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BU Alum Named 2019 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year

Jamil Siddiqui inspires his students to love mathematics

The big day: High school math teacher Jamil Siddiqui (ENG’93, Wheelock’94, GRS’98) gives his calculus students some last-minute encouragement before they take their AP exam. Photo by Kelly Davidson.

Just an hour before this year’s Advanced Placement calculus exam, jittery East Bridgewater, Mass., high school students gathered in Jamil Siddiqui’s classroom for breakfast.

Siddiqui had made them homemade French toast to help quell their nerves, then gave them a last-minute pep talk, reminding them of all the effort they had put into preparing for the test: the homework, before and after school meetings, and marathon review sessions, all designed to unlock the intricacies of calculus.

“It’s time to go perform,” said Siddiqui (ENG’93, Wheelock’94, GRS’98). “There is no reason to be nervous or worried, because you are prepared, you have practiced for this day for months.”

The same could be said for their teacher. Siddiqui has been teaching AP calculus for 24 years at East Bridgewater Junior/Senior High School. In that time, he has prepared hundreds of students for the AP test. Typically, 7 out of 10 of those students receive a score of three or higher on the exam. One in three will score a perfect five.

Those results are well above national averages, demonstrating how he has conquered a remarkable challenge: getting high school students to like, and sometimes share his love of, pure mathematics, a subject he calls “the language of love.” He says he still gets excited—even a touch nervous—sending his students into one of the most challenging exams of their high school career.

Beyond math, colleagues and students talk about Siddiqui’s decades-long commitment to his school. He is the kind of a teacher who hosts barbecues for students, attends their sports games, and routinely stays late as a club advisor or a confidante.

That passion for his subject and dedication to his students has recently earned Siddiqui a singular honor. He has just been named 2019 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year.

“He has this sort of Yoda-like presence,” says East Bridgewater principal Brian Duffey. “He’s the guy kids and other adults go to with things because of his unassuming approach. And there’s always this unstated deal with him that he’s going to be with you the whole ride through, right to the end.

“He really is a master teacher.”

The first step in teaching teenagers math has little to do with numbers. First, Siddiqui says, they need to learn to be wrong. That fear inhibits them from learning and asking the questions they need answered.

“I cannot care less about your final answer,” he tells students. “I want to know what your thought process is.”

Helping students figure out their thought process is where Siddiqui shines. On a recent morning, before most people have sipped coffee, he is moving animatedly about his classroom, searching to find the correct superhero magnet to illustrate a precalculus concept. He throws out a question that advances his theme and becomes suddenly still, waiting for one of his students to venture an answer.

“He’s always way ahead of the kids,” says former student William Pellegrino, who became a math teacher in South Easton, Mass., because of Siddiqui.

“He loves math so much, even if you don’t fully get into it, it starts to rub off on you a little bit—you just can’t resist,” Pellegrino says. “Obviously, I’m a math nerd, but I’ve seen it happen to others who aren’t.”

Passion for teaching began at BU

Siddiqui and his two brothers were raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse in remote Caribou, Maine, near the Canadian border. Distractions were few. Video games and cell phones were a rarity. He says the three frequently challenged one another with science and math problems.

He came to BU to study biomedical engineering, but it was a stint as a tutor in the University’s math lab that proved most formative. Siddiqui was by far the most popular tutor in the lab, says Robert L. Devaney, a College of Arts & Sciences professor emeritus of mathematics and statistics, who later hired him to work in his computer lab. After graduating with an engineering degree, Siddiqui stayed on to earn a master’s degree in math education. A few years later, he returned to BU to get a master’s in pure mathematics.

“In my own career as a student,” he says, “it was the ideas that I struggled with and repeatedly got wrong that became the topics that I understood the most.”

Devaney, past president of the Mathematical Association of America, says he still sees Siddiqui at national math conferences, which typically, few high school math teachers attend. And at a time when most states, including Massachusetts, are facing significant shortages of qualified math teachers, Siddiqui is offering his students a window into higher order mathematical thinking.

