From the F. A. D. archives: “I’m not full American because I’m not white”

This piece appeared in slightly different form on HuffPost’s Parenting channel back in June 2017.

What’s more American than corn flakes, the Fourth of July, and Uncle Sam?

These lyrics came sweetly from the lips of my seven-year-old daughter as we awaited a ranger program last summer at the Grand Canyon. They’re from a song that she learned at school, and it seemed especially fitting that she was singing them at that most American of landscapes in northern Arizona. But what she said next quickly shattered the moment.

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Why Women’s History Month Matters in Math Classrooms

Despite plenty of research to the contrary, I still hear people repeat the biggest myth in math education – boys are better at math than girls. It’s sad that a stereotype so thoroughly debunked continues to live on; it’s even sadder that this perception continues to have real, negative impacts on girls and women. It’s one of the reasons they’re more frequently discouraged by parents and others in their lives from pursuing majors and careers in STEM fields. I strongly suspect it also plays a part in girls reporting math anxiety more frequently than boys do. And recent research tells us that for some girls, it even hurts the academic bottom line – in the gradebook, when the unconscious bias of some math teachers leads to lower scores for their female students.

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American Girl’s 2022 Girl of the Year is Asian! But she’s not the first

Let’s celebrate – American Girl’s 2022 Girl of the Year doll is Corrine Tan, a Chinese American character hailing from Colorado! She also comes with a “little sister” doll, Gwynn, the first time American Girl (hereafter AG) has packaged a Girl of the Year with a sibling. Neither my daughters nor I have read the Corrine books yet, but reportedly, Corrine explores her Asian heritage as part of her storyline, and she even has to deal with anti-Asian prejudice on some level. And AG tapped none other than Wendy Shang, author of the popular middle grade novel The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, to pen the Corrine stories. Big thanks to AG and its parent company Mattel!

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