Spreading Love Through Math

as they find their life's work. On the last season of On the Job, we spoke with Benny Boas, who founded a coding company that provided coding boot camps for anyone who wanted to become a software engineer. Well, today we're going to talk to Magabo, an educator and a graduate of that boot camp who's had a love for math and numbers for as long as he can remember. His goal is to build tools that spread education because from personal experience, he knows how dangerous it is when

people don't have access to it. Well, good morning, Mr mcgabo. How much sleep did you get last night? And you know, much a lot more than than I I've gotten in the last few months. My six and a half month old sun is still learning how to sleep through the night, and so it's been and up and down in the last few months. Terry mcgabo or Lingamana goes by Mugabo.

He lives in Burlington, Vermont, and since Mugabo has a six month old son, he knows a job to suit his lifestyle and mess of to engineer for this moss. As of just over a month ago, Desmos is a software company that builds tools for students and teachers to use in their curriculums. They're big thing is making their online graphing calculators and geometry tools fun to interact with because an arching philosophy at this moos, which I feel like.

He's a company founded by people who love math and who are trying to create the tools and the learning opportunities to help help students not only learn math, but love learning math. Magabo is one of those people who loves math. He sees it as a way to understand how things in everyday life interact, the rules to how

things work. And he believes that once you understand math, you can use it to create new ways that things interact with each other, and then from that can emerge new fields of mathematics, you know, and so it can be a game, it can be like legos, you know, where there's some ways that they can connect and the

ways that they can't connect. And once you understand how they connect or don't connect, you can build amazing things and and take them apart and build different amazing things, you know, and so there is a magic to it. So does most and the software that Mugabo is helping to develop is trying to answer that problem, how do we make math enjoyable, which is a big one to take on in our society that has, for many reasons,

become very math phobic. Math phobic math generally gets a bad rap for being too boring or too difficult, we're not actually useful. At DESMOS, they make super accessible tools online and also have a resource database for teachers anywhere to use that has math activities on it that allows not only teachers to adapt activities, but students to interact with activities and then for teachers to facilitate those activities

in a classroom. And so all of that is running on on on on software on Intennetic technologies, and as a software engineer, Mugaba works from home behind the scenes, taking in feedback from teachers and students, working with the team on how they can improve the coding on the tools they have and building new ones that make math

more enjoyable and understandable. One of the things that has made me feel really good about joining this organization has been the outpouring of love from math teachers and from students talking about how learning math this way has been transformational, has been more joyful. You know, and you don't hear people is those where it's for learning mathematics often. So your job is to make the magic happen. Yeah, more or less, more or less, you know, which is pretty cool.

So you love math? I do? I yes, I have, I've have um. I grew up in the household that loved math. My dad was an engineering My mommy is in finance and accounting, and so numbers was something that we were at least told that we had to get, you know, that it wasn't an option to not get it. Mugaba was born in Kegali, the capital of Rwanda, little country in Central Africa. We left one day in one oh seven because of the because of the genocide in nineteen.

Between April and July of the truly horrific Rwandan genocide took place. Tensions between the two main ethnic groups, the majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi had been raging four decades, and on April six, plane carrying rwanda as president was shot down and two t extremists were blamed. That night, the country erupted and a mass organized killing of the minority Tutsi began. Magabo's mother was Tutsi. How how how did I understand that as a seven year old? I

don't I don't know. And we knew that it wasn't it wasn't safe, you know, you know, and I guess, I guess that's that's all that we needed to know. It's it's not safe out there, and and we need to leave. Magabo and his family got out of the country and fled to Congo. They were among two million others that fled Rwanda, and in a few months after Magabo left, over eight hundred thousand Tutsi were killed there. He says that his parents got him out early enough

so that he didn't witness the atrocities. That's a lot of young people younger than I, um, we're exupposed to. Yeah, so yeah, I'm thankful for that. His family spent three years in Congo. They had interrupted schooling because of conflicts and moving around then they went to Tanzania and spent three years there before coming to the US. So you came to the US so when you were thirteen. I was thirteen. Yeah, the first thirteen years of my life. Yeah.