“He’s teaching students AP calculus, but he’s also showing them what’s new and interesting and exciting in math,” Devaney says. “And that’s what clearly makes him stand out. East Bridgewater is lucky to have him.”

Siddiqui teaching a class of precalculus students. Other teachers—and not just those in his own department—often observe his class to learn his methods. Photos by Kelly Davidson.

It would be easy to fill an auditorium with all the students that Siddiqui has helped score well on the AP calculus exam. (About 700 by his count.) And that’s exactly what East Bridgewater school officials did earlier this month during a surprise ceremony to announce that Siddiqui had been named Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, a first for the district.

The superintendent of schools was there, along with state and local officials and Siddiqui’s wife, Rebecca, a history teacher, who came with their 17-month-old son. Also on hand were 10 of the 14 former students Siddiqui has inspired to become math teachers, there to celebrate their mentor.

Cheers and applause erupted when Siddiqui, who did not yet know about the award, appeared. Students waved “5” signs from their seats while music blared from the sound system.

“I think he really deserves it,” says 17-year-old Calliope Tarsi. “It’s really easy if you’re having trouble to ask him questions.”

And from rising senior Hunter Dempsey: “He gets you really prepared. And he doesn’t leave anyone behind.”

Siddiqui received the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year award from Lt. Governor Karyn Polito (left) during the Honoring Excellence in Teaching ceremony at the Massachusetts State House Great Hall on June 21. Photo by Jake Belcher.

Siddiqui says he didn’t enter the teaching profession to win accolades, but he is honored to be named Massachusetts’ top teacher and share his love of math. (The official ceremony took place June 21 at the Massachusetts State House.) After nearly two and a half decades as a teacher, he’s been a role model for his colleagues at East Bridgewater, who frequently stop by to observe his teaching methods. He also has a side gig working for the College Board training math teachers. Yet he has no intention of leaving the classroom for an administrative job.

“I always say, you gotta love something, either your subject or your students,” Siddiqui says. “The best teachers, I think, love both.”

Author, Megan Woolhouse can be reached at megwj@bu.edu.

BU Awards Scholarships to Boston Public High School Grads

New Menino and Community Service scholars honored at reception

Thomas M. Menino Scholars and Community Service Award grantees with Jean Morrison, University provost (far left), at last week’s reception. Photo by Jake Belcher.

For many high school seniors, college is a chance to set out far from home. But Melissa Alvarado chose to stay in her hometown and attend BU, in large part because the University enabled her to be the first in her family to attend college, courtesy of a Community Service Award.

Under the decade-old program, BU grants four-year support to Boston public school graduates matriculating at the University, covering all their financial need without their having to resort to loans.

“BU was just a better choice for me” financially and academically, says Alvarado (CGS’20), a graduate of Boston Latin Academy. “And then you get to help out the community after your first semester,” she says, referring to the program’s obligation of 25 hours per semester of community service.

“My mom’s excited for me to stay in Boston,” adds Alvarado, a Dorchester resident and one of six siblings, who will enter the College of General Studies this fall. After that she plans to attend Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences.

She was among 38 Community Service Award Scholars and 29 Thomas M. Menino Scholars at the Questrom School of Business for last Wednesday’s annual reception welcoming them to BU. The Menino Scholars program also grants support over four years to the city’s public school graduates matriculating at BU.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, addressing the scholars in Questrom’s auditorium, said that the global study programs and other opportunities that BU provides are something “many people don’t experience…in a lifetime.” He recalled his own decision to drop out of Suffolk University after a semester—“It was a mistake,” he said, although “I am the mayor of Boston, so something went right.”—before studying nights and graduating from Boston College.

“You made a lot of right decisions to get here,” Walsh told his audience.

He noted that roughly a quarter of the incoming scholars are immigrants, like his own Irish parents. “I’m not giving a political speech, but what’s happening in the world today, and what’s happening in the United States, in my opinion is sad.…We are incredibly proud of who you are and what you stand for.”

One of those immigrants, Menino scholar Helen Leung (CAS’22), moved to Boston with her family from Hong Kong two years ago. The BU scholarship, the Charlestown High graduate says, is “a big acknowledgement of my high school life and career.

“I did apply to schools that are out of state,” she says, “but BU stands out to me because of its really big community.…And I also want to stay close to my family.”

Provost Jean Morrison told the scholars that “your being here is a reflection of your commitment, not only to academic excellence, but to all of your efforts in your classrooms, your churches, and your communities. And of course, it’s also a terrific reflection on your families and your loved ones.

“Take advantage of our global opportunities,” she advised, while also urging the scholars to make more immediate connections: “You will find that some of your closest friends that you’ll keep for the rest of your life are likely sitting with you in these first few rows.”

More than a third of the incoming Menino and Community Service scholars are the first in their family to attend college, and almost half of those students hail from abroad, including China, Canada, Hong Kong, Albania, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Pakistan.

The merit-based Menino Scholarships, awarded annually since 1973, cover full tuition. BU will spend $6 million for this year’s coterie over their four years here. Nominated by their high schools, Menino Scholars also get a weeklong orientation to college learning and ongoing support afterward.

Community Service Awards cover recipients’ calculated financial need while assigning them mentors to help with college life. BU will spend $6.5 million on this year’s students over the next four years. Besides community service, they must maintain a 2.0 cumulative grade point average and complete 12 credits each semester.

BU opened the Community Service Awards for the first time to transfer students last year. This fall, in addition to the program’s 38 straight-to-BU freshmen, 25 transfer students (who weren’t at the reception) will attend the University with support from the awards.

Over its 45 years, the Menino Scholars program has provided almost $170 million to 1,946 students. The program was renamed in 2013 for Thomas Menino (Hon.’01), the late Boston mayor and founding director of BU’s Initiative on Cities. The Community Service Awards have totaled $59 million to 466 students since that program began.

Author, Rich Barlow can be reached at barlowr@bu.edu.

What Does Trump’s Immigration Order Mean?

LAW immigration expert says new policy “is legally and morally indefensible”

On June 20, Donald Trump, flanked by Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security secretary (left), and Mike Pence, vice president, signed an executive order that would end the separation of families at the US-Mexico border, but would detain them together indefinitely. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Bowing to political pressure following a growing public outcry, President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday reversing a policy that separates parents and children at the US-Mexico border. It was a rare about-face for Trump, who met with mounting condemnation from human rights activists and members of his own party. But Trump said his policy of zero tolerance would continue. “We’re going to have strong—very strong—borders, but we are going to keep the families together,” he said when he signed the new immigration order.

Pressure had increased on Trump to reverse course after journalists and politicians touring the facilities where the children are housed reported seeing traumatized children, and in some instances, metal cages to keep them contained. A video obtained by ProPublica and released to news outlets across the globe played sounds of wailing children and added to the mounting public outrage.

The new order leaves many unanswered questions about the fate of the 2,300 children currently in detention centers, such as if and when they will be reunited with their parents. And the president’s order faces numerous legal obstacles, including whether families can be detained indefinitely. According to the New York Times, a federal judge could refuse to give the Trump administration the authority it wants to hold families in custody for more than 20 days, the current limit as stipulated by a 1997 court order known as the Flores Settlement.

BU Today spoke with Sarah Sherman-Stokes, a School of Law clinical instructor and the associate director of the LAW Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program, about the new order and the likelihood of a legal challenge.

Before coming to BU, Sherman-Stokes was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project, where she represented noncitizens in removal proceedings, with a special focus on the representation of detained, mentally ill refugees. Her research focuses on the intersections of immigration law and mental health and disability, as well as the interactions between immigration and the criminal justice system. As associate director of the immigrant and trafficking program, she teaches seminars on lawyering skills and trial advocacy and supervises students representing newly unaccompanied children facing deportation, refugees fleeing human rights abuses, and other immigrants in court and administrative proceedings.

BU Today: What does this new executive order mean? Is it a shift away from current immigration policy?

