Dr. Sharon Mistretta, EdD in Education | Adjunct Faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Education

In this episode, we discuss how Sharon’s childhood freedom to explore her curiosity sparked her interest in science, math, and learning, her journey from being an English major to working as a computer programmer to pursing a doctorate in education, and the ways her different experiences working in a male-dominated field inspired her to address gender-based attitudes in STEM education to better support women learners.

Hosted by Brooklyn Arroyo

To connect with Sharon and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Brooklyn Arroyo

Hello, I'm co-host Brooklyn Arroyo and this is 100 Alumni Voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Sharon Mistretta, EdD and doctor in education. Welcome to the PHutures podcast. How are you today?

Sharon Mistretta

Great Brooklyn. Thank you so much for having me. How are you?

Brooklyn Arroyo

I'm doing great. We briefly mentioned before starting that we're appreciating this Friday when we're recording. So, let's just jump right in and I am really interested in knowing your journey into education and what sort of led you to pursue that field.

Sharon Mistretta

My pursuit of education really started when I was a young child because I always had an interest in teaching others, but I also had a very deep curiosity about things. So, I was absolutely blessed with two parents that did not silo me in toys and activities that were gender specific. They didn't pigeonhole me into things that were just for girls. So, I had a very deep interest in building. While I had the obligatory kitchen set and dolls, they, my parents, also allowed me to have tinker toys and blocks and matchbox cars. And when I was young, I also had a very deep interest in science. And I pooled my birthday money and around when I was nine years old and went out and bought a microscope. And as doing so, I went used to go down to the brook and gather specimens of water and then come home and then look at it in under my microscope and see paramecium and amoeba. I didn't know what those were at the time, but I know that it was something that I can observe and I can look at and knew that it was because of the microscope that I could see that. So, I was just absolutely free to do to explore my curiosity and I think that that is the real heart of education is to be curious and to harness the curiosity of our students. So, I I had a deep interest in everything when I was young. I also had a very deep interest in math. And when the the my friends on the block had to go inside to do their homework, but I was a little bit too young to to have those types of of grades and homework, I would come in and I would ask my dad for homework for math homework. So, he would patiently make a page of of addition and subtraction etc. And I'd go off and I'd finish everything and I'd hand it to him and he'd correct it and and help me through. So, I was always interested in learning. I wanted just simply to know more and I always also wanted to know more when I wanted to know more. So, it's it's really interesting also is that that I grew up in a time where the the Sputnik satellite went up and it really caused a big stir in our society because the Americans realized that perhaps we were way behind in math. So as a result, they instituted what was called new maths in our classroom, in school and new math was very new to the teachers as well as to the students. It really wasn't rote mathematics like my dad had given me, which is pages of addition, pages of subtraction or multiplication. What it was was really math theory. So, my dad went down to the, the district had a class for parents, and then he went down to learn about new math and then came home and was able to help me with my homework. So, what that actually was was set theory and numbering system and math theory. So, what I learned when I was very young was base two, which is Binary, Base 8, which is octal. And by the time I got to college and took my very first course in programming on basic computer programming and I know that the the viewers or the listeners can't see this, but I still have the paper tape that I coded on which is in basic computer science. I I kept the artifact and I and by having that foundation of math, I was ready to understand computer science. I was ready to understand programming languages and although I started as an English major because I wanted to go