Latest / Math Therapy / How believing in someone can change their life w/ Jo Boaler’s first student Sue Besant

Transcript

How believing in someone can change their life w/ Jo Boaler’s first student Sue Besant · Math Therapy

• 0:02
  Sue Besant: Maths always felt to me like it's just a foreign language and to realize I could do it, I felt enlightened and empowered I started to become a different person in every part of my life.
• 0:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Have you ever been so convinced you were bad at something that you didn't even question it anymore?
• 0:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: it wasn't just an insecurity, it was just your identity, like, I'm not a math person.
• 0:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Done.
• 0:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: End of conversation.
• 0:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: This episode is about what happens when that story gets completely rewritten.
• 0:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Today I am talking to Sue Besant, and I need you to really let this next part sink in because it's gonna blow your mind.
• 0:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Sue was Jo Boaler's first ever student.
• 0:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Before Stanford, before Growth Mindset, Jo Boaler was a new teacher like so many of us have been, and her first real challenge was when Sue walked into her class.
• 0:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: As a kid, Sue was a classic troublemaker who saw no future for herself in education, largely because the system kept literally telling her she was hopeless.
• 1:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: But when she met Jo, everything changed.
• 1:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: And when Sue learned that with the right support she could actually learn math, the entire world opened up to her and like I'm not exaggerating, finally building confidence in math domino all the way up to her running her own sound engineering company all across Southeast Asia.
• 1:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Always say that overcoming math failure is the reason I started a band, so it's such like a magical, full circle twist that Sue's experience overcoming math also led her to a career in music.
• 1:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: This was one of the most meaningful conversations I've had on the pod, and that's because I see myself in Sue's story.
• 1:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: After believing for so long that I simply wasn't a math person, when my teacher showed me that I could do math, it really truly changed my life, just like Sue.
• 1:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's why I became a math teacher in the first place.
• 1:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's why I started Math Therapy.
• 1:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: To share stories like ours and show that overcoming math trauma really is the gateway to believing that we are capable of anything we can dream of.
• 1:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is the craziest plot twist, I actually got to hang out with Jo and Sue in Bali last year, and honestly it was just so heartwarming to see them still connected after like 40 plus years.
• 2:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: And by the way, for this interview, Sue joined me from her home, which explains all the cute bird chirping you hear in the background.
• 2:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know at some point during this convo, someone is going to pop into your mind that needs to hear this episode.
• 2:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: So when that happens, pause and please send this to them.
• 2:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: As always, you can text the podcast to let me know what you think of this app by hitting the link in the show notes for this episode.
• 2:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you've ever felt written off or if you teach kids who don't believe in themselves yet, or if you just need some proof right now today that anything is possible, this episode is for you.
• 2:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Your story's actually so fascinating and it's not something we hear a lot because it's a story of someone who started off being told that they were never gonna be good at math and who never felt good at math, who then met this incredible teacher, who we all know now as Jo Boaler, and whose life sort of changed as a result.
• 3:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: So let's go back to the beginning of your, a bit of your math journey.
• 3:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let me be specific.
• 3:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: What was math like for you when you were in school?
• 3:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: What was school like in general?
• 3:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because I don't think this was just about math necessarily.
• 3:15
  Sue Besant: No, not at all.
• 3:16
  Sue Besant: It was, um, Yeah.
• 3:18
  Sue Besant: School was a place that you were at until you were 16 and you could get out and get a job.
• 3:23
  Sue Besant: Really?
• 3:23
  Sue Besant: For me and the friends around me, um, none of us were really doing very well at school.
• 3:30
  Sue Besant: You know, whether it was a sort of cultural thing, social working class London.
• 3:34
  Sue Besant: Parents were supportive but not nurturing, if you Like, You know, my parents were great, doing the best that they could with what they had, but really just were happy if you stayed in school.
• 3:45
  Sue Besant: you know, got there every day and then eventually got out and, and did and, and yeah, found a job.
• 3:51
  Sue Besant: So for me, school was really boring.
