Leoandra Onnie Rogers is an exceptional person because she lives beyond the confines of expectations.
Rogers, the first in her family to attend college, has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, where she has dedicated her young career to giving more young people the tools to succeed regardless of gender or race.
Rogers said she remembers “hearing all those statistics and thinking, those things are very true, but at the same time that’s not me.”
“Yes,” she said, “a lot of black and brown kids are dropping out of school and getting into trouble and doing poorly socially and academically, but a lot of black and brown kids are doing really well, overcoming incredible obstacles and succeeding.”
She’s trying to understand why some kids respond one way and other kids another to cultural norms, expectations and stereotypes, and what we can do, as schools, communities and parents, to equip more children to succeed.
What helped her? Family, teachers, coaches, mentors, people who gave her a chance to develop her talents and a positive sense of her self.
Her father, a soldier, brought his family to Tacoma when she was 2 and her sister was 4. She was home-schooled by her mother until she entered high school.
In first grade, Rogers said, her sister was constantly in trouble with her teacher, who was frustrated by the talkative, opinionated child. “My mom, after battling with this teacher for a year, said, “You know what; I don’t have to put up with this.’ ” So she decided to home-school both girls. She was an aerobics instructor and braided hair. She wasn’t a teacher, so she expected the girls to take responsibility for doing their work. The system suited Rogers, who said she is independent and introverted and would happily sit in her room studying. When she did go off to high school, Rogers said, it was no big deal. She was ready.
Gymnastics channeled her high energy, gave her confidence and eventually got her a scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles, where she won multiple championships and awards. Rogers will be inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 10.
UCLA is where, at the urging of a counselor, she decided to pursue psychology. Rogers wanted to work with kids and had intended to become a teacher, but psychology was another way to have an impact. In psychology classes, she said, “I was very much immersed in conversations about inequality and education as the vehicle for equality.”
She said research has already shown what teachers can do, but she said the research often doesn’t make it from lab to classroom. “Caring and high expectations are paramount,” she said. “We know all these things,” she said. “Why isn’t it happening?” That’s where issues of race and privilege come in, she said.
“Raising our own awareness of stereotypes, and being willing to question what we might see as natural or normal, can create a space for kids to … resist stereotypes in their own identities and relationships.”
How would her assertive sister have been viewed had she been a boy? As adults we should question our assumptions. “When an Asian child isn’t the smartest in class,” Rogers said, “or a black child is the best in the class, do we find ourselves thinking, ‘Uh, s/he sure is an exception’?”
As a society, she said, “we want to talk about individuality and overcoming obstacles, and you can be anything you want to be. But that conversation has got to be couched in history, and a system of racism and privilege and discrimination and stereotypes — these are real threats that derail potentially successful people.”
