Rising Stars: Meet Curtis O’Dwyer

As an educator, my work focuses on creating equitable learning opportunities that promote student agency and voice, engagement, and outcomes through innovative teaching practices rooted in culturally relevant and social justice frameworks. Aligned with this focus, I’m also committed to furthering educational policy, philosophy, curriculum, and training so students of color are better served in our educational system.

Among other things, I am a husband, father, writer, researcher, founder of STEAMaster: Remixing Science Education.

STEAMaster: Remixing Science Education began after I accidentally made a good science rap song for my students called, Ooouuuu Ecology. I consider it an accident because I’m not a rapper, just someone who appreciates rap music. My song was a spinoff of the 2015 hit song, Ooouuu by Young M.A., and I included references to ecology terms and concepts my students learned. Their reaction after hearing it was overwhelmingly positive. One parent even told me their child requested my song be played on their car rides. Although I appreciated the kid’s enjoyment of Ooouuuu Ecology, I began to envision how cool it would be if my students made their own science song about what they’ve learned in class.

This developing idea was aligned with my values of teaching. The current literature on science education underscores the importance for students to relate to the curriculum in ways that are familiar to them. However, science education often requires that students, especially Black students, divorce their multiple identities (i.e. race, gender, culture, etc.) and interests from the classroom rather than being used as assets to leverage student outcomes and experience. I believe the wide application of a culturally relevant approach to science education is a step towards removing systemic barriers that disenfranchise many youths of color and women for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) opportunities. STEAMaster has become one of many ways science educators can do this.

I founded STEAMaster the 2018-2019 school year when I taught at Nipher Middle School in Kirkwood, MO. Only 7th-grade students at Nipher participated that year, but since then, over 900 students across St. Louis have been involved. STEAMaster is a program that engages learners’ in equitable science education by integrating a hip-hop praxis, pedagogy, and critical lens into the classroom to teach to and through students’ culture. In the program, students demonstrate mastery over the science content and concepts they are currently learning by writing a science rap or poem. In addition, participating teachers are provided all resources so there is no extra work to do other than support students throughout the process.

When students complete their projects they get graded on their understanding of the science content, but there is also a culminating competition to celebrate students’ brilliance and to determine who is the STEAMaster of their local school, or possibly the St. Louis region. In the 2019-2020 school year, I partnered with the Education Equity Center of St. Louis (formerly EdHub STL) as a fellow with intentions to expand STEAMaster to other St. Louis schools. That year we brought together finalists from Nipher Middle School in Kirkwood, Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School, and Brittany Woods Middle School in University City. This competition was a wonderful experience for every student involved. Here is a 3-minute video that recaps the event.

Today, STEAMaster continues to host its annual regional competition. This year’s competition will bring together finalists from Brittany Woods Middle School in University City, Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School, Cross Keys Middle School in Ferguson Florissant, and Compton Drew Middle School in St. Louis City. The event is scheduled to take place on Friday, March 4th, from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm CST at the Missouri History Museum. Admission is free and open to the public. There will be plenty of family fun activities, in addition to performances by each finalist. We encourage those interested in attending to register in advance (Click here).

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Like most organizations, we have faced our share of challenges. Our two most prominent struggles are getting other schools involved and adjusting to issues brought on by the pandemic. School participation this year was lower than expected. One reason is that STEAMaster is a non-traditional science program that requires teachers to step outside of their comfort zone.

Some teachers who participated with STEAMaster in the past expressed initial discomfort because they didn’t personally identify with hip-hop culture. This is a common misconception because teachers do not need to listen to hip-hop or write rap music to get involved. STEAMaster intentionally centers students and positions teachers as facilitators throughout the process.

Beth Adams, with who I taught 7th-grade science within the inaugural year of STEAMaster, stated that she got involved because, although she didn’t identify with the hip-hop genre beyond her biological children listening to it, she appreciated the hip-hop mindset. She describes the hip-hop mindset as the ability to critically examine information, experiences, and society rather than being passive consumers of knowledge. This is exactly the kind of critical thinking skill schools expect students to demonstrate.

In other instances, teacher involvement was due to STEAMaster’s potential to reach students who traditional science instruction excluded, while also rigorously challenging all students through an interdisciplinary approach.

Lastly, the pandemic presented a set of unanticipated problems. After the successful expansion year involving more schools across St. Louis, STEAMaster, unfortunately, had to take a gap year in 2020-2021. This hampered the momentum we developed and further compounded our problem with teacher participation.

The unique stress teachers are experiencing this 2021-2022 school year makes many hesitant to get involved with anything new, even if they recognize the benefit. I completely empathize with this feeling because I’ve experienced that same emotion. However, I still believe that STEAMaster is more essential now than ever before because students need an opportunity that will help revivify their love for learning that virtual schooling squelched.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
My success is mostly attributed to my organizational skills. A rapper named Andy Mineo once said in a song, “if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.”

When I heard that line I began to better understand my life story because many of my accomplishments came down to timing. Since I wasn’t necessarily a natural gift student or athlete, I had to plan ahead to gain an advantage. I believe that failing to plan is planning to fail. By planning, although not always perfect, I’ve been able to be on the right side of my most pivotal life moments.

However, the wisdom with planning is an understanding that the unexpected happens so you must factor in room for error. To best mitigate error I believe everyone needs a good team of people around them. Having a diverse team of various backgrounds, experiences, and skillsets can help you make the best decisions that yield success.

There are a number of people in my life who I must acknowledge for helping me get to where I am today.