• 3:55
  Sue Besant: was, a place just to, I had a lot of fun.
• 3:57
  Sue Besant: I can't say I didn't have fun, so it was a lot of laughs and jokes and fun.
• 4:03
  Sue Besant: couldn't find, I couldn't apply myself and I don't think I was really trying, as in, you know, there were the posh kids that worked and did well at school and were gonna have great careers.
• 4:13
  Sue Besant: And then there were us, the rest of us who would, uh, mess around a lot.
• 4:18
  Sue Besant: You know, I was definitely a disruptive kid.
• 4:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, what were you up to?
• 4:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: What were you doing?
• 4:23
  Sue Besant: Um, just being disruptive in class, you know, tying shoelaces together.
• 4:29
  Sue Besant: You know, someone leaned back on a chair, pulling it a bit more, throwing things around, just being a pain in the ass basically.
• 4:34
  Sue Besant: I must have been a nightmare in classrooms.
• 4:36
  Sue Besant: I was.
• 4:37
  Sue Besant: And that's what you did.
• 4:38
  Sue Besant: And honestly, if you sort of sat down with a book and start doing something, you'd be berated by your friends.
• 4:45
  Sue Besant: You know, what are you doing?
• 4:46
  Sue Besant: That's not what we do.
• 4:47
  Sue Besant: You know, we are the kids that just have fun, no thoughts of, you know, what are you gonna do in the future.
• 4:53
  Sue Besant: Career, university, college you just knew, get to 16 and find a job and start making money and living life.
• 5:01
  Sue Besant: And we sort of thought that was par for the course for us.
• 5:03
  Sue Besant: I was, dunno what you call it, we call it bunking off.
• 5:06
  Sue Besant: I was truanting a lot, you know, it was So boring.
• 5:09
  Sue Besant: We'd go to a park and just hang out and hide away somewhere
• 5:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: Bunking off is like skipping class?
• 5:14
  Sue Besant: Bunking off is like skipping
• 5:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 5:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just wanted to clarify.
• 5:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 5:18
  Sue Besant: So we'd be doing that a few days a week as we're really doing nothing.
• 5:21
  Sue Besant: And just being there to sit through whatever these teachers would tell us.
• 5:27
  Sue Besant: You know, you couldn't, you could ask questions, but it'd be like, just follow the books, follow the rules.
• 5:32
  Sue Besant: And if you weren't, if you were disruptive or you, you know, now what I'd say is you needed to learn in a different way, you'd be put in the bottom of every class where it was really the kids that they've given up on.
• 5:44
  Sue Besant: You know you're in
• 5:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what did that mean?
• 5:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 5:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: What's Group four?
• 5:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: What happens in there?
• 5:49
  Sue Besant: Not a lot.
• 5:50
  Sue Besant: So group four, I felt like looking back on it now would be, you know, more likely to have a supply teacher in there, or maybe a junior teacher or someone who just sat there and babysat us and let us do what we were doing.
• 6:05
  Sue Besant: More or less tried to keep control, you know, keep you in your seat.
• 6:09
  Sue Besant: but didn't really try and teach us much.
• 6:11
  Sue Besant: Just kept us there.
• 6:12
  Sue Besant: Like we'd sort of we're the, we just need to stay in school.
• 6:16
  Sue Besant: We have to be there?
• 6:17
  Sue Besant: But we're not gonna learn anything.
• 6:19
  Sue Besant: So, and as a kid we are like, this is great, you know, this is perfect.
• 6:24
  Sue Besant: We can just mess around and not do anything.
• 6:26
  Sue Besant: Cause learning didn't make any sense to me.
• 6:30
  Sue Besant: As in, I loved learning stuff.
• 6:32
  Sue Besant: Like outside of that, you know, if I'd work, you know, with my brother I was learning about sports and fitness and health, you know, with my dad learning about his car and stuff like that.
• 6:41
  Sue Besant: I loved learning, but I couldn't, I couldn't think of that as being school learning that was books and numbers and things that made no sense to me.
• 6:49
  Sue Besant: So that's sort of where I sat until I was now 13, 14.
• 6:56
  Sue Besant: That's when things really sort of changed in my life.
• 6:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so before we get to the, to the big plot twist, you know, you were put in, group four and all teachers were just kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we just want you to stay in school, but like you have no kind of hope kind of thing.
• 7:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you think that affected like your self-esteem outside of school or not really?
• 7:15
  Sue Besant: Absolutely.
• 7:16
  Sue Besant: I mean, my home life was challenging.
• 7:20
  Sue Besant: Dunno how much detail to go in there.
• 7:21
  Sue Besant: But, you know, my, um, mom was an alcoholic, and dad, although they lived together, did not get on well at all.
• 7:28
  Sue Besant: And, um, as I say, they were good parents.
• 7:31
  Sue Besant: They, they did what they could for me, but their relationship was, um, I didn't wanna be at home, be in that environment.
• 7:42
  Sue Besant: I was definitely a scared kid.
• 7:43
  Sue Besant: I didn't realize how scared I was.
• 7:45
  Sue Besant: I still feel some of that now.
• 7:47
  Sue Besant: But I was a real frightened child.
• 7:50
  Sue Besant: I'd felt very insecure.
• 7:51
  Sue Besant: So I was bringing all that to school.
• 7:53
  Sue Besant: And then you come to school and you're told you're useless as well.
• 7:56
  Sue Besant: Pretty much, you know, there's nothing we can do with you.
• 8:00
  Sue Besant: So then you're put into bottom class are in school.
• 8:04
  Sue Besant: But you are around a group of other people that you feel like are either in the same situation or sometimes worse than, so you sort of group together and you do put a front on.
• 8:12
  Sue Besant: I definitely came across a cocky, cheeky, confident kid, but I definitely wasn't that I was anything but that.
• 8:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: So different than you now, you know.
• 8:26
  Sue Besant: but yeah.
• 8:27
  Sue Besant: You, I, didn't have much self esteem.
• 8:30
  Sue Besant: I like I, I had, I, I felt like there was a spark in there that would come out sometimes when I found something that I loved doing.
• 8:38
  Sue Besant: Like I knew that I loved music.
• 8:40
  Sue Besant: I'd already started to play the drums in school, sports and music in primary school before I got into secondary school.
• 8:47
  Sue Besant: You know, it was all sports and music and I moved towards sports because it was the one time where I felt like I was noticed, you know, on a sports field.
• 8:55
  Sue Besant: Sports day was my day.
• 8:57
  Sue Besant: Forget the other 364.
• 8:59
  Sue Besant: There's one day where someone's gonna say to me, you did well.
• 9:03
  Sue Besant: Otherwise I'd never be hearing that.
• 9:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is so sad.
• 9:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: I hate this.
• 9:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm really sorry.
• 9:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: That sounds horrible.
• 9:10
  Sue Besant: The thing is, at the time you just live it, and you don't realize it's not normal.
• 9:18
  Sue Besant: You surround yourself with others that are sort of, you know, similar to you.
• 9:22
  Sue Besant: I just look at others and think at least things are not as bad as that.
• 9:26
  Sue Besant: And you put up a front.
• 9:28
  Sue Besant: I do think sports was a really big thing for me.
• 9:30
  Sue Besant: My brother was in, he was a professional weightlifter and he moved me towards all of that, and it became my one strength.
• 9:38
  Sue Besant: I always thought, whatever I can't do, this is something I can do.
• 9:41
  Sue Besant: And music, I loved music.
• 9:44
  Sue Besant: I, think I, was like 11 years old.
• 9:45
  Sue Besant: My dad brought me this four track recorder, before I knew anything about sound engineering, it was this massive unit had two tape cassette things in it.
• 9:56
  Sue Besant: I dunno if you ever used a cassette, Vanessa, two tapes
• 10:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've made my share of mix tapes.
• 10:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Don't you worry.
