Brittany Rhodes  0:01  (intro quote)
You know, when I first dreamed up this thing, for me it was an inclusion thing. I was like, I just want girls, and especially black girls, to know that they can do math, too. But it has morphed into so much more than that, and I'm so grateful.

Brittany Rhodes  0:14  (intro quote)
I love books. I love to read and I love mathematics. And guess what? They can all coexist. They're not mutually exclusive.

Brittany Rhodes  0:22  (intro quote)
I asked my students, I'll be like, what's two plus one? Three? Okay, you're a math person goodnight! (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  0:30  (show intro)
Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka, The Math Guru. And you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas one problem at a time. Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist. But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia  0:55  (episode intro)
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the podcast. I am so excited for today's guest, because legit even Beyonce has vouched for how cool she is. Today I'm talking to Brittany Rhodes, aka founder of Black Girl MATHgic, a math subscription box for black girls. This conversation got me so pumped up because, as you're about to see, Brittany just gets it - you can't be what you can't see. And Britt is here to show black girls that heck yeah, they were born to be mathematicians. Let's do it.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:24  
Brittany, welcome to the podcast!

Brittany Rhodes  1:27  
Thank you so much for having me, Vanessa, I'm excited to be here!

Vanessa Vakharia  1:31  
I am so excited! So we actually connected probably back in the summer, because I found out about your amazing company and subscription box - can you just start by telling our listeners what you're all about and what the box is all about?

Brittany Rhodes  1:46  
So I'm all about increasing math confidence and decreasing math anxiety in children. I mean, that is really the large and small of it. And one of the ways that I do that is through my company, Black Girl MATHgic, which is the first and only monthly subscription box dedicated to increasing math confidence, and decreasing math anxiety in girls on a third to eighth grade math level. And I want to also add a little footnote to that, because oftentimes people ask us about the boys as well. So the girls, and we'll get into this I'm sure Vanessa, girls consistently lag behind in terms of their confidence in their math ability, when you look at it in a general sense between a boy and a girl. So we knew we had to solve for them first. But boys get the boxes, boys enjoy the boxes well, and we also are working on a boy box hoping to launch next year. 

Vanessa Vakharia  2:47  
So what's in the box? Like, give us some examples.

Brittany Rhodes  2:50  
So every box is based on a real world theme. Because a lot of times kids are not connected with math because they feel that it is not rooted in reality, which couldn't be further from the truth. So we make sure we show them that every single month with a real world theme. And the theme is based on the woman mathematician that we feature in each box, so each box comes with a profile of a woman mathematician. And these are living, breathing, dynamic women who are doing amazing things, and they all have at least one advanced degree in mathematics. And we take whatever they do with their lives and their careers, and we turn that into a theme!

Brittany Rhodes  3:28  
So for example, last month, we featured a woman Dr. Talia Mayo, who is a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. And her specialization is hurricane storm surge modeling, so she uses math to study the behavior of hurricanes. So with that knowledge, our theme that month was "weather the storm". So we were doing weather math - we were doing Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions and vice versa. And in addition to that, we also include three to five items to bring the thing to life and to make the lesson more tangible. So in that box for example, we included this really cool card game called the Fahrenheit card game, and it teaches kids about how negative numbers exist in the real world.

Vanessa Vakharia  4:20  
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, I love this so much. Okay, and can I just low-key say, one of the things I love the most is as a Canadian I feel SO included by this Fahrenheit to Celsuis conversion. That's amazing! And I actually noticed that one of our guests from season two, Michole Washington, was featured in one of your boxes which is how I found out about you!

Brittany Rhodes  4:42  
Yes, we feature Michole in our March 2020 game night / "March Mathness" box. So we were doing "game" math, because to me - I mean, I think you'll probably agree with this - math is the language of games and sports.

Vanessa Vakharia  5:01  
Absolutely. Oh my god, I love it so much. And I'm really living for all these math puns, like they seem to be ... infinite. (laughing)

Brittany Rhodes  5:11  
You're exponentially funny, Vanessa!

Vanessa Vakharia  5:13  
(laughing) This could be our whole interview. Okay, I want to know how and why you even got started in this whole thing - what motivated you to start Black Girl MATHgic?

