A Black woman walks into a math class w/ Michole Washington
A couple months ago we had picked today as the launch date for Season 2, but we've been glued to the news as I'm sure you've been and we know that math is not exactly the topic on everyone's mind this week. We considered delaying the launch, but we realized that an episode we had planned to release later in the season, a conversation with Michole Washington, was actually very topical.
Michole is currently working on a PhD at the University of Michigan researching common experiences of Black people in math education, and she spoke with Vanessa back in February about diversity (or lack thereof) in math and what it felt like to be only the 9th Black woman to have EVER earned a B.S. from Atlanta’s Georgia Tech University in 2016. This was a fascinating and at times challenging conversation and we hope you enjoy it - if you are having similar conversations about this please share them with us:
Michole: @mathematichole_ (Insta/Twitter)
Vanessa: @themathguru (all socials)
SHOW NOTES
Hear Michole’s amazing King Talk here!
Vanessa talked about her Thesis, “Imagining a World Where Paris Hilton Loves Math.” Read it here!
For a full transcript of this interview, please head here!
MORE FROM MICHOLE WASHINGTON
Michole Washington is an expert on equitable and interactive design for K-16 STEM enrichment programs. In 2016, she graduated as the 9th Black woman to earn a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Now as a mathematics education doctoral student at the University of Michigan, she critically examines how undergraduate math courses can better support students, especially Black students. In particular, she focuses on relationship building in the math classroom as a method to increase STEM engagement.
Find Michole on instagram at @mathematichole_
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SHOW CREDITS
Hosted by: Vanessa Vakharia
Produced by: Sabina Wex
Edited by: David Kochberg
Logo by: Scott Wise
Theme music: WVV by Goodnight, Sunrise
Full Episode Transcript
w/ Michole Washington
Vanessa Vakharia: Hey guys, it’s me Vanessa. Alright, so we’ve been working on season 2 since way back in February and we had today set as our release date. But, like everyone we’ve been watching the news, and we are seeing all of the horrible violence and racism that has been escalating against Black people in America with every passing day. So we thought about postponing, and thought that it might be inappropriate to talk about math trauma right now. But as we were talking about it, as it happens, one of the episodes we had scheduled for later in the season was an interview with Michole Washington, where we discussed her experience as a Black woman in academia.
Her conversation with me ended up being fascinating and really eye-opening in so many ways. I’ve been reading the news and feeling helpless and not sure what to do and if I should do something and if I should post and what the deal is with that black square, and it’s hard to figure out what to do is. And the truth is, there is no right thing to do, and talking to the team here, we wanted to do at least something, and felt like maybe this was a really important conversation for people to hear right now. You know, the most important thing for us to do is talk and ask questions so that we can actually learn from each other, even though it might be scary and uncomfortable at times, which it definitely was at some points during this interview.
A lot of you guys don’t know me, but when I started my work in math education 10 years ago, I did it because I wanted to do something to challenge and change systemic discrimination. I opened a tutoring studio so that I could actually TALK and listen to kids themselves, and I started this podcast to have conversations about how experiences in math education can lead (or not lead) to change. Through all of the work I do, I always want to highlight the inequities and harmful stereotypes and biases that lead to marginalization in the first place - and yes, EVEN IN MATH. It probably seems small and weird that I’m like, so focused on math and science. But through that, my goal is to point out that HEY LOOK: THIS IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE IN THIS LITTLE AREA MOST PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT. AND IF IT’S HAPPENING HERE YOU CAN BET IT’S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE. This happens to be my area of expertise, so I always hope that by showing how this shit happens in math and science - that I can be a part of the change, that I can start conversations, that I can begin opening eyes of those responsible for educating future generations like teachers, educators, parents, students themselves, and myself included.
This podcast might be small, but while this is only our second season, we have developed a dedicated following. Shockingly to even me, we have listeners, we have an audience. And as much as I’m torn between being like fuck, maybe this isn’t the time to talk about this - I’m also like fuck YES this IS the time to talk about this. I don’t want to say nothing for fear of getting it wrong. I have the opportunity today to do something to amplify a Black voice, and I feel like it would be hypocritical of me not to do that just because I’m scared.
So, here we are. I have decided to swap out our original first episode, and to release Michole’s episode as the first of the season, as recorded way back in February, which quite frankly seems like an entire lifetime ago.... I honestly hope that listening to our conversation is a catalyst for having conversations of your own.
Oh the other thing is: normally we would start our episode with all this fun music and this intro we originally recorded, but we’re going to skip that today and get right to the conversation. We kept everything else about the episode, including the outro as originally recorded.