Sherman-Stokes: There’s been a lot of immigration news over the last few days. To lay out what happened, the president set out a policy of his own making, to engage in zero tolerance at the border—that is, to prosecute criminally anyone who entered the United States unlawfully or without authorization. He decided in doing so that he would separate children from their parents. That’s not required by any law, statute, or regulation, but he decided that’s what he would do. More than 2,300 children were separated from their parents in less than two months, and in the face of public outrage over that decision, he signed an executive order June 20, saying that in lieu of family separation, he will now detain families together, indefinitely.

The executive order is not a positive step, not a compromise. I think it is an insidious ploy to make family detention a permanent fixture of our immigration system and offer it up as some kind of compromise or way to prevent family separation. It’s almost equally as bad.

What is the likelihood of an immediate legal challenge to the new executive order?

I imagine there will be a legal challenge, in particular because the president’s executive order suggests that children and families can be held indefinitely, which is a direct violation of the Flores Settlement, the settlement agreement from 1997 that said that children can be held for only a short period of time, even with their parents, up to 20 days. The president’s plan would allow for indefinite detention, so I imagine there would be an immediate legal challenge because it so clearly violates the Flores Settlement.

Do you think the Trump administration can persuade the courts to modify the Flores Settlement to allow for indefinite detention?

I actually think Trump knows exactly what he’s doing, or at least the people around him know what they’re doing. By signing this executive order, he knows his actions are in direct violation of the Flores Settlement. That’s intentional. He wants this to come to a court challenge, because he either wants a judge to modify or amend the Flores Settlement to suit his wishes, or if a judge is unwilling to do that, he wants congress to pass a law doing away with Flores.

There have been people on the right side of the aisle who have long hated this Flores Settlement and have long waited to erode it, chip away from it, or do away with it all together. And I think that’s the goal here.

Right now, there is a negotiated 20-day limit for the amount of time that children can be held in detention with their parents. I don’t know if Trump wants to extend that to a longer period of time, or do away with it all together. You can imagine if people are being held indefinitely, because the conditions are so miserable and abusive, they will end up giving up bona fide claims for release, because they simply can’t tolerate being detained in a jail for such a long period of time. Many people will keep fighting, but we’re talking about the most vulnerable people, who have undergone horrific trauma, who could have mental and physical illnesses, young children. They are inside the pressure cooker, and if they are looking at indefinite detention while they fight their cases or make their case for asylum, they may become so disheartened that they give up.

What is the fate of the 2,300 children currently in detention centers? Do you think they will be reunited in a timely fashion?

I don’t know. The executive order provides no avenue for reunification, which is extremely troubling. The executive order is completely disingenuous. I’ve heard anecdotally, from folks on the ground, that it’s chaos. Parents aren’t able to reunite with their children and the type of information that was needed to provide reunification wasn’t made, and that’s frankly not surprising. I don’t think that this administration’s goal was to provide a path for reunification. So I don’t know what will happen.

What are some of the hurdles these families face in being reunited?

In immigration removal proceedings, you are not entitled to a lawyer unless you can afford a lawyer on your own or unless you can benefit from one of the legal service providers. The demand far outstrips the resources. Many people need lawyers, but there aren’t enough lawyers to represent everyone for free. There are language barriers, there are parents and children who are deeply traumatized. Asking someone up against all those odds to navigate this complex bureaucracy, to find their missing child, when all they are given is a flyer with a 1-800 number, is preposterous.

In previous interviews, you’ve said that you cannot deter families who are fleeing for their lives. Can you talk about this?

At least from my experience, my clients do not typically wake up one day and decide on a whim that they are going to make the treacherous journey to the United States. The journey is fraught with potential horrors—people die, they become very sick, people are assaulted, raped; it’s not a pleasant journey to undertake and it’s expensive. People only make that journey when they feel they have no choice. The president has said that this policy that he instated, although he later denied instating it, is a policy of deterrence. But as I said before, you cannot deter people who are fleeing for their lives. These people are making the only choice they have for the lives of their children.

Anything else you’d like to add?

To be really clear-eyed about what this executive order does and does not do, I’m seeing spin from Republicans in Congress saying, well, Democrats and advocates first didn’t want kids separated, so OK, we stopped separating kids, now they want more. This a crisis of Trump’s own making, and now he is swooping in to change it. It’s morally and legally indefensible, and I believe it was a ploy all along. It is very dangerous and scary.

