The Dream

I have a dear friend who is an illustrator. Every day she sits down to write her book, and every day she hears the voices of her professors ringing in her ear, “You aren’t good enough to make it as an illustrator. You should study sculpture instead.”

One of my brother’s best friends was discouraged (by a teacher!) from becoming a professional musician. Told she should stick to it as a hobby.

My daughter’s kindergarten teacher said to her, when she was in kindergarten herself, “Girls can’t do math.”

This isn’t about my friend’s artistic talent. (Which, just look!) It isn’t about whether or not my brother’s friend can make it as a flautist. (Ahem.) It isn’t about whether my daughter’s K teacher is a better math teacher than her sexist teacher (um, obviously).

This is about how to talk to someone who is learning.

With HONESTY, AFFIRMATION, and ENCOURAGEMENT. It is so important for teachers to believe in our students, to see the best in them. Identity is everything. When parents and teachers can envision a child’s success, we help her imagine it all the clearer. This helps all students, but it becomes a weightier part of the equation where demographics are “nontraditional.” Because I specialize in teaching girls math, I consider it extra important to act as a mirror, reflecting back whatever confidence and competent identity my students bring to the math desk.

Consider a student: First generation American. Moderate intersecting learning disabilities. Math is a significant academic challenge for her. She needs extra time and repetition on each new topic in order to lock it in. This student is very familiar with scores in the 60s.

There are plenty of people in this world who would look at this girl and say, “You’ve either got it or you haven’t in math, and this girl hasn’t got it.”

They’d be dead wrong.

This student has a fabulous work ethic. She cares deeply about her own understanding. She completes test corrections, whether or not she gets extra credit for doing so (intrinsic motivation). She consistently asks her questions in class (basic self-advocacy) and seeks extra help after school (advanced self-advocacy).

At the tender age of 14, this girl has every single thing she needs to thrive in math. She has grit. She has courage. She has curiosity. Above all, she has PURPOSE.

This girl wants to be an engineer when she grows up.

Here is what I say to her:

You want to be an engineer? Then you will be an engineer! I know that you will, because I’m an engineer , too, and I can absolutely imagine working on a team with you!

It is true that this is hard. Good thing you are especially adept at doing hard things. Where other students break give up, you come for help and work harder. It took me a long time to learn persistence like yours.

So your grades aren’t always where you want them on the first try. You always try again. This is what matters.

I can see you learning. Every week, I see this getting easier for you. I see more skills fixed and fluent. I am so proud of you for learning.

To be a great engineer, you will need calculus, for sure. You do not have to be the first or the fastest to learn your calculus. You have to learn the math relevant to your specialization and apply it fluently, over, and over again. Different types of engineering use specific types of math, and I think you’ll get a thrill out of becoming a specialist in math.

On school tests, time is limited. In life, time is expansive. We generally get all the time we need to solve our real-life problems.

You will be a great engineer, and the world will be lucky to have you solving our problems.

I can’t promise that I said the “right” things to my student. But I can promise that I absolutely believe she will be an engineer, and that I show her that belief in her every chance I get.

I want to close out with this great tweet, which recirculated at the launch of our latest Mars rover: