I felt fully capable when the headmaster asked me to teach calculus. In fact, an ideal day would be one spent solving calculus problems. My favorite semester of working on my Masters in math at Notre Dame was the one spent teaching Calc I. My calc lab students that semester didn’t understand the professor’s accent and asked me to explain everything. Over the years I’ve tutored calculus and at almost every birth I’ve entertained myself by deriving the important calculus formulas. Fun times! A doubt of my capability didn’t cross my mind until last week.
The thought of teaching an AP calculus course was more daunting than a normal calculus class since I didn’t know what it entailed and had never taken the AP exam. My headmaster connected me with the head of the math department at another local Christian private school who has become my mentor this summer. She steered me to an excellent curriculum and advised me to take an AP Calculus seminar. It was a weeklong thirty-hour zoom class in which we would go over every topic of Calculus AB (first semester of college Calculus) and learn about the test itself.
I went into the seminar feeling nervous, worried about how the household would do with my working almost full time that week and knowing it had been a long time since I’d worked with calculus. We were having temperatures in the high nineties but the master bedroom where I planned on working was the coolest room in the house. My spot was ready with a sweater, a pair of fuzzy socks, and a lap blanket set next to the recliner. I was prepared to have Sophia take the kids on an outing to a water park. I was prepared to wake up early and work hard. I was not prepared for all the insecurities of my youth to rise up and overwhelm me.
When I entered the zoom class at eight o’clock on Monday morning, I was very uncomfortable to find that I was the only woman. During our first break, I called my Ph.D. math girlfriend Karen to get a reality check.
I told her, “I think I am as intelligent as any of the other students in the seminar.”
She said, “Of course you are! After all, you have a masters in math from Notre Dame!”
Still, when I came back to class, my discomfort got in the way of getting the most out of the seminar. I was competitive during the break-out sessions when we worked through AP Calculus problems, determined to prove myself. The math itself was easy and fun. When I went out to dinner that night with Mike, Esther and Joshua, Sophia, Basil and Alex, the Ukrainian man working for Open Hearts and Homes for Children who we were hosting that week, I spent much of our meal hashing out my feelings of insecurity.
Tuesday was better. The instructor had us check out the AP calculus math group on Facebook which I joined. It was good to see a lot of women posting there. The instructor also had made it “favorite mathematician” day for our zoom backgrounds. He started the morning with a woman mathematician from Paris. It was nice to be reminded that women mathematicians have their place in history, but I spent the morning wondering if he had chosen her because he really liked her or if he was trying to make me feel more comfortable.
Then I had Basil help me get a mathematician background and chose Euclid. It had a picture of Euclid pointing to a triangle inscribed in a circle, which looked great online but had an odd effect when my image was in front of it. The circle was placed in such a way that it became a halo around my head. I spent the afternoon scooting and slouching, wondering again what people thought of me.
It was Sophia’s boyfriend who changed my world around on Tuesday evening. He was hanging out in the kitchen helping Sophia to make the salad and bread for our chicken dinner. When Anthony walked around me towards Sophia as I stood at the sink filling a glass with filtered water, I said, “Hey Anthony, could you chop the lettuce for dinner?”
“Sure Mrs. R.”
“Have you ever felt uncomfortable being in a group of people who don’t look like you? I’m the only woman in my math seminar, and I feel very uncomfortable.”
“Why are you asking me?” he said. After all, he’s not a woman.
“I’m asking you because you’re black.”
He was silent for a minute thinking before he said, “That’s fair.”
“So?”
“Honestly, I can’t relate. If I was in a group and someone wanted to judge me for how I looked, that would be a them problem, not a me problem.”
“They haven’t given me any reason to think they are judging me.” I admitted. I carried the thought further. “If it’s not a them problem then it must be a me problem. Thanks, Anthony.”
“No problem, Mrs. R.”