into teaching and I wanted to teach literature, and I wanted to to teach the fundamentals of of reading, etc., I took a little bit of a a different path because I took one computer science course in basic on this paper tape and that was it. I was hooked. So, it was a little bit of a of a different route to get to teaching. It was a very divergent way that I I took this because then after I learned all of these programming languages, I got a job programming and doing project management in money center banks in the city because that's where I could practice this this programming and also math and also computational thinking. It just really appealed to me. So, in my journey of going from being an English major to being having interest in computer science, I met one person in one of my work settings and it was was Doctor Irving Schlansky. Now he was he was more toward the end of his career. But he really taught me how to program. He was a colleague. He was a work colleague, but he was also a professor at my at the college that I went to. And the way that he explained things was just so well explained that I knew I wanted to do that. I wanted to follow what Irving did so that I can teach others in such a a a clear way as to how he grounded it in examples and he made and he was never a person who was said, because he was brilliant in math, he was actually one of the mathematicians on the Manhattan Project and he knew Oppenheimer and he knew Feynman. And it was just so interesting to meet someone like that. But inherently, he was a teacher. So, by the time I finished my career ss a working for banks and programming and doing project management and I started to have our children, Fred and I had gotten married after we met at manufacturers Hanover in the City, I took a job closer to home as a project manager, but once I started to raise our children, I knew that I did not want to go back to banking. I knew that I wanted to teach teachers how to implement technology into their classrooms because what I saw was that my children’s teachers didn't know how to do that and it was very new back then. There were so many things that were being introduced, but they didn't know how to implement them into the classroom. So that is when I went back to school to get my Master’s degree at Teachers College, Columbia University, and I went for computing and education. And really, what I was enacting was later on, when I I did finish my degree and went to work in schools, because I got I was an alternative root teacher alternate root teacher because I didn't have my foundation of teacher education in my college years, I really took a very different route. So, the alternate route was available to me to earn my certification, and I knew I wanted to earn my certification, so I did so at Rutgers University while I was teaching. Face to face at that time. I was teaching middle school. And also, I was taking courses in at toward my degree and because of my very supportive family, my husband and children and my mom and dad, they helped me so much to watch the kids or or maybe sometimes, you know, make dinner, put the kids to bed, read them, read to them so that I could do this. And so, that's how I I came to the world of teaching, because I I felt as though I knew that I wanted to tell everybody about what I found in the pond water or the brook water. I knew I wanted to tell everybody what I what I built and what I I discovered because of curiosity, so I wanted to share that with my students. So that's how I I got to where I am and what are the other questions that I can elaborate on for you.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Well, to start off with that is just such a plethora of such rich experiences and I think that like I relate to you briefly mentioned mentioned in the beginning, you know, this sort of idea that you were allowed to explore your curiosity and and let your curiosity lead you. And I'm the oldest of four daughters. So, we're just a bunch of sisters and we were allowed in that same way to kind of just let our interests lead us and guide us. And so, I think that that's a really important thing to highlight and and do you feel that within your peers or even as you grew older within your colleagues did that that ever became apparent that other people hadn't, or that it may have been a peculiar thing to see somebody who was this young girl who was allowed to pursue playing in the mud and being able to. And what was that like for you?