Okay, so alright, enough about me, let me introduce you guys to the amazing Michole. Michole Washington, as of 2016, was only the 9th black woman to EVER earn a Bachelor of Sciene from Atlanta’s Georgia Tech University. She is currently working on her PhD in Math Education at The University of Michigan and her research focuses on common experiences of Black people in math education.
Welcome to the podcast!
Michole Washington: Thanks for having me!
V: I’m really, really excited because you actually emailed us after hearing Math Therapy season 1, and had found out about it through a friend. I'm so glad you reached out because what you're doing is so, so fascinating to me. What I love is that your whole thing is about how everyone looks at math as this objective, cold subject, and what you like to say is that math is actually one of the most subjective subjects in school - it's not the objective truth that we all think it is. Can you tell us a bit about that?
M: Yeah, so what I love to preach about is that we have to separate that idea of math objective, math content in the culture around a math classroom.
V: Oh my god, I love this already. Yes, yes, yes.
M: Yeah we always say math is objective. True, fine. 2 plus 2 is usually 4 or whatever it may be, but math culture is not objective at all. There's a lot of relations, and the way people talk to each other and feel comfortable in a space, that really matters in the math classroom and that's the space that we don't talk about because we always put the math content itself on a much higher pedestal.
If someone is stressed out on an exam, stressed out in a math course, they can be sweating, feet tapping, all that - and the one thing that we will keep doing is throw more math at them. We give them more math to do. You’re stressed out? Well go do some more problems until you learn how to do them, as opposed to addressing the fact that you're having these physiological signs going on, that's really scary in any other situation that we just don't address.
V: Oh my god, that's really true.
M: Yeah, so that's what I'm always trying to scream or discuss with people, I should say discuss. We need to talk about this more...
V: Now is that what your research focus is on? Can you tell us a bit about what it is that you’re studying?
M: I’m not sure if my research is fully going to go down that route. I'm still in my inbetween phase - I'm on the brink of starting my dissertation proposal, I still have a couple more months though. Particularly right now I focus more on summer bridge programs. These are the programs that students who just left high school, they will go into this program to help prepare to start college, so they'll do it the summer before their first year. It's usually a short program; some are 1 week, others are like 5 weeks but I was particularly looking at the experiences of black students in these summer bridge programs before they get into college.
The reason I started to look in that area is that I remember when I did a summer bridge program in undergrad where I came into college already loving math. Math was my thing, I was always told I'm good at it, I felt like I was really good at it but then I get into this program and they're constantly telling us that at this university there's only a 6% black population. It’s unlikely that everyone here will make it to the end - look to your left, look to your right, they may not be here with you in a couple years because this is a hard school.
V: Oh my god, that’s terrifying.
M: Right, but that's also the nature of that entire university not just towards black students, but towards all students, this competitive STEM nature. But considering that if I already came into this university, into this program, feeling like I was good at math and now you're telling me I have something to be scared of because of my race, now when I go into a math space, I'm a little more timid and hyper-conscious about it and scared. I’m wondering, “Is it me when something goes wrong?”, but knowing what I know now I know it’s not me, there are other things going wrong in that system with a math classroom. It definitely impacted me in more ways than I could understand at the time, so that's kind of what my research is looking at right now. It’s just, “What are those experiences that students are experiencing?”, and “What could the program be doing to be complicit?”.
V: I’m very curious, I remember doing my thesis over a decade ago now, and I kind of think for me it was my first intro to feminism. I'd never taken a feminism course, I really honestly didn't know anything about it. This is going to sound super weird but I don't think of myself as a woman of colour - just the way I was brought up it was never made apparent to me that I was in any way not white. (Laughing) I know that sounds so fucked up but all of my friends were white, I went to a predominantly Jewish school, I lived in a Jewish neighbourhood. It just never came up for me.
I was doing my master’s, and I was in this feminism class because my master’s was in math education and feminist theory because that's what I was focussed on. I remember my professor at the time pointing it out to me, like literally pointing it out to me that my experience was different because I was a woman of colour. I just kind of sat there and was so conflicted because I don't feel that way, and am I now supposed to feel a shared experience that belongs to… You know what I mean?
It was very, very strange to me and back then, like I don’t want to sound ancient but I never heard about intersectionalities or any of this stuff. I was like, “I'm just studying the effects of gender on women in mathematics.”. When I look back on it, I'm like, “holy shit, now we're really starting to talk about not just women of colour, but women of colour like me, who can pass.”. That’s what everyone always told me, that I can pass, and I thought what the fuck does that mean? It means I can pass for not being a person of colour, it’s so complicated but I'm so interested in the fact that you are specifically studying this.