• 10:02
  Sue Besant: You could record on one and then you could bounce it to the other one and had a little guitar, I couldn't play guitar very well, I can't still, but you'd put a little thing down and then you could bounce it over.
• 10:12
  Sue Besant: And at the time I never knew anything about sound engineering or that'd ever be a future for me.
• 10:17
  Sue Besant: I knew that this thing was something I loved.
• 10:20
  Sue Besant: So I knew I had this creative element, but I never linked all of that to school.
• 10:25
  Sue Besant: I just thought school is a place where you're, you're just imprisoned in a place where no one believes in you
• 10:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Ugh.
• 10:32
  Sue Besant: There's nowhere to go forward.
• 10:34
  Sue Besant: You just have to do it.
• 10:36
  Sue Besant: It's part of life.
• 10:37
  Sue Besant: And sometimes you'd be, you know, the elders around your parents would just be like, yeah, just stick it out.
• 10:43
  Sue Besant: Because that's what they did.
• 10:44
  Sue Besant: So wasn't much positivity there, apart from my friends.
• 10:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 10:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, and it's so, it's what's so beautiful, what you said before, and I think it's so important to hear when you were like, I loved learning, like I loved learning things, but that's not what I was doing at school, right?
• 11:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I wasn't like learn, whatever they called.
• 11:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Learning at school was not the same as my experience of learning outside of school, which I loved.
• 11:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Which is like oof.
• 11:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like what are we doing in school, which is supposed to be a place of learning that turns it into this icky thing, especially for a student like you who gen, who you're like, I want to learn things, but what I'm doing in school, it doesn't feel like learning.
• 11:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: So, I mean, I just thought that, I think that's a really important point to note is that what do we mean when we say teaching and what do we mean when we say learning?
• 11:33
  Sue Besant: The other thing.
• 11:34
  Sue Besant: I'm thinking of now is the difference between, okay, there's learning.
• 11:39
  Sue Besant: We don't all learn the same way.
• 11:41
  Sue Besant: easy It's 40 years ago.
• 11:42
  Sue Besant: It's not easy in a classroom of, I dunno, it'd be 20, 30 kids to say you need this and you need that.
• 11:47
  Sue Besant: but the, the thing then was not asking questions.
• 11:50
  Sue Besant: And I don't know how much schooling has changed, but it was questioning that's what you couldn't do.
• 11:55
  Sue Besant: So if I had shown some interest, but said, but why or why is it like that?
• 11:58
  Sue Besant: Or why are we learning that?
• 12:01
  Sue Besant: You don't ask those questions.
• 12:03
  Sue Besant: And I don't know if teaching, I hope it isn't that way anymore.
• 12:06
  Sue Besant: It would be just follow what you are being given.
• 12:10
  Sue Besant: And that was another big thing that if I did ever sort of think, oh that's might be interesting, but why or what's that for?
• 12:17
  Sue Besant: That was shut down.
• 12:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Wow.
• 12:18
  Sue Besant: quite, uh, a big thing as Well,'cause maybe there would've been that moment.
• 12:22
  Sue Besant: So anyway, yes,
• 12:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: no, and it's, it's really important to acknowledge because yes, I would also like to say, I hope teaching isn't like that now, but I know when, I know a lot of students who still experience that, you know, that it's not completely gone.
• 12:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: And also, it's so crazy to think that, like, obviously if you're learning something, the number one question you're gonna ask is why.
• 12:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: That that's a sign that the student in front of you is interested.
• 12:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, it's like, you know what like that would be as a teacher?
• 12:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's maybe disrupting what your, your sentence or what you're doing, but that's a gift.
• 12:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: That the student has asked you why, they want to know something, like you've got somebody in front of you ready to learn.
• 13:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I think it's so nuts that we have traditionally and historically gotten annoyed by that question.
• 13:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: I mean, I, I always got told, I asked too many questions and all sorts of things, but it is really funny in retrospect to be like, but why?
• 13:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: Huh?
• 13:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: But seriously, but why, why would we be annoyed at a question anyways?
• 13:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Carry on.
