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Math
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to this Commentary!
Andrina Thomas
College kids all over the country are making plans to head back to school...except
for Youth Radio's Andrina Thomas. She dropped out of San Jose State University
after failing her math requirement. Now she can't go back until she figures
out how to overcome her mental block with math.
Andrina: Math has always been a sticking point for me. High school was the worst
- exponents, logarithmic equations, binomials, trinomials, word problems. I
still got into college, but both semesters of my freshman year, I failed a remedial
math class that I needed to stay in school. My parents were not happy to see
those first report cards, especially my dad.
Andrina's Dad: So my first response was I'm sure with you being in college you
can find time to give your math classes the due time they deserve because I
was hearing a lot about the parties and the college atmosphere.
Andrina: But dad didn't realize I actually was studying. HARD. I hadn't told
my parents how badly I was doing with math. But by the time I had to drop out….I
told my dad. At that point, he was more sympathetic, and realized like him,
I just wasn't good at numbers. Neither of my parents finished college. So for
me, graduating college is really important. And my poor parents have already
spent so much money.
Andrina's Dad: We've invested some fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars in the
start of your college career and now it's over and we really don't have a whole
lot to show for it.
Andrina: It's not over yet. I'm determined to fill my math requirement and RE-enroll.
In the meantime, I'm working at a coffee shop. Talking to people about my situation,
I've realized math has changed the course of a lot of lives.
Beverly: You probably don't know this about me but I didn't go to college because
I felt that I couldn't apply because I didn't pass math.
Andrina: That's someone here at Youth Radio who I really look up to. Beverly
Mire is the deputy director…and she failed math for the first time back
in fifth grade.
Beverly: So the way that translated for me was that instead of planning to go
to college and taking courses that would put me on a college track I took courses
that would put me on a commercial track. Which is what we called it then, which
is where they sent girls who wanted to be secretaries.
Andrina: It only took one conversation between Beverly's mom and her fifth grade
teacher for her to be pulled off the college track.
Beverly: He said to my mother, she'll never be able to do anything but count
change. And my mother accepted that because that's the way it was.
Andrina: Like me, anything beyond simple addition and subtraction makes Beverly
nervous. But there's no escape from math: going to the grocery store, or the
mall, or the bank. I have to do it all the time.
Grocery Store Sound
Andrina: Okay, so these Pepperidge farm Milano cookies are two for a five dollars
so if I bought one it would cost me $2.50
Andrina: So that I can handle, but get me in the classroom and I lose it. Turns
out there have been studies about this. Shelly Goldman - associate professor
of education at Stanford University, says there may be a psychological barrier.
Shelly Goldman: And usually people are very good at doing things in their everyday
lives mathematically but yet when asked to answer a test question or a school
like question they cannot perform as well. There's some people who have theory
about how everyday knowledge and the type of knowledge, that you have school
knowledge are not related and that they really are different in some kind of
way and that the two don't mix.
Andrina: I've been doing some of my own research on this issue. My friend Jamila
Furtch and I have exactly the same educational background. We took the same
classes and both got stuck on the same math concepts. But she's now going into
her third year at Clark Atlanta university…and doing well in her math classes.
Jamila thinks it's all about the environment.
Jamila: At your school, you had so much pressure, You had to pass this class,
pass this class or I can't come back. At Clark, the classes are smaller, the
teachers are more involved. You're not pressured into "If I don't pass
this class, I can't come back." It's more like, "If I don't pass this
class, dang I have to take it again."
Andrina: Jamila thinks basic math should just be a graduation requirement, not
something that you have to pass before sophomore year. I say get rid of the
math requirement all together. Or at least, let students give it a try, and
if it's not right for them and they don't need it for their major, let them
move on, not drop out.
In Berkeley, I'm Andrina Thomas for Marketplace.
Host Back Announce: Andrina Thomas comes to us from Youth Radio in Berkeley,
California.
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