M: There’s actually a story - you were saying you weren’t aware of intersectionality until you were doing your master’s, the same situation happened to me when I started grad school. My entire life of doing math has been in the sense of how we usually see math. I was at a university, I want to be a math major, I take all the courses, I'm struggling through the courses like crazy, I am noticing that I am the only black person period, sometimes the only woman period in a lot of my courses. In 2016 in Atlanta which is about a 54-56% black city, I was only the 9th black woman to earn a BS in Applied Mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which is in the heart of Atlanta. In 2016…
V: That is so fucked.
M: Right so even then when all that was coming out I was getting interviewed, the people were congratulating me. In my head it was just driving me crazy - the 9th in 2016, how? I knew I was the only one in my classes, but for some reason I was more optimistic in my head. I thought I was probably like 90th, 100th… There’s got to be more people that have gone through this. They’re just not here now. But nope, there hasn’t been that many, at all.
V: How did that make you feel? What was the feeling?
M: It was kind of what you were saying earlier about exceptionalism. How I started to get pushed because there’s this one black woman who can do math. It’s so unicorn, it's so magical, when it's like no that's not the message that I want to push. Like this isn’t an exceptional thing, and anyone can really, and should be in this position, and the problem is that they're not. Why are they not here?
Over the years when it comes to math you have all these reforms that come out to learning a different way, to read things a different way, to teach in a different way but we keep changing the same thing every time and ending up at the same results. The way I'm looking at it, the numbers are not changing by any drastic amount over the last couple of decades and we keep doing the same thing which means we need a different solution, we need to consider something else.
V: Right, when you say we keep changing things, do you mean they keep just trying to change curriculum content instead of changing the culture around it?
M: Right, exactly.
V: People do not want to tackle the culture around it because, quite frankly if you do it really threatens those in privileged positions who have benefited from the culture around it.
M: It’s a gatekeeper.
V: It’s such a gatekeeper. So is that what made you want to go on to pursue this?
M: That’s a good question. That evolved through another series of reflections and events in my life. The same semester I graduated, I graduated in a fall semester so August to December, I considered applying to a Applied Mathematics PhD. I did not think I would be able to get in. In present-day, I feel like if I was more confident I would have gotten into a PhD math program, but it’s crazy that I talked myself out of it because I was like, “I don't know. No one has ever really told me that this seems like it might work for me, but I know I care about education a lot because I hate the experiences I had in undergrad, so I think I want to go into education and learn more about that.” So that’s what I did. I applied to math education programs. I initially went in thinking I was going to do more research on tutoring relationships, because I used to tutor a lot back then at a tutoring company called Afrithmetic.
V: Oh what? That’s so cool!
M: It was really cool. I stopped it when I moved to Michigan because there were a lot of things changing so I needed to take a slower role here. It's interesting how now I'm still kind of in the same space where I'm looking at relationships, but the population I'm looking at is different - it’s not tutoring, I'm looking now more at undergraduate courses and what's happening with relationships.
V: I guess for everyone listening, including me who's interviewing you, what are some things to think about? What are some things that we can all be thinking about when we are trying to help someone have a better math experience? Like, if you were going to talk to a teacher or a parent or just generally about culture, what are some things we should really be thinking about?
M: When we’re talking about K through 12, that’s always SO hard for me because of standardized testing and all the other…
V: Oh my god, you’re the perfect person to ask about this. Standardized testing - I’ve read a lot about how it really disadvantages minorities, is that true?
M: I believe so. It is true to me.
V: Can you tell me why? I’ve had this argument with people before and I always end up in a fight with my friends about this and I'm like, “No there's a ton of research about this” but I feel like I don’t know the facts. I'd really like to know what you think.
M: Yeah I want to say I’m not a total expert on this part but I have read literature on this and came to my own conclusions. I still have to find the research article that’s related to this, but some decades ago, there was a study done in California where they got a group of black students together. I can’t remember what age they were but they were definitely K through 12 and they also had a group of white students together and they administered a “standard math exam”, that you’d probably see on any traditional standardized math exam. When they got the results, the white students on average did score higher than black students.
However, they administered a second test to another group with the same demographics, but they wrote the exam using African American vernacular English instead. A lot of words and grammar things that may be heard more often at home for those particular students. When they got the results for that test, the black students scored higher on average than the white students. If we’re able to cater to students for what they need, and tap into what they do know, in ways that make sense for them - that does not mean dumb down, let me make that clear. I hate when people think that adjusting for different groups means dumbing it down. That’s not what that means. It means understanding their culture, their reality, their world.
V: That’s amazing. It’s super topical because we’re having that same problem again in Ontario with standardized tests. They’re actually implementing standardized tests for teachers now, to graduate from Teachers College there’s a standardized math test you have to take. There are professors who are arguing that it actually really disadvantages certain cultures, not only that but it actually discourages many cultures from applying. So you end up with a more homogeneous pool of teachers.
