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The PM Podcast
Reversing the Narrative: A Conversation with Yamilée Toussaint, a 2024 Top Five CNN Hero
00:40:50
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- [00:00]
A
Well, I want to have this experience available at scale. The underrepresentation of women of color in STEM is a national issue, and it's a global one as well. And if dance is the key that unlocks that potential, I want that to be available everywhere.
- [00:20]
B
Welcome to the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast, brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators, and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy, and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Yamale Toussaint is the founder and CEO of STEM from Dance, a trailblazing nonprofit that inspires girls from underrepresented communities to pursue STEM careers by merging the creativity of dance with the power of technology. An MIT graduate and former Teach for America educator, Yamale has been recognized as a thought leader in reimagining STEM education and is one of the top five CNN heroes of 2024. Yamile, I want to just start by congratulating you on being honored by CNN this year. And I do want to ask you about STEM from Dance, but I also want to take the opportunity for you to be able to talk a bit more about yourself. Not only what inspired this work, but just what inspires you. So I'd love to peel the layers back a bit and just ask you about something you've said repeatedly, which is that you've loved dance your whole life. When did that actually begin? How young were you? What type of dance?
- [01:31]
A
I was 4 years old when I started to attend Cats Dance Studio. Like, that's the. The neighborhood dance studio, and I attended there until I was 18, going off to college. So that was a big part of my childhood. And dance was such a big part of my life when I was young that, like, when I tried to think about my first memory, the first thing I can remember is being on a stage performing at a recital. So, yeah, always had this huge love for dance.
- [02:11]
B
Where was the studio?
- [02:14]
A
It's in Long Island, New York.
- [02:17]
B
And what type of dance? Because you said recital, so that conjures up different images in people's minds.
- [02:23]
A
What type of dance were you doing at that age? I was doing ballet, maybe a bit of tap. But then as I got older, I started to take more classes. I think by the time I graduated from high school, I was taking ballet, tap, jazz, modern, African, hip hop, just all the different classes that the city offered.
- [02:47]
B
That's also an experience. This is fairly unique, right? I mean, one of the things I'd love to talk with you about is what you've addressed through stem. From dance, which is in part about how people have their family sometimes, but sometimes their communities have limited their opportunities. But that happens not just in stem, but also in dance, which I'm sure you've seen people kind of line up behind one discipline or another. And it sounds like you were cross discipline. Even the world of dance from an.
- [03:20]
A
Early age, for sure, I just wanted all of it that I can experience. I for sure had my favorites, but I knew that each one had a role in developing me as a dancer. Knew that, like, ballet would give me the technique that I would need for any genre. Like modern and contemporary gave me the space to be more expressive. So I, I, if there were more genres that I could take at the studio, I probably would have taken them.
- [03:53]
B
So you said you had some favorites. What were some of the favorites when you were young?
- [03:57]
A
I love tap. I love the fact that you could make a whole performance out of like, you know, like a limited number of like, places on a shoe that you can like, make a sound from. So rhythmic. I love tap. I loved hip hop. I love modern. I feel like jazz. We always had some interesting, like, theme and number. Like, I remember the year we had like a Janet Jackson, like a Michael Jackson theme performance. So, yeah, so many fond memories from, from dancing.
- [04:35]
B
When I was younger, did you imagine that you would become a professional dancer?
- [04:41]
A
I, I interestingly started to, as I advanced her, to think, like, maybe this is something that I want to do fully. I think I had a dream of like, maybe one day performing for a major artist and. But I also felt this conflict with the fact that I also was like, really into, like, doing well in school. And I guess at a young age I learned of, like, the difficulty of having a career in dance. And so, like, I feel like that led me to really lean into dreaming about what's possible with, you know, like, the subjects that I was starting to really gravitate towards, which was math and science.
- [05:34]
B
And what about the love affair with math and science? You probably didn't start that at 4. I shouldn't assume that maybe it did. I mean, when do you remember your earliest memories of things that we might think of as stem related, Whether it's building things or using a robot for the first time, playing a video game. Where did your fascination with that become evident?
