Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani
My colleague and friend Sue Bartle sent me this thrilling notice: for the first time in its history, the Fields Medal, sometimes referred to as the “Nobel Prize for math,” has been awarded to a woman. Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani is an Iranian immigrant who teaches at Stanford and everything about her story is wonderful for those of us who work with young people. As a trail-blazer in abstract math and a leader in her profession, Dr. Mirzakhani and her work counteract the hopelessly outdated idea that girls aren’t good at math, don’t like it, or require that it be linked to concrete, personal concerns to succeed in it. All of those are beliefs, stereotypes, projections, and cultural creations that say nothing about the potential of girls and women to engage in any branch of the sciences. As the Fields Medal recipient stated, “This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians. I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years.”
The more I read about this exceptional mathematician, the more I see how suited she is to be discussed as a role model in our world of children, books, and libraries. As a child she loved books and reading, and thought she might become a writer. Math wasn’t her best subject and it was only in high school that she considered it as a career. Today, the long-distance, “slow-and-steady” approach characterizes her work, allowing her to avoid “the low-hanging fruit” to “think big.”
And then there is the matter of her background. Too often the depiction of girls growing up in predominantly Muslim countries focuses on the limitations some people within these societies impose—in matters of dress, marriage, and educational horizons. While that is true enough at times, this picture misses the ways in which some of those same societies encourage girls to study medicine, math, and engineering. Indeed the cultural image of girls as being uninterested in the sciences is a problem we need to work on in the United States. Not only does Dr. Mirzakhani’s work and success open up possibilities for girls and young women in the West, it challenges us to look again at cultural expectations around the around the world.
Two notes for your fall calendar, one personal, one of general interest.
The personal: I’ll be joining Betsy Bird in the first New York Public Library Literary Salon of the fall on September 6 at 2 PM in the Berger Forum at the 42nd Street Library. We will be considering what nonfiction for younger readers and teens has been, is, and is becoming.
The general: The first Text Set training will take place September 16-17 in Chicago. There is more information about this and the above event at this site.