I was going to ask this, have you heard of stereotype threat at all?
M: Absolutely.
V; Tell me about that. Have you found anything in your research?
M: I do see a lot of stereotyping, that’s a huge factor to me that a lot of people don’t believe in its existence, but I totally do. It can look different. It’s not always about race - there are other ways that stereotypes can hinder a lot of people from moving forward. That doesn't mean that you're aware that it's happening to people. If you're always telling black students that there's not enough of you here, you may not do well in this class, the research has shown that you may not do well in this class, and then you put them in a class with a bunch of folks who don’t look like them, you already filled their head with this idea that they may not do well and then you physically put them in a place where when something goes wrong, what's the first thing they may jump to believe? Oh, it must be me.
V: That’s so well articulated because from what I understand, stereotype threat is when you are made aware of the stereotype about your particular group, whatever that might be it, could be gender, could be race, whatever, that you are more likely to almost self-fulfilling prophecy it just because you're kind of freaked out about it. There's a lot of that in math and gender for sure, so that's really interesting because I'm wondering do you think that is one of the main reasons why there is a lower participation rate for black people in STEM? Is that one of the major factors to you?
M: To me, it is. I haven’t read enough research to fully stamp that, but right now, yes.
V: Did you always like math? What was your relationship to math as a kid?
M: Oh I loved it. It was just something I enjoyed doing, like watching kids go out and play sports, go dance or anything else, math was kind of that thing for me, especially by myself.
V: That’s so rare. That is really rare to hear. You mentioned that you weren't interested in doing super well because you thought that being smart wasn’t cool. Is that true?
M: That was always interesting. It still happens to me even today that I feel like being good at math, sometimes I feel a little scared to show it.
V: Why?
M: I’m hyper aware of how other people feel about it and all the negative feelings, so it’s almost like I'm not trying to traumatize folks so I'll chill out for a bit. I'm also just now getting into my essence that I shouldn't worry about that and silence myself just because of that.
V: So you’re sometimes uncomfortable talking about how much you love math because you are aware of how it might make them feel about their own math abilities or about them judging?
M: Mhm…
V: Really!? That's so interesting. Are you afraid that it’s going to make them feel shitty about themselves?
M: That and I think it's also remnants of being a kid who's good at math; there’s teasing, there’s bullying and all that. There's also that side where there were negative ramifications for me showing how much I love math, and doing what I do. Sometimes those emotions are still stuck with me and thinking that it may be a result of me showing this in this space, and I don't want to feel that.
V: Yeah, wow. I feel like that’s some serious math trauma. That’s so fascinating. I have to ask, otherwise I wouldn't be me, were there boys in the class that were good at math? Like when you’re in elementary school, do they get teased and bullied? Was this a general thing or was it just you?
M: I don’t know about elementary school but I do remember middle school, high school, yes. I remember in high school there were particular boys who were also really good at math but I can say without doubt now that I was definitely better at math than they were. I wouldn’t just voice that though. When people needed help they would run to them very quick, and it’s like, “Wait but I'm right here. I finished this thing y’all, I’m trying to tell you this is how it works.”. So having these experiences were odd. I thought I was good at it but there’s this gingered thing that’s happening here.
V: Okay, so that’s really interesting because I definitely found not only in experience, but in all of my research, that once you start looking at it.... I will do workshops now and girls will be putting up their hand and one of the main complaints they have is, “I’m the best in my class at math and no one asks me for help, they ask all of the boys.”, and they are super annoyed by it. I mean I don't think it's crazy that this is still happening in 2020 at all because I'm like, yeah fuck of course it is, but it's crazy that it’s happening in 2020. So a lot of your research about subjectivity, you talk a lot about the anxiety and I really like how you bring up physiological symptoms that people feel when they're doing math that are not okay, and we should start paying attention to. Does this partially stem from your own personal experience?
M: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my god I don’t even know where to start to tell you about that. It’s bad, or was bad. It got better since I started my PhD program because I became more aware of all the factors that were acting on me and how they weren't my fault, it had nothing to do with me, which made me more comfortable in a math classroom.
V: Okay so walk me through even one scenario of what might have happened?
M: Absolutely. There’s actually this scenario from this year that was really bad. This was right before I reached out to you. There was a two week span where I was working on my examination for my doc program. These are the exams that you have to do, like writing papers before you can start working on dissertation. I got really sick, like stress-induced sick, so I was struggling with insomnia for about 9 days. I had a terrible lack of appetite so I wasn't eating a lot and I was on antibiotics for something else that was going on. There was a lot that was acting on my body on top of having to do this exam and be in a math course - it was a lot.