• 13:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 13:20
  Sue Besant: So, I was, yeah, 13, 14.
• 13:23
  Sue Besant: A new group of teachers came into the school and Jo Boaler was one of them.
• 13:29
  Sue Besant: And, uh, another teacher was really important to me at that time, Jackie Tomlin is my English teacher.
• 13:35
  Sue Besant: So ended up being lucky that they're two very important subjects.
• 13:38
  Sue Besant: You know, it wasn't woodwork and home economics.
• 13:40
  Sue Besant: It was two important useful subjects.
• 13:43
  Sue Besant: These young teachers come along, they didn't seem young to us at the time.
• 13:46
  Sue Besant: When you're 14, early twenties, they were 22, 23.
• 13:49
  Sue Besant: It still seems old, right?
• 13:50
  Sue Besant: And they're a teacher, but something, you know, I wish I could remember those exact moments, that's why I sort of wish that social media was as it was now, I'm not a big
• 14:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: You don't wish that, I promise you.
• 14:02
  Sue Besant: wish it could have been documented that
• 14:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 14:04
  Sue Besant: those moments, you
• 14:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 14:06
  Sue Besant: But memory is a great thing too.
• 14:09
  Sue Besant: these teachers came into our lives.
• 14:12
  Sue Besant: It's not only me, a lot of people are affected by them.
• 14:16
  Sue Besant: And would've gone into a math class and been my normal self and, you know, troublesome and in the bottom group and Jo was teaching the bottom group.
• 14:26
  Sue Besant: And there's something that she remembers that I actually don't remember me saying, you know, why should we bother?
• 14:33
  Sue Besant: But just having a younger energy in a room already I know would've changed things.
• 14:38
  Sue Besant: Someone that's young and, you know, ready to, it was their, I think it was both of their first teaching positions.
• 14:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, Jo said your class was like the first class she ever taught.
• 14:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: So crazy.
• 14:49
  Sue Besant: Group of unruly kids.
• 14:52
  Sue Besant: Um, but we were fun.
• 14:54
  Sue Besant: At least we were fun, we had personality.
• 14:57
  Sue Besant: And you know, I asked questions, as I just talked about, you know, why should we bother?
• 15:02
  Sue Besant: What's the point of it?
• 15:02
  Sue Besant: And I'll say that of many, probably of all the subjects, maths was the one where I'm like, what on earth are we doing here?
• 15:11
  Sue Besant: When is this gonna be useful to me in life?
• 15:14
  Sue Besant: When am I ever gonna apply this any other time?
• 15:16
  Sue Besant: What are all these?
• 15:18
  Sue Besant: just a means to an end to get a past if you're gonna be a doctor or a surgeon or some career that I thought otherwise, what do we need it for?
• 15:26
  Sue Besant: It didn't make any sense to me, and I genuinely thought, there's no way I can learn this.
• 15:31
  Sue Besant: brain cannot do this stuff.
• 15:33
  Sue Besant: This is for, again, the posh kids.
• 15:36
  Sue Besant: The, you know, those middle class kids that came in, sat down, did their work, it's not us.
• 15:41
  Sue Besant: What for?
• 15:43
  Sue Besant: I asked the question, you know, why should we bother?
• 15:46
  Sue Besant: And, there would've been a response.
• 15:49
  Sue Besant: Suddenly someone's actually saying, well, this is why you should bother.
• 15:52
  Sue Besant: And there's, there's an answer.
• 15:57
  Sue Besant: And I think from there.
• 16:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you remember what they said?
• 16:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like the what, why you should bother?
• 16:04
  Sue Besant: I can't remember.
• 16:06
  Sue Besant: What I think it would've been.
• 16:07
  Sue Besant: And what I remember, something that I do remember where this happened in that timeline is, it might have been fractions or something like that, and me saying, look, how can you even learn this?
• 16:18
  Sue Besant: How do you even start to understand it, and Jo being able to say, take another situation, another format, you know, something, a bit more real world, what I would get would make sense to me.
• 16:31
  Sue Besant: One example, okay, can you figure this out?
