Allen Gordon has been teaching math in Oakland, Calif., for seven years. He always tries to apply real-word situations to his lessons – coupons, compound interest on bank accounts, album sales.
“If math and science seem boring and of no use on a primary education level, who would want to pursue it while in college?” he says. “Especially when you don’t see many, if any, black men or women teaching.”
“Math and science are not something that black men and women sit around and pontificate about at home, dinner parties, the sports bar, hair salon, et cetera,” he says. “It doesn’t fit into their social idea of status.
Even some of Gordon’s fellow teachers ask how he can teach math, saying, “Funny, you don’t look like the nerd type.”