0:00  
Hello and thank you for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. The teaching math teaching podcast is sponsored by the Association of mathematics teacher educators. The hosts are Eva fan hyzer me, dusty Jones, and Joel Amidon. Today we're talking with Toya Frank, who's an assistant professor in the College of Education on human development at George Mason University. We're talking with Toya because of her project, examining the trajectories of black mathematics teachers, which seeks to better understand the promise and challenges of encouraging more black educators to choose mathematics teaching as a career, the project will document the oral histories and experiences of black mathematics teachers, pre and post does your school segregation as a means of informing contemporary recruitment and retention policies and processes. trajectories also examines the experiences of currently practicing k 12, black Teachers of Mathematics regarding their beliefs about mathematics content, recruitment, retention, racialized experiences, and education, and perceptions and beliefs about current pedagogical practices. We've seen Toya present this project at conferences with some of our colleagues, and we really wondered how the project came together, and thought that the conversation would be a good one to share with the teaching math teaching podcast listeners, Toya welcome. Would you take a minute to introduce yourself?

1:22  
Sure. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. I'm Troy Jones. Frank faculty at George Mason University. My primary responsibilities are in secondary education. So I work with all of our pre service, middle and high school mathematics teachers, and I also am affiliated with mathematics education leadership, where I support doctoral students in mathematics education. So I'm really happy to be here and excited for this opportunity.

1:47  
We want to start with a question just to get to know about you and how you came into the math teacher educator role. So how did you start teaching math teachers, and why formally, I've

1:57  
been at the university, this is the beginning of my seventh year, well, I guess I'm midway through my seventh year now. But um, I would say teaching or supporting math teachers started when I was a teacher, I was a high school math teacher for 11 years. And I was a department chair for five years. And so my interest in supporting math teachers, particularly new math teachers, started when I was a math department chair, one year, I had five first year teachers in my math department, and out of how many five out of like, maybe 11. Okay, right. And so it made me realize that I really needed to know more. And so my desire to know more, I thought was gonna lead to me like taking a few classes at University of Maryland, because I was a teacher in Maryland public schools. And I thought that I was going to take a few classes, and learn how to better support my teachers through doing effective professional development. And here I am.

3:01  
So what led you to start the trajectories project,

3:04  
I think that my experiences as a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, have a lot to do with that experience. So I started at University of Maryland in 2008. And at the time, the faculty were funded, they had NSF funding to study highly respected algebra one teachers I was interested in looking at at the time, like diversifying the teaching force, I think I've shifted a little bit now. But at the time I was so like, one of my first papers I wrote was for an epistemology class, it was like, think about a topic from like three different perspectives. And so I took this idea of recruiting and retaining diverse teachers. That was my first real experience with Danny Martin's work, who should teach black students. So they knew that I was interested in that kind of work. And their research around highly respected algebra one teachers, it just so happened, that all of the teachers that participated in the study were black teachers. So it led us to thinking about this intersection between mathematics teaching, and race and teacher education. And so I would definitely credit my time at Maryland and the support of the faculty there with my initial interest. In this work. When I was there, I had the opportunity to help them collect data and to do some writing with them about the topic. And upon leaving there, I started the job at George Mason, and the first few years were just, you know, sort of finding my way but the interest in the topic never swayed. I was an African American math teacher. I've supported departments that were primarily, you know, African American or black. And then I also had an experience, my last teaching experience was supporting a department where we were more racially and ethnically diverse. But even in that experience, I just noticed that my black teachers had an experience that was unique, whether it was with parents, or with administrators, or even with students and so I thought that it was something that was worthy of exploration. And so that's really how trajectories started. Okay. Yeah, I think that's the origins of the word. So

5:07  
if we think back to those origins about when you were imagining or proposing or designing this project, what would you have liked to know,

