Jalila Frazier

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80 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard Nov 2024

Jalila Frazier’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Habits and Hustle · Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise · 22 Nov 2024 podcast

Hi, thank you for having me, Sanjay.

Absolutely. So again, thank you for having me on. I'm so happy to talk about math today in a very positive, affirming light, because that's extremely important if we are going to educate the next generation of leaders. We need them to have mathematical mindsets and be very powerful with it. So we have to start very, very and be intentional about how we talk about mathematics.

So what got me started is I was born in Trinidad and I came up here when I was a baby. I came to New Jersey when I was a baby and I was very like always ensuring that I was at the front and center that I was always learning something that I needed to learn. I was very pushy, according to my mom. And it would be times that she would give me help with something like walking up and down the stairs.

And I would be so upset because she's holding my hand and I would let her hand go walk all the way down the stairs and walk back up by myself. And to this day, this is the things that I know that I do in this space of math education. I'm very pushy and I don't take no for an answer. So when a student can't get access to information, I'm that person. I am that this company is made for that.

So sorry, I kind of went back, but I came here when I was a baby. I was very smart in school. I graduated valedictorian sixth grade, my middle school year, as well as my high school year. But when I got into college, Seton Hall Prep, I experienced my first failures. And those failures were in math classes. I got C's and then even I got F's. And I felt very small.

One, because I was the only Black student in my math classes. I went to school for applied mathematics. So I was the only Black girl. And with that being said, I wasn't able to create some type of community and be able to create study partners and so forth. And so I also felt small because the professor made me feel like I wasn't smart because I wasn't getting good grades.

I lost a lot of my academic scholarships because I failed classes and I had to start over. But yeah, I lost those scholarships. I couldn't afford the school. And so I had to transfer to Temple University. And it was there that I began to flourish and began to kind of declare, no, I am smart. I knew I'm smart. I know I have the aptitude.

So I redeclared my major to math education, no longer applied mathematics, because it was important for me to make sure that no other student felt the way that I felt, felt small and show students that although, you know, something may be challenging, they can do it if they believe in themselves and know that they have the aptitude for it.

Then I finally got my master's at Columbia in math education, and I went back home full circle to East Orange so that I can educate the next generation of leaders. And that's my journey on the education side.

No, the most I did was I did people's hair, but it wasn't anything that I like. I didn't really accept too much payment for it. It was, hey, can you do my hair? No problem. And then some someone decided that they wanted to pay me one time.

Entrepreneurship, I had no idea. I didn't even know I could do it.

So my dad, he was an owner-operator for a trucking company. Before a very long time, he worked for the trucking company. But even when he decided to become an owner-operator, I didn't really understand that that was entrepreneurship. I didn't understand that that's what that was, you know, until I got into that space and started reflecting like, oh, my dad was an entrepreneur.

So we were able to like have a lot of conversations after that about both of our journeys.

I said I was going to be the superintendent of a school district. I wanted to be the superintendent and, you know, create policies and things like that. When I started teaching. Oh, my gosh. I love teaching. I love my students. Like I was 23 teaching 10th graders. So already there was like a close age gap. So we were able to build relationships.

I taught for four years, anywhere from geometry, algebra two, pre-calculus, you know, all those high school subjects. I taught physics as well. And then I came out of the classroom to be like a data coordinator.

um it's just a school level kind of um support and then i was promoted to be a district math supervisor so um at the age of 28 i was supporting at least 100 teachers at any given time making sure that they know how to teach mathematics well making sure that the curriculum is aligned ensuring that we are treating students properly and centering them and so forth.

And it was a lot, you know, but yeah, that's kind of what I did in that role in that capacity.

When I came out of the classroom, I was no longer directly connected to students. And although it was fun in a new role, it wasn't fun not being around kids. And I had to really make a decision. Is this what I want to do? Because kids bring something out of me. And just helping them or them helping me like it. You can't you can't compare. You can't describe.

So it started becoming a little lonely. And by the time I was maybe in my fourth year at the district, my supervisor, my wheel started turning and I said, I need to find a way to still be in front of students more often. but still be able to be in a leadership position so that I can support teachers. And so I decided to let me make a STEAM summer program. So I made a summer camp.

I had 20 days of vacation. So as an administrator, you can get 20 days of vacation, right? And with those 20 days, I strategically planned my summer. So I still had to be at work because I couldn't take all 20 days during the summer. So I took the first two weeks off. And then after that, I would take half days because the summer program, it was a full day, but I had a teacher.

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