Reflections of a new Asian American womxn assistant professor

Reflections of a new Asian American womxn assistant professor

By Kari Kokka

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Pittsburgh, and I am thoroughly enjoying my new position. I just graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in May 2017 completing my dissertation, Social Justice Mathematics: Pedagogy of the Oppressed or Pedagogy of the Privileged? I conducted a comparative case study of two sixth grade math classrooms whose teachers use Social Justice Mathematics, one in a Title I public school and the other in an elite private school.

As a fourth generation Japanese American womxn from the Bay Area, in this blog post I’ll share my experiences living and working in a context that is much less diverse than what I am accustomed to. It has only been three months in my new position, but here are some reflections of things that have helped thus far:

1) Find colleagues of color.

Seek out fellow faculty members of color who understand what it’s like when you are the only (or one of a handful of) faculty of color in your department or school. Sometimes you may need to look outside the School of Education. These are colleagues I can ask questions about the university and who I can lean on when I just need someone who understands the challenges of being a faculty member of color. My colleagues have been a great support network, and my dean, Valerie Kinloch has been amazingly supportive.

2) Meet new people, including K-12 youth and graduate students.

When the repeal of DACA happened I was searching for actions to plug into. But when I could not find any, I asked if others wanted to organize around this and found colleagues also interested in this issue. We are currently organizing a panel at Pitt to discuss how to support students of immigrant communities, where we have invited local public school teachers, lawyers, and community organizers to speak on a panel for the School of Education to learn from the community. I’ve met amazing community organizers who do work on immigrants’ rights with the local community. I’ve also connected with a group of high school students who have also been leaders of this work, joining our weekly planning meetings, and who will host and moderate the panel. As a follow up to this work we are also organizing a monthly social justice teaching issues workshop series where like-minded educators of all grade levels, P-12 teachers, faculty members, and students, can come together to discuss issues we may be grappling with in our teaching, such as supporting multilingual students (I use multilingual instead of English Language Learners), how to discuss race in our classes, or other issues that teachers and faculty members may be facing in their classes.

I have also connected with Asian American, Black, and Latinx graduate students at Pitt who are happy to see a professor of color join the faculty. As much as students feel that we are supporting them, they are also supporting us!

3) Build solidarity.

I recently co-facilitated a session of the Black Minds Matter online series by J. Luke Wood of San Diego State University with Pitt graduate student Jawanza Rand. This is a phenomenal series that I encourage you to participate in. You may participate as an individual or as part of a series if your university is also hosting sessions like Pitt is. I was excited to participate in this series because I strongly believe in allyship of non-Black people of color to support the Black Lives Matter movement and to further initiatives to increase equity in education for Black, Latinx, and other historically marginalized groups of students.

4) Share your research.

I was invited to speak in the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Urban Education (CUE) brown bag series. My talk was titled “Beyond the Black/White Binary: How Asian American male math teachers redefine mathematical success to resist stereotypes about themselves and their Black and Latinx students.” I shared findings of a new manuscript of a co-authored study with Teddy Chao from the Ohio State University that explores internalized racism of Asian American male math teachers and how they resist stereotypes about themselves and their Black and Latinx students. Teddy and I presented on this study last year as part of a symposium for the REAPA SIG at AREA in San Antonio. Our discussant, Lin Goodwin, and the audience participants offered useful feedback that we used to improve our paper. I was told it was rare to see research focusing on Asian Americans at Pitt, and that it was exciting to see this paper discussion for the brown bag series.

5) Maintain your networks outside the university.

The REAPA SIG and the Critical Educators for Social Justice SIG have been wonderful space to learn with colleagues. Thank you to Amanda Assalone for organizing the recent webinar with Arshad Ali, Nicholas Hartlep, and Valerie Ooka Pang. I learned a great deal from this webinar as well as the ones in the past with Cheryl Matias, Nolan Cabrera, Mike Nguyen, Kevin Kumashiro, and Oiyan Poon. I was recently elected the new Co-chair of the Critical Educators for Social Justice SIG, and my experience on the REAPA board as the newsletter editor helped to prepare me for this role. Thank you to the REAPA community for these growth opportunities.

I am also gearing up for the Creating Balance in an Unjust World Conference on STEM and Social Justice in San Francisco January 12-14, 2018, a conference I have been organizing for the past 10 years. We previously focused on mathematics education and social justice and have broadened our focus to STEM fields. One of our goals is for educators build relationships with like-minded colleagues, and we offer networking opportunities throughout the conference. I’m looking forward to meeting new people at the conference, and we would love to have you join us!

6) Keep writing!

Perhaps this should be the first item on the list. In my case I am working to write more! I have three writing groups at this time, who are pushing me to publish. I need to carve out more time for my writing because I know that peer reviewed journal publications are what really matter for tenure. But I am also enjoying the organizing work I am involved in to stay grounded and in an effort to work toward social justice. I was a teacher-activist and math teacher for 11 years before pursuing my doctorate so my heart lies in organizing work.

I encourage graduate students to keep pushing. I know the grind of being a full time student while working full time (this is what I did to pay my rent) and being on the job market while dissertating can be overwhelming, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you to the REAPA SIG both for opportunities to grow and for the opportunity to reflect on my first few months of my membership as an assistant professor in the academy.