So I had a quiz one day in my math course, it was linear algebra, something I had taken multiple times in different variations in undergrad, like I know this content. Plus it’s September so we are usually doing background information - it shouldn’t have been that hard. But since I was really sick and wasn’t drinking enough water, when I went into the quiz and sat there and I read the questions, nothing was coming to mind. I remember sitting there being so frustrated because I see the words that I know but my mind is just not working here.
I worked on a problem, I started using a process that I knew was not the right process given what the problem was, and I was extremely aware of it but I couldn't think of anything else so I just kept writing it. I needed to have something on the paper, but I know exactly why this is wrong. However, when people grade a quiz, they don’t give a care about me knowing whether or not that process is wrong and why. When in hindsight, that's really good to recognize something like that and understand why it wouldn't work and still use it and be aware that it's wrong and why.
So throughout the whole experience I wondered why couldn’t I figure that out when my body was going through all that. On any other day, I probably would have been fine but here I am sick, worried about doing wrong, thinking I'm going to fulfill this prophecy of black students not doing well even though I'm over here in a PhD program which is kind of ridiculous that that was still going through my mind. Like, “Oh my god I'm going to fail everyone because of this one quiz.”.
V: That’s what was going through your mind?
M: That’s what was going through my mind. I was the only black person in that class, I was already sick, so my mind was already in a dark place. How can I focus on anything, not just math, anything, if I’m feeling that way? I wonder how much of a factor this is for everyone because I hear about the stress and anxiety people get on exams, especially math exams, so maybe it really is that feeling of discomfort.
How different would it have been if I could have went to my professor and said, “Look I'm really having a terrible day. I cannot think on this, can I please have a redo tomorrow? I will be there as early as you need me to, I just need to recuperate please.”. And for them to really hear me and understand all things are going and not say, “Nope, I wouldn't do this for anyone else I'm not going to do it for you.”. Everyone else isn’t me. That’s kind of unfair to group me with everyone else, we all go through different things.
V: I think it’s interesting because many people think of math anxiety and they can’t imagine that it would happen to you, who has liked math your whole life. Why would that ever happen to you? It’s so funny I’m going on a TV show in a couple of weeks for Pi Day. Sabina, our lovely producer was like “Okay so you're going to go on and recite ten digits of pi.”, and I started panicking. (Hyperventilating) I’m like, “What if I fuck it up and I’m The Math Guru?”. My heart was palpitating. We were in Starbucks and she's like, “Okay how about 4 digits...”. (Laughing) I was so scared of reinforcing the stereotype, I knew that's what was happening, I thought I was expected to be this person who teaches kids math, if I fuck up it’s going to reinforce the fact that I'm just some dumb girl with a valley voice that’s bad at math. (Laughing) We know it’s true guys, we know it’s true.
M: I hear you though. This is so real. I've always experienced exactly what you're saying that people think that the math anxiety and trauma does not happen to people who are considered good at math. But if anything, it probably happens more often, because we’re always with the math.
V: Totally, and your expectations are so much higher, I think. You’re supposed to be good at this. This is really interesting. Before we wrap up I want to know a little bit more about this idea of equitable practices. What could that look like?
M: That relationship between instructor and student, and breaking that power structure that happens. One thing that grinds my gears is when there are instructors who… actually I have a much better story for you.
V: Ooh, yeah. Give me the juicy story.
M: There was one semester where I was helping teach a course, it was a really small course for future teachers. There was one black student in that classroom. Me with my headspace where I’m always trying to look at asset based… I see nothing, there's no disadvantage, everyone here can move forward. But the instructor for the actual course was a little bit different. The students have to do an oral exam once a month, and the very first oral exam you come in, we ask you a couple questions, it’s about 30 minutes, you worked some problems, talked to us, then you leave, that's the end of your exam. So I was not there for this particular student when she did her first one, but what I heard from the instructor is that she came in, she was late, she was crying - it was just a whole shitshow, there was a lot going on.
I’m like, okay that’s interesting, so I reach out to the student and invite her to come to my office hours to talk about it and her side of the story was very different. It was raining really badly that day, I remember it was raining really bad, and she couldn’t find parking, which started to make her late. When she realized she was about to be late, she started going into a panic. She’s like, “Oh my god, this instructor has young kids, I’m probably holding her up from going to pick up her kids from school because of the time. I can’t believe I’m late and doing this to her life.”.
She goes into the exam, and the instructor starts the exam, even though she already came in very dishevelled and clearly something was wrong. She gets to the board, her mind goes blank, she starts crying. This whole time the instructor has the camera still rolling. She had a camera to record so she could look back at students in the exam, and still had it rolling. This student is at the board crying…
V: Like read the fucking room, oh my god.