5:16  
you work on projects as a doc student, and working on a project, and being poi a large project are two totally different experiences, I think I underestimated the amount of paperwork that was going to be involved the paperwork that allows you to do research that you believe really strongly about, I wish I thought about I have become I think a better I don't want to say a manager of people. But there is a bit of management involved with getting this done. Especially I have the most amazing research team and I have an amazing co pi, who's an oral historian, she works in social studies where an interdisciplinary team, but just learning how to because I was still relatively young faculty member. So learning how to support doc students. That has been one of the greatest lessons of this work is learning how to support doc students how to work well with a team learning how to delegate, especially when it's something so close to your heart, but learning how to like bring people in and make sure that it is a collaborative project, making sure that my students are, you know, having really great learning experiences, because I don't think that this work would be possible if I hadn't had those great mentoring experiences. So learning how to become a strong mentor. So rather than management, I think I would rather say mentorship, okay, it's been one of the greatest lessons for me and doing this,

6:44  
have you received like some really good piece of advice that you'd like to share?

6:49  
I will say, related to this work, when I first proposed it, I wasn't sure where it would fit. I didn't know where to find a home for it. Am I do I fit in math it, you know, will this? Will this work? Will people receive it? You know, where should I publish? I would have to say that one of the best pieces of advice that I got was from Dan Chaisson, who was a fat who's still a faculty member at Maryland, he's one of I would count him as a mentor of mine. And he was like, you have to write about what is important to you. And you have to know that not everybody may like or support your work. But you will find your people and it will resonate with them. And then if it resonates with them, it's going to resonate with people who perhaps had not thought about this kind of work. So I will say, that gave me a lot of encouragement to move forward. Because I was kind of getting caught up in like, Where's my home? How does this fit? I don't really know of any comparable projects and those sorts of things. And he was like, move forward, and you will find your home you will find your people, but you're passionate about it. So you need to carry out

7:52  
the work to turn that question around a different way. What advice would you give someone who's thinking about starting a project,

7:58  
be flexible, be incredibly flexible. Know that a proposal, it is a proposal, it is what you believe you will do. But know that you know, once you start the project, things happen along the way. And so you have to be flexible. And you have to keep an open mind about how perhaps you can change things. Know that perhaps your questions might evolve for us, we have certainly seen an evolution. And I don't know necessarily the questions, but definitely our approach to the questions or our stance. So I think one of the biggest things about taking on a large project is being open to change and being open. You know, and being flexible, because it is just inevitable, particularly when you do work, centered around people's experiences, you just have to have that. That flexibility. Yeah,

8:46  
I love the fact one that you're sharing with us today. But I also love the fact that you brought up Dan chazan, I've also benefited from conversations with him. And it's just like, and I think that's also one of the reasons why we want to start this podcast is to share some of the wisdom that we've had the benefit of getting and sharing it with us. So thank you for for doing that. But also, just I want to touch a little bit more on the project. Just we have here. Sure you shared earlier today, even some learnings that you had from the project. I don't know if you could just highlight one or two that I mean, with all the stuff that you've been hearing and on the project. What's one thing that you would want to share with the audience

9:21  
academia, to me is about pushing the field and thinking about new ideas and what lies on the horizon. One thing I would encourage and not just in the study of African American teachers, but in the study of our field, is that we not forget to look back. I think history is really, really important. We should understand the history of our field. I think that if you are going to study communities and groups of people, then you should ground yourself not just in their current context, but know something about the communities that you're going to research. So as we push forward and look ahead and think about what's next on the horizon, I think is really, really important that we learn back, I think for me, you know, I enjoy the quantitative work, I get a lot out of doing the focus groups with contemporary and currently practicing teachers. But for me, I think one of the greatest gifts of this work has been to be able to interview retired mathematics teachers, and I just feel like there is a wealth of knowledge that we are going to lose. If we don't, you know, capture it is particularly you know, it's great to have primary data, you're able to interview people while they're here. But it is also taken us to the archives, I've been able to look at like, old textbooks and school board records, and those sorts of things. And I think that having that historical grounding to look at a contemporary issue is really, really important.

