Each One, Teach One

During the spring 2003 semester (my first at UMBC), I tutored my stepmother, named Jameelah, and other students studying pre-calculus at Morgan State University (an HBC). Jameelah, a returning student, had not studied math in decades, and had a severe math phobia. Unfortunately for her, pre-calc was a requirement of the education degree she was pursuing. The professor's apathetic attitude did nothing to uplift Jameelah's spirits.

The prof was a character. A black woman with blond hair, she periodically arrived late, and lectured for a fraction of the class time. Once, she traipsed into class twenty minutes after it had started, sporting spandex tights with leopard spots. She flung down her belongings with an air of annoyance, and began the lecture. A few minutes later, a student dared raise a hand to ask a question.

The prof almost exploded. "Have any of you even read the material!" she asked shrilly, in response to what she viewed as an uninformed question. Throwing up her hands in exasperation, she retreated to one corner of the room, where she sat and munched on potato chips for the remainder of the period. Another time, she taught for the first half of the class, then disappeared down the hall, in pursuit of her daughter, who was busily exploring the math building while mom taught class. And so it went. Not only my stepmother, but many of the other students were floundering, and terrified of failing the class.

When Jameelah told me of this situation, I thought immediately of the words of Dr. Abdulalim Shabazz, distinguished professor of math at Lincoln University, and an old family friend. Formerly with the Nation of Islam, he is an Afrocentric and a champion for his people. I consider him the standard bearer of math pedagogy, particularly when it comes to black and brown students.

We were attending an Islamic conference together. During one of the breaks, I asked him about his teaching method. He said simply. “If my students aren’t grasping what I’m teaching, then I have failed. If students don’t understand something one way, it is up to the teacher to find other ways to explain it until they understand.” He impressed on his students that their ancestors, black people of Ancient KMT—not Newton or Euclid—were the first to elucidate geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and physics, and that they were to strive for the same high standard. He taught them to think, and not to memorize. Not surprisingly, Shabazz produced one of the highest numbers of black mathematics doctoral students in the nation. (Bizarrely, he was demoted from the position of Math Department Chair at Lincoln University, to an ordinary teaching position. Even more bizarrely, he was replaced by a white, Jewish, woman who did not hold even a math degree.)

I developed a tremendous admiration and respect for Shabazz, in his dedication to math teaching and his love for the people. Looking at the dearth of black and brown people in my field, life sciences, I felt strongly that math was the major stumbling block for black students, which precluded them from entry into the life sciences. They attended the worst schools, with high student-teacher ratios, and little academic support (vital for success in math); had parents in jail or on drugs; endured school closures due to teacher strikes, trashcan fires, and shooting incidents; or some combination of these, causing just enough disruption for students to fall behind in math. And since math builds upon itself, even one tenuous semester could endanger their later learning. Worse, because a strong understanding of math is vital to a science/engineering major in college, weakness in math precluded many black students from these fields. All this, coupled with racist bio-science department faculty and chairs (often vestiges from the era of scientific racism) at university level ensured that the numbers of black students earning bioscience degrees remained at a slow trickle.

I personally struggled with high school math, earning an “F” in ninth grade Algebra (initially) and a “D” in eleventh grade Trig. But I did not give up. And math, unlike men, rewarded me according to the effort I expended. Today, I have a great love of math, and employ it on a daily basis. As a result of my struggles with the subject, I have some understanding of the problems math students face. And although it is not my field, it is my passion to help black and brown students with their math struggles. The community must ensure that academic support, particularly in math, is available to our youth. In the near future, I plan to contribute to this goal by offering math/chemistry/physics tutoring (enlisting the help of other community members) through local inner city masajid. Given such academic support, if students choose non-science majors, it will be of their volition.

When Jameelah mentioned her troubles, I was thrilled that I might be able to share the knowledge I’d acquired through blood, sweat, and tears. Not wanting to be too pushy, I initially just gave her a pre-calculus book and solution manual, which I thought explained the subject with clarity. When I called her the following week, she said the new book was much easier to grasp than the horrid class text, but that she was still confounded by certain types of problems. She would be stuck for hours, unable to move ahead, and become very frustrated and depressed. My semester at UMBC was heating up, and I knew that tutoring at this juncture could easily detract from my own academic advancement. But, I also knew I would not be true to myself if I did not step forward now. I arranged to meet with her once a week, alternating between her home and MSU. Our first tutoring session was held in Morgan's math building. To my surprise, several other students, whom Jameelah had told of the tutoring, showed up. They were experiencing many of same difficulties as Jameelah.

I hadn’t tutored since my brief stint at Antioch College years prior, where I informally helped friends with calculus in the common room of our dorm. So, I was nervous, standing before Jameelah and her classmates at the chalkboard, afraid I would forget some elementary concept, like the limit, as x approached zero, of sine x divided by x.

The class members also seemed uncertain of me, perhaps expecting a similar lack of caring as they’d experienced from Ms. Leopard Tights. Initially, they did not ask me any questions, and talked among themselves, trying desperately to solve seemingly elusive homework problems. Finally, I asked a young dark-skinned sista, named Chantal, to select a problem she did not understand, and to write it on the blackboard, so that we could work it together. I asked the others to try to work the problem at their seat, and Chantal to work the problem as far as she could on the board. When she got stuck, I guided her (mainly by asking her directed questions), until she was able to solve the problem. After that, she and I explained the problem step by step to the other students. Then, I asked Jameelah to pick a problem which gave her difficulty, and did the same thing with her. Gradually, I was able to get the participation of nearly every student, giving each individualized guidance, followed by a sharing of the lessons learned with each problem with the rest of the class. Since many of the students had similar difficulties with the problems, working with one helped me realize what stumbling blocks might arise for others.

Except for an inverse function problem, whose terminology I was unsure about, I was able to answer all the students’ questions, and did not embarrass myself as I had feared. They shared with me their fears, phobias, and gripes about math exams, the math portion of the Praxis (which several of them were preparing to take), the despised class text, and their infamous prof. I tutored them through the semester, becoming their friend, coach, and in some cases chauffer.

Once, the Prof came by our study room, and the normal banter of the group stopped. A couple of the students cozied up to her, trying to make her feel important. Then Jameelah introduced us. With an icy cold glare, she returned my greeting, but just barely. After a few minutes, she left, with a flippant “Looks like y’all got it under control.”

At the end of the semester, Jameelah received an "A" in the class; at least two others in our small study group got "A's" and "B's;" and nearly everyone brought up their grades significantly. I was very proud of them. They thanked me in many different ways. Pat, another returning student, sent me a gift basket and a card as a token of appreciation. Chantal asked for my help with a summer stat class (which, alas, I declined, because of an intense summer class I was taking), and put me in touch with her nephews and nieces, who also needed tutoring. John, a sharp, young, engineering major invited me to his birthday barbeque. All the students tried to pay me as a token of appreciation. I refused, since it was they who had done all the hard work, and they who had helped me, giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge. As Malcolm said, "Each one, teach one."