Brittany Rhodes  5:24  
So I've loved math my entire life, I don't have any recollection of being a child and not enjoying math. And I say that also adding that I did not always do well in math. So just because I enjoyed it doesn't mean that it was always something that came, quote unquote, naturally or easily to me. So I've got to add that my mom's a retired principal, she was a teacher for many, many years - I didn't really want to go into the classroom, but I knew I wanted to educate kids in some kind of way. And I found that when I started tutoring, and it was about four years ago, when I started tutoring at a local nonprofit here in Detroit, where I was working with multiple kids from multiple schools, multiple grades at any given time, I noticed very quickly this very sad pattern. And that was when the children - many of them, too many of them - were coming to me asking me for help with like the algebra or the geometry or the trig. And we started doing it actually wasn't those concepts that they were struggling with the most - it was basic mathematics, it was your fractions and your decimals and your negative numbers and your percentages. And so all of those things that if you haven't mastered yet, you know, it makes algebra feel very hard and makes geometry feel unreasonable and makes trig feel impossible.

Brittany Rhodes  6:44  
And so I was trying to figure out what else I could do about that. I'm like, Okay, I'm one person, I'm here with my students - how else can I affect change? How can I make a bigger impact? And this subscription box model was something that my, he's now my husband, introduced me to about six years ago. And he didn't know this, but he actually planted a seed. I was just fascinated with this model of something just showing up to your doorstep, having whatever you want - he was getting the food boxes at the time, and I'm like, "so they send you all the food, the recipe, and all you have to do is make it?!" and I was just like, this is the coolest thing ever. And so my background, my love for math, and then my fascination with this model all converged together in 2018, when I decided that I was going to create Black Girl MATHgic, and I was looking at the STEM subscription box landscape and I said, "gee, there are a ton of STEM boxes, this is great." But as I was digging through them, I'm like, okay, we have our science boxes, and we have our coding boxes, and we have our engineering boxes - we don't really have any math boxes. This is a problem. Not just because I love math, but because math is the foundation of STEM. So if the goal is for our kids to be so excited about STEM as little kids, that they then transition into STEM majors or interested in careers, guess what they're going to have to know really well: basic mathematics. And if they don't know that, we're going to lose them.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:13  
Oh my god, so I have so many things to say, because that's such an amazing story. And it really - like that's so how I got started to like, I never wanted to be a classroom teacher. But I started tutoring just to like, make cash because I liked math and was like, oh my god, we have a really huge opportunity when you're one on one with a student to start seeing what the problem is, right? It's like a micro level, you start noticing a pattern, like you said, I was like, wow, all of these students are coming to me for grade 10 math help - but their issue is that they have no confidence in the basics, and they can't even get to like a quadratic. So that's the first obstacle the little kids are encountering in the STEM world, you've got to become friends with math first so you can get to all that higher level fun stuff. So I think that's really cool that you're like, "I'm gonna fill this gap". So I guess that's the next question I have is, you know, using themes of social media and consumables, how do you think that kind of changes the game for a lot of kids who feel like in the classroom they don't belong?

Brittany Rhodes  9:14  
Yes. Oh, that's a great question. And I'll say this - not all of my subscribers identify as black, so a lot of times, especially when I first started, people will reach out to me and be like, "is this only for black girls?" And of course I will answer professionally but in the back of my head, I'm like, "if you try to buy it with your credit card, it's not going to give you a message that says if you're not black you can't buy this." (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  9:41  
Oh my god! (laughing)

Brittany Rhodes  9:41  
That's not gonna happen! (laughing) But anyway, so one of the reason why I say that, is because some of my subscribers who are black, many of them are like the only black girl or black person in their class, or they go to school in a predominantly white district, and so they're not often seeing themselves, they don't have a lot of black teachers, if any. And so they're not seeing themselves, really in education in general, but especially not in the math classroom. So there's already this sense of belonging that they get as soon as they get the box before they even open it because our character girl who you can see right now behind me - a lot of my parents and subscribers have messaged me and said, "my daughter loves this box, she looked at it and said, 'this looks like me!'". So before the've even opened it, there's already this connection because our character girl who -

Vanessa Vakharia  10:37  
And if you guys don't - because you guys can't see it, you're listening to the podcast, I will give you Brittany's socials after - her character girl is so cute, the whole logo and branding actually is so cute, so amazing, she's modeling her right now, but none of you guys can see because this is a podcast. (laughing) Check out her branding, because I think that's one of the things that really makes her stand out. And that's why I'm like, wow, tapping into consumer culture, which is what I'm all about with math - you're really doing it!