They landed in Buffalo, where he and his five siblings started to get into a regular schooling rhythm. Gobbo's trajectory toward math and science really started to take hold right around high school. I think I always I always wanted to be like my dad. I I wanted to my dads civil engineer. I wanted to do civil engineering. He took some software engineering classes in high school and loved it, so by the time he got into college at Stanford, he knew he was going to major in some kind

of engineering. He ended up doing electrical and had a few more classes in software engineering that really hooked him. So that that was that That was the piece that took me towards software engineering, and I got exposure there. I liked it, and there were a lot of a lot more jobs, a lot more Soto engineering jobs and electrical engineering jobs, and after graduating he got a job. I was coming home every night to burn the midnight oil with this AI class that Stanford made available online

for anyone to take. And I was blown away by like how well technology could deliver learning experience. And I think that was kind of the first late pop moment of realizing that this two can come to get any

very powerful ways. So he got a glimpse at how his skills could help teach people in the future, and a lot of his motivations came from everything he had experienced in his past, this belief that if one of the things that made the wander very turbulent and very susceptible to what happened was that you had a massive kind of youth demographic that did not have prospects, and that makes them very susceptible to some Yeah, it leads

to a lot of political instability, you know. And you and I always thought that if more people had had opportunities, if we had the good the system of education where people graduated with with with opportunities to take on you know,

to pursue their their lives, you know. And um, so a lot of your motivation for getting into teaching was to it's it's too to think about how I can be part of, you know, contribute to creating a world where what happened in the rue that doesn't happen, And I thought I was gonna be through through through education. There's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. Yeah, well yes, and anyone know when you're young, it's okay

to kind of dream big and think. I mean, I uh, I hadn't thought of I hadn't thought of it as the pressure. But you know, I mean, I think the language that i've that that that I picked up at some point is survivors remorse. You know, the people if you make it out of a tragedy like it aside, you walk away feeling like, Okay, I survived where many many didn't. Um what how does that then ship my my purpose? How does that then ship how I live

my life? And and to try and also answer the very real questions of of of why, like why me. We'll be right back with Mugabo story after the break. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details. This is the kind of person you need. Express employment professionals can help. Finding the best people requires more than sorting through applications. You need to conduct a thorough surge. Express understands what it takes to

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pros dot com to find a location near you. Back to Mogabo, he'd become a software engineer, and now he saw the huge potential his skills had to be a tool for education, because again he believed that if there were better education in Rwanda, the country maybe wouldn't have been so vulnerable to dangerous rhetoric, and maybe the genocide wouldn't have happened. It's nice to have a powerful drive,

a powerful motivating sense of purpose, you know. So he had been exposed to this online class from Stanford and he was blown away by how well built the software for the class was. So this Jove is actually getting into teaching. It put education on the map for me as something that I wanted to do. I wasn't sure in what, how, in what capacity because I was headed towards engineering, and I think that was kind of the first late pop moment of realizing that this two can

come to get any very powerful ways. It was two thousand nine by the time Mugabo graduated college. The recession had just so it was hard to find a job in teaching or find a job at all at the time. He stuck with engineering and worked as a software consultant for the I R S. He was taking more online courses, you got his n b A. He even started working

at an education technology company. I think it was the years in social engineering that kind of made me appreciate the human element that yes, technology can facilitate great learning experiences. And it worked for me. But when we're talking about where kids are in the company classrooms, having a piste

of technology is not It's nowhere near enough. So when I had the opportunity to go into the classroom, I did because I wanted to spend some time on the other side of not creating the tools, by using the tools in the classroom, and that was a whole learning experience. Um, that was a whole learning experience. Mugabo got a job in the w new Ski School district of Vermont. He was teaching middle and high school kids ages eleven to nineteen Utah engineering and science, and by all accounts and

students loved them. I leaned on exploring. I leaned on following the interests and the kind of the whims of the students, like world where the questions coming from, and kind of you know, And I always leaned on fun. I mean, all learners learned differently, you know, and and and there was a whole lot there that I needed

to learn and then I needed to figure out. He was a very interactive, experience teacher, always experimenting using technology and legos, and he tried to run a classrooms very democratically, like an open forum where people expressed themselves freely, and

you know, sometimes with disagreements. Kids felt very free and very free too to check me and and and to to freely express themselves in ways that you know, like if I'm angry and I'm raising my voice, I'm not being rude, you know, I'm just angry and I'm raising my voice and you know, and it's like it's okay. Mugabo played a very important role at his school. For context, Vermont is like white, very white, but a lot of the immigrants and refugees who have come to Vermont has