• 16:33
  Sue Besant: Put something to me.
• 16:35
  Sue Besant: of course I can, because this makes total sense to me.
• 16:37
  Sue Besant: You know, I can divide that and yeah, I can.
• 16:39
  Sue Besant: It's about things that I know and then saying that's fractions.
• 16:44
  Sue Besant: Firstly someone taking the time out to bother doing that.
• 16:47
  Sue Besant: Secondly, understanding that all these numbers on a page can actually be applied in such different ways to something that makes sense to me.
• 16:56
  Sue Besant: And it was a, it's a, it's a life changer, you know, it's a discovery of I can do this.
• 17:04
  Sue Besant: Moments like that, of being shown something and saying, that cannot be the same as what you're trying to explain to me here, then finding that that self-worth, that realization that maybe I can actually do it.
• 17:20
  Sue Besant: And that would've been a trickle of more and more of those things.
• 17:24
  Sue Besant: Once I started to realize I can learn, just absolutely amazing, unbelievable feeling of, wow, I can do it.
• 17:34
  Sue Besant: At that time, just to mention something else, you are surrounded, you surround yourself with people that are in your situation.
• 17:42
  Sue Besant: So I'm in this bottom group with some friends that I'm to transition from because it wasn't, it didn't look good to be learning.
• 17:51
  Sue Besant: like, why are you becoming a goodie?
• 17:52
  Sue Besant: Why are you becoming, what are you doing?
• 17:55
  Sue Besant: This is not what we do.
• 17:56
  Sue Besant: So I'd also started to transition my group of friends to other friends to be able to still do it.
• 18:03
  Sue Besant: 'Cause I thought I can't keep my old friends while we all just mess about and start being this person who learns.
• 18:08
  Sue Besant: So all this was happening in my life.
• 18:11
  Sue Besant: Um, and I was also struggling with my sexuality at the time, and my English teacher happened to be coming out at that time, something you
• 18:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God,
• 18:17
  Sue Besant: years ago in school.
• 18:19
  Sue Besant: So these two young, you know, new fresh teachers with new ideas that are creative.
• 18:27
  Sue Besant: Maths always felt to me like it's just a foreign language and to realize I could do it, I felt enlightened and empowered and like a different, I started to become a different person in every part of my life.
• 18:44
  Sue Besant: For someone to say, you can do this, and I believe in you and it's possible, that started something.
• 18:52
  Sue Besant: And these teachers, these people are taking the extra time out of school time because I needed the extra time to be able to, now, now the goal is now I can learn, how am I gonna pass these subjects?
• 19:03
  Sue Besant: Because you know what, what was being explained to me by Jo and Jackie, my other teacher, is you need your basics.
• 19:09
  Sue Besant: Now you know, you can learn what's, what's the future?
• 19:12
  Sue Besant: What can you do?
• 19:13
  Sue Besant: Hang on a minute.
• 19:14
  Sue Besant: Maybe I can do more.
• 19:16
  Sue Besant: Okay, well let's get a pass.
• 19:18
  Sue Besant: So that was the journey of someone believing in me and giving a shit and making that time for me and showing me that it was possible just by showing me how to learn something in a different way, in a creative way.
• 19:31
  Sue Besant: And I definitely, that, that was my way.
• 19:34
  Sue Besant: Um, that's what worked for me.
• 19:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is, it's, I, I'm like feeling so emotional.
• 19:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just, I mean, it's, it's funny'cause I think you've probably told me some version of this like four times because I make you tell everyone every time I introduce you to someone, but it's such an incredible story, and what's so crazy is it's 40 years later and there's still so much emotion when you talk about it.
• 19:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, I know people can't see you right now, but I'm looking at you and I can just see, you know, that it's, it's that transformative that it's funny that you're saying, you're like, I can't remember the exact thing, but what I'm, I'm hearing and seeing is you can remember that feeling like that feeling sticks with you forever.
• 20:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's why I always say, I mean, I love teaching math, but it's not about the math.
