 Good evening. Okay, let's try it one more time. Good evening. Hello everyone and welcome to the six-annual King Talks. My name is Aya Waller-Bay and I am a PhD candidate in sociology and I'd like to thank you all for joining us tonight, either in person or those at home. In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. So Chloe and I will be your hosts for this evening. We gave our own King Talks in 2020, right before the pandemic and we have served as coaches for the for speakers for the past two years. This year is the first year we've come back in person and we're so happy to be here. We hope you are as equally excited as we are tonight. The King Talks began in 2018 as a way to provide the University of Michigan graduate students with a platform to share their unique perspectives on the world. This year's theme is the revolution of MLK from segregation to elevation. Our six speakers will discuss what this theme means to them and their research from science and mathematics to language, educational reform and human rights. Now without further ado... All right, so our first speaker tonight is Alana Hurd, Haley from Camarillo, California. No, claps? Okay. Alana is a graduate student in the Department of Education earning her M.A. and Ed studies and wait for it with a concentration in educational equity, justice and social transformations. Her talk tonight is titled toward a radical imagination dreaming a more beautiful education system and it aligns with her research which focuses on mechanisms to foster restorative school environments and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. Now a fun fact about Alana is she tries to watch the sunset every day and actually has watched it hundreds of times now. So quite impressive, especially because we get very little sun in the winter. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming our first speaker of the night, Alana to the stage. Okay. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Keeping your eyes closed, I want you to imagine your 11-year-old self walking through your school hallway. Throughout the day, you go to your classes where you co-create what you learn. You get to be comfortable in class. You move as you need. You use learning tools that best suit you. You aren't monitored in the halls as you go to use the bathroom. You mess around with a friend and you break the rules. Your heart's racing. Your breathing quickens as you wait for your punishment, but instead of getting in trouble or being sent home, you're met with grace and still held accountable by people you trust and have relationships with. You spend the rest of your day learning, feeling safe, valued, respected and cared for. Now, open your eyes. Does this sound like your experience? Because what we just imagined is not the reality for most young people in our country. This is a dream. Right? Our schools for many children are places of trauma, discrimination, oppression, exclusionary and wildly disproportionate discipline, and an expectation that students be anything but what they actually are. Whole children with inherent dignity, capabilities and brilliance. And this is not a case of brokenness, right? Our education system is working as designed to reinforce systems of power and a culture of white supremacy and capitalism from which our country and therefore our schools were founded upon. Despite all this, our education system is also our most strategic of institutions in creating long-lasting and widespread social change. So I believe our schools are where we reproduce society's social ills and they're where we can begin to relieve them. Right? I believe in our ability to radically imagine and create what our world looks like. So we can dream what a more just and beautiful education system can be. It's still important though to first acknowledge what are we fighting against? Disproportionate and racialized discipline is one example of the many deeply embedded issues that plague our students. So I worked in a child care program in college and there I saw my own students be disciplined by the program and by their schools so differently based on their race. In multiple cases my Latinx students were punished more often and more harshly than my white students were for the same behaviors and actions. One day one of my white students had harmed a classmate. Luckily he was able to return to his classroom and his day very quickly. But one of my other kiddos, a first grader, a student of color, he came up to me and he said, Ms. Solana, if I have done that they would have sent me home. How come he does it and it's no problem? And that kid was right. All right, we discipline students with harsh punishment rather than accountability and we assign that discipline very differently based on their race. So all students of color, especially black and indigenous students, are punished again more often and more harshly than white students are. And to exemplify this I want to bring your attention to the disciplinary experience of black girls in schools which is particularly alarming. So black girls are 4.19 times more likely than white girls to be suspended by their schools. And there are 3.99 times more likely to be expelled. Again, these are for the same behaviors and actions between groups. On top of all this, black girls are also three times more likely to be referred to law enforcement by their schools and 3.66 times more likely to actually be arrested. And this violence against children begins as early as preschool, right? Where young black and brown kids are handcuffed and arrested in response to normal child behavior. And this school prison nexus or school-to-prison pipeline is one example of the ways in which schools police young people's bodies enforce compliance and obedience and recreate the same inequalities and brutalities that we see out in the world right in our classrooms. This is all really angering, right? Knowing all this, understanding what we're up against, it's a brutal undertaking. But as I first heard from Dr. Angela Davis, even when there is pessimism of the intellect, we must maintain optimism of the will. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. No matter how hopeless reality may seem, hope is an inevitable experience when we're fighting for human beings and from a place of radical love. Robin D.G. Kelly wrote a book called Freedom Dreams about black radical activists and all that they have brought to us and taught us, including the work of dreaming. And in it, he highlights a poem which begins, When the clouds clear, we shall know the color of the sky. These seemingly indomitable issues that we face sometimes block us from being able to see what's on the horizon. But if we take a moment to look past the clouds, what do you see as the color of the sky? All right, what is this more beautiful world that we're all dreaming of actually look like? What are we fighting for? I do this work. I'm in this fight because of my kiddos and my students who I've gotten to love, care for, and most importantly, learn beside. I was a preschool teacher before I came back to school and those radical little humans taught me everything I know about imagining and dreaming. Right, they taught me to dream in such big ways and they taught me that the only limitations to our dreams are the ones imposed by adults who live in a world that has to be realistic and tempered. But the impossible and outlandish become reality all the time, right? So with