Sharon Mistretta

Well, my, my I still have my dear friends from childhood. They are still we're still friends today and I love them dearly. And when I was down at the brook to gather samples, I took them with me. And perhaps you know, let's go down to the brook, and you know, they they did have an interest in more like maybe perhaps not getting dirty and not falling into the brook. But I think that they enjoyed also that that freedom that I felt and I could draw them into it. And I also had groups of friends that were the boys in the in the neighborhood, and I’d play kickball and and I I'd play touch football with them, but I was always accepted by both groups, and I never really, really thought that I wouldn't be accepted. I just assumed that. I would be. I never looked for any, I never really ever was was trained by or encouraged by my parents to just be one one category of anything. I was allowed to be curious, so I never looked over my shoulder. I never expected that type of feedback from anyone, and I think that that really helped me in my workplace as a programmer because I was one of the very few females in programming in a money center bank bank back in the 80s. It was dominated by men and the differences really were my salary. I was not paid as much as my male counterparts, even though I just was good at programming. So, I earned their respect, but I also I would collaborate with them to show them techniques, because that's that's one thing about technology and I try to bring that into my classroom here at Johns Hopkins, is that with technology we usually say did you see this new application? You've got to try it. So, we're very collaborative and we are very sharing when it comes to techniques of things that we are doing in programming. Because the whole idea when I teach computational thinking to my students, who I have that I teach in master's degree as well as doctoral degree students, I teach them how to think computationally, which really is breaking apart the problem into its multiple pieces. We are able to notice commonality, we're able to reuse certain techniques. The whole idea being that we want our program, we want our platform, we want our message to be as concise as possible. So that is what I learned with my male peers. The reason why I know that I wasn't getting the same salary as the others is because my husband was also working for the same company. And I saw his pay scale ladder. I was privy to it, because that was at that point the household income. I can see what his thresholds were and different stratosphere or strategies of of what the bank was willing to pay him versus me, what I was getting. So that is something that we still endure today, that females are not paid as well as males and that is, I think, knowing that my knowing my background in just being allowed to be curious about everything from my parents to also learning programming right at the forefront in money center banks, it's not programming as a concept, it's programming and application. I actually had to make it work in a banking industry, so by making the programs work, I took that with me to my classroom because my when I teach my students, I teach them things that they can bring right back to their contexts that are very usable with their students. So that's very important to me to be able to, to share that. But I take all of those experiences, and then when I got to the point where I wanted to pursue a doctoral degree because again, I'm very curious, my problem of practice is the understanding of gender-based attitudes in STEM environments, because I do have students who are afraid of math, especially my female students, and I've done a lot of work with a variety of SES-level, socioeconomic status levels, because my intervention was in a poverty demographic. I knew that I wanted I worked with the High SES students in upper echelon of of of students in the area that I live in. But I also wanted to 14 miles away was a after school program in a poverty demographic, and I wanted to work with those students. I wanted to know about their lives and I wanted to give them the opportunity to learn how to program MIT app inventor, so that they can program Android devices. So that was my intervention and what I found was that that the students are so bright and wonderful in all of my my my practices. It was interesting though, because I brought my students from at that point, I was teaching high school and I brought my students. From high school to help me with the robotics that I was teaching at the poverty at in the after-school program and the programming, and it was interesting that their moms would drive them to the it's Oasis, which is a haven for women and children in in Paterson, NJ, and the moms would bring their daughters high school daughters. But then it was really too short a time to go back home. We definitely don't have a Starbucks in Paterson, NJ. It was no place for them to their usual hangout, so they would I say to them, some of the moms, would you like to help the students in the cafeteria who need help with their homework? Because that's one of the services that we provided at Oasis cause I’m still involved with them, and their eyes kind of got big and they said right in front of their daughters, OK, I'll help them with their homework, but don't give me any math. I can't do math, and I'm just I'm just not good at math and I'm. Oh my gosh, they just state it right in front of their daughter, who I'm nurturing in my STEM classes back at their high school. I was teaching them how to program in Java. I was teaching them how to program in iOS app inventing. And here they were saying right in front of their daughter that they're afraid of math. So, I really worked with all of my students. And at that point, I was working with female students that I actually at the beginning of my classes, I would say to them, I give you permission to make mistakes because that's how you learn. I give you permission to not have the right answer and to and to make mistakes and work on it and learn. And it was it was. They were very. But they were very afraid also of making mistakes because it's very high stakes for them that they wanted to get the the scholarships they needed, the very high-end grades in order to get into the the the colleges of their choice. They wanted to be in my robotics team because then they can put that on their resume for their college applications. So, I worked with a lot of students. I'm very proud to say that my students are engineers now and they are programmers and they they contact me and they say OK, which job offer should I accept and they show me their salaries and I say yes because they're making great money and they're they're doing what they love and I'm actually meeting with one next week. She she just contacted me and she said, hey, can we can we catch up? I said let's zoom. Here's my calendly link. Let's let's zoom and and I guess I think that she's a she doesn’t live nearby. So, we were able to zoom, but it's just I I just, I'm so proud of all my students. I also taught boys as well and but they were, they were more willing to make mistakes and the girls were not, and I really tried to nurture that in in my in my classes.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Well, I think that it's a a beautiful thing, really an amazing thing. But for me as as a girl, it's really beautiful to hear about this sort of experiences of you sharing your curiosity and and sort of making a widespread impact on generational on a multi-generational impact, you know with the youth and then the high school level and then the mothers and how there is that sense of I think perfection that is often forced onto femininity and women in general. And so, I think that it does go back into what you're talking about the the anxious and anxiety of not wanting to fail or no, I just can't do math or you know, I that's not for me. And so, I think that it's amazing that you were able to have those experiences. And did you see those moments with the mothers where they started to evolve? And because sometimes it's harder when somebody's already established in their life to a certain extent to grow in that way and realize no, I can't make mistakes even now and what was that like seeing seeing all that for you?

