Katrina’s Story as lived daily by Katrina being uniquely Katrina!
I am a mathematics educator-first generation might I add-residing in Iowa serving in the educational trenches.
My immediate & extended family members and my civic community advocacy thought partners, and of course, my students are kind of important to me! So I keep learning and sharing details as I learn them with them…while having my own mind blown! I am from Sweet Home, Arkansas…not from wealth at all. I am a first generation college student who earned 2 degrees in mathematics without a disability diagnosis. I received my disability diagnosis while attempting to earn a joint PhD in Statistics and Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. While on that life’s journey, I got asked “What is your disability?” while attempting to get appropriate accommodations from a statistics professor. I was even assured that I “would never earn a PhD in Statistics from…with a disability.” Before you seek to scream at the university system or the multiple persons who said inappropriate, unethical and perhaps illegal as well. Please know that institutions of learning (particularly in higher education) have moments like this on several occasions for me on my mathematical journey.
“Everyone knows Blacks can’t do mathematics!” spoken to me in 1995 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.”
“You will never earn a PhD in Statistics from Iowa State University with a disability like that honey!” spoken to me in 2012 (or was it 2013?). Impactful words spoken to me at two separate, public predominantly white universities almost 25 years apart. Imagine if a student like me hears the words that YOU CAN become a mathematician despite having a disability. Afterall, the research of gifted scholars Dr. Shawn A. Robinson and Dr. Joy Lawson Davis has assured me that I am 3e: Gifted, Black with a Disability! According to the book chapter Being 3e New Look at Culturally Diverse Gifted Learners with Exceptional Conditions, “The 3e label signifies three exceptional conditions: being culturally diverse (members of a socially oppressed group); being gifted or having high potential, and simultaneously being LD (learning disabled) or having another disabling condition (such as dyslexia).”
So if in fact “e” in mathematics stands for exponential functions. So allow me to share how I have pledged my lifetime to expand my disability. I currently serve middle school students in a midwestern city who may or may not have a disability. However, my intentionality is to expose every learner to the infinite possibilities of what he or she can become. I am currently connecting a student learner of Colour to a potential career as an FBI agent. Imagine the wealth of wisdom this learner can glean from a bilingual law enforcement officer just as himself. Don’t worry. I have assured the student learner of Colour that he needs mathematics. I never stray from that truth when I teach mathematics. Mathematics is EVERYWHERE. Those of us with disabilities see it readily and make connections and rely heavily on others to make the connection for ourselves. In my case it will be color coded notes AND plenty of time to synthesize the information. I do so in a calm manner. It has been 5 consecutive years since I was in a registered statistics course. To ensure myself that I was not “crazy” or “DUMB”, I started taking courses over the past 3 years in education, Special Education-specifically behavior courses, gifted education and driver’s education. Remember MATHEMATICS IS EVERYWHERE! I would report on the statistics in every single aforementioned discipline. I kept being myself. In my journey for my Iowa secondary mathematics certification, I was asked what do you plan to do with ALL this. I can finally answer the question. THIS gifted mathematician who happens to be African American with a disability who just accepted that there is a special name for me…I AM 3e! Hopes to empower young people in the mathematical sciences by exposing them to the infinite possibilities that they can do with mathematics. Broad careers in business, industry, government, and teaching await their arrival.
Actuary∞Animator∞Benefits Administrator∞Appraiser∞Cryptanalyst∞Climate Analyst∞College Professor∞Commodities Trader∞Epidemiologist∞Public Utilities Analyst∞Quantitative Analyst∞Pollster∞Forensic Analyst∞Population Ecologist∞Teacher∞Market Research Analyst∞Foreign Exchange Trader∞Research Scientist∞Technical Writer∞Urban Designer∞Statistician.
Each of the aforementioned are bound by ∞ (infinity in my eyes), I know I know, you cannot include infinity in a set mathematically speaking but the breadth and width of our opportunities are not finite. WE have infinite possibilities. Listen, I recently read that an 89 year old earned a PhD in Physics. That gives me hope as a 48 year old, 3e woman! I believe that my disability will create a unique opportunity someday soon for my headline to read that THIS 3e woman has earned a PhD! My heartfelt sentiments that it will be in the mathematical sciences. What I need more than anything at this point is exposure to programs that support beyond words (funding, sense of belonging, resources and more) to assist me on this journey.