Dr. Queena Lee-Chua: On Motherhood, Resilience, Mathematics, and many more

When one looks up “Dr. Queena Lee-Chua” online, there would be thousands of search results detailing a stellar career. What’s interesting about this is that they are not all under one field. There are results talking about Queena Lee-Chua as a mathematics educator, as a columnist, as an author, and as a renowned family business consultant.

Among all these accomplishments, what stands out the most?

For Queena, there are personal and academic answers. On a personal note, it’s about being a mother; on the other hand, it’s the SOSE resilience study. These two go hand in hand as Dr. Queena was able to raise her son with the same level of resilience as that in her study.

On Motherhood

“It’s not even my academic career that I am most proud of. I’m just very happy that we were able to raise him to be sensible… the core values are there,” said Queena in reference to how she was able to raise her son, who was the commencement speaker in his graduation at the Yale-NUS back in 2020.

Raising him to just be himself and to not be grade conscious, Dr. Queena beams with pride at how her son has grown and how he has heeded the call to serve the country through Data Science.

Something else that they have in common? Their love for learning and mathematics. “He was an Economics major, but he took a lot of Math courses which I was happy about.”

More often than not, students would choose to avoid anything that involves Math—especially when they have the choice to do so. But what Queena instilled in her son was the value of going through things in spite of its difficulty. This attitude of not backing down and not going through a relatively easier route in achieving things, which would be a recurring theme throughout the interview with Queena.

The Road Towards The SOSE Resilience Study

Given her long list of achievements, it would be hard to narrow down towards what she feels most proud of. Who could blame her?

Growing up with a well-rounded background: president of her high school math club, school paper, member of the swim team, and not to mention a champion pacman gamer, it’s safe to say that Queena had a very active childhood.

As the daughter of Filipino-Chinese parents who were top students of their time, expectations were there; but Queena loved the experience of learning. She loved the feeling of being in school, being around her batchmates, them helping each other, and learning from her teachers.

This desire to know more and to continuously develop in various fields has led her to where she is today. It has also led her to leading a study on achieving and resilience that have helped thousands of children and parents across the nation.

In 2005, the Ateneo High School Parents Council approached her to ask why their students were underachieving. As an advocate of positive psychology, she wanted to put the study’s focus on the achievers and see what allows them to do such. Ten significant factors came about as a result after surveying both the students and their parents. These findings have since been published by Anvil in two books called “Helping Our Children Do Well In School”—which won the National Book Awards—and Queena has been asked to be a speaker on the topic in several schools.

A year later, she was approached by the Department of Education to conduct the same study; this time on public school students. Eight public schools in Marikina and Bulacan were the scope, and the result was five practices. Discipline in terms of applying parenting rules, and encouraging the children to showcase effort were some of the answers—the former being the top-most response. Another book was published: “Magaling Ang Pinoy”, and Queena did talks (even on television) regarding the study which have resonated with a lot of people. Why? Because it showed the reality and correlation between poverty and education that Western research did not. This made it more relatable to its intended audience, and it won an award for Most Outstanding Scholarly Work. Local Government Units distributed the book to parents in their communities, and parenting training was made available.

Fast forward to the pandemic, a problem seemed to arise among members of the Ateneo Loyola Schools faculty; particularly that of the School of Science and Engineering Department. They were disheartened at the behavior that students were displaying in the online class setup which included mass cheating as well as a lack of enthusiasm and participation during synchronous sessions.

The SOSE Resilience Study was then started to figure out what they could do about the situation. The outcome of this would be a manual for the students and the goal was to help the entire Ateneo community. FGDs were conducted among ninety-two students and from this, strategies on resilience and how they overcame the academic challenges brought about by the pandemic were given. The study was so relevant that its findings spread even towards other institutions and went beyond just the SOSE department. Even companies who struggled with employee resilience were moved by the study. It has also inspired others to follow suit, including the Far Eastern University who conduct their own related study with the consultation of Queena. What makes her so proud of this feat was the fact that none of this would have been possible if the earlier studies on student achievers were not conducted. These studies have helped prepare her on how she would tackle the study of resilience and what research strategies were effective. There were also findings that were unique to this study, such as faith surfacing as a factor to resilience, which were a positive surprise for her.

Mathematics As The Backbone

With the impact that she has made, she humbly admits that it has never crossed her mind nor had it been part of her dreams. She only dreamt of being in the world of Mathematics; but being the dynamic, all-around person she is—along with the genuine love for learning—several opportunities came her way and these have led to both her personal and professional growth. She credits all of this as being part of God’s plan, and acknowledges that if she had just stuck with math then she wouldn’t have been able to do the other things that she has accomplished. However, she notes that math did have an impact towards all of her other endeavors. Math trained her to be rational and straightforward. There is a direct answer to everything; 1+1 would always be 2 and not 10 no matter how eloquent you are with explaining. This then trains you to go into the heart of the matter, and to prove what you say.

The beauty of the subject is that it teaches you to be patient and to not be afraid to make mistakes. It implores humility as one solves problems, and goes against the Filipino culture of instant gratification which, along with the aforementioned, are facets that many Filipinos lack.

She hopes that more Filipinos will have that “mathematics mentality” because math, as the foundation of all sciences, helps you to make sense of the world through patterns. It’s never easy, but it challenges you and helps you get used to toughness.

Similar to how in life wherein there are things that we do not want to do but we have to, the same could be said for math. Math helps you grow because you keep learning from all the difficulty of the classes. If you just choose to do the things that you’re good at, you will never learn and grow.

This circles back to resilience and how one can emerge from challenging situations.

All of the difficulties that Queena encountered while studying math has since prepared her for other things that she was faced with in life including the many other hats that she wears. Beyond being an educator, a researcher, an author, a business consultant, and a mental health advocate, she is also a parent—and she continues to grow through all these experiences.

Looking back at what she has achieved through all this, it’s safe to say that Queena’s service has gone beyond the academe. It has served Filipinos from all walks of life, and the results of both her work and her studies would most likely expand to future generations.

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Text: Bea Javate

Photo Courtesy: Queena Lee-Chua