A problem and an opportunity

I became an economist because I wanted to understand the causes of poverty and to help figure out what we could do about it. Growing up in Jamaica, I saw people who worked hard continue to live in extreme poverty. How is this possible?

As an economist, I learned about something called the marginal product. For workers, this is basically asking how much extra stuff they can make by working another hour, for example. What an employer is willing to pay their worker is NOT solely based on the marginal product or how hard you work. It is also based on the value of the thing the worker is producing. By value, I mean what what people pay for the product. An artist can paint many pictures and not make a lot of money, whereas a different artist can paint one picture and sell it for a far greater sum. To escape poverty, people need to work hard at doing something valuable.

The value of a product or service in a market economy is based on what economists call Supply and Demand. When the amount people want to buy is more than the amount people want to sell, the value of the product or service increases. In the Americas, the demand for people with math-based skills exceeds the supply of such people. In particular, a shortage of fully-qualified math teachers in the United States has led to significant recruitment from Jamaica's education system. With the declining trend in teaching majors in the US, Jamaica can expect the attrition of its own math teachers to worsen in the coming years.

This problem presents people who are living in poverty with a tremendous opportunity. With expected Demand exceeding expected Supply, wages of math teachers (and other math-based professions) should increase in the US. The Reggae Math Foundation team believes that many Jamaican children who are not learning math now are VERY capable of learning if given the correct support. Even better, learning math will give these students a chance to pursue careers highly valued by society values, fueling opportunity to move out of extreme poverty.

There is a second opportunity here. It is for people, who want to help address issues such as poverty, crime, to support education. By supporting education, we create more people who can help solve the world's problems, and therefore ultimately, we help ourselves.

Dr. Linda Bailey-McWeeney is the Executive Director of Reggae Math Foundation, an economist, and an educator. She has been an Assistant Professor at Baruch College, City University of New York and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Economics at College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and Wagner College. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University.

Every Society Needs Math Education

Mr. Kippy Chin teaching math

I have met many people who have succeeded in life without learning higher level math. While it is true that many people with other talents and skills can do well in life without math, a society cannot reach high levels of economic prosperity without people who understand math.

Any country that does not invest in math education of its own citizens today, will eventually be paying the citizens of other countries to do the work that math requires.

Dr. Linda Bailey-McWeeney is the Executive Director of Reggae Math Foundation, an economist, and an educator. She has been an Assistant Professor at Baruch College, City University of New York and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Economics at College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and Wagner College. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University.

Every Child Can Learn . . . Every Child Must Learn . . . Mathematics!

Mathematics is both the study of patterns and relationships that exist in the world around us, and the language used to describe those patterns.  It is important that we speak it with some fluency.  Yet, the average Jamaican holds the firm belief that Mathematics is only for “bright” people.  Many a parent has comforted an underperforming child with the phrase “Neva mine. . . mi did fail maths to”.  

It is time to break the cycle!  It is time to remove the negative stigma unfairly attached to mathematics, instilling fear in the hearts of Jamaican children from Negril to Morant Point. “But how exactly do we do that?”, you may well ask.  There is no easy answer to that question, no magic bullet.  Educators wrestle with it in classrooms across the world.  One thing is clear. It will take hard work and radical change to the way mathematics is taught and learned.  

I have identified three key challenges related to the teaching and learning of mathematics in Jamaican classrooms.  The first of these was mentioned in my introduction:

1. Children are indoctrinated with a mindset of “I can’t do Math”.
2. Children’s experience of mathematics is far removed from the pattern-based meaning-making that ought to characterize the subject.  Rather, tasks are routinized into meaningless algorithms which children are expected to memorize and apply without knowing why.  
3. Many primary and high school mathematics teachers struggle with the subject themselves. 

In response to these challenges I recommend 4 initial strategies:

1. Re-vamp the way mathematics education is attended to in teacher preparation programs for educators from pre-kindergarten to grade 6.
2. Design and implement effective professional development programmes for novice and veteran mathematics teachers. (Hint: this does not involve one-day workshops once per year, but is instead sustained, coherent and content focused, and features active, collaborative learning.
3. Implement instructional coaching by competent peers. 
4. Make meaningful mathematics accessible to children through video and other platforms.

More on these strategies in future postings.

In the meantime what can you do?  Intentionally reframe your narrative about mathematics.  Hold back from denigrating the subject.  Instead, in the interest of promoting mathematics success for the island’s children, smash math myths that deny access to any child because (as I said when I started), every child can learn mathematics and every child must!

Margaret Campbell is an Advisory Board member of Reggae Math Foundation, the Principal of St. George's College, an all-boys' high school in Jamaica, Hubert Humphrey Fellow (Fulbright Fellowship), and a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Committee, Jamaica.

Reggae Math Foundation begins filming!

Kippy Chin teaching partial fractions at Campion.

Kippy Chin is a legendary math teacher, who taught at Campion College, one of the top high schools in Jamaica for several decades along with his wife Jean Chin. Mr Chin came out of retirement to continue his service as an educator. We thank Mr. Chin for his years of service and his willingness to share his joy of math with the world.