Maya Gwynn
With KVCR Public Media. I'm Maya Gwynn with Black Perspectives IE, a show where we learn about the amazing things members of the Black community are doing in the Inland Empire. My guest today is Dr Joi Spencer, Dean and Professor at the School of Education at the University of California Riverside. Thank you so much for being here today, Dr Joi.
Dr. Joi Spencer
Thank you for having me. Good to be here.
Maya Gwynn
Of course. What was the pivotal moment in your life that shifted how you thought about education? When did you start to see it as a tool of liberation or empowerment?
Dr. Joi Spencer
You know, when I was a kid, we were bussed to school, and really, it was very clear when I was bussed, even as a little kid, that it was very different. The people on the bus were very different than the school community. When we got there as young black kids. And so there were these instances in class, a lot of times when I felt like the teacher was devaluing me just a little bit, and I kind of would second guess myself like second, third grade. But then I realized I'm not being allowed to shine above any of the children, that this is their home school, their home community. And when that clicked for me, it gave me freedom, because it helped me think about it's not me. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was like, You know what? You gotta just be free. You are an intelligent woman. My parents were pumping that into me, and I had to just own it and sort of not hide my light. So I realized then it's like, how you perform here matters how people see you. Matters how you show up. Educationally, academically matters, and it's because I had to kind of learn through the hard way. There was a lot of racism that we had to experience.
Maya Gwynn
As a dean and a professor at the UCR School of Education, how are you reimagining teacher preparation for today's realities that we're facing, and what has surprised you most about stepping into this leadership role?
Dr. Joi Spencer
So in addition to our work with teacher education, we also get to work with undergraduates dish on that a little bit later, as far as my teacher education program, what I have realized is that we have so many young people who want to go into teaching, which is wonderful because there was a time when students were just so discouraged from going into the field of teaching, and the fact that they realize how much teaching sort of changes the game in our democratic society, our hope for democratic society. So there's some conversations I don't have to have with young people that I'm really excited about. They come ready. They come understanding a bit about racism. They come understanding CRT, they come understanding sort of the social construction of opportunity. We have specializations in ethnic studies now that ethnic studies is a high school graduation requirement in the state of California, which is amazing. It's fantastic. The question, though, is now, how do we prepare teachers to fulfill that requirement? So I'm on the end of that, I sit down and talk with my colleagues, talk with my director. How do we do the work of making sure we're preparing high quality ethnic studies teachers? Right now, we're actually providing ethnic studies course for anyone in our teacher education program, whether you're going to teach ethnic studies or not. We feel like you need to know the curriculum. Some of the challenges, obviously, is funding. We run the risk of losing real grants that we actually use to help offset the cost of getting a teaching credential. And that's crazy. It is. The need for intelligent, highly qualified, like ready teachers is so great.
Maya Gwynn
And you mentioned the undergrads. What's something that you're really inspired by the undergrads that you've been interacting with?
Dr. Joi Spencer
In the state of California, there are not normally undergraduate degrees in education, and it's mainly because in California, they want people to have a degree in a field, have a major, and then use a post baccalaureate year to then study pedagogy and classroom practice, but we have a degree in education, society and human development, and it's not a pre teaching degree. It's really a degree to introduce students to, like, what is the role of education in a democratic society? Yeah, not just K-12, but higher education, and just the way that education works. Because education operates different in different societies. You go to different countries, their education system flows very differently. So being able to work with 17 and 18 year olds who kind of are enthusiastic about my field is so inspiring that they get introduced to this early. Our students all have to do a 40 hour community engaged learning requirement in order to get their degree, and so that means they're deployed all throughout the community learning about education. Some are placed in a fifth grade classroom. Others might be placed in a Boys and Girls Club. Others might be placed in a museum. They're putting their ideas into practice and having to think not just hypothetically and theoretically, but on the practical level, and so it's just been exciting to see us and to see the fact that we're drawing new people into our major. We are the newest major on the block, and you know, we have over 600 students in our major. Went from 0 to 600 in the course of just a few years.
Maya Gwynn
I think that's speaking to what you guys are doing. Much of your research focuses on equity in math education for marginalized youth. How have you seen gender stereotypes, especially around young girls, and what can educators do to disrupt those narratives in real time?
Dr. Joi Spencer
Yeah, absolutely, that was a perfect answer. We're gonna move to our rapid fire portion. So just the first thing that pops in your head. If your work had a theme song, what would it be?
Dr. Joi Spencer
Great, yes, mathematics is this field that we use the term gatekeeper. It keeps society organized in particular ways. And these things are intentional. They're embedded. When I was in high school, I'm so fortunate. I had a math teacher who had a degree in public policy, so I got a chance to learn mathematics from a social scientist, which is rare. Most times we're learning mathematics from folks who have never thought about or had to think deeply about how math applies to society, like the complexities of our of our community. That inspired me more than and no offense to the folks who study the natural sciences or physics or things of that nature. Rocketry is great. It just wasn't my thing. I wanted to think about, how do I understand populations, and how do I think about the flow of communities and change around culture and race and society. And so for me to learn from a woman who was thinking about those things and using mathematics, it changed the game. And so part of what's happening in schools is that we are not exposing girls to the things that inspire them. Girls need an opportunity, just like boys, to be able to think about things through a lens that connects with them and there's too much of that, and that's why I really work so hard to try to bring women, young girls, into this field. Like when I teach my mathematics education class and we have middle schoolers that come and join us on campus every summer. We play a game called Equity Monopoly. And it's this wonderful game. It's Monopoly, but all the rules are adjusted for you to think deeply about distributions of wealth, to think about the way that society has been organized. And the students come away - it's almost like you just taught this micro, macro economics course in the hours time, and at the end of it, the kids are talking about right distributions of wealth. So yes, I really am concerned about the lack of gender representation, and moreover, I want people to be able to do math and use it as a tool to address our society's most pressing issues.
Dr. Joi Spencer
Young, Gifted, and Black.
Maya Gwynn
Oh, if you had to teach a master class or give a TED Talk and a random skill you have besides math, what would it be?
Dr. Joi Spencer
I have a nice tennis serve. I can't play, but I can serve.
Maya Gwynn
Okay, what's your favorite IE restaurant or landmark that reminds you of the Inland Empire?
Dr. Joi Spencer
Messi Soul. Too many people don't know about it. Yeah, their food is amazing.
Maya Gwynn
It's amazing. Yeah, good one. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Joi, it's a great conversation.
Dr. Joi Spencer
Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure.
Maya Gwynn
Dr. Joi Spencer is Dean and professor at the School of Education at the University of California Riverside. Find this segment and others at kvcrnews.org/bpie. Support for this segment comes from the Black Equity Fund at IECF, advancing racial equity and supporting long term investments in black led organizations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Join us again next week for Black Perspectives IE. For KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn. Thank you.