10:44  
Thank you. Now there's something about the power of these stories, right, and not losing that power.

10:50  
I have so many questions. But I would just want to say that I really appreciate that your piece of advice is follow your passion, because I think that's really important. It's really hard to study something that you're not very passionate about. Absolutely. That being said, I'm wondering, as I have been listening, this may not be possible. But if you could summarize really briefly for people who may have no idea what you're doing what it is that you're doing, just so we have a sense, absolutely.

11:20  
The title of the project is examining the trajectories of black man, teachers, colon, learning from the past, drawing on the present and identifying goals for the future. So if you look at data about African American teachers, and I have to attribute some of the early quantitative work to a colleague by the name of bisola. Neil, she was the first person that I ever saw really try to quantify the work as she was looking at turnover. And she learned from looking at like a large database, large schooling, staffing survey SAS database, she looked at that data and found that black male teachers had the highest rate of turnover across fields. And so thinking a lot about that, and then just thinking about what I know, personally, having been a black mathematics teacher thinking about my colleagues, I went to a historically black college, majoring in mathematics. And so I have lots of friends who are either teaching or doing wonderful things in mathematics education, and just thinking about what would it look like to do research, the center's our experiences? What are we missing in the literature that might help us to understand why black teachers have a higher rate of turnover, and they're already not entering the field in large numbers. And so there's work out there, I found that sometimes the work could be somewhat deficit oriented. So there was a lot around like test taking, and who can pass the test and who can't we're like, how do we bring these people in, right. But I did not find a lot of work that like turned it around and said, Have we talked to African American teachers, about their experiences are their structures in place that perhaps impede people's either desire to enter the field or their desire to stay in the field, I am a huge Richard Ingersoll admirer. And so I read a lot of his work. And he writes about both teachers of color. And he writes about STEM teachers haven't really seen much at the intersection. But even in his data, even in looking at his research around teachers of color, you know, trying to figure out turnover and why teachers leave the data just doesn't look the same for teachers of color. So it's not necessarily about teaching in spaces where there are high concentrations of students of color. If we were to ask someone like Sabrina King seminal work in black education, she would say, of course, not because black teachers go where their black children, right, black teachers don't tend to leave because of like, students experiencing poverty. Well, you know, we know this intersected with race. So the conclusion that I saw him draw was that, like, we need more work, to understand the issue. And so our research team and I, we thought a lot about it, and we were like, perhaps it's these experiences that don't get talked about in the literature. So that's what the this is all about. It's about capturing those lived experiences, both contemporarily. And historically. And so we are learning that like, as much as things change, these experiences that African American teachers are having across time, aren't changing. But nonetheless, the teachers who choose to stay have found their own ways to like personally resist, right? So we talk a lot about No, because it is a trajectory study. So we talk about the arc of resistance for black teachers, black teachers have always found a way to persevere and to find ways to stay in the field, perhaps not at the you know, what the numbers that we'd like, but I think it's really important. That was one of the questions that I got back in response to the proposals like why are you not talking to people who left? Uh huh. And I wrote back because I really Want to talk to people who've decided to stay? Because that's what we need to know. And I think that's a really important piece to know