Brittany Rhodes  11:05  
Yeah! So there's already this connection, because she looks like them. And she's holding up a sign that says "math" on it, it has math symbols on it. And it's like, "Okay, hold on what's going on here?" And then when she opens up the box, and she sees this interview with this woman mathematician who looks like her, who is doing amazing things with math, it's even further deepening that connection. Sometimes I include books in the box. Yes. Actual chapter books, reading books. Why do I do that? Because I need kids to understand that math and reading are not separate. You don't have to choose. You know, a lot of times you hear adults who - not any bad thing on them, it's just the way society has conditioned us, "Oh, you know, I was more into the humanities....."

Vanessa Vakharia  11:48  
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Brittany Rhodes  11:51  
Like I love to read, I love books. I love to read and I love mathematics, and sometimes I even consider myself somewhat of an artist. And guess what? They can all coexist! They're not mutually exclusive.

Vanessa Vakharia  12:05  
Oh my god, this is literally what I say! These are my words, I'm always like, "it's not mutually exclusive, when you think of a Venn diagram, they don't have to be in separate circles." Oh, my God, we are twins right now!

Brittany Rhodes  12:15  
We are!

Vanessa Vakharia  12:15  
Yes, yes, yes, preach.

Brittany Rhodes  12:16  
So, that's just part of it. Another piece of it that I didn't actually think about when I was putting this together - well, I did think about it, but I didn't think I would be able to address it with this product - and that is the special needs population. I got an email from a customer, actually a white customer whose daughter has a traumatic brain injury, I think, I don't know if I'm saying this correctly - a chiari malformation, which is some type of brain issue. And she's autistic and she has a number of processing disorder, so where she's, I believe, in the second or third grade, she reads on an 11th to 12th grade level, but math is on a much lower level than where she is. And her mother emailed me and she said, "You have my number fearing daughter sitting with me doing math for 40 minutes."

Vanessa Vakharia  12:16  
Oh my god! You must, that's just so amazing.

Brittany Rhodes  12:20  
It literally made me teary eyed because it was just like, I knew that my mother, in addition to being a retired principal, also her first love is special ed, her bachelor's degree is in special ed. And she spent many years working with the special needs population, in fact, worked at a school here in Detroit that was specifically for the special needs population. So I'm very sensitive to that population, and I didn't want to create something where I'm saying it serves them and then it turns out that it doesn't.

Vanessa Vakharia  13:45  
Right.

Brittany Rhodes  13:46  
So, I didn't even try to go down that road. So to get an email, you know, from a parent, and their daughter is a part of that population, and she found so much value in the box to the point that she was sitting with her for 40 minutes, which is a very long time if you know anything about the needs of special needs children - I was just floored, I was just like, wow. So it's providing representation in a lot of ways and in some ways more than I could have ever imagined. You know, when I first dreamed up this thing, for me, it was an inclusion thing. I was like, I just want girls and especially black girls to know that they can do math, too. But it has morphed into so much more than that, and I'm so grateful.

Vanessa Vakharia  14:30  
I really want people to realize that this is a huge, huge, huge deal, that this is a gap that we cannot even, you can't even imagine what a gap it really is that you are filling, like this is a HUGE deal. The fact that you're getting these testimonials and people being like, "Oh my god, I never actually saw myself represented in the math world before." Let's just pause on how fucking crazy that is! Okay, like that's insane, to think that that is the thing that's happening in 2020. So Kudos to you.

Vanessa Vakharia  15:01  
And I actually wanted to talk about kind of a huge deal - it's not just us that think this is important, clearly Beyonce thought it was super important! Beyonce actually talked about it and featured it on her website - how did that even happen?!

Brittany Rhodes  15:14  
So her stylist, her stylist's name is Zerina, she curates this, I don't even know what to call it, this "collective" I guess.  She has an Instagram page for this called "Black Owned Everything". And then in conjunction with the Beyonce album "Black Parade" that came out on Juneteenth of this year, she also curated a "Black Owned Everything" list, housed on Beyonce's website, celebrating black owned businesses. And we started to follow each other on Instagram, well I followed her first (laughing) and messaged her back - the stylist that is, not Beyonce. Beyonce follows nobody on Instagram (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  15:16  
Yet, yet!