M: And still expecting her to do the exam... To me, if this was your child, if this was your relative, your partner in life, and they’re in front of you crying, I feel like you would have done something different. You may have stopped and said, “Hey, let's talk about it for a minute.”, or “Hey, let's move your exam to Monday and let's talk about this because you're clearly having some issues.”. That's not what she did. And to find out she never even followed up with the student to just talk about the situation itself. For the rest of the semester, there was continuously this tension between them because they never even addressed that whole situation. So of course the student’s going to feel a little resistant to the things that you say to her or when you call on her in class. Y’all had a really intense situation that you never talked to her about.
V: This is so interesting. That’s such a good story and really illustrates the point. It's so interesting because I am so conflicted as a tutor here, we have hundreds of students and so many of them get accommodations. So I'm thinking, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what you would consider an equitable practice, right? Because if a student has issues with … you know there’s a bunch of different accommodations you can get. I don't know if it's the same over there but a lot of students are allowed to write their tests in rooms alone for example. Or if they have anxiety they're allowed to get extra time. Does that kind of count, like is that what we're talking about?
T: It does, but I like to challenge it even more, and think about the culture of instructors and why is it that if that same situation was to happen in a social studies classroom something that was more like social science based, it may have played out very different.
V: That's so interesting, the idea that because math is so black and white, objective blah blah blah, there's no empathy in it?
T: Yes, exactly. That it’s so objective that we always don't really care about the social world, social science in this math classroom. All these things that make you who you are uniquely or that may concern you everyday, you don’t have to think about that here - that is false. We don't just walk in the math classroom and take off everything else in the world when we go in there. We still have all the world experiences acting on us and every other subject, some sciences not so much, but a lot of them do, take this into consideration - but not math.
V: Actually, I love this. I love it because I always talk about one of the most important parts about the tutoring space we have here is that kids don't have to pretend to be someone else when they're doing math. It’s conducive, you don’t have to put on a different hat and be like, “Okay, now i’m this cold, hard mathematician in this white space that smells like peroxide”, (Laughing), or whatever the fuck schools smell like these days, like stale bubblegum. You’re like, “I’m still sitting on a couch, I’m drinking tea, I’m still surrounded by my friends, AND I’m doing math - not OR I’m doing math.”. I just made that up but I really like it.
T: I really like that too. You get it.
V: No YOU get it. I want to ask one more thing because I want to make sure we touch on it. I believe you said that math has produced racial and harmful ideologies that block opportunities for a lot of people. Have we touched on that enough? Is there something I'm not asking you? Or is there something you want to share about that or any specifics? Or do you feel like we've talked about it?
T: There’s more that can be said on that. Usually when I'm thinking about that issue it’s in the way that is kind of like the example I gave earlier about the exam that had different languages and how different students will interpret it but still can arrive at the same goal. It's not easy to always arrive at the same goal. A lot of the reforms, especially here in the states have this language where they may try to say, “This is math for everybody, we do things equal for everyone, and we don't look at differences - that's how we're promoting that math is for everyone.”. But by not paying attention to the differences when differences absolutely do exist, you're actually doing harm.
There's a central language that we are all familiar with in math, but that language only privileges a certain group. People are not able to perform things in that way, in particular whiteness - being able to talk with whiteness, perform with whiteness. It starts to become, “If you’re not white, you're not good at math.”. Because all the standards that we have here are really correlated to what it means to be white and what white culture looks like, so if I'm not meeting those standards then the easy equation here is that I don't fit in at all.
V: Oooooh.
M: Same issue with things like the achievement gap. Here in America, there’s a lot about the black-white mathematic achievement gap that we’re trying to get black students to get to the same mathematic achievement level as white students. But why do we have to do that comparison at all? That's still pushing to reach a certain cultural threshold. We don't hear a lot about the white-Asian gap even though Asian students are outperforming white students.
V: Oh my god, yes. It’s true!
T: But we do always hear about this black-white achievement gap.
V: Why? Why don’t we hear about that?
T: Racism, layers, hierarchy.
V: Now I’m trying to figure this out because the white-Asian achievement gap, I’m assuming asians would be on the higher threshold. But technically white privilege is higher than like Asian math privilege… I don’t even know if that’s a thing.
T: Whiteness also has a very pervasive culture where you can see tenets of white culture in Asian culture, like the imitation of wanting blonde hair or wanting to be whiter and not blacker, because that is a thing. Let me be clear for anyone listening, anything I say, I don't believe in generalizations so I do not believe that this applies to everyone. I never believed that but what we're talking about now, there are a lot of these things pulling towards whiteness as the centre of what we need to attract to and it still happens in math. The way that we are pushing reforms, the language we use, the way that we teach it and what we privilege as worthy knowledge, worthy answers, they all are really aligned with one particular way of being.