them, I actively dream about schools that will embrace them, empower them, and be spaces in which they all get to thrive as they are. Let's think about that issue of disproportionate and racialized discipline that we talked about earlier, right? Think about the young kids being handcuffed and arrested, physically assaulted by adults, enforced into their first interaction with the criminal justice system, all for doing things that kids do. We need to imagine better for them and for all of us, right? So when I dream of this, I imagine schools that are filled with teachers and staff that reflect the identities of their students. Our discipline policies could replace suspensions and expulsions with accountability, community building, mentorship, right? Our schools could be and should be places that do not involve police, that do not surveil their students, that do not reinforce compliance and obedience over relationships and learning. So we can be radical in imagining what our schools can be. And in doing so, we become so much better at creating revolutionary change. So how do we do this work of dreaming? Number one, listen and learn. Right? What I've shared with you today aren't just my own ideas. I've learned these things from so many different people in so many different places, especially from the work of activists and academically from the work of thinkers and artists like Dr. Bettina Love, Dr. Gloria Ladds and Billings, Bell Hooks, right? So we can find people like them and we take the time to learn from them. Number two, be a co-conspirator. Get involved with local efforts or community organizations, right? We need to be radical dreamers alongside the community members, the organizers and the leaders that are already doing this work. We need to remember we are not saviors, right? We don't know what's best for people. We're here to listen and to learn and to be co-conspirators. Number three, be vocal, right? Do not be neutral. Speak often and boldly and amplify the voices, the messages and the efforts of the people that you're fighting alongside. And number four, be radical, right? So often in this work that we do, people tell us change probably won't happen. Or they tell us you just need to be patient. Or they try to convince us that the only changes worth making are small ones that won't disrupt the status quo. Disrupt it anyways, right? As thinkers, researchers, teachers, students, some of us activists, we're constantly faced with reality. People tell us all the time we need to be realistic and pragmatic as we approach these exhausting issues, but sometimes we get to dream. And those dreams help us see what we're fighting for. And that is such an important part of the work of building a more beautiful and just education system and a better world. So one more time, close your eyes. Imagine your 11-year-old self sitting in your classroom. What would it have felt like to have been so explicitly respected and cared for every day you went to school? What would it have been like to have been met with love and guidance when you messed up, when you hurt others because you were hurting? What would it have felt like to have been in a space where the adults in your life empowered you, believed in your capabilities to make decisions, and gave you the space to actually be you? What would it have felt like? Now open your eyes and let's go make it happen. Thank you. That was amazing. Let's give Alana another round of applause. So our next speaker tonight is Oyeye and Kwankwo, presenting her talk, Breaking Barriers, Evolution and Thoughts about Space Sciences. Now Oyeye calls Inugu Nigeria home and is earning her PhD in Atmospheric and Space Sciences in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering. She is studying the variation of thermospiric neutral wind and how they influence the ionic spirit plasma. Say that three times. Oyeye happens to be a true global citizen who has traveled to three African countries, study in Brazil, and recently visited Japan. As such she has the true global spirit and loves immersing herself in culture and languages. Without further ado, let's welcome Oyeye to the stage. We hear space science. What comes to mind? Any thoughts? Just go ahead and shout it out to me. What ever comes to mind? Really? Nice. That's good. Good, good. Okay, it's good to hear what you all think about space science. I would say, do you also think about unraveling the mystery of aliens in space? Does that cross your mind? Or thinking about the Milky Way galaxy puzzle? Does that also cross your mind? Well, I feel most people think about the Big Bang. Our outer space swelling with galaxies that stretch across our night skies. While some even think about the voyages of Star Trek about the USS Enterprise, which is funny. I'll tell you something. Most people, when they hear anything space science, what comes to mind is space exploration. And that's not far from the truth. A couple of decades ago, when William Hanshale, who was a notable space scientist of the 19th century, was giving a talk. He said, when he asked his audience what he thought about space science, about 80% of his audience screamed out loud to him, space exploration. And upon listening to his talk, I then thought to myself, well, it seems space exploration has actually been capturing the imagination of people for centuries and continues to evolve into a source of wonder and fascination, even until this present day. At the same time, I thought to myself, I think space science has been giving us hope, the hope about the possibilities of exploring new worlds, discovering other planets, and even comprehend them more about our cosmos, which I would say is a powerful and exciting idea. So while the possibility of exploring other worlds and even fighting clean guns is an exciting phenomenon for a lot of people, I want us to be aware that space science is, it actually encompasses much more than just space exploration. Space science actually entails about the study of the atmosphere and climate of our home planet, Earth. It helps us understand the impact of the weather of the outer space on Earth and on us as the inhabitants of Earth. So whether we study the impact of suns throw up, because unlike Vegas, what happens in the sun does not stay in the sun. So we kind of like then to understand what's the weather of space and how it's actually impact us here. I want you to raise your hand if you've ever heard about space weather. Anyone? Okay, if you're not raising your hand, you don't have to feel alone. You're not alone. I did not hear about space weather until 2016 when I attended a conference in Abuja, Nigeria. At the conference, one of the experts actually explained the concept of space weather and how it has revolutionized our understanding of space weather and radio communication. Upon hearing this thumb space weather, it caught my attention. And I began to wonder, does the vast empty space above our head actually have a weather? I felt a range of emotion upon hearing this thumb space weather. At first, I felt intimidated by the technical and scientific aspects of the field space weather and what it actually entails. At the same time, I felt excited. I became curious and eager to know what the mystery of this area of study is and my place within it. So all the mixed feelings actually made me wonder to know more about space weather and its underlying impacts. So you know what I did? In the pursuit to satisfy my curiosity, I