Sharon Mistretta

The the parents I, they're very dear to me and I I keep in touch with them as well because I think what they saw was that I was nurturing their daughters and their sons as well, such that it's perhaps what they didn't have in their toolkit. But by encouraging them to to be a part of a group that included myself and and the parents and the the students that we formed a community, so to speak, so that we can evolve together. So there there are instances when we have to do this together. We have to be able to allow our our daughters and our sons to have role models that are within our our community, such that we can grow and it is it is very important. It's sometimes we're we're a product of our, of our environment. That is what their nurturing was and that's I guess why I I saw and realized how different mine was because I saw how the others did not have those opportunities and it's it's it's it's hard because we there's a lot of of expectations that are imposed on us by society and one thing that I've I was always again taught by my mom was from from a very early time was that she said to me, think for yourself and don't let anyone else think for you. And I would just, you know, think about that and say, OK, mom. OK. And she said no, you you must understand. Think for yourself and don't let anyone think for you. And also, she said to me I might not be with you always, but my words will. So, it's just really interesting being raised by a very strong mom that but it's she's a strong mom because she knew how to let go. You people might think that you're a strong mom, because you are constantly inputting and constantly molding and letting people grow but not being and sort of forming what you think they should be and she was a strong enough mom to let me pursue what I needed to pursue. So, I think that by comparison, the mothers who I I sometimes meet for lunch. They'll reach out and and just chat. We'll we'll meet for lunch and it's it's nice because you also see the influences of them on their daughters, but they're also peering into my influence on their daughters and and they know, hands down, how much I love them. I mean, love them. I'm going to have, I have pictures of them of my robotics team. I did a Google Moonbots competition and we scored in the in the top percentage of an international field and but the bottom line is we had so much fun during that time when when the they did all the building, they did all the programming. I just did all the little guiding. I call myself the sheepdog because if you’ve ever been in the company of a real sheepdog, it's funny is that if you're standing in a in a group, just talking in the kitchen, they'll come over to you and they’ll nudge you and then suddenly you're finding yourself in this tight knot in the middle of the kitchen and you realize that the sheepdog just just herded you into a group, and that's that's sort of what I do. I just kind of push people together to to have that opportunity. But then I I do let them work together and and we we just had had we just it it's just such a memorable experience, I think for all of us that we, we had so much fun. And that also was you're building that rapport in the classroom, but you also are having the chance. That's why after school programs and robotics programs are so important, because you have extra time to work with these students and to get to know them, and also to nurture their talents and also, to gently address their fears. And it might not just be fears in their schoolwork. It might be also fears in just just social aspects, but it's just nice to be able to give them an opportunity. That was an all-girls’ team that that's just something I'm very proud of is the Google Moonbots competition.

Brooklyn Arroyo

No, I think that you should hold a lot of a lot of pride in that, and I would be interested in if others had this similar aspiration within education or in really any field where they're trying to start a program or a space that really allows people to thrive in this way and and create an environment like you had, how would you go about explaining ways that you can do that? And what advice would you have for anyone hoping to do the same?