I went to rest while Sophia and Anthony worked in the kitchen. The problem wasn’t looking different. My headscarf sets me apart and that never bothers me. I have never been told that I couldn’t do something because of my clothes. Perhaps some people may think me strange, but if they judge me harshly for wearing my head covered, they probably would have problems with who I am. They wouldn’t be wrong. It’s a them problem. Being a woman is something that I can’t change like the way I can take off my jean skirt or get a new hair-do. As I sat in the recliner in the master bedroom, memories that had been floating around in my subconscious rose to the surface.
“Why are you worrying your pretty head thinking about mathematics.”
“You are good at math, for a girl.”
“Try differential equations, that will put hair on your chest.”
“It’s a waste of time to give women an education in math when they are going to have babies and not use it.”
Being able to acknowledge the emotional baggage I was carrying allowed me to unload it. I hadn’t thought of those hurtful remarks in years and was totally unaware that they were there ready to be dredged up.
Wednesday was a new day altogether. It helped that the teacher continued to mention women calculus teachers that he works with. Some of the other students had young children running in and out of their zoom frame, which made them seem more relatable. As we worked our way through all the material covered in Calc I in five days, the concepts were easy to relearn, and the sample problems were easy to figure out. Some of the AP test questions were challenging, but that made them all the more fun. We spent hours going through math problems, trying them on our own and working them out in groups, and I found again that I’ve got a talent for math. Looking back on the week, I’d say that it was the best five days of my summer vacation. I wish my whole life was spent solving math problems.
It was time well invested. I even have a certificate of completion. I will be an awesome math teacher this year, and I hope my students will learn a lot of calculus and find success when they go to take the AP exam next May. Also, it was good for me to confront those insecurities which had been lying dormant waiting to come out.
I feel ashamed that defensiveness was my gut reaction upon seeing that I was the only woman in the class. After all my education and accomplishment, it’s embarrassing that my fears of being rejected and ostracized undermined my confidence in myself. I don’t want to invalidate the hurt that past experiences have impressed on me, but I had hoped that the barriers put in my path so long ago wouldn’t have to be overcome again and again.
Some of the other students in my seminar could have been feeling insecure. One man was older than the rest of us and several had never taught calculus before. You can’t tell by looking what a person could be experiencing. Someone on the AP math Facebook page was just talking about having imposter syndrome. Calculus is challenging, and many people besides myself find that teaching calculus helps us to grow both as mathematicians and as people. It was horrible to be disturbed by my fears, but it’s great coming through and being able to tell myself with confidence, “I belong here. I am worthy.”
I asked Sophia if she had ever had someone tell her she couldn’t do math because she was a girl. She looked at me like I had arms coming out of my head and said, “No but I once had a substitute teacher tell the girls in the class that it was their job to help their mothers make Thanksgiving dinner. We all thought she was crazy.”
At Sophia’s farewell tea party on Sunday the conversation turned towards this story as I was working on it. Ora, Corrie, and I told stories of our mothers and compared their experiences with our own and wondered how that would compare to Sophia’s life as she heads off to college and then into the world. Corrie’s mother was the only woman in finance throughout most of her career. My mom had told me stories of working in an insurance company and how her boss frequently patted her bottom and called her and the other secretaries honey and sweetie. At first, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the calculus teachers/sports coaches in my group, but after a couple of days, I had to acknowledge that I felt they respected me. The only thing I didn’t participate in because I was a woman was exchanging emails and phone numbers with the other students for networking purposes. I didn’t feel comfortable giving a man my email address, even my school email address.
Corrie asked me what advice I would give Sophia. I’m not sure. Sophia might find herself in the minority as a woman in accounting, but then again with all the young women in her program now and the women who have gone before her, she won’t be alone. Though mom always told me I could do anything, she had to fight for me to have many of the opportunities that Sophia can take for granted. That’s why her experience will be better.
I’m glad my girls are living in a world where they won’t have memories of people telling them they can’t be educated intelligent people because they are girls. In spite of all the craziness of the world today, I have hope for even better things for the people in my children’s generation. As for me, I hope that this week will remain a strong memory of intelligence and worthiness to draw upon the next time circumstance challenges me.