Immigration is not a criminal matter, it’s a civil one, yet we treat these people like criminals, with jumpsuits and numbers, but they don’t have the right to a lawyer and other rights.

Author, Amy Laskowski can be reached at amlaskow@bu.edu.

POV: Can Economics Predict This Year’s World Cup Winner?

Maybe yes, and maybe no

Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images.

With the 2018 World Cup under way, fans are gripped by football fever. Questions abound. Will Russia be able to organize a successful tournament? How will the teams handle the long distance between venues? Will the World Cup be the same without Italy and the Netherlands? Without the USA? And most important of all, who will raise the trophy on July 15?

It seems that everybody is in the business of making World Cup predictions: psychic cephalopods and mathematicians, investment bankers and firms using artificial intelligence. And of course pundits. And more pundits.

Today, it is not enough to simply name an expected winner. You want a probabilistic forecast that assigns to each team a probability of winning the whole thing. Many of the predictions described above are based on a simple structure: assign to each team a rating, based on some combination of historical results, quality of the players on the squad, quality of the club teams represented on the squad, and maybe other factors (home field advantage, home continent advantage, age of the players, distance traveled, or other personal hunches); use a mathematical formula to transform the ratings into a probability that a match ends with a given outcome (1-0, 2-1, 7-1, …); and then simulate these matches many times to obtain predicted probabilities of the final tournament outcomes.

But what if we didn’t know anything about international football? What if we didn’t know about Messi and Ronaldo, that Neymar is coming off an injury, that Spain sacked its coach on the eve of its World Cup debut, that an England goalkeeper will find a way to embarrass himself, or that football is a game with 22 players and in the end Germany wins? Could we still make an accurate World Cup prediction? What if we tried to apply economic theory to predict the World Cup winner?

Welcome to the economic model for predicting the World Cup. The model is extremely simple. It is based on the observation that a country’s soccer prowess can be predicted by just a few variables: population, GDP per capita, and the FIFA confederation to which a country is affiliated. The logic is quite straightforward. The larger a country’s population, the deeper its talent pool. Higher GDP per capita means better facilities, infrastructure, health, and the ability to pay good coaches (contrary to popular belief, the best soccer players didn’t hone their skills by playing with a ball of rags on the street, with jumpers for goalposts; they played in organized leagues, with goals, uniforms, referees, and shouting parents on the sidelines). Including a country’s confederation in the model is a simple way to capture the fact that passion for soccer is not the same everywhere. One could add other variables (a country’s age distribution, measures of health, investment in sports as a share of GDP), but it is instructive to see how far this simple model can go.

Below is a figure showing the economic model’s prediction for the group stage. For comparison, the figure also shows the probabilities based on a more traditional rating system that takes only historical results into account.

Source: Daniele Paserman

For many countries, the economic model’s predictions and the traditional predictions are remarkably similar. The economic model recognizes Germany’s economic might and Brazil’s large population and rates them as strong favorites to advance from their group. But there are also some interesting discrepancies. Russia, Egypt, and Nigeria are expected to do quite well, based on their economic fundamentals. On the other hand, the economic model doesn’t think much of tiny Uruguay and Iceland (given the effects of the financial crisis on the Icelandic economy, the feeling is probably mutual).

And what about the original question: who will win the World Cup? Looking just at the teams with more than a 2 percent probability of winning, we get the following:

Source: Daniele Paserman

According to economics, the favorites to win the World Cup are Russia, closely followed by Brazil. Hmm… Given the dismal state of the Russian national team, maybe economics is not that much better at predicting sporting events than the state of the world economy? (Or maybe economics knows something that we don’t?)

There is only one way to find out. Watch the games and enjoy.

M. Daniele Paserman is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of economics. The chance of his favorite team, Italy, winning the World Cup is exactly 0.0 percent. He can be reached at paserman@bu.edu.

“POV” is an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international. Anyone interested in submitting a piece, which should be about 700 words long, should contact Rich Barlow at barlowr@bu.edu. BU Today reserves the right to reject or edit submissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University.