Sharon Mistretta

If I were to speak to individual teachers, I would encourage them to allow their students to make mistakes and also to create alternative assessments. Not everyone from Universal Design for learning, which is something that I teach in my doctoral program here at Johns Hopkins, not everyone likes to write or not everyone can see themselves in writing. They might want to create a Ted talk and do certain video talks about something. They might want to create an online virtual gallery of artwork and then do a voiceover. They might want to do a what's called thing link, which is something that is these little hotspots that you can click on and then it expands to either text or audio or links to video or book creator. So, what I think that teachers need to do is to unlatch themselves from always doing the APA report and always doing the essay. That gets old very fast. And I realize that that is a life skill. I I do realize that. But also, what I'm finding and it's a actually an an article that I'm writing about is is just the new infusion of ChatGPT within the school environment because that is AI and a lot of teachers are afraid of it. So, there are ways to get around that. There are strategies to get around that and that is to create alternative assessments. Now that's what I would address to individual teachers is to is to do that with alternative assessments. The thing is that with with school systems, it's harder because school systems are structured in a bell schedule. They are structured, as I was in a bell schedule, when I was teaching many sections of Java. And suddenly the period ends and you have to mark where you've ended with that section of the class because it might be a 45-minute period or it might be a 60-minute period depending on the section, depending on the letter day. And then they're going off to social studies. They're going off to gym or the the entire volleyball team gets up and starts to leave because their bus is leaving for a tournament. And you didn't know that they were leaving for the tournament. So, with that, teachers are really in a straightjacket, so to speak, where it's better for me to be able to have a longer time with them. But those types of bell schedules really are, people push back at changing that. That's a very big change. It's a very heavy lift. So, what I do and what I encourage my teachers to do, that I teach in my master’s degree program is that I do what's called explainer videos. It used to be called flip lessons, but flip lessons denote that the student has to do that for homework. Your lecture is for homework, and that usually doesn't fly because they usually don't listen to the video and a lot of teachers, or what I'm seeing of my teachers that I teach now, they don't assign homework because it simply doesn't get done. So, what I do is I do my explainer videos of a small skill. So, I might be teaching something in Java and I might be teaching something in file handling. So, what I do is I will do a very brief lecture in the beginning of class. I will record that lecture. Because I post it on my website so that students can see that if they missed my class and this is face to face environment. Then what I do is for the workshop model I always have a workshop model. No matter what, it doesn't matter if my period was 45 minutes or 60 minutes. The workshop model is such that they it's a great way to differentiate among students because I will have, I allow them to bring in their earbuds into the class. I allow them to listen to my small skill lecture. They can listen to it for homework if they want to at home if they want to. If they're completing it, or if they need a reminder of that skill, they can rewind me. If they didn't hear me, they can rewind it if there's a nuance of a semi colon and a colon in on the on the screen so they can see what that is. And I will argue that is valid for every subject, because even if you have the eyes of a fighter pilot and you're sitting in the back of the room it is very difficult to see in a math class. Is that a less than sign or is that a greater than sign? It's hard. So that's on the smart board. But if they have it right in front of them, on their on their laptop, they're able to see it. It's also a great way for me to differentiate because a lot of times what I do is I differentiate to those students that are ahead of the curve. Those are the students that’re going to get bored. Those are the students that don't want to wait for everybody else to catch up. Therefore, if they're finished and they show me that their program works, which is how I enacted my intervention, this is exactly what I did my intervention with my 4th through 7th graders at Oasis. Then I am able to say, OK, you're ready. This works. Here is the next video. This is the next one that you watch and boom, they're off and they're engaged. A lot of times what would happen also is I would have a student who would say I want to do this and such on my application. How do you do that? I said, alright. I don't have an explainer video about that one. I'm going to get it to you tomorrow. I go home, I figure it out. I explain it 15 minutes or less, post it to my website. I go in the next day. Here it is. And she's off and running and happy. I also give my students a lot of choice because I'll teach them all of those small skills throughout my my work with them during my my classroom time. But then at the end of the their end project, I say to them OK, what application do you want to write? What is the iOS app that you want to do? And that gives them choice. Now, of course, there’re certain parameters that they have to stay within. They have to use this type of skill and that type of skill, they have to use this number of screens and they need to have this type of of user interface. You know, these are the criteria. This is what you need to use to show me that you understand all of what what I've taught you. How do you want to implement it? And they might do something. I've had students have done something in fashion. I've some students that do something in a chemistry app to learn about the periodic table. I've done ones that they love animals and they're going to do something about dolphins. It's whatever interests them and that is where you also have the universal design for learning. It's the why of learning. It's what interests them, what are they going to get excited about and they're going to want to continue with that application because that's something they love and they're going to implement it and it's not this is what a person would do if they were writing an iOS app. They actually write an iOS app. So, it's it's changing the paradigm of teaching. It's recording yourself in these small lectures that the students can watch when they need to or when they need to catch up. It is giving the students a choice of how they want to exhibit their learning, and it is just then you have happy students and and as happy as they they can be. Not to say that you're not going to have students who who might not have some problems during during school, not one student leaves their lives at the curb, whether they are are 14 or 40. No one leaves their lives at the curb and I at times I do have to call them up and ask them, what's going on? How you doing? You know so that I can, because they always know that I'm there. A lot of times in my in my I had my, my, my, my classroom, a lot of times I'd have all of these students come in in the morning. And they would just sit with me and they would just say hi, and they would sit just kind of wake up to the day, have their cup of coffee with them. You know, might might just you know look at their schedule, gather their books. But then the bell would ring, and then they go to their homeroom. So somehow it was a little bit of a safe haven, but I know that a lot of most teachers do that. Because you're you're in the wrong business, if you don't love kids. You're in the wrong business, if you don't love people. So, you know it's it's why I have a calendly link for all of my students, even my doctoral students, my Master’s degree students. I I publicize my calendly link and I say hit that link if you need to talk to me, whatever about.  I even start my online classes my synchronous sessions have a little smiley face anonymous poll with a location pin and I say drop the pin about how you're feeling today. It's totally anonymous. I can look at it and I say if you need to talk to about me about anything and I display it right on the screen, here's my phone number. Here's my calendly QR code, if you want to talk about something, then go ahead.

