UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sharing dual loves of mathematics and education, Ricardo Martinez has joined the Penn State College of Education as an assistant professor of education (mathematics education) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was an assistant professor of teaching, learning and teacher education.
Martinez said he decided to come to Penn State because he viewed the University as a place where he feels like he’s part of something bigger than himself.
“The [College of Education] dean [Kim Lawless] said ‘We didn’t just hire you, we hired your family,’” Martinez said. “The notion of family coupled with what the dean and others echoed about ‘What impact are you making?’ told me that even though publications are important, working in the community and impacting lives is also highly valued.”
“I don’t feel like my growth is going to be stagnant at Penn State and that has me excited because at other places I already felt that lack of being challenged and pushed.”
His longtime work with youth participatory action research — or YPAR — seeks to create mathematical learning experiences that returns the legitimacy of mathematical knowledge creation back to the people. Martinez’s research seeks to discover and dismantle root causes that lead people to believe that they are not “math people” by investigating how mathematics can be used to empower students and teachers.
Martinez runs summer mathematics and YPAR programs for youth that allow for the exploration of the relationships formed with mathematics.
“Take any theoretical mathematician, any ‘hardcore math person’ and what you see is mathematics isn’t just what they do, it’s part of their lives,” Martinez said. “It’s how they see the world. It’s how they engage in everything and that is a spiritual connection that everyone should have because we all learn to count as we learn to speak.
“Do we have rich mathematical experiences that allow us to form relationships with mathematics, others and the natural world?” Martinez asked. “When that happens, we begin to see the mathematics that is alive in ourselves and in others.”
Martinez has a doctorate in mathematics education from Iowa State University, which he finished in 2020, but it is his background as a youth that has inspired him to try to make a difference in his students’ lives. He remarked how his life as a troubled youth was forever altered by a conversation he had with a teacher.
“In high school I was not ‘the best student,’ when it came to following rules,” Martinez said. “I got in trouble a lot. I tried to manipulate the system to take classes to just get out of school quicker. I had a teacher who looked at me in summer school and said ‘I know what you’re doing. You’re better than this. Take this class instead and you’re staying in the honors program.’ If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have gotten kicked out of school like all my friends. I don’t think I would have made it through high school. That moment really changed my life.”
It's that ability for educators to effect change and his chance to instill that value in those looking to become teachers, Martinez said, that ultimately led him to the Penn State College of Education.
“The goal of the college is to not create barriers for the type of work I want to do,” he said. “The college has been clear why they want me, and they understand what I bring. The obvious resources and history of Penn State, the history of people in the college already doing great work provides me with many road maps that I can follow; but there are also other pathways I can create and am encouraged to create and work with others.”