- [05:56]
A
I liked being challenged. I remember having moments when I felt like I was sort of bored in school and even to the point where my teachers would like, discourage me from raising my hand because they knew I would know the answer. And so I would just Kind of be bored that I couldn't, like, really engage in school. And I felt most challenged when I was, like, pulled out of a classroom to do some more, like, like, intellectually stimulating activities. And along those lines, I always found that math was something that challenged me. Like, I would just, like, make up my own math problems. I like, I would just, like, in the back of my notebook, make, like, two numbers, like, two big numbers, and just, like, divide them. That would just, like, give me the challenge of, like, to keep myself busy. So I think that is, like, the positive experience I had with math at a young age is feeling like this is the thing that can actually make me feel like I have a chance to push myself.
- [07:12]
B
Yeah, that challenge must have been present in both those worlds, even though they have been seen as so different of dance and math and science. But I know that when you're a young person, there are two big parts to that journey, at least two besides school. One is your family, the kind of encouragement that you receive or don't receive. And then the other, of course, is about your friends. So first talk about your family. I mean, they're originally from Haiti. Is that right? Or at least one of your parents is.
- [07:47]
A
Yeah, both my parents.
- [07:50]
B
And so there you were in Long Island. So I don't know if they came directly from Haiti to Long island or what that journey was like, but they, I know, had a. Had an interest in or in these things also. Can you talk about them a little bit?
- [08:05]
A
For sure, yeah. They came to the US when they were teenagers and, like, speaking no English, but within, you know, several years, they were, like, able to, like, graduate from college and have jobs that are STEM related. My mom worked in the lab at a hospital, and my father was a mechanical engineer. And I think what I learned from them, especially my father, was he. He loved being an engineer. It was, like, such a big part of his identity, especially as a mechanical engineer. Like, he's a person who could fix something. If something's, like, not working in the house, he could fix it. If something's not working in his, like, in somebody else's house, he could fix it. And he took a lot of pride in that, which I think inherently influenced me to also, like, want to have that skill set as well and see that as a way of having power. So, yeah, I don't recall my father ever, like, saying to my brother and I, like, you need to become engineers. But we both ended up becoming mechanical engineers. And I really do think it's because of the joy that we saw that he took from engineering and just the proximity that we had to it.
- [09:36]
B
Did they pressure either of you? Was there any kind of difference in the way they treated a brother and a daughter in terms of these things? Sometimes that's true in a family.
- [09:46]
A
Right, which is why, because there was an equal assumption of our likelihood to become engineers. I never, as a girl growing up, felt like it was unusual for me to dream to become an engineer. It was normal for me. So it was only when I started to enter into these classrooms where I would then become like, the only or one of a few black women, that I realized that my experience isn't the norm.
- [10:21]
B
Yeah, I did want to ask you about that. That's why I mentioned friends earlier. One part of how we grow up living in the world is with our families because they're right there. And then the other part is our friends or foes or frenemies, whoever they are, in our classrooms and so forth. If you were in a classroom and you were writing these big numbers in the back of the book and you were bored in the classroom, what were those friendships like? Where did you find kind of comfort and support, if at all, from classmates who had kind of a similar hunger to learn?
- [10:57]
A
I think a big transition for me was when I went from attending public school all the way through middle school to then going to private school for high school. So making that transition from sort of like being in the class with all my peers to then eventually like, having most of my class classes with, you know, those who are also on this, like, physics, calculus track and seeing fewer and fewer. The people that I used to, you know, take classes with be in the majority of my classes. And I think that was when I. And also my high school, I also went from schools that were predominantly black and Latino to being predominantly white. I think that transition is when I started to feel like other. In especially like my. My STEM oriented classes. And so it's. It's like a different experience to like, there's maybe less joy in taking a class and not having, like, your people there alongside you.