decided to settle down in the field and I got to know that space weather actually entails about the environmental conditions of our outer space that impact the performance and behaviors of our satellite and spacecraft system that affect the transmission of radio waves or radio signals, affect the operation of power grids. I also got to know that space science or space weather, which is a soft field of science, is an extensive field. Understanding the space weather events would help us understand how our communication systems are disrupted, how space weather events can induce currents into our power line affecting our transformers and even leading to power outages and damages of our electronics. I'll take you back to the 19th century. Do you know that during the 19th century, the term space weather was not known, however, its impacts were felt. For instance, in the year 1859, there was a massive solar storm. This solar storm was a form of space weather events, but then, as of then, it was not known as a space weather event. It was later on, it was given the name Carrington events. The Carrington events happened and it disrupted a lot of telegraph services and set fire to telegraph offices. For a very long time, the impact of the Carrington events was felt. So fast forward to years or centuries after the Carrington events, there has been development of more sophisticated technologies and instruments that help us understand space weather and space weather events. So despite all the many achievements in understanding space weather and its events, there are still barriers to be overcome. First, there is lack of diversity. There is lack of representation of certain groups, like women and people of color. I'll tell you that actual data from the National Science Foundation shows that women are underrepresented in the field of space science. In 2018, women made up just 10% of space science faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities. Similarly, people of color are underrepresented, with Hispanic and African Americans making up just 4% and 3% respectively of space weather or space science faculty. So overcoming these barriers and increasing diversity in the field of space weather, we actually bring about new perspective and new ideas to the table. At the same time, making the field more welcoming to all. So I think when we try to overcome these barriers of lack of diversity, we can do that by promoting diversity in hiring, encouraging diversity in leadership, which are key steps. So another challenge in the field of space science is coupled to the fact that although space weather as a soft field in space science is an important research area, it is still very challenging to secure funding and resources. So I think it is important for stakeholders to support efforts in breaking funding challenges in the field of space weather and in essence, making it more welcoming for more people to consider career in the field. So when we support organizations and initiatives that promote diversity and inclusiveness in space science, we tend to make the field more welcoming and there will be possibility of having innovative and impactful research. We can also advocate for increased funding for diversity and inclusion initiative in space science. Personally, I think it is important that we support efforts to make the field of space science more welcoming to all, especially to the minority group, because we tend to like bring more ideas to the table and make the field more welcoming. So with all that's been said, I want you to raise your hand if you now understand what space science or space weather is or how important space weather is. Great. So I'm really happy to see that everybody in the auditorium, I hope people online can also raise their hands. So I am so happy to see that everybody here understand how important space weather is to our daily life, our critical infrastructures. I hope next time you hear about space science, please do not think about aliens in space or Klingons fighting. Do well to think about space weather, its impact on our daily life and the role you can play in advancing the field. Thank you. Well done. Thank you so much for that. Our third speaker of the night is Jonathan Garen, who hails from Falls Church, Virginia. Shout out to Virginia. Fun fact, he actually has an identical twin brother. So if you see him on the stage and also in the audience, that's why. Jonathan is earning his master's in public policy at the Ford School and studying international policy, specifically global economic competitiveness and big power competition. His talk tonight, the myth of time, Dr. King Rabbi Hesho and humanity's internal struggle, highlights the lesser known story of the relationship between Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hesho, who is a prominent 20th century Jewish theologian and civil rights activist. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming Jonathan to the stage. There's a concept in the Jewish faith. It's known as tikkun olam. And the translation from Hebrew is repairing the world. The central idea is that this is a never-ending process. And while it's not incumbent on any one person to complete the task, at the same time, each of us has an obligation to play a part in moving it forward. But this comes with the somewhat bittersweet understanding that as human beings, our time here is finite, and we won't let get to live to see the fruits of our labor. In his letter from a Birmingham jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. examined his paradoxical notion of time and the trap that it tends to lay in the human psyche. He details his growing impatience with a sluggish pace of justice, saying that for years, I've heard the word wait. He criticizes the white moderates who live by the myth of time, this tragic misconception of time, a strangely irrational notion that there's something within time that will inevitably cure the ills of society. And he praises the growing group of activists who have recognized what he calls the urgency of the moment. Interestingly enough, the language of the civil rights movement so focused on that pressing urgency is deeply grounded in ancient motifs from the Old Testament. And through study of the Hebrew Bible, Dr. King forged an interfaith partnership and meaningful friendship with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Here they are marching from Selma to Montgomery in March of 1965. That's John Lewis at the far left. Born in 1907 in Warsaw, Poland, and educated in Berlin, Heschel authored his doctoral dissertation as the Nazis were consolidating power. Among the last Jews to secure an exit visa, he immigrated to the United States in 1940 and watched helplessly from across the Atlantic Ocean while European Jewry was systematically destroyed in the span of a few years. Among the millions murdered were his mother and his three sisters. Haunted by the indifference to the plight of the Jewish people, Heschel spent the rest of his life making a case for what human beings, especially religious ones, owe to the greater human cause. He posited a theory that was radical in its time that political issues were actually moral issues, even religious issues. That working in service of God meant direct action here on earth. That prayer had to be what he called a subversive act to alter the status quo. And that the remaining Jews who had survived the war had to be on the forefront of this burgeoning