15:07  
what makes a good day for you Toya,

15:09  
oh, gosh, a good day, perhaps trying to check off some things on that never ending to do list. But what I, when I can get some big things off of my left one of those two, I don't just have a list, I have lists of lists we use. Right? Well, you said, should I ask? What would I tell researchers I would say like invest in Trello, or some other organizing tool for your T shirt. Right? So my lists have sub lists, right? So if I can sometimes check some of those Vic things off, but like I am really I always say like I do kind of, I don't want to like more math research. So I'm really interested in people, right. So for me, the biggest wins are usually people oriented. When I have maybe a student who was my pre service teacher, come back and tell me about a great experience they had, I have produced two Teachers of the Year. In addition, I am very proud. Or the other day, we were doing orientation for some students, and I had one track me down because sometimes I'll teach like social foundations of education, I occasionally get out of the math program and teach. And I had a student come up to me and was like, you know, I have decided I'm going to get a PhD. And you really open my eyes to think about things like, you know, structural racism, and I just didn't see it that way before your class. And I know that it is my responsibility as a teacher to just know more and do more. So for me, you know, the big wins around the the people that I serve as an instructor as a dissertation chair, so those are all big wins related to, to academia. Sure, yeah. Other big wins. I have a five year old. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So lots of glasses. It's just really cool to see the world through her eyes. So that that's always a win whenever I'm able to be with her. Yeah,

16:56  
yeah. It's nice to know that we can be involved in so many things. Absolutely. And we also have families. Absolutely. That's why we're doing this. Absolutely. You mentioned Trello as a way to like to help stay productive and keep things organized. Do you have any other just nuggets of wisdom?

17:11  
Yeah, for the toss up between Trello and slack? Everyone was Trello? Trello just seemed easier to use? For me for some reason? I don't know. I think that, um, I used to work with an assistant principal, Miss Nicholson, she would always say we can't do everything. But we can do a few things. Well, so it's a big project. But we really try to break it down into doable chunks and do a few things. Well, so we're in the third year of the project. And there's data we just haven't touched yet, are there things we have not written about? Because we have really tried to be thoughtful and allow ourselves time to think and do a few things. Well, so focusing on the pieces that are perhaps to us, you know, more novel than other pieces of the work. But I would say that, like you cannot do everything in a day in a week in a semester in is an academic year. So I would say focus on doing a few things well, so we do we sit down a lot of our team, we meet every Wednesday, for about two hours every week. And we do part of it is working. So we may be you know, working on river, you know, r&r as revised resubmits. But part of it is sitting down and looking at like what needs to be done. How do we prioritize it and try not to put a million things on the list? Okay. And realizing like these are like our top five things that we would like to see done by the end of the semester. Yeah, right. Great being, you know, realistic and ambitious. Yeah. We're making sure that you you know, even still, you try to be realistic is still that's life.

18:44  
So, what do you do for fun? Oh, God

18:46  
for fun. I mean, this research is fun. Yeah. But I have gotten back to reading for leisure. Okay, I joined a book club, which is nice, nice, is what people had just different walks of life. It started with a group of moms from my daughter's school, and now we have branched out and they're just different people in our communities. And so every month we pick a book with name, your favorite book, I really liked it and we're reading things I never would have picked up. I'm not a fiction reader. And I usually don't read a lot of memoirs, but we read Trevor Noah was born a crime. I really liked that. We read American marriage, which was great. Yeah, I picked a book I picked a selection of short stories. Just given my lifestyle. I was like, let me have you know, I could get at 10 to 15. And enjoy, but it's been fun. Yeah, I have I've been I've had my eyes open to a bunch of authors. I never would have considered it's nice to you know, read something besides a journal article. Right? Yeah. So that that's been really nice. And I have become a pretty consistent exerciser. So I do a workout a lot. I'm an orange theory. fanatic. Teresa, then leaving are going tomorrow boarding. Right. I think she's been bitten by the bug to do that. A lot and it does. It helps me like being on the treadmill gives me time. It gives me time to organize. It gives me time to plan. And yeah, I feel better. I've started running. I've run a couple of races. And so that's been really fun. So those are the things that I had to make like a concerted effort to do that. Sure. This will swallow you whole if you let it right. Yeah.

20:18  
People don't accidentally take care of themselves. Right. Seems like Yeah,

20:21  
absolutely. Right. Right. Right. Right.

20:23  
Well, toy. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thanks so much for sitting down with us.

20:28  
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

20:31  
Thanks again, for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on Twitter at teach math teach. And we hope that you're able to implement something that you just heard and take an opportunity to interact with other math teacher educators.