Inspired by her grandfather, Kitty Yang becomes a math teacher, but soon realizes she misses being a student.

Kitty is a doctoral candidate in mathematics at Northwestern University, studying dynamical systems and ergodic theory. She grew up in California and went to college in New York, and attending school on both coasts, is now enjoying studying the midwest. She spends her non-math time tap dancing, running, baking, and watching baking shows. She is also a labor activist, as an organizing committee member of the Northwestern University Graduate Workers.

This story originally aired on March 8, 2019 in an episode titled “Circles.”

Story Transcript

My grandfather was my first math teacher.  We used to have almost daily math lessons when he used to live with us.  Sometimes on my schoolwork but, often, just whenever he decided it was time for me to learn. 

One of my fondest memories was one summer when I was about ten when we explored Pi.  He told me this is a number that’s different from the other numbers that we've talked about and it comes from circles.  If you take any circle and you divide the circumference by the diameter, you'll always get 3.14159 etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

So armed with a tape measure, we ran around the house looking for circles.  We found a bowl and a plate, my grandmother’s hair curlers, an empty can of chocolates and we traced them on pieces of paper so we had a bunch of circles. 

And that’s what I loved about doing math with my grandfather.  It was very hands-on and we got to the heart of the math.  So we measured the circumference, we divided by the diameter and we got a very strange list of numbers none of which matched what he told me we were supposed to get. 

Then he said, “Well, if you look at the circles we drew, they're not great circles and our tape measure only goes up to half-centimeter so we have some rounding and some human error.” 

I learned two lessons that day.  One, what Pi represented and, two, that experimental data is never perfect.  I think that day I became a pure mathematician. 

We continued our math lessons through high school but my grandfather would always take copies of my notes and my textbook back home with him to Taiwan.  I always felt a little pang of guilt that he was much more studious than I was.  I suspect that, back in Taiwan, he didn’t have very much to do and he was happiest when he could share math with me. 

No one else in my family liked math.  In fact, with my little brother he had to bribe him in order to sit down and pretend to listen to math.  It was like a reverse tutoring for you.  But with me, he found someone who could appreciate thinking and talking about math like him. 

Even though I really enjoyed math, I didn’t major in Math in college.  I was good but I wasn’t anywhere near the best.  My high school regularly sends students to regional and national competitions and I thought that you had to be that good to major in math.  So, on the very practical advice of my uncle to just go be financial analyst and make a ton of money, I went to business school and I interned at a big insurance company. 

Honestly, I was pretty good at what I did and I kind of ate up all the praise.  I loved people telling me I was really good at what I was doing.  But after two years at the same company, I felt kind of bored.  I felt like I could predict what my life would look like and I didn’t want that.  I thought about it and I felt like my personality and my love of math would make me a pretty good math teacher.  And all four of my grandparents were educators and I felt like there was a real honor in carrying on their legacy. 

So I applied to a teaching program and I found a job at a pretty good magnet school in Brooklyn.  Because I didn’t have to worry about losing my job over test scores, I could experiment a little with my teaching and have a little bit of fun.  From my grandfather, I knew that you couldn’t reach every student, but if you kept at it, you'll probably reach someone at least once. 

One of my favorite students was a brilliant artist and reluctant mathematician.  She often doodled in class instead of doing the problems I so lovingly picked out.  So in an effort to engage with her interest and trick her into studying, I asked her to draw a cartoon for me of the math that we were learning. 

I shouldn’t have done that.  She ended up drawing Ms. Yang and her army of theorems, postulates and isosceles triangles.  She had drawn me as a witch riding an isosceles triangle broom attacking students with math problems.  I was kind of asking for it.  But I realized that she may not remember what the triangle congruence theorems were, and honestly I don't blame her, but she knew what a counter example was and why that’s important.  You know what?  The witch in me counted it as a win. 

Just like my grandfather, I've learned a lot more about Pi since then but I carry with me the excitement and love for that moment he first taught me what Pi was.  And as I got better with teaching, it still felt like something was missing.  I was really, really eager to do math problems that I hadn’t picked out myself and so, in an effort to do more of that, I went to a summer program catering to people who devoted their lives to math from elementary school teachers to undergrads to college professors. 

Even though it was really nice to meet so many people who enjoyed math as much as I did, I felt really out of place.  In the morning sessions with the teachers, we got a list of problems and all I wanted to do was race through them.  I did one and I wanted to do the next one but I was chastised by my group mates who said, “We want to make sure that everyone is on the same page and do you understand that and do you agree with that?” 

As a math teacher, I would really encourage that, but as a student, I just wanted to do the math problems.  So I finally could empathize with my students about the evils of group work. 

But in the afternoon session on Reimann geometry, I also didn’t feel like I fit in.  I couldn’t follow a lot of the technical details and I was way too self-conscious to ask any questions.  Even though it was expected that that teachers wouldn’t be able to follow everything, I still felt really disappointed in myself and almost ashamed that I had failed a math course. 

But that feeling of wanting to do math but not being able to, I couldn’t handle it.  So I decided to apply to grad school.  That was such a terrible process.  By then, I didn’t have a lot of support.  My family had moved back to Taiwan.  My grandfather had gotten colon cancer and my mom went back to take care of him.  I was only able to visit over winter break once a year. 

I felt a lot of guilt not being there more.  I don't know what I could have done if I were there but I would have liked to make my grandfather some tea.  I would have liked to take him to his doctor appointments, just make him a little bit more comfortable. 

Also, I had been out of school for five years by then and so I had to email my professors and hope that they remembered me and could write a decent letter of recommendation. 

I also sent a list of the schools I had decided to apply to, and he emailed me back and he said, “Why are you aiming so low?” 

Honestly, I had picked out the schools with the latest deadline so that I could buy myself some more time to procrastinate on my personal statement.  Don’t tell my students I did that. 

But somehow, I was able to work through those couple of months teaching and studying and applying and I got my first acceptance to Rutgers in February.  When I got the email I was in charge of study hall with a bunch of seniors.  It was really special to be able to share with them this process because they had also been applying to colleges and so I could share with them the excitement and the relief of having been accepted somewhere. 

I also emailed my mom immediately to let her know the good news.  She passed it on to my grandfather who, at that time, was lucid enough to understand what I had done.  I'd like to think that he's really, really proud of me. 

He died in March that year, right around Pi Day.  There's a Chinese funeral tradition where we burn paper money and objects to pass along to the deceased to help them in the afterlife and my mom burned a copy of my acceptance letters to Rutgers for me. 

For some reason, my grandfather never pursued math academically.  The family lore is that he got into Columbia but couldn’t go for financial reasons.  But on a recent trip back to Taiwan, I found some pictures of him standing very, very straight with his tie flapping in the wind on the steps of the Columbia campus, so maybe part of that story is true.  I’m not sure.  But I do know that if got a chance to go to grad school he would have really loved it, because I love it now.  Thanks.