Joan Targ

Joan Fischer Targ (July 8, 1937[1][2] – June 2, 1998) was an American educator who was an early proponent of computer literacy and initiated peer tutoring programs for students of all ages.

As a child, she bought her younger brother, Bobby Fischer, his first chess set and taught him how to play the game.

Early life

Joan Fischer was born in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1937 to Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German-born biophysicist,[3] and his wife, Regina Wender Fischer, a Swiss-born naturalized American citizen of Russian-Jewish and Polish-Jewish ancestry.

Regina Fischer left Moscow because of the persecution of Jews in the 1930s, bringing her child with her to the United States. She spoke seven languages fluently and was a teacher, registered nurse and eventually a physician.[4][5]

After living in several cities in various parts of the United States, in 1948 the family moved to Brooklyn, where Regina worked as an elementary school teacher and nurse. One year later, in Brooklyn, Targ taught her younger brother, future chess world champion Bobby Fischer, to play chess.[6][7]

Proponent of computer education

Targ founded a number of programs to study the teaching of computer literacy, including programs in the Palo Alto Unified School District,[8][9] as well as the Institute of Microcomputing in Education at Stanford University.[8][10]

Her educational techniques included the creation of peer tutoring systems whereby a student, trained by peers in a basic course in computer programming, would then tutor the next students. In the early 1980s, she created and led a programs sponsored by Stanford University in which elementary school teachers were taught the basics of programming by high school students.[10][11][12]

One focus of her work was bringing computer literacy to girls, senior citizens, and other groups that were underrepresented in computing.[13]

She coauthored the book Ready, run, fun: IBM PC edition with Jeff Levinsky.[14]

Personal life

Targ later lived in Palo Alto, California and Portola Valley, receiving a Masters degree in education from the College of Notre Dame, Belmont, California.[8] Her husband, Russell Targ, worked at SRI International as a parapsychologist, and her daughter, Elisabeth, also became a parapsychologist.[15]

Joan Targ was noted for her activism for organic farming, having built an organic farm soon after she married Russell in 1958. In 1976, she, her husband, and another family bought 80 acres of land in Portola Valley they hoped to turn into another such farm; a lawsuit from her neighbors attempting to block this use was settled in her favor shortly before her death.[7]

Death

Joan Fischer Targ died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Portola Valley at the age of 60 in 1998.[6][7][8]

References
  1. (billwall), Bill Wall. "Who Was Fischer's Father?". Chess.com. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  2. U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2
  3. "Archives - Philly.com". Articles.philly.com. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  4. "FBI watched chess genius and family. Fischer's mother suspected as spy". Associated Press. November 18, 2002. Archived from the original on December 15, 2007 – via The Freedom of Information Center.
  5. "Mutmaßungen über Fischer". Chessbase.de. 10 August 2004. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  6. "Bobby Fischer". Chess Life. United States Chess Federation. 54 (1–6): 357. 1999. In June of last year, Bobby Fischer's sister, Joan Fischer Targ, died at the age of 60 of a cerebral hemorrhage. She taught Bobby how to play chess.
  7. Pimentel, Benjamin (June 12, 1998). "Joan Targ". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
  8. "Joan Fischer Targ, computer literacy activist", Palo Alto Weekly, June 17, 1998.
  9. Johnstone, Bob (2003), Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning, iUniverse, p. 150, ISBN 9780595288427.
  10. "Teens Teach Educators Computer Literacy", Montreal Gazette, September 10, 1983.
  11. Williams, Linda V. (October 1982), "Kids Teach The Teachers: A unique exchange of roles—the teachers are teenagers, the students are teachers, and the subject is computers", PC Magazine: 159–63.
  12. Stanley, Autumn (1995), Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology, Rutgers University Press, p. 475, ISBN 9780813521978
  13. "Computer literacy". Personal Computer Magazine. 2 (1–2): 153. 1983. Probably the person who's doing more than anyone for computer parity for girls (and minority boys, and senior citizens, and disabled people, and anyone else who needs it) is Joan Fischer Targ of Palo Alto, CA.
  14. Targ, Joan; Levinsky, Jeff (1985). Ready, run, fun: IBM PC edition. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780137622207. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  15. Targ, Russell (2010), Do You See What I See? Memoirs of a Blind Biker, Hampton Roads Publishing, p. xxxi, ISBN 9781612830070. This page from the preface quotes Martin Gardner writing in The Skeptical Inquirer in 2001: "William Targ's beliefs in the paranormal trickled down to his son Russell, and now they have descended on Russell's attractive and energetic daughter Elisabeth. Her mother, Joan, by the way, is the sister of chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer."

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