movement for social justice and equality playing out in the United States. In the soul-searching years following the Holocaust, Heschel was asked one question above all else. Where was God? His consistent rebuttal, where was man? And he went on to turn the entire notion of religious devotion on its head. In one of his seminal texts published in 1955 entitled God in Search of Man, he theorized that while human beings wait for a just and righteous God to enact change here on earth, in reality God waits on us to do just that. And though he remained devout, Heschel was not focused on the afterlife, but rather on the here and now. A solemn understanding that something is asked of us in our time. A sacred deed, he said, is where heaven and earth meet. In the 1960s, as the civil rights movement began to gain momentum, this revulsion to indifference that Heschel had merged with Dr. King when they met in 1963. They centered their logic on the study of the Hebrew prophets, which was actually the subject of Heschel's dissertation. The Hebrew word for prophets, Nevi'im, translates to truth tellers. Human though they were, the prophets of the Hebrew Bible served as conduits between God and man. Deeply offended by oppression and injustice, they often spoke uncomfortable truths to the children of Israel, and they served as the community's broader moral conscience. In their day, the prophets were deemed extremists, and King acknowledged as much in his letter from a Birmingham jail in response to those who had dismissed him as an extremist. Was not Amos an extremist for justice, he asked? But the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? And Heschel joined him in embracing this so-called extremism. He said to be moderate in the face of God would be a profanation, in other words, blasphemy. And there were those in the Jewish clergy who criticized Heschel and warned him to stay away from Dr. King's growing movement. They argued that Jews should only be concerned with the plight of other Jews, that the struggle for racial justice was not his fight. But for Heschel and for King, all people were inextricably linked regardless of faith or race. Morally speaking, there's no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings. Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself. And in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. And the same indignation burned in Dr. King said the battle of man's inhumanity does not toll for any one man. It tolls for you, for me, for all of us. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And while communities of color have endured and persevered against racism for generations, recently broader segments of society have awoken to the unique and the insidious way that bigotry and hatred poisoned humanity were at large. So how should we think about Dr. King's legacy and Rabbi Heschel's teachings today? Ironically, these two deeply religious men remind us to lower our gaze from the heavens and instead to hold it at eye level, to look into the eyes of one another. Something is asked of us. The fight for humanity is our fight, not God's. But it is a holy one. Years later, Heschel recounted in his diary the march from Salma to Montgomery, he said it felt as though he was praying with his feet. He was praying with his feet, prayer through direct action, prayer as a subversive act. But still, how do we face this challenge of working to repair the world, this eternal task of tikkun olam, with that painful knowledge that our time here is short? And perhaps the answer is to eschew waiting, to reject that myth of time bemoaned by Dr. King. There is no convenient season approaching. The ills of society won't wait on time. Instead, time waits on us. And in our capacity to act boldly and to rise to meet our human potential, Heschel said that it's grave self-deception to assume that our destiny is just to be human. In order to be human, one must be more than human. A person must never stand still. He must always rise. He must always climb. Be stronger than you are. But rising to that level of humanity will look different for all of us, and so it's on each of us to chart our own path. But in doing so, I encourage you to think about time. It's long arc, but also it's brevity and where you might fit into it. I know I've asked a number of questions this evening and posed quite a few quotations, possibly too many, but here we are. But I'd like to leave you with one more. Two thousand years before Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, another Jewish sage and scholar was already wrestling with this notion of time and emphasizing the urgency of the moment. His name was Philo. He said he asked a simple question that should be ringing in all of our years. If not now, when? Thank you very much. Thank you, Jonathan. Let's give him another round of applause. Our next speaker is Charles Phillips, aka Chaz, presenting his talk titled Revolution Sparked by Inspiration. Inspired by one of Dr. King's quotes, Charles will provide building blocks that will inspire a revolution against institutions and systemic behaviors that have made so many people not feel welcome in a mathematics classroom. Charles is working toward his PhD in mathematics education. An interesting fact about Charles is that he has traveled to over 70 countries, 70, not 17, 70. His favorite place so far is Tanzania, where he hiked Mount Kilimanjaro's highest peak Uru. Please join me in welcoming Charles. In the spirit of my ancestors, I greet you in the tradition of call and response through a single yet powerful word that means to be at peace. Please repeat after me. Ho-tep. Ho-tep. Ho-tep. Ho-tep. Ho-tep. We have just wished each other to be at peace, yet we cannot attain that peace while we struggle with the question, is ours? Is your mathematics obfuscating or liberating the minds of young learners? In 1947, my Morehouse College and Alpha Phi Alpha brother, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once stated, it seems to me that education serves a twofold function to perform in the lives of people and in society. One is utility, the other is culture. He went on to say, at this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. Now, we ask this question all the time. Raise your hand, at least for me. I know I've asked this question a lot. Raise your hand if you've ever asked this question. Now, people online, feel free to tap in the chat, yes, or a hands-up emoji or whatever the case may be, but I imagine many of us have asked this question, or I've heard this question as educators. Why do we have to do this? Why? That's a very good question. We're going to look at talking about using applications, utility, and culture to help better explain why we teach the things we teach and what kind of revolution we want in the classroom using the students' previous experience and their cultural expertise. Here's some responses that I've heard as well, because I said so. It'll help you later in life. You'll need to know it for the next class, and then a pretty gruesome one, I think. Stop asking questions and just do it. Can you imagine someone saying that to you while you're curious about this topic that you're covering? I can understand that feeling as well. So, how do we inspire a revolution in mathematics education? Well, we're going to look at the building blocks Brother King shared with us, utility and culture. So, we see that for utility, one of the things that we can look