- [12:16]
B
Yeah. And that's why I asked about both dance and math, because I've heard some of that from other people before. That, okay, there's your ballet class, and that's kind of one group of people. And then there are people doing step, and that's kind of another group of people. And then people doing modern. That's maybe a mix, but it's kind of another group of people. And it sounds like the same thing is happening not only by ethnicity and Geography and, you know, economics and stuff, but also just by these choices that people either are making or being made for them when it comes to these disciplines. So there you were in this private school and you were obviously doing your thing and doing it well, but you were feeling. You just used the word other. So I'm wondering how you kind of reconciled that even in an early age to say, well, yeah, but this is, this is me. I'm going to do my thing and then, you know, find that opening to try and encourage others to join you in that journey.
- [13:16]
A
I think for me, two things helped. One was the confidence that I had in my enjoyment of math in particular. Like, I didn't mind the challenge. I didn't mind who my classes were because I just, I loved getting that 100 on the test. You know, I just, I was like, really driven to be excellent in math, I think. Secondly, I feel like physics was like a little bit of a different story. Like, I. I knew it was important, but it wasn't as much joy in learning. And so I think for that, just being able to draw from confidence in other places had a big impact. When I dance especially, it was this constant reminder that I'm capable of doing hard things, I'm capable of learning new things, and I'm able to persevere through difficult, like, learning experiences. Because sometimes a dance, it can take a long time to get something right. So I feel like that confidence translated into that physics classroom and then also just being able to, I guess, have my eyes set on something greater. I. I wanted the college. I was very motivated by the college experience. Like, I wanted to, like, I saw myself, like, on the college campus, like, independent from my parents, just doing my, like, making my own choice, like, being this adult. I was just very excited about that. And I wanted to be able to go to whatever college I wanted to. So I think I was also just really motivated by my end goal and if that met having difficult feelings about being in certain classes, like, it was something that I was going to be able to get through.
- [15:21]
B
So why mit?
- [15:24]
A
I actually did not originally plan to go there. I, I became really interested in biomedical engineering. I thought it was fascinating that you can, like, solve. Solve problems in the human body through human means by creating something. And so that was the path that I wanted to go down. So I just looked up the best schools within biomedical engineering, and that was like pretty much a list of schools that I decided to apply to. And MIT was not on that list because at that time they did not have that as a Major. So, like, MIT completely was not on my radar. It didn't matter that it was like a top school for engineering. I just wanted to go to the best school for this major that I wanted, Wanted to study. And maybe like, in like, the 11th hour, I was like, you know what? Like, let me apply to a, like, six school. Like, let me just do, like, one more school. And I think that day I happened to get, like, a pamphlet in the mail from MIT and from another school, I believe it was like, UPenn and I. I looked at, like, the requirements because this really was, like, kind of last minute. I was like, oh. Like, I realized that, like, for mit, I pretty much met all requirements. I just needed to take, like, an additional sat too, or something like that. I think UPenn, maybe I had to do more work. And I really like that MIT had early action. I think that's the name for when you get to apply early and find out early without being binded to the school. And I love that because I had put so much work into that admission process. I was like, oh, wow. Like, I could actually find out within, like, three months if I got into a school where all the other ones, I had to wait more like six months. So that really sold it for me. And, yeah, I just. I applied and I still remember the day that I got that envelope in the mail.
- [17:29]
B
What happened? What did it feel like? How did you hear it?
- [17:31]
A
I mean, it was. I knew. It was like, I knew a decision was coming and to see that, like, through, like, the mail slot in the door came this, like, large envelope. Like, I knew. I was like, oh, I think I got it. I was just. Just like, the size of the envelope is like, what I remember seeing. Like, oh, my gosh, they must have information to tell me. I remember that there was another kid at my school, a white male, who also applied. And we had heard that from our school. They usually accept one person from mit usually accepts one person. So we're like, oh, who's it going to be? Is it going to be you? Is it going to be me? And so I was just happy that it was me and it was him, too. We both got in. But, yeah, I just remember it being. Yeah, it's just, like, so gratifying that, like, all these years of taking all these courses, like, it finally paid off.
- [18:34]
B
I'm imagining someone from MIT admissions listening to you talking about this and saying that MIT was your sixth school, that you just decided to deal with a matter of life.
- [18:45]
A
I wish I had a more compelling story no, that's.
