the change in her
confidence after she’s done with camp
you don’t believe the things that she’s
trying to do now at home after camp and
that’s what we want and sort of what
happens if you take that curiosity in
that confidence and you give it to a
high school girl so I taught high school
for two year high school construction
actually for two years on my first day
of class I had one female student in the
entirety of all of my classes so I asked
the boys to recruit more girls I wanted
more girls at my classes and from that
recruitment we got four girls so we had
five which was great and it was so
interesting watching the girls versus
the boys
if you’ve ever hung out with 17 year old
boys they are the most confident group
of human beings I think I’ve ever met in
my entire life they may not have ever
heard of something before but they will
tell you like I know honey I got it I
know I do I don’t do that don’t worry
about it and they’ll go do it
but the thing that was interesting was
the boys had been working toward a
career in construction since they were
this big
they had uncles and neighbors and
whoever teaching them this is what your
goal is this is where you can go with
construction and so they did
and the girls were walking to my
classroom for the first time saying what
is this picking up a hammer for the very
first time and so they’re ten years
behind there
no way they can catch up and that was
driven home for me one day when one of
my students when my female students came
in and she said Miss Hughes I want you
to know I would not have graduated high
school if it wasn’t for this class and
this light bulb went off for me she
wasn’t saying like miss U’s you’re the
best teacher in the entire world she was
saying this class is really cool
and I thought about the boys in my
classes and those boys were spending
their days they had like woods 3.then
metals three and then automotive three
and then construction like that’s not
that’s a pretty great schedule for your
senior year and so the boys were we’re
waking up in the mornings and they’re
excited about what they’re gonna do for
their day they’re gonna start a project
they’re gonna finish a project the other
thing I saw them doing was coming to
school and saying miscues I was thinking
all night about that problem we’re
having with XYZ I think I figured out
how to fix it and then they go do it
they’re excited about that what they’re
learning at school and when we don’t let
girls have that opportunity we’re
robbing them of the of the opportunity
to actually be excited at school and to
graduate from school right suspend their
days building things they don’t get to
do that and so what happens if you take
that curiosity and like confidence and
you give it to a girl graduating high
school so both of my sisters are
dyslexic and they struggled tremendously
throughout high school
my oldest sister Marina didn’t learn to
read until she was 12 my middle sister
Bridget she and I were in the same math
class when I was a freshman she was a
senior algebra – can you imagine how
horrible that would be for a dyslexic
person like why would you ever want to
take that class and so they both
graduated barely and they hated it and
the thought of going to college was
terrible Bridget even cried I remember
my mom asking her if she wanted to go
and she was like why would I ever want
to go there why would I ever want to do
that and so my sister Maria graduated
did some minimum-wage jobs she got
married she had three kids she got
divorced
one day she calls me on the phone and
she says I’m applying at this video
store and at that point I had gone to
college I’ve spent a year volunteering
with Habitat for Humanity learning some
real carpentry skills and then I’d
become a carpenter that was now helping
women get into the construction industry
and I’m talking to my sister on the
phone and I’m like why am I haven’t made
this connection before and so I say to
her have you ever considered a career in
construction and she says I’m listening
she’d no idea what I was talking about
one year later through a lot of
determination and focus she started her
first day as a first term electrical
apprentice it’s been almost 10 years and
she’s now a journeyman electrical
apprentice and when you talk to her and
you ask her what she does for a living
she says I’m a journeyman electrical
apprentice and she’s excited about that
if she was still working at the video
store or the gas station the pizza place
or one of the million places that she
worked she would not be happy telling me
that she made over a hundred thousand
dollars last year and the reason I bring
that up is this someone is finding value
in her skills
finally and someone is paying her what
she’s worth finally and she is finding
value in herself finally and the other
cool part is her daughter who is now 19
recently told me oh I tell everyone my
mom is a badass and I thought if you
think your mom’s a badass then maybe you
think that you could possibly be a
badass one day too
right and so we need to think about how
we can bring that curiosity that
confidence and that value to girls at a
young age so how do we do that well for
starters when you’re working around the
house
when you get that IKEA desk or a dresser
or whatever it might be you hand her an
allen wrench right super easy
you’re changing a lightbulb let her
screw that live open that’s the easiest
thing in the world right you’re
repairing your fence drills are the
easiest things for kids to use they’re
so easy and it feels so good to them
they love it and so there are these
little things that you can evolve them
in right now that gets them thinking
outside the box and gets them using
their hands and once they start doing
that the world opens up the next thing
you can do is engage them in the classes
available to them within their own
schools you look at the school the
classes that are offered at most schools
and girls are not enrolled in them those
hands-on classes woods metals automotive
even like FFA those things
girls are not enrolling in those classes
and those are free classes available to
them and the sooner they start them the
more excited that they can be about
their education third we can support the
nonprofits and other organizations that
bring this work to our children right
whether it be science related wilderness
training any of those things we support
them and finally we look at the gifts
that my parents gave us the gift of my
mom of really not having enough money
and being confident that we can play
with some appliances open up a toaster
and be cool with it the gift from my dad
of being a little bit mischievous and
curious and using tools and let kids
know that what they’re building is
really cool the process of making
something is really cool but it’s the
doing it the process of doing it that’s
the important part thank you
[Applause]
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