I felt fully capable when the headmaster asked me to teach calculus. In fact, an ideal day would be one spent solving calculus problems. My favorite semester of working on my masters in math at Notre Dame was the one spent teaching Calc I. My calc lab students that semester didn’t understand the professor’s accent and asked me to explain everything. Over the years I’ve tutored calculus and at almost every birth I’ve entertained myself by deriving the important calculus formulas. Fun times! A doubt of my capability didn’t cross my mind until last week.
The thought of teaching an AP calculus course was more daunting than a normal calculus class since I didn’t know what it entailed and had never taken the AP exam. My headmaster connected me with the head of the math department at another local Christian private school who has become my mentor this summer. She steered me to an excellent curriculum and advised me to take an AP Calculus seminar. It was a weeklong thirty hour zoom class in which we would go over every topic of Calculus AB (first semester of college Calculus) and learn about the test itself.
I went into the seminar feeling nervous, worried about how the household would do with my working almost full time that week and knowing it had been a long time since I’d worked with calculus. We were having temperatures in the high nineties but the master bedroom where I planned on working was the coolest room in the house. My spot was ready with a sweater, a pair of fuzzy socks, and a lap blanket set next to the recliner. I was prepared to have Sophia take the kids on an outing to a water park. I was prepared to wake up early and work hard. I was not prepared for all the insecurities of my youth to rise up and overwhelm me.
When I entered the zoom class at eight o’clock on Monday morning, I was very uncomfortable to find that I was the only woman. During our first break, I called my Ph.D. math girlfriend Karen to get a reality check.
I told her, “I think I am as intelligent as any of the other students in the seminar.”
She said, “Of course you are! After all, you have a masters in math from Notre Dame!”
Still, when I came back to class, my discomfort got in the way of getting the most out of the seminar. I was competitive during the break-out sessions when we worked through AP Calculus problems, determined to prove myself. The math itself was easy and fun. When I went out to dinner that night with Mike, Esther and Joshua, Sophia, Basil and Alex, the Ukrainian man working for Open Hearts and Homes for Children who we were hosting that week, I spent much of our meal hashing out my feelings of insecurity.
Tuesday was better. The instructor had us check out the AP calculus math group on Facebook which I joined. It was good to see a lot of women posting there. The instructor also had made it “favorite mathematician” day for our zoom backgrounds. He started the morning with a woman mathematician from Paris. It was nice to be reminded that women mathematicians have their place in history, but I spent the morning wondering if he had chosen her because he really liked her or if he was trying to make me feel more comfortable.
Then I had Basil help me get a mathematician background and chose Euclid. It had a picture of Euclid pointing to a triangle inscribed in a circle, which looked great online but had an odd effect when my image was in front of it. The circle was placed in such a way that it became a halo around my head. I spent the afternoon scooting and slouching, wondering again what people thought of me.
It was Sophia’s boyfriend who changed my world around on Tuesday evening. He was hanging out in the kitchen helping Sophia to make the salad and bread for our chicken dinner. When Anthony walked around me towards Sophia as I stood at the sink filling a glass with filtered water, I said, “Hey Anthony, could you chop the lettuce for dinner?”
“Sure Mrs. R.”
“Have you ever felt uncomfortable being in a group of people who don’t look like you? I’m the only woman in my math seminar, and I feel very uncomfortable.”
“Why are you asking me?” he said. After all, he’s not a woman.
“I’m asking you because you’re black.”
He was silent for a minute thinking before he said, “That’s fair.”
“So?”
“Honestly, I can’t relate. If I was in a group and someone wanted to judge me for how I looked, that would be a them problem, not a me problem.”
“They haven’t given me any reason to think they are judging me.” I admitted. I carried the thought further. “If it’s not a them problem then it must be a me problem. Thanks Anthony.”
“No problem, Mrs. R.”