- [18:49]
B
It says a lot also about how they recruit great students and the fact that you wanted to go. I can imagine there are some people who are, you know, trying to figure out how to go to school right now or which school to go to, how to get into their favorite. And they might cynically think, well, yeah, but she had this unique combination of dance and math or whatever else, you know, that they might come to mind that helped her get in. But it sounds like you pretty much knew first that you wanted to go to college forever, and then you had lined up all the stuff you needed to do to go to a place like mit. But I wonder, was the dance a piece of it either in the application process for you or your life as you then newly entered a place like mit? Because MIT is not known externally for the work that does in the arts, but in fact, they have the new media program. There's a lot going on at mit, but was that a part of either your thinking or theirs as you decided to kind of join forces and. And place your bet on that school?
- [19:55]
A
I would say that it was after maybe during my time at MIT that I realized that something that makes me unique is my interest in math and engineering and dance. Prior to that, I was just being a kid who did things that my parents brought me to. I. I doubt that I even played up the dance angle in my application to sort of make me stand out. I don't think I've realized that combination is unique. When I was in my first semester there, I was looking for my community, my people. I naturally gravitated towards the dancers. And also something I haven't mentioned is also my upbringing. I played the violin and was very passionate about the violin. But when I started to look into the orchestra there and the time commitment, I was like, okay, I can't do dance and orchestra. And I felt like I would have more of a community that I wanted in dance. So I feel like that's when I sort of honed in on this focus on dance and my. My. My academic pathway. And then as that carried on, I realized, oh, wow, like, it's not just me too. Like, they're like. I found this pocket of other people at MIT who love to dance and also was studying something science and engineering related. And so I think when I left MIT and like, reflected on that experience of finding my people through dance and, like, meeting other people who had that interest, I realized, oh, wow, like, this is something that is, like, not. It's not. It's not common, but it's also not unusual.
- [21:48]
B
Not common, but not unusual is an interesting construction in itself because I guess it's hard to find if you're looking for your people. And those people are people who are using in colloquial terms, both sides of their brain. You're doing the math and science and then you're doing the dance. Those are seen by people on the outside largely as very different worlds. They track really early in different places to different things. And you found not only a place where you could do both, but you found other people doing both. But I guess that was still hard to pull them all together in one place except for a place like mit. And you've talked about that a lot with stem from dance. Maybe a way to go there is your experience afterwards. So you graduated mechanical engineering, is that right?
- [22:33]
A
That's right.
- [22:35]
B
And then you went to teach for America. I think. So how did you decide to go that route? Why education initially, but also what do you observe there that then helped you to continue to bind these, these two parts of your life and make them available to others?
- [22:51]
A
Something I noticed during my journey at MIT is there were certain things that I was gravitating toward and really energized by. I, I, I love dancing at mit. I, I led a dance crew. Like that is the thing that I did after classes and on the weekends on breaks. Like it, I, I realized that I loved being in that position of leadership and cultivating a community of people to have a certain experience. I also noticed that the observation of how few black people that were at MIT was something that like kept sort of turning in my mind, like, sort of examining it, like why? Like I just kept questioning it and I did like a mini research project on it. Like that's how much it was like piquing my curiosity. And I also found that when I did my first engineering internship that while like the content of it was exciting, like the day to day life of the internship wasn't as energizing. So with that observation, my last summer I decided to do a public service project over the summer in New Delhi, India and was really energized by this act of taking my engineering skill set to like try to like solve a problem that affects people. And like having that direct tied to people is what I noticed, like brought me joy. So in light of like all those, all of those observations, I, I knew I wanted to go more a social impact route so that I can sort of like tap into this like purpose that I feel like was emerging. And, and so that's like, finding a social impact pathway out of MIT was hard because at the career fairs, you see the finance companies, the consulting companies, engineering companies, the graduate schools, and I felt like none of that was really piquing my interest. And then there was Teacher America. I, I, I learned about the mission and thought that I could learn something from being a teacher while also being able to serve and really trying to find out what is at the root of this issue that I was observing. So that's what led me to the classroom. And I ended up just learning a ton from my students. I feel and I hope and I believe that I did have a positive impact on my students as well for them to see. I was 21 when I became their 9th grade math teacher, so to be able to have, you know, somebody like, not that far from their age, you know, getting them excited about algebra was something that I, I believe they, they cherished as well.
