Featured Member Story
Tichina Ward-Pratt was born and raised in Oakland, California. She graduated from UCLA with a major in African American studies and minors in Math and Education. She later received her master’s in education from UCLA.
Currently in her 4th year as a math and computer science teacher at Horace Mann UCLA Community School, her goal is to challenge Black and Brown students to see mathematics as their own tool to understand and change the world around them. She believes in providing meaningful and culturally relevant mathematics curriculum to middle and high school students that challenges them to be critical thinkers. As a teacher of the Horace Mann community she has also received the opportunity to work with the Anti-Racist Committee that will guide the school’s pedagogy and programs to stay rooted in racial justice. She and colleagues facilitate the student activism group. She is a member of the Math for America Los Angeles fellowship and Carnegie Professional Math Development Network. Through Carnegie she received the opportunity to present to school administration, staff, and department leads on collaboration in and across math classrooms and math departments at the California Mathematics Council (CMC) conference. The CMC is where she also supported in facilitating a panel entitled “Integrating Social Justice issues in Mathematics.”
As an undergraduate she began her journey to understand how we could build more equitable math environments while acknowledging the experiences of students of color. At UCLA, she worked as a Curriculum Development and Site Coordinator for an organization called Mentors for Academic and Peer Support. She was also a Servant Leader Intern for Freedom Schools at the Community Coalition in Los Angeles. Here is where she developed curricula with a focus on African American and Latinx history of activism and conducted a workshop entitled ‘Money Talks’ about financial literacy and imperialism. She was the recipient of the Undergraduate Research Fellows Program Scholarship at UCLA in which she received the opportunity to conduct a research project based on classroom culture. She was also the Chair of the Afrikan Student Union’s Higher Education Conference at UCLA and the founding Director for Leadership Education in Algebraic Development, an algebra program for 9th and 10th grade students at King Drew High School in Compton.
As a student in the UCLA Teacher Education Program her Master’s inquiry focused on trauma, conflict, and group collaboration which inspires her current work as a math educator.
Bio
Tichina Ward-Pratt is a math and computer science teacher at Horace Mann UCLA Community School in South LA and has worked there for 3 years. She is a Math for America Fellow and founder of Leadership Education and Algebraic Development (LEAD). She believes in providing meaningful and culturally relevant mathematics curriculum to middle and high school students that challenges them to be critical thinkers. As a student in the UCLA Teacher Education Program her Master’s inquiry focused on trauma, conflict, and group collaboration. Her goal is to challenge Black and Brown students to see mathematics as their own tool to understand and change the world around them.