The BLACTOID is back!!!

After an extremely long hiatus from the world of the writing I'm diving back in during my favorite month of the year Black History Month. I know it's a little late in the day to start writing blactoids again, but it wouldn't be February without them.

Over the past year and a half of working with the wonderful children and teachers of the Culture and Language Academy of Success I've definitely come to a deeper understanding of the black culture and how it has shaped and continues to shape our people both in the United States and abroad. What I enjoy most is the under pining of the education program which which is teaching to under performing black students in a culturally relevant way.

As a teacher and trainer in Mathematics I've always believed it to be culturally neutral because, while numbers have history they are accessible to anyone from any background at any level. However what I have discovered both in working with the students and teacher training sessions is that when teaching math in a way that makes sense, which is the main focus of the Mathnasium program, it's important to realize that culture plays a very large part. Like any other subject true understanding comes from making a real connection to the subject and being able to place what you've learned in the context of everyday life. For most students in low performing school finding the solution for a system of equations makes absolutely no sense to them however making sure you have enough money after they have taken the sale discount percentage off an item does.

It's been a really great year with CLAS and I look forward to the continued academic progress of all the students. To that end I've decided that Mathematicians should be my blactoid focus.

Blactoid: Their are many great mathematicians of the African Diaspora, not least of all myself who are impacting both the mathematics and science world today. As you know I love focusing on women and one who has done well recent is Katherine Okikiolu, Born to Nigerian and British parents, but educated in the U.S., (was once on Princeton's faculty) received special distinction in 1997 when she was the first Black to win a Sloan Research Fellowship. Later in 1997, she won the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers for "Innovative research in geometric analysis, particularly the determinant of the Laplacian under smooth perturbations, and developing student workshops and mathematics curricula for inner-city children." This particular award is worth $500,000 and is only granted 60 scientists and engineers in the U.S. per year. Okikiolu's work on elliptical differential operators is considered a major contribution, going well beyond what experts had considered feasible, given the current state of knowledge. Her 2001 publication Critical metrics for the determinant of the Laplacian in odd dimensions in the Annals of Mathematics, is receiving high acclaim. She is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at San Diego.


As always have a good day and enjoy.