at is exposing students to the applications of mathematics. In front of you, you see the work of Sir Dr. C. Thompson, a mathematical biologist that used transformations to help explain differences between similar species. Imagine our students describing, explaining evolutionary jumps or determining a pattern when a species reacts to stimuli and then passes that reaction down to the next generation. It sounds pretty amazing to me. These fish, I don't know what's going on with these fish, but here they are. So, real quick, we see someone on the left using mathematics in the field, well, in the water. And then on the right, we have some peculiar math teacher. I don't know who it is, but some peculiar math teacher trying to sail a ship that's already been wrecked. I don't know who is who between the two, but I imagine you can determine who that is. Definitely the one on the right is not me though, just saying. So, now we look at culture and how it fits with education. We think about how culture fits with education by saying culture is developed and perpetuated through people that share their experiences, their stories, their wisdom, their food, music, religion, and any new artifacts that are added to the culture as time progresses. Utility and culture add that. They give you that opportunity. Specifically with culture, giving students the chance to be the expert when viewing the work is one way we look at sparking a revolution. Culture is also a lens that students can use when they are spreading their culture's viewpoint to others and an attempt for them to comprehend the student's perspective. It's not always going to work, but students being the cultural experts gives other students and the teacher an opportunity to learn. So, here we see the co-creators of the self-determination theory talk about autonomy and how it's perhaps the most essential of intrinsic motivators. So, I bring that up because we want to be able to share with our students that what you have to say is important. Your viewpoint is important. We must have it. We know, like our youth and ourselves, we have this background expertise. We have this background perspective. We have these memories. We have these skills. And we should be able to bring that into the classroom. It's not always going to be the case where we can use it every single time, but giving students confidence and pride in their culture, their identities, alongside allowing them to spread their culture's viewpoint as stated before is a building block that we must use. So, with culture, we're going to switch to teacher mode here. Don't worry. Lock the doors. Don't let them out. Don't worry. Don't worry. It's okay. So, this is one of, this is from one of my geometry activities. We were using transformations. You know, good old transformations. We talk about reflection, rotation, dilation, and translations. But I did it in a different perspective. So, I talked about how we wear a mask in the pandemic. And we wear it so we are protecting ourselves and others. But let me introduce you to a different type of mask that is also used for protection. In 1895, the African-American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar wrote the poem, We Wear the Mask. Now, you can see part of it is up here already. And we see that it says, we wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding hearts we smile and mouth with myriad of subtleties. Why should the world be over wise in counting all our tears in size? Nay. Let them only see us while we wear the mask. Now, many of you may understand the metaphor behind wearing the mask as uncovering our feelings, our emotions, and hiding from the world what you're actually feeling with a facade, with a mask that says, I'm okay. Think about that. Raise your hand if you've ever done that. I'm doing it right now, actually. So, but one of the questions that comes up with this activity is, how do students choose to bring to life the mask that they've been metaphorically wearing? Another question is, where in school do they feel safe in taking that mask off? So, we know this feeling. We relate to it. But maybe not everyone relates to it, or perfectly understands it. So, this artifact from 1895, and now we're looking at almost 130 years later, not everyone might not understand that. So, here's a contemporary artifact that may be more helpful in comprehending this poem. This is a meme. If you've never heard of a meme, memes convey so many perspectives, ideas, thoughts. Yes, we know that the phrase, there's a thousand words in the picture. But look at this picture. Look at this person. Usually, it's meant for fun, for laughter. I get that. I use it all the time, too, when people talk about my team, the Dallas Mavericks. I understand. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's, I turn off the internet, okay? But this person, look at their eyes. Look at the tears, potentially the rage, the pain that they are feeling, that they're covering up with this smiley face. Think about how our students do that. Think about how we do that. Do you have a safe space to take the mask off? Do you have someone you feel safe with to take that mask off? That's important for us to think about. Okay, we're still in class. Don't try to get up. Don't worry. It's all right. Security, get that one. I see you. So, here are the four transformations we talked about briefly. The first one, we can see that's a reflection. The second one, we can see that's a translation. The third one, we can see a dilation. And then, of course, the last one is a rotation. All right? So, these are all transformations. And when I think about these, of course, the geek in me, and I see some geeks out here as well, this is what pops in my head. I couldn't help it. Sorry. Just to make sure if you didn't hear that. Yeah, that's the Transformers. That's right. Shout out to the 80s Transformers. So, here are some artifacts that my students made in some previous geometry classes. And this is how they brought their metaphorical masks to life. Along with the poem, the full poem is there as well. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read it. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, we wear the mask. So, as a teacher, I can understand the feeling of a class slipping away, letting students lead with their ideas, with their thoughts, with their experiences. Some of us as teachers, oh my God, they're going wild. No, that's okay. It's normal for students to be very active. It's not chaos. I think some people label it as chaos. I don't think it's chaos. I think it's the universe finding form. And with that, we know that some things are going to work. And some things, not so much. But it's important for us to remember that we must disrupt the mathematics classroom. And one way to do that is to disrupt teachers being at the centerpiece. We must step aside and we must allow students to be the expert. We must allow them to lead with their ideas, with their perspectives. And we also must recognize that teachers don't have all the answers. We can't. There's no way teachers can have all the answers. But if we allow students and their colleagues to join in, they're more likely to develop solutions, potential solutions, with collaboration and with a multitude of expertise coming in with those students' backgrounds. So, remember, disrupt what we normally do in the mathematics classroom by having teachers at the centerpiece. They can't be that always. It's just not right. That's not how we should be able to educate our students. Allow students at the forefront. Give them opportunities for leadership. Give them opportunities to be the expert using their cultural backgrounds, using their cultural lenses. Imagine the confidence and pride they have when they explain, this is what I understood from that based on this, this, and this in my background. And finally, we're here to inspire a revolution with utility and culture. We're also here to let our students know that we believe in them, that we love them. And for them, they need to learn about their background and about who they are. And with that, the revolution can begin. It starts at the beginning with know thyself. If you know thyself, you know what you want. You know what you believe. You know what you can attain. And we remind them not to let anyone take that from them. So, I'd like to close the way we opened. Please repeat after me. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. Another round of applause for Charles. Our fifth speaker tonight is Ernesta Cole, a student of international and regional studies, African studies specialization. Her favorite thing to do in her free time is to scroll through Pinterest, looking for food recipes she probably won't make. Good to know I'm not the only one. Last year, she attended the King Talks virtually and was very engaged by the vastly different speech topics. So, she has seized the opportunity this year to discuss the forms of expression in different languages and the linguistic and cultural differences between them in her talk titled Indigenous Languages and Sierra Leone, a comparison with English. Please join me in welcoming Ernesta. Do any of these books look familiar? Maybe they were a part of a required reading list in high school or college. Yeah. How about these authors? Does anyone know where these authors are from? How about what language their books are written in? And lastly, is there a common trait these authors have that we can kind of point out? In Martin Luther King's 1947 essay, The Purpose of Education, he writes, the function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education, which stops with efficiency, may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason but without morals. I believe that one way to ensure that education does not stop with efficiency and to buttress it with morality is to first recognize diversity and then to actually diversify what we think is standard in academia. Equality and justice come in many forms. I'm interested in how they play out in cultural and academic settings through the lens of language. I was born in the Gambia to two Sierra Leonean academics, which means that from very early age I was exposed to multiple cultures, languages, and of course books. Specifically, I'm interested in linguistic expression and linguistic stigmatization between indigenous languages and English in West Africa. Linguistic expression allows for a person to choose one language in writing poetry and another language when discussing with their grandmother, while linguistic stigmatization would be the cultural and social differences they face while speaking either of those two languages. These books that we looked at earlier are a part of what is called the literary canon. The literary canon is a part of a larger canon, which is the list of the most important and influential art, music, literature, and philosophy. In religious terms, canon is a standard of judgment or a text containing those views, such as the Bible or the Quran. The word canon derives from an ancient Greek word, which means measuring rod or standard. This means that books that are deemed worthy of entering the canon are considered the standard by which all other books are measured. Therefore, when students look towards academic contexts to validate their identities, self-expression, and morality, they're often looking at those books and those authors. I argue that language plays an important role in these traits. There are 23 indigenous languages in my parents' home country of Sierra Leone. The most widely spoken languages there are Creole, Mende, Timi, and Limba. Currently, though, roughly 16 of the 23 are in use, while the remaining seven have become dead or sleeping languages. A dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, like Latin, while a sleeping language is one that, although it may not have fluent speakers, is still a symbol of ethnic importance and identity to a particular group. Sleeping languages are also often undergoing processes of revitalization, which can be done from group representatives, researchers, or anyone interested in language. The issue of English having official status over indigenous languages is due to a mixture of things, including colonization, the problem of photography, which is the standard spelling system of a language, as well as negative perceptions of Africans as being uncivilized and uneducated. I argue that the perception of English as a Western phenomenon denies indigenous varieties that are placed in the academic system. Sierra Leone gained its independence on April 27, 1961. This year, it will have been independent for 62 years. That may be less time than some of you in here have been alive. Like Queen Elizabeth II, as pictured here, meeting Sir Milton Marguay, the first prime minister of an independent Sierra Leone. This royal visit included a Sunday service at St. George's Cathedral in Freetown, the capital, a children's parade and citizens rally, a garden party at the prime minister's official residence, diamond digging, and more. Sierra Leone's connection to Britain could not have been more fully on display. Can you imagine the linguistic impact colonial rule for over 153 years had on Sierra Leone? What ground would this leave indigenous languages to stand on? One example of this comes from my parents who were educated in that British system. This is a photo of my mother in her senior year in Methodist Girls High School in 1989, and a photo of my father in 1990 at a commencement ceremony at Fort Ray College, University of Sierra Leone. My father recalls having to read and memorize extended soliloquies, long speeches, and quotes from key characters from nearly every single Shakespearean piece. This was a part of his secondary education and Methodist Boys High School, as well as for his honors English bachelor's degree at Fort Ray College. Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems. I don't know about you guys, but I don't recall ever having to memorize that much content in high school or college. Plays like Ocelot, The Tempest, and The Merchant of Venice played crucial role in their identity formation, as well as the shaping of their perspectives of the world, often perpetuating negative stereotypes of Blackness and the African Native. Language was clearly the tool of expression of Western superiority and reinforcing cultural stereotypes. This summer, I was able to conduct research that reflects language use in Sierra Leone today. The first part of my research involved collecting survey responses from Sierra Leonean linguistic professors, English professors, published authors, and academic administrators who I'm extremely grateful for. Dr. Seidu Bangura of the Sociolinguistics Department of the University of Cavalverde, Dr. Abdelai Walangelo of the Linguistics Department of Fort Ray College, University of Sierra Leone, and Professor Elizabeth Kamara of the English Department of Fort Ray College. Our three interlocutors I'm extremely grateful for their additional participation and interviews. Before I talk more about my research, let's do a bit of our own. With a show of hands and for those online, you feel free to tap yes or no into the chat box. How many of you here are multilingual? Okay, with those hands up, how many of you speak English when you're in professional or academic settings? And now for everybody, is English the main language you use in professional and academic language settings? Mostly everybody's hand is up, even when we have other valid languages at our disposal. The same is true in Sierra Leone that had 23 languages to choose from. That is the dominating impact of English. The first part of my research, the survey, involved several questions, and a majority of it involved statements that my interlocutors could agree or disagree with on a scaled range. Those statements fell into three categories, general, ethnic structure, and political structure. The general structure statements gave me background information about what my interlocutors felt about the multiple languages being spoken in Sierra Leone simultaneously. The ethnic structure statements gave me insight to the social and ethnic groups in Sierra Leone, and that is still related to language as the names of the ethnic groups are also the names of the language they speak. The Creole speak Creole, Mende speak Mende, etc. The political structure statements gave me insight to Sierra Leone's political history as well as the lingering consequences of colonial rule. This research is just beginning to delve into linguistic sigmatization and linguistic expression. One path I would like to take into the future is to involve Sierra Leone students themselves. They are the group being directly impacted by the linguistic rules being made in academia, and so their participation would be of great importance. Another long-term goal of mine would be to publish textbooks in Sierra Leonean languages. Sierra Leonean students would no longer need to depend on Western standards that go against their cultural identity. These publications would then be a new part of the function of canon. There is not one way of writing, speaking, learning, or expressing oneself, and so congruently there should not be one language used as a sole tool. I argue that other ways should be continuously affirmed as my research aims to justify. I advocate in the words of Dr. King that languages should not be judged by their status or by the geographical dispersion of its speakers, but by the content of the linguistic of their linguistic character. Thank you. Thank you Ernesta. Let's give her another round of applause. Our final speaker of the evening is Oh Hwang Kwon. He's working toward his master's degree in nuclear engineering. He's currently an army officer in active duty in South Korea who loves hiking and soccer. This is his first time outside of Korea and also his first time giving a talk in English, though you won't be able to tell. His talk titled which would be the successor of fossil fuels, nuclear or renewables, compares the advantages and disadvantages of using renewable energy versus nuclear energy as a means of addressing climate change. Please join me in welcoming Oh Hwang. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. So I'm a nuclear engineer and I feel some sort of responsibility as an engineer to come up with brilliant solutions to address climate change and global warming. But today I would like to suggest a slightly different perspective. First of all, you may have heard that carbon dioxide is the root cause of global warming and climate change. And you may have also heard that fossil fuel combustion is the main contributor to carbon emission. That's why we are keep trying to substitute those rotten dinosaurs with other kind of energy sources. And actually the question arises, why is CO2 so detrimental? Why is it so bad? Simply speaking, it works as a warm and fine blanket of the earth. It traps the heat, which should have been reflected to the universe and eventually the planet gets warmer and warmer. But there is one more alarming fact about carbon emission. While 40% of CO2 we produced is absorbed by forests and oceans, which literally means that the mother nature is providing us kind of very lenient buffers on. But still 60% of CO2 ends up in the middle of the atmosphere, and approximately 10% of CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer than 20,000 years. So carbon hangover and global fever last much, much, much longer than expected. You know, some environmental activists always say, let us pass on our blue planet to our sons and daughters. Oh yeah, I do agree with that idea, but I really want to ask, is it really a matter of just your sons and daughters? The carbon dioxide we released today is going to stay longer than 300 generations. And this is how urgent the situation really is. And considering those fossil fuels are keep accelerating global warming and climate change, it seems pretty obvious that we should substitute fossil fuels ASAP. And hopefully, there are two very powerful and very well known candidates. One is nuclear, the other is renewables. Actually, it takes me back to 15 years ago. When I was very young, especially when I was a middle school student in Korea, I was kind of anti-nuclear guy for two reasons. First of all, in 2010, there was the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident in Japan, which ignited a lot of anti-nuclear movements in South Korea. Secondly, the idea of renewables, the idea of getting energy from sun and wind seemed really, really fascinating to me at that time. But eventually, as you can see, I'm trying to become a nuclear engineer and I totally flipped my mind. So let me explain why. Renewables seems really, really romantic. And it really is because it neither produces carbon dioxide nor problematic byproducts. It seems perfectly clean. However, solar farms and wind farms require covering a large amount of land with solar panels, wind turbines, and even transmission lines. And building solar farms is just like building any other kind of farm, which means we need to clear the vast area of wildlife. So when people established Ivampa, one of the largest solar plants in California, what they literally did was they had to pull out those little desert tortoises from the borough and put those tortoises and their little babies in the back of the pickup trucks and they transported them to the captivity. Unfortunately, many of them ended up dying because it was impossible for them to adapt such drastic changes. I hope you would agree with me that driving a huge bulldozer in front of a small living entity is not such a good idea. Then what about wind turbines? In fact, wind turbines are one of the most significant threats to the birds, especially to those big birds. I'm not talking about little birds like sparrows or pigeons on the street. I'm talking about eagles and owls. You know, many of those species are at the edge of extinction. However, annually, 234,000 birds are killed by wind turbine blades. And you may imagine how significant this number really is. So I wrote one example. You know bald eagles, right? So one of the most beloved animals throughout the American history. So how many bald eagles are there in this country? Approximately, there are 316,000 bald eagles in the United States. So think about