Lift Ev'ry Voice: Supporting DVC Umoja Students in Math

By: Jamylle Carter, Professor of Mathematics, Diablo Valley College, @CarterJamylle

"Lift ev'ry voice and sing 

'Til earth and heaven ring 

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty" 

  --  "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (Black National Anthem)

James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson

On my sabbatical leave from Diablo Valley College (DVC) in Spring 2018, I conducted focus groups of thirteen students who identified partly, if not solely, as African-American.  I asked them about their experiences in their mathematics classes, ranging from pre-algebra to precalculus.  All the students were in the DVC Umoja Learning Community, an affiliate of the multi-state Umoja Community that promoted the success of African-American and other students at the college level.  Two students credited the Umoja program for their remarkable academic turnarounds.  Although they had struggled in my Spring 2017 intermediate algebra class, they had raised their grade point averages to 3.6 and 4.0, and they were acing the accelerated algebra class that they were taking together at the time of the interview.  Here I will share four instructor qualities that I believe made their academic transformations possible.  (Names have been changed to maintain privacy.)

COMPASSION

Umoja students needed their professors to respect the learning process and address any gaps in their prior knowledge without judgment.   

Ajua: I think we're not perfect when we go in, so they shouldn't expect that from us. They shouldn't expect us to know everything and just be like, "Okay, you guys remember from ..." stats or whatever from two years ago or something like that. I know teachers that do that. It would be nice if they did a little recap instead of assuming everybody knows.

Kealan: I feel like certain professors, they don't really let you ... they don't believe in failure. Like, sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed, and I feel like certain professors don't believe in that, they just feel like, "You have to succeed all the time. If you don't, then you're just going to fail, you're never going to do it again....And it's just like ... it makes me feel like I'm never going to amount to anything if you're just saying that….Yeah, and don't look at it as failure, look at it as a bounce-back. If you bounce back from it, there's no such thing as a loss. That's how I would view it as.  If there were more professors like that ... oh my God. I would love math. I swear.

CONNECTION

Umoja students wanted to be connected to their instructors and to each other.  They wanted their instructors to share more of themselves and inquire about the students’ well-being before diving into the material:    

Ajua:  Just have the teachers kind of show a bit more of themselves, I think.

Kealan: Because I just feel like, when you're in a math class you have to take it very seriously, there's no laughing, there's no, "How are you, how's your day going?" They're not trying to get to know you, they're just looking at you as a student and just get on with class….when I'm in Umoja I feel that each professor, they really want to know how you are as a whole person, not just as a student, not just as someone who comes to your class. They really want to see how you are, they want to get to know you.  So that would be one suggestion that I would probably say to the leaders, is just be more interactive and have some ... be human, basically. They're acting like androids nowadays. It's 2018, just come on, be friendly.

They felt accountable for each other’s successes, so they wanted to support one another, build a community, and feel like a family.

Kendra: I think for me [my most pleasant experience came from] understanding the curriculum and helping other people understand it too. Helping tutor. Helping out a friend that needs help in the same math class. So, you're not just bettering yourself in the math course, you're also bringing up somebody else.

COMFORT

Once the Umoja students sensed compassion and connection, they felt comfortable enough to ask questions in class or in the math tutoring center.  

Kealan:  I use the math lab. The tutor was...so helpful….[She] made me comfortable while I was able to open up with her with the difficulties I was having in this class. I feel like that's really important if you're going to be working with a tutor. You should feel comfortable first and you should be able to open up to them about what difficulty you're having.  They shouldn't judge you on that or anything. They're willing to help you. That's how I felt with the tutor...in the math lab. When she was able to help me, she told me, "Don't ever feel that way because there are a lot of students on this campus that feel the same way, but they're just afraid to speak up about the difficulties and the problems that they're having. You're not alone." That made me feel so much better.

Students who felt disconnected from their classmates were less likely to ask questions in class:

Kendra: Not in front of the class. Because the environment that you're inside of the class, it feels like everybody already knows things. Like nobody's asking questions. Everybody just, it seems like you're coming into something that everybody's already perfected it and you're the only one that's left behind. I just wait till after class.

CHALLENGE

Umoja students were not asking for special favors.  They wanted to be challenged and master the material. They were willing to be uncomfortable in order to engage with the mathematics content. They just wanted to be respected in the process.

Andretta:  What I liked about your class too is you made us get up and do it.  At first, I was like, "I don't want to get up," but it actually helped.  It actually helped to have you there and be like, "Oh no, not that. Do it like this." You would show us how to do it and give us tips. I liked that.  Even though it made me uncomfortable at first, I was all like, "Okay."

They wanted to and knew that they could rise to high expectations, and they wanted instructors to counter the narrative that math is difficult.  These students had the growth mindset that they could be successful:

Robert:  I just feel like in the black community we're ... Math isn't hard, math is really ... I feel like if you just put in the work, it's doable, because I never thought I'd ever get an A in stats, especially over the summer, and I did. So I feel like you really just put in the work, but I don't know. Like in the black community, in my opinion, growing up I always thought math was gonna be ... People were saying math is hella hard, so I set it in my mind like damn, math is really hard. But it's really not. 

CONCLUSION

Umoja students sought compassionate mathematics instructors who created a sense of community in the classroom.  Once they felt connected to their instructor and classmates, they became comfortable asking questions and engaging with challenging mathematics.  Extending compassion, creating connection, making students comfortable, and challenging students with mathematics were only four things that these Umoja students needed from their mathematics instructors to be successful. 

As mathematics faculty, we really need to listen to our students and highlight their voices, their experiences, and their challenges if we want to address their needs.  I have experienced both the presence and the absence of these qualities of compassion, connection, comfort, and challenge in my own educational experience as a Black woman mathematician.  But before we can help, we must listen.  Umoja means “unity” in Kiswahili, and some of the qualities that create a unified community are the ones listed here.  May we all take heed.

Dr. Jamylle Laurice Carter is a professor of mathematics at Diablo Valley College.  She serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Mathematicians as the community college member.  A second-generation mathematician, Dr. Carter furthers her research and scholarship interests in applied mathematics, game theory, and mathematics education.