I went to rest while Sophia and Anthony worked in the kitchen. The problem wasn’t looking different. My headscarf sets me apart and that never bothers me. I have never been told that I couldn’t do something because of my clothes. Perhaps some people may think me strange, but if they judge me harshly for wearing my head covered, they probably would have problems with who I am. They wouldn’t be wrong. It’s a them problem. Being a woman is something that I can’t change like the way I can take off my jean skirt or get a new hair-do. As I sat in the recliner in the master bedroom, memories that had been floating around in my subconscious rose to the surface.
“Why are you worrying your pretty head thinking about mathematics.”
“You are good at math, for a girl.”
“Try differential equations, that will put hair on your chest.”
“It’s a waste of time to give women an education in math when they are going to have babies and not use it.”
Being able to acknowledge the emotional baggage I was carrying allowed me to unload it. I hadn’t thought of those hurtful remarks in years and was totally unaware that they were there ready to be dredged up.
Wednesday was a new day altogether. It helped that the teacher continued to mention women calculus teachers that he works with. Some of the other students had young children running in and out of their zoom frame, which made them seem more relatable. As we worked our way through all the material covered in Calc I in five days, the concepts were easy to relearn, and the sample problems were easy to figure out. Some of the AP test questions were challenging, but that made them all the more fun. We spent hours going through math problems, trying them on our own and working them out in groups, and I found again that I’ve got a talent for math. Looking back on the week, I’d say that it was the best five days of my summer vacation. I wish my whole life was spent solving math problems.
It was time well invested. I even have a certificate of completion. I will be an awesome math teacher this year, and I hope my students will learn a lot of calculus and find success when they go to take the AP exam next May. Also it was good for me to confront those insecurities which had been lying dormant waiting to come out.
I feel ashamed that defensiveness was my gut reaction upon seeing that I was the only woman in the class. After all my education and accomplishment, it’s embarrassing that my fears of being rejected and ostracized undermined my confidence in myself. I don’t want to invalidate the hurt that past experiences have impressed on me, but I had hoped that the barriers put in my path so long ago wouldn’t have to be overcome again and again.
Some of the other students in my seminar could have been feeling insecure. One man was older than the rest of us and several had never taught calculus before. You can’t tell by looking what a person could be experiencing. Someone on the AP math Facebook page was just talking about having imposter syndrome. Calculus is challenging, and many people beside myself find that teaching calculus helps us to grow both as mathematicians and as people. It was horrible to be disturbed by my fears, but it’s great coming through and being able to tell myself with confidence, “I belong here. I am worthy.”
I asked Sophia if she had ever had someone tell her she couldn’t do math because she was a girl. She looked at me like I had arms coming out of my head and said, “No but I once had a substitute teacher tell the girls in the class that it was their job to help their mothers make Thanksgiving dinner. We all thought she was crazy.”
At Sophia’s farewell tea party on Sunday the conversation turned towards this story as I was working on it. Ora, Corrie, and I told stories of our mothers and compared their experiences with our own and wondered how that would compare to Sophia’s life as she heads off to college and then into the world. Corrie’s mother was the only woman in finance throughout most of her career. My mom had told me stories of working in an insurance company and how her boss frequently patted her bottom and called her and the other secretaries honey and sweetie. At first, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the calculus teachers/sports coaches in my group, but I after a couple of days I had to acknowledge that I felt they respected me. The only thing I didn’t participate in because I was a woman was exchanging emails and phone numbers with the other students for networking purposes. I didn’t feel comfortable giving a man my email address, even my school email address.
Corrie asked me what advice I would give to Sophia. I’m not sure. Sophia might find herself in the minority as a woman in accounting, but then again with all the young women in her program now and the women who have gone before her, she won’t be alone. Though mom always told me I could do anything, she had to fight for me to have many of the opportunities that Sophia can take for granted. That’s why her experience will be better.
I’m glad my girls are living in a world where they won’t have memories of people telling them they can’t be educated intelligent people because they are girls. In spite of all the craziness of the world today, I have hope for even better things for the people in my children’s generation. As for me, I hope that this week will remain a strong memory of intelligence and worthiness to draw upon the next time circumstance challenges me.
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