Brittany Rhodes  15:16  
So yeah, we just had a dialogue, and I was like, I would love to send you some products or to whoever, I think I said, I don't know who I sent it to actually, because we personalize the boxes and I asked for a name to put on the boxes, and she said no names needed. And I was like maybe Blue is gonna get one, I don't know!  Wishful thinking, I don't know. But yeah, we sent a couple boxes, and they loved it. And I said great, well, we would love to be featured on the website if this is something that resonates, and that fits with what you're looking for. And I actually forgot about it because she didn't respond, and I was like, oh, shoot, maybe they hated it, so I forgot about it. And then one day, my mom was like, "Well, did you ever hear anything back? Did you ever get on the website?" And I said, first I said "no". And then I said, "Well, let me go look, I don't know".

Vanessa Vakharia  16:53  
(gasping) Oh, my God!

Brittany Rhodes  16:54  
And then I went to look and there we were! So yeah, and I like sharing this story, because I think it speaks to the power of just reaching out to people - you never know.

Vanessa Vakharia  17:04  
Well, I really, really love that because you're completely right. And actually this kind of ties in because so much of "shooting your shot" and of just taking those risks is about confidence. And it is about not being scared to fail. And I think it's so cool that your story is like "yeah, I liked math, even when I was making mistakes". And such a big part of your product is inspiring confidence through math. So I want to ask, how do you do that? Like how do we help kids build confidence around math?

Brittany Rhodes  17:31  
So one of the one of the analogies that I like to make is that you can't eat one piece of broccoli and now all of a sudden you eat healthy, you can't do one sit-up and have a six pack, you know ...

Vanessa Vakharia  17:44  
Uh oh, disappointing for everyone here!

Brittany Rhodes  17:45  
I know - spoiler! (laughing) Sorry to be the Debbie Downer here. But the point I'm making is that the magic, so the things that we value in life, the things that we really want or the things that are aspirational, they require consistent routine work and exposure. So we can't just have our kids have one math experience that feels good to them and then be like, okay, you're good, all right, you're done. So that's what the box aims to do, it aims to provide a fun, regular, frequent and consistent math experience that kind of shatters that math anxiety and you know, in some cases trauma to be quite honest math trauma, and replaces it with confidence. But it's kind of like chipping at a big blob of ice, right? It's not gonna be done overnight. You may not feel like while you're in the trenches of chipping on that ice that anything is happening, but then you look, you know, you take a step back, you're like "oh wait, we covered a lot of ground here!"

Brittany Rhodes  18:52  
One of the other things we include in the box is a math affirmation, and so it's just this postcard and it has a positive statement about math on it. 

Vanessa Vakharia  19:02  
Like what? Like give me one example!

Brittany Rhodes  19:04  
So the very first box it was, so it was just straight to the point - our first box which was our July 2019 box, the affirmation was "I am a math person".

Vanessa Vakharia  19:14  
Oh my god. Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop! I am freaking out. This is, it's so - everything you've said is so bang on and I love, I didn't even think about that, the fact that the whole benefit of a subscription box is that consistency, because one of the things like we all know with math trauma is the math trauma will have veto power over any positive experience, right? It's like if you were gonna weigh each one and one in each hand, the math trauma will outweigh the positive experience. So in order to overcome our trauma, which by the way, most kids have an experience with, right? Like, all it takes is feeling ashamed or being made to feel stupid - that's a math trauma. You need continuous positive experiences to eventually, like you said, it's such a good visual - chipping away until you step back and you're like, "oh my god".

Vanessa Vakharia  20:01  
Oh my god, I want everyone to get this box. I need this box! We will discuss. Okay, okay, we have to wrap it up even though I want to talk to you forever, I just want to say yay - I'm a marketing queen, I'm all about marketing and math and how that is what makes the difference to so many kids, so you are doing such a bang up job of it. Like I think that you're speaking to it, right? That marketing of it, that putting it on social media, that getting other people interested in it, like Beyonce, is going to help change education and representation for these kids. So: you rock!

Vanessa Vakharia  20:32  
Final two questions. Number one is, what would you say to someone who's like, "but I'm just not a math person?"