- [26:20]
B
Where were you teaching?
- [26:22]
A
I taught in Brooklyn.
- [26:27]
B
And so you did that for how long?
- [26:30]
A
Before I did it for two years. And after that I started to work for Teach for America, the organization, because I was feeling that angling of, like, okay, maybe I want to start something of my own and let me learn how non profits are run. Because the idea of being able to make an impact beyond, like, the kids in my classroom was motivating me.
- [27:03]
B
So did you already have the idea for the organization for Stem from dance at that point?
- [27:08]
A
I didn't. I think stepping away from the classroom put me in a mind space of really questioning, like, my trajectory and my purpose. I was starting to feel conflicted about which way to go because I'm like, fresh off of this engineering degree. I have this teaching experience now. I've been a dancer and still love dance. And it felt like these, like I was at a work in the road and didn't know, like, which path to choose. And it was almost like a, like a aha moment. I was like, again, like, really yearning for, like, understanding my purpose. I was praying and really had this, like, epiphany of like, wait a minute, maybe I, maybe it's not a fork in the road, but an opportunity to, to like, combine these things in a way that uniquely positions me to bring something forth. Like, maybe these, you know, seemingly disparate experiences are going to allow me to create something that other people wouldn't create. That was the first time that I started to think about a world where these things came together. And yeah, that's, that's when the idea of Stem from Dance verse came about.
- [28:38]
B
So when did, when did the founding occur? When did you.
- [28:42]
A
It officially was founded in 2012.
- [28:45]
B
Oh, okay. So it's. Yeah, it's been a while now. And initially, what did that look like? I mean, how did you go out and recruit students? How did you convince their parents to let them go? I mean, the thing is that you are dealing with a whole bunch of bias that's implicit in all this conversation. But in this case, I'm thinking about the bias of some people really understand one thing and they don't get the other. So if you're trying to convince people to come over and, you know, and do dance, it's one thing, math is another thing. But students both, for sure.
- [29:18]
A
For sure. So many, so many uphill battles that I have climbed to bring this to life. You know, I went, I relied on the school that I was teaching at to trust me to work with just a few girls, I think it was about six of them who stayed after school for a few weeks for me to do my very first pilot. And I think because I had that reputation with the school, they sort of gave me the flexibility to do that. And, you know, the, the first time that I did the program, it was I. I did some math tutoring and then I taught them some dance. And that was like the first pilot. And, and as it sounds like, was not integrated. It was, it was sort of like just like two things side by side. And so it, it took really years to figure out what that integration would look like and how I would help other people understand the value of the integration when it was so innate to me. So I think initially when I explained it, I was like assuming certain things that needed to be made more explicit. And so when I face initial skepticism and rejection of the idea, it was almost hard to discern. I think initially I interpreted it as like, like potentially an indication that it wasn't worth pursuing. But in hindsight, I think it was more so me not yet knowing how to communicate what made what was so natural to me to somebody who did not find it to be natural at all.
- [31:23]
B
So that's now 12 years on. What does it look like today for people who don't know anything about the organization? If you had to give them that 30 second elevator speech, what does the organization look like today? Who does it serve? What impact is it having?
- [31:38]
A
When it comes down to it, we are using that joy power community of dance to get girls excited about stem. So girls get to make dance performances that incorporate stem, like costumes that light up as they move, projections that are Coded that are on stage alongside them and other, like, interesting ways where they can learn about technology and STEM through the lens of dance. So what they may be experiencing is making this performance, but what they're also experiencing is the, the messaging that they can, they can do things in STEM because they see themselves like, make the circuit and program the circuit. They get to experience meeting other women in STEM who have had these careers and who can show them, like, hey, it is possible. They get to be given the power to make something, knowing that that process of designing and creating is very inherent in engineering. So they realize that what they have done in the course of our program is something that is very common in science and engineering and dance. They realize that they can in fact do stem, and we help them along in that journey.