V: Oh my god I’m actually tripping out right now. Seriously, I really am because I’m even thinking about the way that you're forced to give an answer, or the language you're supposed to use, or what's considered proper form. I am thinking about the fact that there are so many of those types of rules in math that are actually subjective rules. The objectivity might lie in the answers, and what a “right” answer is, and I’m using quotation marks in my brain, in the way it needs to be delivered or in the way you have to get to that answer, like what about all of that shit. You know how we only value certain types of processes and if you get to the answer the wrong way we’re like, “Nope, you're wrong, too bad.”.
T: Like I was saying with the quiz I experienced, when I think of my own students, if my students were to do a problem, use a wrong process, and be aware the entire time that they knew it was wrong and why, down to the smallest detail of why, that is amazing. I say that’s amazing because in the past I had issues with linear algebra, so for me to be in this class and be that hyperaware, it was amazing to me like, oh my god you clearly have grown a lot since the last time you’ve seen this content, because this is not something I could’ve recognized years ago. Now I do, but yet I’m kind of stuck because I'm also sick and going through all this other stuff so…
V: This is so fascinating I honestly feel like if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this conversation is that I have so much to learn
M: We all do.
V: I definitely will put some resources in the show notes. I would love to hear some top things to read or listen to to get more acquainted with this whole idea because I honestly, coming from a space where I do research in mathematics and subjectivity and how it affects marginalized groups, and I am so uneducated on this. Everything you're saying is literally blowing my mind up.
M: It's good though. If more people can be aware, it helps.
V: Yeah it totally helps. We’re all kind of complicit in math culture, you don’t just need to be a teacher or parent to be influencing the social narrative around who can do math and what it means to do math. So everyone listening to this, the way we talk about it, the way we treat people, the stereotypes we make, the inferences we make about someone's ability and why it is that way. I’m thinking about how many people I know for sure hold on to that stereotype that if you’re Asian you’re good at math.
M: And that’s not true!
V: I’ve met Asian people who have been scarred by that stereotype because talk about stereotype threat! You're just like, “Yeah I was bad at math, and because of that stereotype, it was a million times worse for me.”. I think it is really important to be aware, thank you so much, like seriously amazing. Having this interview I’m like fuck, I do feel very uneducated. But you’re educating me so it’s fine.
M: We’re here. We’re learning. We are learning.
V: Michole is giving me math therapy basically.
M: Yes I’m giving you math therapy.
V: (Laughing) Okay, last two questions. The first question is, if you had to pick something, what would you change about the way that math is taught?
M: Ooh, I love this question. Even though I’m so against focussing on the content rather than the students, I wish that math classes were flipped in the order that we learn mathematics. The things that I learn now in these advanced mathematics courses are very abstract but if you explain it the right way, in a way that makes sense to a toddler or a kindergartner, or say a first or second grader. There’s no reason why they wouldn't be able to understand it and that we should really be re-motivating how we teach math, starting at the bigger ideas and teasing away at it until you learn all the relevant information.
Everything you learn over the years is not necessarily important at that moment and you're bound to forget it by the time you actually need it anyway. So why not put the motivation much earlier, in the beginning? Even if it means doing more project-based learning in a math classroom where you can actually see all the aspects of a real life situation and use the math relevant for that moment. Learn the math that’s relevant for that moment.
V: Right, so that sounds so much cooler and more fun. That’s a really cool idea. There’s always that idea of, “Do we just teach the building blocks first or do we teach abstract concepts first?”. I think that’s an interesting idea that if you did it in a fun way that's relatable to the room that you're teaching, that it could be really motivating for kids to be like, “Wow that's a really cool problem or concept. I want to actually learn more about it and I want to get down to those building blocks.”.
M: I’m always really impressed with the way that Montessori schools work. I don’t know if you are familiar with their structure that at least for the early ages they really do the self-exploratory type of learning. Whatever the students are interested in, that's what they study, that's what they teach them. They’ll go really deep into it and find different ways to connect to students and I love that idea of approaching learning. Kids are naturally curious; they want to learn things, they want to figure out things. When you think about the way we do schooling right now, it just pulls all the fun out of it.
V: There’s no room for curiosity in school.
M: None, none at all. The way that our classes are structured where we do every subject in its own particular time, those are remnants from like World War II where we had to do this type of factory way of everything.