Brittany Rhodes  20:40  
Oh, my gosh, my response is everybody is a math person. It's like encoded into our DNA to do math. I mean, we need math to do so many things. So I ask my students, you know, I'll do something really simple, I'll be like, "what's two plus one? Three? Okay. You're a math person. Good night." You know? (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  21:06  
I love that! I'm also like, can you tell time? You're a math person, great, bye.

Brittany Rhodes  21:09  
Exactly! Yeah, it's like we, I don't know what happened over the years. But it's like math is this blob, right? And it's either you can squeeze the blob or not. That's how people's minds approach it, but it's actually not a blob -

Vanessa Vakharia  21:23  
But I think it's the media's fault! Because I think people are like, well, a math person is like, you know, that guy in Good Will Hunting. They think it's like a math person is some crazy dude that does calculations, like under a rock so it's like, I really think the media is partially responsible. We could do a whole other interview on this. But you're right, I like that. It's not a blob - it's like, if you can solve a problem or odd one to two you're a math person, great, let's move 

Brittany Rhodes  21:47  
Yes, that's it.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:48  
Okay, final question. What is one thing you would change about the way math is taught in schools?

Brittany Rhodes  21:54  
Ah, so I got a message actually, either last night, or this morning from a teacher on Instagram, and she said, I admire what you're doing. She said, I teach math, and there's really not time to fill the gaps. We just don't have the time, right? And the box is absolutely designed to help teachers fill that gap. And I just wish there was a way - and I don't have a solution for this, I think about this often, especially working with my students now during COVID time - I just wish there was a way for teachers to have the autonomy to fill in those gaps. Because they, you know, the gaps can slip in at any time.

Vanessa Vakharia  22:42  
Yep.

Brittany Rhodes  22:42  
They can slip in at third grade, they can slip in, they can start slipping in at kindergarten, they could slip in at sixth grade. And then most times, the gaps are not filled, they just move on to the next topic or the next concept. And sometimes the gap doesn't show up, you know, because again, math is not a blab so you can learn from pieces of it and fully understand it and have gaps in other areas, I see it all the time. So I wish there was a way for education to be reformed on a mass scale, because obviously, there are some institutions that do do this, but in a way that the gaps can be actually - so that the gaps don't exist in the first place, not even to be filled. Although I'm being realistic here because we know they exist, but in a dream world, and for math to be taught in such a way that the gaps can't even be created.

Vanessa Vakharia  23:37  
But I think part of it is like, you're creating a product that is trying to help with that bigger systemic problem, right? Like, it's like there are gaps, what are realistic ways we can fill them? Okay, maybe you don't want to enroll your kid in like daily math camp, but like even getting the consistency of filling in a little gap here and reminding them that they can do it there can go along to help it, so I think we do what we can and you're already kind of trying to find a solution to a problem that you're ... you know, you did not create, you obviously, you did not create the problems with all of math education. I don't know why I'm saying that. (laughing) 

Vanessa Vakharia  24:09  
Okay, great. This is so good. I am so excited for everyone to go see your box, everyone go follow Brittany on Instagram right now! I'll give you all of her links in a second. And Brittany, thank you for doing so much to inspire young black girls everywhere and the rest of us to do better and to remember that we are all math people!

Brittany Rhodes  24:30  
Thank you Vanessa!

Vanessa Vakharia  24:32  (outro)
Wow. Wow. Wow, I am just so inspired. I love what Brittany said about consistency, and I totally had not thought of how perfectly her subscription box lends itself to the fact that if we want to feel capable of math, we can't just get a pep talk once, or solve a math problem once - we need someone to show us over and over and over that yes we can. And that's what I love most about what Brittany is doing. To find more, give her a follow on Instagram at @BlackGirlMATHgic where she posts inspiring content. Also you just have to see her logo because it is so freaking cute!

Vanessa Vakharia  25:05  (outro)
If something in this episode inspired you please tweet us at @maththerapy. And you can also follow me personally at @themathguru on Instagram or Twitter. Math Therapy is hosted by me Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is WVV by Goodnight, Sunrise which is actually my band. If you know someone who needs my therapy or needs to hear someone else getting my therapy, please share this podcast and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use - those things actually makes such a big difference. I am determined to change the culture surrounding math and to give math like a massive makeover and I truly need your help, so spread the word. That's all for this week - stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday!

Vanessa Vakharia  25:50  (outtake)
How was that for a concise goodbye? Tried to really wrap it up there after accusing her of ruining the world. (laughing)