Calculating inequalities at math camp

February 17, 2017 1:23 PM

Equations and Inequalities: Math, Race and Fellowship looks inside a math summer camp aimed at low income non-white and non-asian kids in New York. This program aims to scoop up kids who have a natural aptitude for math, but don't have a privileged family background. Fighting against systemic inequalities like family income, race, parental education, and media portrayals of who is a mathematician. Francis Su, the outgoing President of the Mathematical Association of America (and the first non-white holder of that title) addresses similar issues in his beautiful outgoing speech.

Are you ready for math camp? This 5 question math quiz is given to incoming math campers in the BEAM program in New York. You don't need any math skills beyond addition and multiplication to solve them.

posted by Joh (10 comments total)

Thanks for posting this. I was planning on it tonight. I went to a couple of the middle class versions of this as a high schooler. The only one I remember having anyone who wasn't white or Asian American was my junior year, which had a single African American student from Bronx Science. Going to these programs is definitely what got me started in math in college. I would have been very lost without them, especially the grounding in how to write a proof. In my math classes in college, the classes were majority male and almost entirely white. While it's true that my college sucked at diversity to begin with, math was one of the worst offenders. Anything that gets more talented math students from traditionally discriminated groups is a good thing in my book. I really hope that they do run some kind of longitudinal study to see how effective this program is and look at how to make it even more effective. Helping with scholarships to college along with appropriate support would also be good, but that's me fantasizing.

This is a really good thing and these need to be all over the country. It's a great bright point to look at today.
posted by Hactar at 1:43 PM on February 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

I have lots of Thoughts and Feels, but for the moment I just want to say thank you for posting this.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:59 PM on February 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow, those were both just amazing reads.

That speech is so beautiful, so filled with the unexpected and therefore delightful.

I will be going back and re-reading both, especially the speech.

Thank you so much for posting these!
posted by kristi at 2:14 PM on February 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

An pick-up for the day! Yes, we need a bit of good news today.

We need to take care of our kids.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:25 PM on February 17, 2017

You don't need any math skills beyond addition and multiplication to solve them.

This is not strictly true. Knowing how to compare series is a skill, or at least it's a trick that's a lot easier to use once you've seen someone do it once.
posted by GuyZero at 2:40 PM on February 17, 2017

I taught in this program. The kids that attend it are the kind of kids that figure out the trick.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:05 PM on February 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

Great article, great speech. Thank you for posting.
posted by Errant at 3:08 PM on February 17, 2017

My friend runs this program! If you want to learn more, the BEAM facebook feed has lots of good stuff in it.

In addition to the 6th grade program and summer camp, they invest a ton in supporting the kids throughout the year. They do intensive prep for NY high school applications, other math summer programs, and college applications - their first class just went off to college this year, I think.
posted by lorimt at 10:11 PM on February 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Great post, great speech. Also, there is a Previously! "The Lesson of Grace In Teaching," linked to in that previous post, is also well worth a read if you haven't seen it yet.
posted by valrus at 8:53 AM on February 18, 2017

Thank you for posting; excellent article and many things to take away for doing outreach in a lot of STEM subjects. Personally, I'm a failed physicist (/maths) but it's so important to see that that spark can be there and then encouraged. I wish everyone involved the best and if other specific ways to support (i.e. I'm donating now, but if anything I can do as a successful woman geo scientist) please let me know
posted by sedimentary_deer at 10:01 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]