Mathematics as a Gatekeeper to STEM Careers
Richard Charles, Ph.D. — Founder & Chief Data Scientist, Charles Analytics, LLC
For many years, my journey to becoming a mathematician was one filled with excitement for the subject, fear of never fully knowing that I could make it through the process and surprise at having very few examples of people who look like me reflected in the field. Why would people who look like me not want to pursue such a beautiful subject that was contrived out of human necessity and yet can reliably predict so many phenomena in the real world? It brought me to ask the question: “Could mathematics be a subject that is racialized? Or, is it the case that a huge class (race & gender) of people were just not blessed to have the math gene?
My earliest memories of mathematics in elementary school involved the memorization of times tables from 1 to 12. It was regimented and boring as heck. As a student who was new to schooling and growing up in a British system of education, it was not dissimilar to reciting the Holy Rosary. I knew the words, but didn’t fully understand what they meant. Beyond the rudimentary required memorization, math had no real meaning for me. After a while I got the hang of the required memorization tasks and mastered algorithms for adding and subtracting. What was clear to me at the time was that the more mathematics I learned and understood, it meant that I saw fewer students who look me.
I was bussed as a Middle School student and found that learning mathematics was no different until I experienced the subject of geometry and fell in love with proofs and the applicable nature of problems we were being asked to solve. I distinctly remember the challenging problem of trisecting an angle with a straight edge and compass as being the most interesting problem for me to solve. I spent hours and days trying to figure this out and ultimately landed on a couple of ways to do this successfully. As it turns out, Pierre Wantzel in 1837 proved that it could not be done for arbitrary angles. Nonetheless, it was the first time that I personally engaged and owned my learning in mathematics. By this time, I was consistently one of two Students of Color in every one of my math courses.
High school math became much more interesting. I recall being inspired by the science of astronomy and predicting the movement of heavenly bodies using math as nothing short of magic. I was inspired! I requested my first scientific instrument, a telescope, as a Christmas gift. To say that this was a game-changer is an understatement. My love for Mathematics, Astronomy and Astronautics grew greater and even more personal. Looking through my telescope for the very first time was mesmerizing and led to me scheduling early morning or late night viewing sessions of the constellations during the week. Sometimes I pulled all-nighters and felt more awake the following day. I walked to the library to read as many articles from Sky & Telescope magazine as I could. This allowed me to see myself as a scientist for the very first time. I realized that I was quickly becoming an authority on things related to astronomy and mathematics. I also realized, the more math courses I took, the cooler the science courses became. I no longer saw any students who looked like me in any of my classes.
It was also in high school that I joined the Math Team. This team competed on a regular basis with students from across the New York City region on very hard, complex mathematics problems. The expectation was quickly set that although solving these challenging problems would be a tremendous accomplishment, being exposed to their solutions was even more valuable. My internal motivation continued to grow when I started getting some of the problems correct. But there was just one major challenge: there were no students who looked like me taking part in any of these competitions. That is, I never saw any Black mathematicians in my reading or learning of new material. Things began to turn. Being better in mathematics and science meant that I lost all of my friends from elementary school and students who surrounded me, didn’t respect my talents. Given the lack of role models and writings of great mathematicians who looked like me, my interest in mathematics began to wane. Had someone said to me at the end of high school that I would ultimately receive a doctorate in mathematics, I would have been in disbelief.
So where did this transformation happen? After graduating high school and attending a top engineering school in upstate New York, it was clear that I didn’t belong in any of the engineering fields. At that time, the university’s philosophy was to weed out as many freshmen as possible with what seemed to be irrelevant details of their first year courses. Not only did I not have examples of Black scientists and mathematicians, but I was often the only person of color in my very large lecture and recitation courses. The facts remained that I loved Astrophysics and Mathematics and that they could get me to my ultimate STEM career in Astronautics. Pretty quickly, it was evident that in order to access the higher level engineering classes, I needed to take many more math courses. Differential Equations, in particular, made little sense in how it was taught. I became discouraged and came to the conclusion that school was not for me and I left the university at the end of the first semester of my sophomore year.
During my year off from school, I learned to repair phones for NYNEX, and became certified as an Engineering Technician for the NYS Department of Transportation. During these experiences what was clear was math was being used to solve many real-world problems. That inspired me to enroll in the local university and dive into as much math as possible. After a number of courses, I was selected to attend a summer research experience for students at the University of Rochester where I studied and coded in Astrophysics and in Computer Science. The Computer Science research team was focused on Temporal Texture Recognition, a subject that allows cameras to determine what types of objects are being observed based on video observations. As I was listening to the research conversations, I realized that I needed to ask, how can computers determine what they are looking at? The response was: “you need to know a lot of math in order to do this subject.” I subsequently enrolled and completed a PhD program in order to learn the mathematics of Computer Vision.
