2/25/2027

Morning Announcements

Morning Meeting Agenda

Mon · Social Studies Tue · Literacy Wed · Science Thu · Math Fri · ROAR + Houses
Math of the Day

Instructions a machine can follow

Computers are fast, but they’re not smart — they do exactly what you tell them, in exactly the order you say it. Writing those instructions is a kind of math, and it has a name: an algorithm.

Portrait of Dorothy Vaughan Photo credit: [add if license requires]

Meet Dorothy Vaughan! She was a math teacher who became a NASA leader. When new computer machines arrived, she taught herself how to give them instructions — then taught her whole team so nobody got left behind!

Computers only do what you tell them, in order. Watch how careful you have to be!

Steps in order for making a sandwich, and what happens if the order is wrong
Let’s talk
  • What would happen if you put on your shoes BEFORE your socks?
  • Can you tell me the steps for brushing your teeth — in order?
  • Why do computers need such careful instructions?
Reveal the answerHide the answer
Computers can’t guess what you meant! If you tell them the wrong order, they’ll do the wrong order every single time and never say “wait, that seems weird.” That’s why Dorothy’s job was so important.
Try it

Be the computer! Your teacher will give you instructions one at a time. Do EXACTLY what’s said — nothing more, nothing less. “Stand up.” “Turn around.” “Sit down.” No guessing allowed!

Mystery mathematician: She earned a math degree at 19 on a full scholarship, then taught high school math in Farmville, Virginia. In 1943 she joined a segregated unit of Black women mathematicians called “human computers.” In 1949 she became her agency’s first Black supervisor.

Who is she?Hide
Portrait of Dorothy Vaughan Photo credit: [add if license requires]
Dorothy Vaughan — NASA mathematician and programmer, and one of the women featured in Hidden Figures. She led the West Area Computing unit, later became an expert FORTRAN programmer, and worked 28 years before retiring in 1971. She received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2019.

Here’s the moment that defines her. In the late 1950s, electronic computers arrived — machines that could do her team’s work faster. Most people would have panicked. She did something else.

Two responses to machines arriving: most people wait it out, but Vaughan learned to program and taught her whole team
Let’s talk
  • Vaughan taught her whole team, not just herself. What did that cost her, and what did it gain?
  • Here’s a remarkable fact: before NASA, she taught math at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Where have you heard that school name before?
  • An algorithm has to work every time, for every case. Why is that harder than solving one problem correctly?
Reveal the answersHide the answers
Teaching her team meant sharing the advantage instead of hoarding it — she made herself less uniquely valuable in order to make her whole team employable. And yes: Moton High School is the same school where Barbara Johns led the student strike in 1951, which we studied last Friday. Vaughan taught there years before, but the connection is real — one small Virginia school produced both a NASA leader and the student whose case reached the Supreme Court. As for algorithms: solving one problem lets you use judgment, but an algorithm must handle every possible input, including the weird ones, without a human there to catch mistakes.
Try it

Write a real algorithm! With a partner, write exact step-by-step instructions for tying a shoe — assuming the reader has never seen a shoe. Then have another pair follow them literally. Watch where your instructions fall apart. That’s debugging.

Additional Notes/Activities

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