it. Almost two thirds of bald eagles could be just wiped out because of wind turbine blades. This is kind of tragedy. And considering those sun and wind is kind of very dilute fuel, which means they produce very low density energy building solar farms and wind farms to meet huge energy demand of human population will inevitably be catastrophic to those wild species. Ironically, we are destroying the planet to save the planet. On top of that, intermittency of solar and wind energy is a huge problem. You know, Germany is truly a world leader of renewables. Germany has invested an astronomical amount of money into renewables and they drastically modernized their energy system. And here's one thing happened in Germany. So Germany installed 4% more solar panels in 2016, but somehow they generated 3% less electricity from solar. Germany also installed 11% more wind turbines in 2016, but somehow they generated 2% less electricity from wind. So it's kind of interesting, isn't it? And you may be shocked that how many energy experts had absolutely no idea about what really happened. And it turns out that the answer was simply Germany was not sunny and windy enough in 2016. There was nothing we can do about it. So at this point, it seems pretty reasonable to conclude that the biggest concern with renewables does not lie in the problem per se, but it lies at the fact that those problems are not technologically solvable. For example, it might be unrealistic to make certain regions sunnier or windier. It might be also unrealistic to guide a bird to not to collide against a wind turbine blade. So majority of problems with renewables are not technical, but they are rather natural. So let's shift the gears and let's talk about nuclear then. Nuclear, the atoms, have been considered as one of the most powerful energy sources ever since it has been utilized peacefully. So the main strength of nuclear is that it produces extremely, extremely dense energy. So you can see this small uranium fuel pellet on the screen, which is really used in nuclear power plants. So the size and volume of this small amount of uranium is more or less the same as the lithium battery in your car key. However, this small amount of uranium fuel can actually produce electricity to the average American household for three months. So it's insanely dense, right? On top of that, nuclear power is very stable and reliable. You don't have to wait for the good weather to do it. Nuclear power plant produces a fixed amount of energy regardless of the oil prices, 20 for seven, seven days a week. So the most successful story of nuclear is that of France. France, in 2020, produced around 70% of its electricity from the nuclear power. And interestingly, in the same year, France's carbon emission was one of the lowest throughout the world. And this consequence actually implies a very significant meaning to the human being. A lot of climate researchers and climate scientists are saying that we already passed the tipping point of global warming and climate change, which means the earth lost its resilience permanently. So considering this fierce urgency of current situation, nuclear might not be an ultimate solution, but it would give a good amount of time to the human being to come up with better ideas, better solutions. And this is the main reason I do believe in the power of atoms. But at this point, it seems pretty legitimate to raise some uncomfortable questions to a nuclear engineer. What about nuclear waste? What do you do with nuclear weapons? Well, in fact, United States generates around 2000 metric tons of nuclear spent fuel annually, which is highly, highly radio toxic. And some problematic waste products takes even a few hundred years to decay. It's clearly problematic. And this is the main weakness of nuclear industries, by the way. However, some environmentalists started to rethink about this issue. So compared to CO2, which is uncontrollably emitted directly into the atmosphere, nuclear waste is kind of manageable. What nuclear engineers do in the nuclear power plant is they put those nuclear waste into the container, and they transport them to the repository. Additionally, countless research is going on about reprocessing and recycling of those nuclear fuel, I mean nuclear waste. So I do believe this is kind of technologically solvable problem. Then what about nuclear weapons? What about nuclear weapon proliferation? If nuclear power actually increases the possibility of nuclear war, I would be against nuclear. I have always been a pacifist, and I still am. I'm from South Korea, and I have observed a stark contrast of nuclear utilization between North and South. And honestly, the Korean Peninsula proves the point. So South Korea, my country, is still operating a lot of nuclear power plants, and they are doing very well, actually. They are producing a good amount of electricity to the people with affordable prices. But South Korea does not own any nuclear warheads or nuclear weapons. On the other hand, North Korea, whose nuclear missiles are literally threatening the whole world, does not own any nuclear power plant. So concerns with nuclear weapons are always a matter of diplomacy. We can solve this problem by conversations and regulations. Up to now, we have seen two different energy sources to deal with climate change and global warming. And it becomes clear that there is no god-given energy. Every energy source has its own set of problems. Nuclear does, fossil fuels do, and renewables do. So what really matters is not what is the problem with this energy, but is this problem with this energy technologically solvable? This is the right question we need to cast on those energies. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of problems with renewables are not technologically solvable. On the other hand, as a nuclear engineer, I do believe problems with nuclear are solvable through technological innovations. I do understand that this conclusion might not be comfortable to some of the audiences, but don't forget, how many atmospheres do we have? Yeah, there's one, obviously. Thank you. And how many planets do we have? Thank you again. Yeah, so this is not a partisan debate. It is a human one. We are all living together on a single planet, so we are always on the same board. Thank you. Let's hear it again for Ohan. How many of you thought that last question was a trick question? It's like how many planets do we have? Well, that concludes our six annual King Talks. Many thanks to all of you for coming tonight, or tuning in virtually. Shout out to all the people watching at home to hear our graduate student speakers share their stories and visions for the future. Chloe and I have really enjoyed mentoring our six amazing speakers over the past three months. And again, let's give them all one more round of applause for tonight. We hope that you have enjoyed each of their interpretations of the events theme, the revolution of MLK from segregation to elevation. Recordings of all the talks you heard tonight will be available soon, but in the meantime, you can watch previous year's King Talks on the website given by students in previous years like Aya and myself. The link to the Rackham website will also be emailed to everyone in attendance who registered. And for those of you here with us in the Rackham Auditorium, we invite you in the lobby for some refreshments where you can interact with our speakers. Thank you and have a great evening.