Brooklyn Arroyo

I think that it is it's amazing to highlight how I think that education is evolving in this way and I am optimistic in thinking this. But I do think that we are stepping away from the sort of cookie cutter idea of entering a classroom, and the teacher stands at the board and you regurgitate things back on the test and sort of implementing authentic assessment and mentorship with each student and and respecting them as an individual. And I think that you have clearly let this lead you and I think that that's your impact on education and an amazing one at that. And so, I I'm very curious.

Sharon Mistretta

Thank you.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And again, I think that this has been an amazing interview and I've absolutely adored hearing the things that you had to say about education. And and I've found you inspiring. So, for our final question, we're asking all our interviewees. I am going to ask you, what do you find inspiring right now?

Sharon Mistretta

Right now, as always in my teaching practices, the what inspires me are my students because I love to bring them into my classroom and know that if they have a certain amount of trepidation about technology and infusing technology into their curriculum and using it if they have that trepidation, I work with them such that by the time they leave my class they are so much more confident and they are able to share what they know with their students. So that is why I love teaching teachers. That's what's inspiring to me because I get to know about all their contexts. I know about them on an international basis. I have students in South Korea. I have students in South Africa. I have students in Berlin. I have students in Colorado. I have students all over the world. And there's just there's so much commonality about teaching and about learning around the globe and what inspires me are the teachers and knowing that they want to learn about technology and how to infuse technology into the curriculum but they also are going to tell their students about it. And when they tell their students about it, I really feel as though it's a ripple effect. That I can personally do a lot of good by evangelizing confidence, evangelizing the love of technology, the love of students, and working together so that we really can nurture the students to be who they want to be safely in this world. So, hands down, what inspires me are my students.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that you truly are and have made an impact. So, I think that you know a pat on the back and applaud to you for that. 

Sharon Mistretta

Thank you.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And so, thank you again for for coming on to the PHutures Podcast.

Sharon Mistretta

It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.