I Didn't Know I Needed This: Self-Healing for Black Womxn as Informal STEM Educators

• In Event: I See You: How Black Womxn See and Speak to the Curricula Brilliance of Black Girls in STEM

Abstract

As Black womxn, who see each other and the youth we have the privilege of learning and growing with as each other’s harvest, (Brooks, 1971), this paper serve as a site of theorizing, healing, and resistance. In conversation with our inner and younger selves it informs so much of our current praxis with Black youth within informal STEM spaces. As such, it is not enough for our scholarly endeavors and entry into academia to write about Black girls, but to write for and with Black girls, while prompting new theories for Black girls in STEM (Cooper, 1988). For these reasons, we employ Critical Race Feminism and Endarkened feminist epistemologies as a means of speaking to healing, and the liberatory praxis made possible through talking-back to our younger selves (Wing 1997; Dillard, 2010).

Perspectives / Reflective Vignettes
I Like Science Because of Ms. Tee
“Mom, this is Ms. Tee. I used to not like science but now I like science because of her.” This was a statement made by a youth that I teach. The comment is small but the effect is grand. Reflecting on my girlhood I wondered where was my Ms. Tee? Who created the space for me to engage in STEM in the ways that I wanted? When I work with youth I often reflect on how and who I want to be for them. I will not get my girlhood back, but by reauthoring what it means to be a STEM educator for Black youth I get to create new possibilities.

From the Mouth of Babes
It had been a minute since I’d seen Nila at The Maker Club, but that didn’t keep me from noticing her new nose, ring. “OMG!! Who said you can get that?” I asked Nila. “My mama. It’s just a nose-ring,” responded Nila with a giggle. In my mind, Nila was (and still is one of my babies), but surely this nose-ring to other folks would age her and remove any innocence this Black girl had in a world where Black girls aren’t read as innocent immediately. In that moment, I paused and reflected upon the freedom Nila was experiencing through her body and how in so many ways, my questioning, my concern came from a place and history posed as protection, but in all actuality, caused one to shrink.

Discussion
This paper highlights the ways in which Southern Black womxn in STEM employ their ontological experiences as sites of resistance and motivation. Additionally, this work calls to the fore how existing in realms that were not necessarily designed for us, but that we have co-opted within the context of our current work and now re-author with new possibilities, imaginings, and optimistic beginnings. By leaning into the tension found with Black womxn and youth who do and make science, we seek to unearth the light and possibilities that may have been covered in our past lives and explore how they show up in the present.

Authors

• Ti'Era Worsley, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Reanna S. Roby, Vanderbilt University