TODOS Podcast · TODOS Mathematics for ALL

S4E1: Resistance Capital and Teaching for Justice with Naehee Kwun

·51 min·3 clips

Naehee Kwun says she was told she was a "bad Asian" for not being a valedictorian.

1. TODOS Podcast S4E1 centers on Naehee Kwun and the topic of resistance, identity, and justice in mathematics education. 2. Theodore Chao is the host, Sherry Kaku is the co-host, and Naehee Kwun is the guest because of her work at UC Irvine and the Teaching for Justice Conference. 3. The episode asks how an Asian-American math educator turns personal school experiences into teaching for justice. 4. Naehee says she was born in Korea, moved to Texas at age 3, lived in Louisiana for almost 10 years, and learned English in New Orleans. 5. She says she was the only Asian in her elementary school in New Orleans, but she did not feel outsider status except in math class. 6. In third grade, a teacher asked why she was not excelling in multiplication tables, even though her mother had her memorizing them at age five or six. 7. Naehee says she was judged against a timed poster system with gold stars, and she later named that memory "resistance capital." 8. After moving to Diamond Bar, California in sixth grade, she says she became one of many Asian students but felt lost because she had a Southern accent. 9. She says bullying eventually erased that accent, and by high school she was getting C's in math classes because she skipped assignments while still acing tests. 10. Naehee says she nearly did not graduate from senior English after refusing to do assignments and ripping a Greek mythology book in half. 11. She says her siblings were all valedictorians with over 4.0 GPAs, while she was told she was a "bad Asian" and "barely graduating high school." 12. She says her father, a university instructor in Chinese calligraphy, told her education ran in the family line and that a Korean ancestor had taught a prince. 13. Naehee says she chose teaching to change the way schooling treated her and to stop math from becoming something she hated. 14. She says UCLA TEP drew her in with its social-justice focus, but she kept asking how social justice works in mathematics. 15. She argues that changing names in word problems is performative and that you cannot decolonize a colonized curriculum by simple substitution. 16. Theodore Chao and Sherry Kaku push her to talk about community, and she says branching out to history, ethnic studies, and science teachers mattered more than working alone. 17. She names Kendall Brown, Katharine Yeh, Dr. Lou Matthews, Stacy from Educate to Empower, NCTM, TOTOS, and the Benjamin Banneker Association as people and groups that shaped her thinking. 18. The conversation turns toward Indigenous perspectives after Naehee describes Florence Glanfield’s NCTM session and the idea that people live with the land rather than on it. 19. The tone is reflective and personal, with a back-and-forth interview style that repeatedly returns to ancestry, schooling, and community. 20. Listeners who want Asian-American math education and justice would likely stay with it, while listeners wanting a narrow curriculum tips-and-tricks episode might skip it.

As heard by us

A warm, thoughtful conversation about identity, belonging, and the values shaping mathematics education.

The episode opens with Theodore Chao and Sherry Kaku framing Asian-American mathematics identity as a question of culture, language, equity, and the model minority myth.

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Why you'd press play

Press play when you want to sit with Asian-American mathematics identity, belonging, and the question of who gets seen in math education.

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