V: Oh my god! I always say this! The whole reason school was created this way was to pump out assembly lines of people who could rule follow. And we’re still doing it! It’s so fucked up because what our world needs now more than anything is creative problem solving, not rule following. Look where rule following has gotten us. That’s why I think it must be a conspiracy theory, this is a conspiracy theory that we’re not changing schools. I really honestly kind of lowkey think that they just want to still pump out obedient citizens that don’t chew gum in class and follow rules because they’re scared, they’re threatened.
M: Exactly. Another point that I’m going to make real quick is when I’m talking about don't dumb down content, a lot of times if you’re in a low-income area that's under resourced, the mathematics that they're doing are really procedural computational things that computers can already do in like a hundredth of a second. But yet we keep pushing that type of thinking - the rule following, the procedural computational type thing to people in low-income areas more than anything.
V: Why?
M: They may not have the opportunity to see the multi-layers and the interdisciplinary problems and all that, which comes from what type of teachers are going there. How do they look at these students? Do they see these students as the stereotypes that keep getting pushed that are negative or do they see these students as all the brilliance and intelligence that they do have? If you looked at them and really thought they were capable and could really contribute to this world in ways that are meaningful for them, not just a society's purposes, but meaningful for them, you would find other ways to engage them with that content in more creative ways. That really comes down to the person who is putting that content in front of them and what they believe.
V: So well said! I love it, oh my god I feel like we both just got so mad. Okay, final question: what would you say to someone who does not think that they are a math person?
M: Now that we had this whole conversation, I would ask what is a math person? Because we can sit here and say, “Yes I do go by mathematical, and I’ve pushed a lot of math”, but we also talked about all the anxiety and trauma that I've also experienced through it. So what is it that we glorify about this “math person”? What aspect of it?
V: Mhm, mhm, yeah. And I mean do you even think there’s such a thing?
M: No, I don't. I think it's a matter of people finding their interest and I hate the language of, “I had to leave STEM”, or “I had to leave math”. To me it’s not that you left something, you found something that was more fulfilling for you and gave you more joy which is what anyone should do. It’s fine if it actually brings you joy.
V: Yes, yes, yes. It’s so funny I’m realizing as I’m interviewing you that it's weird that I feel like I don't know how to ask a question because I don't want to be offensive.It's really bad.
M: That’s also the hard part with all this work because even all the things I’m critiquing about the classroom, I am aware that I'm also guilty of pushing forward a lot of those things in the past but I am now awake and aware and it does make me feel a little tip toey a lot.
V: That’s the best way to describe it. I wanted to ask you questions but I felt like I needed to tiptoe around them because I thought, “What right do I have to ask the question?”.
M: You’re an interviewer, you have all the rights.
V: (Laughing) I do feel weird about it, I feel weird about asking you to tell me about the experience of black people. But wait I'm not supposed to be generalizing black people obviously. I do feel weird.
M: I'm in the same space - it’s why I don't have things written yet because I'm still in my phase of doctoral program of learning how to be comfortable with your beliefs and saying them, and not feeling like I don’t know. Everything you're saying, I'm still in that process now just trying to figure out what that is to not feel tip-toey.
V: Well honestly thank you so much, you made me feel like I really was getting therapy from you. (Laughing) You did make me feel a lot better and you’re a really good teacher in terms of making me feel like no question is a stupid question. You’re very good at that.
M: Thank you.
V: That’s a great skill and your students are very lucky. Well thank you so much for being on the podcast, you’ve given me so much to think about. Literally my mind is blowing up in the best way, so thank you so much Michole.
M: Thank you, I’m so happy to be here.
V: Byeee!
M: Byeee!
V: Was I right or was I right? Are you guys freaking out? How good was that? It's crazy because I know I talked about it with Michole but it's really interesting how nervous I almost was going into the interview because I didn't want to sound stupid or offend her by asking questions. The truth is that we can't learn about other people's experiences without asking. Assuming that it's better to just guess instead of straight-up ask is it what leads to harmful assumptions in the first place. I'm glad I asked, and well I hope that all of you are too. I encourage all of you to learn something new about someone this week. Seriously, ask that question you’ve always wanted to know the answer to. You will likely be amazed at what comes out of it. Do it and make sure you tell me how it goes because hey, we can all learn from one another.
As always you can find links to all the stuff we talked about in this episode on our show notes at themathguru.ca/maththerapy. Please follow me on socials @themathguru for more of me and Math Therapy. And of course a reminder that Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex, and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is “Waves” by my band Goodnight, Sunrise. Guys, if you know someone who needs Math Therapy or needs to hear someone getting it, please share this podcast and consider leaving us a quick review on whatever podcast app you use. Those two things make a huge, huge difference. I am as determined as you are to see a change in the culture surrounding math education and I need your help. That’s all for this week, stay tuned for our next episode out as usual, next Thursday.