One day, when Nicole Joseph was in 3rd grade, she raised her hand in class to answer a math question. The teacher did not call on her.
Her mother happened to be standing outside the door observing the classroom and was unhappy about what she saw. It seemed to her that Nicole, a Black girl, was being ignored by her teacher, a white woman. So she saw to it that her daughter [was] moved to a different class—an advanced class.
That little girl went on to study math and economics in college, then became a math teacher and a teacher-coach. Today, Joseph is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University and the director of the Joseph Mathematics Education Research Lab. In this interview, Joseph discusses her book Making Black Girls Count in Math Education (Harvard Education Press, 2022). The book shares findings from her research about the experiences Black girls and women have when it comes to math education, and it lays out what Joseph describes as “a Black feminist vision for transformative teaching.”
Please tell us about your own journey as a young student in math and how that informs your work today.
I’ve always really loved math.
When I was a younger student, I was that kid who was able to do school. I knew how to talk to the right people and figure out what classes and things that I needed. That’s not because I had a legacy family that all went to college. That was because I just had something in me where I learned how to network and interact with people very, very early. And I just began to observe how folks [who had] what I thought was more power . . . moved in the world and began to engage with them.
That 3rd grade class really did change my life, because my mom advocated for me. And that’s a key thing throughout my book that I tried to really elevate: We have to advocate for Black girls. It was all of maybe 15 or 20 minutes that changed the trajectory of my life in terms of mathematics.
Getting to middle school, I had a counselor, Mrs. Bennett—God rest her soul—who was a Black woman. She told me, “You really need to be in the advanced courses.” And I said, “Sure.” I took the test. I didn’t pass the test for the math part, but she put me in the class anyway. And that was another real experience that showed me what advocacy can do. So I was able to take algebra, for example, in 8th grade, which put me on the trajectory to make it all the way to statistics [then] calculus once I got in high school.
So it’s advocacy that really changed my life.
Black girls want to have more of a relaxed environment—to laugh and be social—while at the same time doing their math work. And that can be considered disrespectful or off-task in particular classrooms.
What are the signals that Black girls receive that maybe they don’t belong in math settings?
I think some of those signals include erasure of their ways of knowing. For example, I’ve learned through some of my research that Black girls want to have more of a family, relaxed environment—to laugh and be social—while at the same time doing their math work. And that can be considered disrespectful or off-task in particular classrooms because most math [teachers] are like, “You need to be focused. You need to be stern. You need to pay attention.” When some of them show up in spaces where, you know, they want to sing about the math, or whatever, those things are not welcome. Those ways of knowing are not welcome in the class.
I think another one is the stereotypes of adultification. Black girls are adultified as early as age 5, where teachers feel like they should know better, that they should be on task every single minute, and if they roll their eyes or do something like that, teachers take that as an affront, and oftentimes they’re sent to the office.
Another signal that they don’t belong is when teachers haven’t taken the time to really understand, broadly, Black girlhood, but also just the Black girls that are in your room, in your class.
It sounds cliché—get to know your students, or build relationships with your students—but those really are key practices that can make a difference that I think a lot of teachers just don’t take the time to do.
In contrast, what types of math classrooms and climates support what you call Black girls’ joy? What fosters learning and joy for Black girls in the classroom?
Laughter, and socialness, and having a vibe. Black girls have said they love to be able to have a connection with their math teachers. So teachers have to kind of pass the vibe test. A girl might want to just go up and say, “Hey, Mr. Smith, what did you do for the weekend?” or be able to talk to their math teacher about anything, it doesn’t necessarily have to be math. Those things help them to have stronger connections, which then helps them to want to try harder, take more risks, do what it is that the teacher is asking them to do.
And so those are the types of environments that we need, that [are] more relaxed. And honestly, a lot of other students probably would love to have that type of environment. But I’ve just learned from some Black girls that that is really, really important.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the role that standardized tests play when it comes to Black girls and Black women in math, and what trajectories they’re set on because of these tests.
We know that they’re biased. However, it is not my fight, nor my lane, to try to get rid of them because they’re just not going to go anywhere. That’s my personal conviction and opinion about standardized tests.
So having said that, what is it that we do? . . . How do we have transparent-slash-courageous conversations with our girls about the realities of things that they are going to face in our global society? And testing is one of those things, right?
I think being honest about what’s out there is very important. So let me give you an example. When I was teaching, math journals were a part of what I did. I was teaching in like 1999, 2000, way before these things were popular. But I went to an outstanding teacher education program [at] Pacific Oaks College that really helped me learn how to be a critical, reflective instructor.
And so math journals were a part of that. The kids would not only write about math, whatever it was, fractions, but they would also talk about the social side. How did they feel? Where did they take a risk? What got them stuck? Why?
The other thing that I would do—just like other teachers—I had a “word wall” on my wall, and I had vocabulary that [students] needed to know and understand. So I would do things like, “OK, when you’re talking to your neighbor, use whatever resources you have at your disposal.” I wasn’t correcting their language, none of that. But I would say, “There’s a test that we have to take. It’s called the WASL, Washington Assessment of Student Learning. They are looking for you to explain your answers with words, numbers, and pictures, and they’re gonna have vocabulary in here that you’re gonna need to know.” So I would have them write, for example, a paragraph, and I would say, “You need to do at least three of these vocabulary words that are on the word wall.”
We had that intersection where I was keeping their humanity intact and letting them bring their full selves, while at the same time helping them to understand that there is this world, and I’m not gonna send you out there and you’re not prepared.
That is my mantra for teachers and families, that you can’t completely ignore the system. I would love to just tear it down—do the Karl Marx. But the reality is that we can’t do that. So how do we help Black girls find themselves—bring their full selves—while also helping them to understand that there’s a real world out there that they need to be a part of? And how do we get them there, while also keeping them intact—their identities, personal regard, all of those things intact? It’s challenging work, but that to me is the best that we can do.
How do we engage our young Black girls in mathematics in a way that we know to be productive and humanizing?
What does mathematics as a field miss out on by missing Black girls and women?
I think the field misses out on a lot of innovation; ways of solving problems. Black women are some of the most innovative people that I know. Ingenuity. Vivacious. Charismatic. Deep problem solvers. I feel that they can help us solve some of the most knotty problems that we have.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
Part of me is wanting to take up this agenda with a national campaign of Black women and girls deciding to do this work together without completely relying on our systems. Part of the transformative vision in the book is where I’m saying, I want Black women to actually lead this charge. How do we engage our young Black girls in mathematics in a way that we know to be productive and humanizing?
I’m thinking more about informal spaces, informal opportunities outside of schools, and I’m seeing some of that happen around the country.
I want to have the Black feminist campaign for Black girls in mathematics learning. I don’t know what that looks like, but that’s a dream of mine that I’m gonna be working on in the next five years for sure.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on EdSurge, a nonprofit newsroom that covers education through original journalism and research.