settled up in Winowski and nearby Burlington. And you know, my my class, my school was like a majority black and brown kids. That is very exceptional for Vermont, very right. Yeah, Now, the teaching staff and the administration was still like almost entirely white. He was actually the only black teacher in the middle school in high school, and he felt a responsibility to advocate for more diverse multicultural space because while they had students from all over the world, they were

still learning in a structurally white American environment. And I found that the impact that that had on my young kids was the message that the ways of being were not okay, that they were the ways of being were not This was not the place to express yourself as you are. You need to learn a new way of being um And that for for young malleable minds, that has a way of kind of teaching them to reject who they are and then to try and figure out what who they're supposed to be. But he says it

was always an uphill battle. The school preached its messages of being a multicultural space, but wasn't really ever acting on it. Mogabo spent a lot of time advocating for his students to make those changes for a better system, for more diverse faculty, but he says time and time again he wasn't really supported by the school. UM. Ultimately, I I left. You know, it was kind of burning out that I didn't on community organizing was just not visible and I was becoming a dad and so so

I I left. I left so you know, to to be able to be able to also fulfill my responsibility as a husband as and as a dad. Mugabo left the school last year in he had a baby on the way and he says being an educator and an activist within the school he worked in was taking so much of himself. I realized that UM, a lot of the change it needs to happen. Can you know the community needs to spearhead that the parents need to be

organized enough to realize what's happening to their kids. You know what they are and aren't getting um and then demanded he wrote an open letter to the school giving specific examples of how the faculty and community can actually be more diverse. In it, he said, I have done my part to make good trouble at w Newski. I've spoken the truth even when it was hard. These are very actionable steps. Which of these will you take lead

on to make sure it is implemented. I think that's absolutely more sustainable that we have more engaged, more parents who understand what's happening, to understand the system, understand how to advocate for themselves, and working in collaboration with whoever is willing to work with them to make sure that their kids care what they need. Did you feel bad

leaving at all? Yeah? Yeah, it remains hard. I mean every time I see my students, um um, I feel like I part of the reason why I made my resignation leaders public was too you know, was understanding that I had and responsibility to the community to kind of explain what happened and and and why I felt that I um, I couldn't stay. In the letter, he also says that he plans to get back to community organizing

when he can. He told me he probably won't feel totally better about the situation until he finds the time to do that. But it's nice that I'm able to be there for my for my son and my wife. I mean, I would not have been able to do that and so so there is that and um and that counts for that counts for a lot. So he's still working through a lot, but now he has the autonomy and the time to do it. Teaching and trying to change the way people learned in the school was

draining him. Now that he's building educational software with DESMOS, he can be there for his family and still be a part of spreading knowledge as he always intended. Seeing what they've done here gives me a lot of hope. We're not trying to do everything. We don't have to. We understand that I'll play is to create this powerful kind of a little tool that's gonna be one of many tools that eight people educating all over the world

I'm going to use. And if we make it easy enough and intuitive enough and fun enough and enjoyable enough, you know, then this teachers are going to do magic with it. Um And they do. Mugabo saw a lack of cultural understanding in his school, and he fought tooth and nail to change it because he knows firsthand how

dangerous that lack of understanding can be. I think a lot of people who are driven by some kind of higher purpose, like that can forget to take care of themselves in the process, to think that we need to be the solution instead of being a part of it. To me, it's really inspiring what mcgabo has done all of it. But one of the most admirable things I think is that he knew when to step away, and

he knew he couldn't do it alone. Yeah, he had real purpose to fight for, but he also had a family, and he also had his well being, and he realized that he couldn't adequately take care of anyone if he didn't take care of himself first. Today he found a job that lets him do that and still allows him to be a part of making that magic happen. He knows he can't do everything and understands that he is just a powerful little force, one of many that are

all needed to help people learn. As the world changes and all of our lives become more complicated, I think we can all take some pointers from Ogabo, because there's gonna be a lot more jobs like that, jobs where we can take better care of ourselves and still do the work that matters to us. I don't know this compulsion that you have to be an educator I'm sure you got to really scratch that itch by seeing people face to face every day, is what you're doing right now?

Is it still fulfilling that specific need for you? Yes, it still feels like I'm part of a team that's contributing to something that I very deeply care about and that I I think is very important. And I can do that with the autonomy of being a software engineer and God willing with the autonomy that's going to allow me to do more things once, you know, we find a rhythm with a family life. Yeah, so it's a good place. It's a good place to be now. For on the job, I'm Modiscray