Recommendations
So what are my recommendations for parents, students and teachers as they consider pursuing or teaching STEM subjects? Here you go:
Teachers: Higher level math concepts can be accessible to students without them having to know their times tables or basic arithmetic. Therefore, do not use knowledge of these tasks as a pre-requisite for students. Often times, Students of Color (SoC) are the victims of such a philosophy and as a result, are subjected to remediation strategies resulting in complete boredom and disengagement. This is quite honestly, malpractice.
I’m reminded of an African American colleague of mine who tells the story that he discovered he had a gift for mathematics only after the teacher gave a challenging math problem for students to solve and that he was able to finish the task before the smartest girl in class. Prior to that, math was boring and uninteresting. As a result of this one experience, it triggered in him a desire to read math textbooks and puzzles on his own personal time. Today, he is a prolific researcher in Queuing Theory and an Endowed Chair at Princeton University in Financial Engineering.
Achieve a level of expertise of what it takes to be a STEM professional in each of the STEM disciplines. Take a look at the course sequence that is required to complete every major milestone of academic success. Invite diverse STEM professionals as guest speakers for your students. Ask to shadow or visit them at their jobs to get some firm understanding of what it takes to be successful in their respective fields.
Establish a growth mindset particularly when it comes to females and Students of Color in STEM-related fields. Think of yourselves as laying the foundation for future success for your students who don’t necessarily look like you, but will be an integral part of your teaching legacy. Block out instructional time for students to engage in problem-solving that is immediate, short-term, medium-term and long-term. Project Based Learning (PBL) continues to be an excellent framework as a vehicle for medium to long-term trans-disciplinary learning.
Learn to code and make computer coding an integral part of literacy in mathematics. The use of tools to analyze data should not only be limited by the use of calculators. The calculator industry is way behind the types of devices and tools which are needed for success in STEM fields. Having served in industry as a Mathematician, Data Scientist, and Atmospheric Scientist, calculators were rarely ever used. Matlab, R, Python, C , C++, FORTRAN and Excel were used regularly. So my advice is to take the leap and take a few courses from code.org so that students are prepared when to use these tools daily. Many of these applications now reside in the cloud and are device agnostic. So don’t be too concerned about having to purchase a high-end desktop or laptop in order to run these applications.
Continue to learn new mathematics so that you can speak to the importance and relevance of the subject matter. Mathematics is a beautiful subject and many of its major research areas appear to lack applicability to everyday experiences. So, learn the relevance and document your understanding. As part of this effort, write articles for the Journal of STEM Education and other journals so that your learnings and insights could be shared.
Parents & Teachers: Enroll your students into competitions that involve the STEM disciplines. Examples include: Lego Robotics, First Robotics, NASA HUNCH, and MIT Lemelson InventTeams. These are national competitions with organizational supports, teacher leadership and student leadership components.
Connect with the Astronomy/Science departments at local universities to find out of any social gatherings for students and mentors. For example, CU Boulder’s Astronomy department used to have these social gatherings where professors and graduate students, parents and family members would bring their telescopes to observe some constellations or phenomena.
Connect with the local chapters of STEM Societies. For example, National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, IEEE, Biomedical Engineering Society, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Association of University Women, to name a few. These organizations have resources to address many of the concerns of how to manage STEM students. The stories are consistent. STEM students like to take apart appliances and put them back together again. They can provide ways of how to support your students in their unique interests and intellectual pursuits.
Starting in middle school, communicate with the admissions offices of universities in order to get a handle of what it takes to financially support your student in pursuing a STEM career. And though this seems early, start identifying possible scholarships for students. Surprisingly, there is a lot of money available for students from local organizations such as the Rotary Foundation, Scouting, fraternities and sororities. Connect also with Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) to schedule visits early on. The experience will not only be inspiring, but can also be life-changing for students.
Ask your district leaders about their vision for STEM education. There is a current trend in which Career & Technical Education is being conflated with STEM education. Though there is overlap, they are distinct pathways. The benefits of CTE are numerous and focused on student leadership, competitions in a wide variety of areas, apprenticeships and mentorships. One only needs to look at the state of Colorado’s Career Cluster Map to see that STEM education pathways are one of six Career Clusters, though many STEM related fields are littered throughout the map. A better model would be to view STEM related careers as those careers in the STEM content areas which may have some entry-level certificated requirements through (CTE) but ultimately can result in the highest levels of career and academic success, including Masters and PhDs. Research has shown that innovations in STEM content areas, drive economies. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example of the importance of having a pipeline of both PhD researchers who work on designing and developing vaccines as well as the lab technicians who are certified to work in specific areas of expertise.
Finally, find resources that will allow students to see themselves in STEM careers. Here are a few of many great resources in social media: #BlackinSTEM, #BlackinSTEMEd, #BlackAfinSTEM, #BlackInAstro, #BlackInNeuro, #BlackInCardio, #BlackInMicro, @LatinxinSTEM and #LGBTQinSTEM. A recent article from the School Library Journal also lists a few great resources here. Find out from students and successful STEM professionals what challenges they faced and continue to put students first!