- [33:10]
B
And that's on now. It's all integrated through STEM from dance, but it's a parallel track to school. I guess they're still going to go back. If they're 8 or 10 or 12 years old, they're going to school by day and presumably and then by night or on the weekends, they're also participating in the program. Have you seen, as a result of offering this over the years, a change in the lives of these kids, these young women, as a result of doing that and then bringing that back to their friends, their families, their school life?
- [33:42]
A
For sure. I think it is. You know, there's research that shows that it's as young as 8 years old where girls start to believe that they can't do well in that. So what we're seeing is that that myth that they have believed starts to change. They start to. They go from like, girls don't do this. Like, I don't. I'm not a math person, to thinking like, oh, wow, like, I just like, made this circuit light up with like, a couple lines of code. I. I can do this. Like, I am the person who can do this. That mental shift is like, essential to us seeing a change in the representation instead, because unfortunately, girls have been consuming this message for years. And it takes work to, like, reverse engineer that mindset. But once they get it that they can do it, then like, the work of, like, equipping them, skilling them, mentoring them, like, that's almost like the easier part. So, yeah, that's, that's really what we're in the business of doing is like reversing the narrative so that they can, like, actually lean into what they're capable of.
- [35:00]
B
Have you had the experience, like many teachers do, of then having them come back to you years later and saying, yeah, I remember I was in your, you know, in STEM from dance back 10 years ago and now I'm doing this and thank you so much. What have you had that kind of story directly related?
- [35:18]
A
Sure, yeah. Like even as recent as this past summer, we, we usually invite our supporters, our funders to come visit the program. And one of our funders brought along one of their new employees who happened to be one of our students from like the early days. And so she just finished college, she got a full time offer from this company and you know, she was able to just like gush about how her experience in the program really allowed her to like build this sense of like confidence in a way that she, she, she like felt like she tapped into to be able to like get this job and like for her to be able to say it like with a smile and just like with so much gratitude and then be able to like speak to the, the next generation about like what they're about to experience. Like so many of those stories and all of them are priceless.
- [36:24]
B
I'm wondering how that must feel for you because when you see that go through a cycle where a person comes in as a kid and now they're talking to as an adult, that must give you a certain feeling of accomplishment.
- [36:40]
A
Oh yeah, for sure. I think I feel greatest sense of accomplishment when that mindset shifts, which can happen sometimes. Like the start of that change can happen just in the course of like a day, a few weeks to see a girl come in, like maybe even slightly annoyed that they had to do something STEM related to them, like light up when like their circuit lights up. That, that is the, that's like, those are the golden moments. Because, you know, there are a number of STEM programs that teach young people computer science and etc. But to have an experience where we are like convincing like them what they're capable of, I think that is like, that's what I take a lot of pride in being part of.
- [37:47]
B
So the bigger vision you've talked about, you know, growing the organization. The last time we talked by 10 times you've talked about also having the impact of reaching a million young women. What's your vision writ large? Where do you imagine this going in another 12 years?
- [38:08]
A
Well, I want to have this experience available at scale. I think it's, I think there are like, I'll say that the underrepresentation of women of color in STEM is a national issue and it's a global one as well. And if dance is the key, that unlocks that potential. I want that to be available everywhere. So we have experiences now that can be taught by any teacher anywhere. I want to see this happen in homes and schools and communities all over the world and to be part of something greater, not just that simple. Dance is like, the thing, the one thing that's gonna, you know, turn the tide, but be part of a whole ecosystem of organizations and people who are, like, there to support these girls. There's a part that we play in their journey. There's a part that others do. But for us all to be working in concert, I think that is what will allow us to reach parody one day.
- [39:25]
B
Well, that's it for this episode of the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast. If you'd like to learn more about stem from dance, go to stemfromdance.org Our thanks to our sponsor, donorsearch, the world leader in AI and donor research for nonprofit fundraising, and our producer, Jack Frost. If you like what you heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the donor search YouTube channel, or wherever you'd like to listen and consider giving us a like and positive review so others can find us as well. Check out our live webinars on Tuesdays and Thursdays and come back next weekend for another interview with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining us. See you again soon. Sa.