• 20:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: For me, it's that math can be a gateway into opening up these feelings because math is where so many students feel, exactly like you said, this is the one thing I promise you I cannot learn, my brain is not designed for this, this is for the smart people and I'm not one of them.
• 20:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: And when you change that, it's like that feeling sticks with you.
• 20:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you just said, you were like, I started transforming into a new person in so many different ways.
• 20:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: And one other thing I wanna highlight is that I think sometimes we think, like to help a student that's struggling as much as you were, you know, and that's, that's checked out as much as you were, you've gotta do some big, grandiose gesture.
• 20:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what I'm hearing from you is Jo and Jackie, yes, they were creative in the sense that they were teaching their subjects in a creative way.
• 20:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what you've said more than that, the thing that I don't know, like that I'm clocking you, repeat, is they believed in me.
• 21:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: They told me they believed in me, and then they showed up and spent extra time with me.
• 21:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it's like that action, that doesn't go unnoticed.
• 21:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you were 13, 14, but you noticed that, you clocked, wow, this person is taking time, to talk to me and to explain stuff to me.
• 21:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: That must mean they believe in me and then they're vocalizing that they believe in me.
• 21:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: So to never underestimate how that gesture, and it's something you can say in two minutes, I believe in you.
• 21:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's something you can take five minutes to spend time with the student because you don't think there a write off that pays off like.
• 21:36
  Sue Besant: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: It just as much as if not more than the actual way you're teaching the content.
• 21:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because now you're in the game because you're like, oh, okay, well now I'm paying attention, I guess.
• 21:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 21:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: And now the delivery of the content can be absorbed, whatever that delivery is.
• 21:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: And thankfully in this case, it was creatively the way you, you needed it.
• 21:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: But you've, I mean, it's just, it's so cool.
• 21:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what's fascinating is what, because I know, I know what happens next, but you're now at this point where you're sort of transforming and you're feeling like you kind of have to like caterpillar into butterfly out of your friend group, right?
• 22:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're like, okay, like my whole identity's changing, I no longer wanna kind of, you know, what bunk about, what did you say, bunk, bunk out?
• 22:18
  Sue Besant: Bunk off.
• 22:19
  Sue Besant: No, the opposite, I mean, I spent all my hours at school, and again, when home life is a challenge
• 22:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: right?
• 22:24
  Sue Besant: Now I found a new place to be, and imagine that's place I'm at.
• 22:27
  Sue Besant: I couldn't wait to get back there and learn more and take more.
• 22:31
  Sue Besant: And once I got a taste of it, and up to this podcast, I really started to sort of sit down and have a, have a real think of what do I remember.
• 22:40
  Sue Besant: I was trying to find memories, I sort of went through my twenties and my thirties, maybe not looking back as much.
• 22:46
  Sue Besant: I did appreciate the help and what I'd been given, but I didn't understand the scale of it, I think until I was in my forties how big this is, how big it was in life.
• 22:57
  Sue Besant: Not just maths or English, or, it changed my entire life and it gave me the confidence to do everything else I did from there on.
• 23:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: I, I talk a lot about students with math, trauma, and you know, all the ways that can develop and one of the ways is simply having it made so clear to you in so many ways that nobody believes in you, right?
• 23:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: That you shouldn't even bother.
• 23:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: We just want you to pass.
• 23:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: You were given those messages when you were put into the lower sections of your class, you were given those messages by teachers that were just like, well just pass.
• 23:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: You were given that messages, even by well meaning parents that were like, don't worry about it.
• 23:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: You just need to get through it and get out of here.
• 23:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's all you're capable of, and
• 23:33
  Sue Besant: The pass bit wasn't included.
• 23:35
  Sue Besant: Just to mention, not pass just stay to school until the end of school.
• 23:40
  Sue Besant: Don't get arrested.
• 23:42
  Sue Besant: Forget pass.
• 23:43
  Sue Besant: If you are in group 4, you are not passing.
• 23:46
  Sue Besant: And there was an incident where one of my teachers went to the head of the department and said, I want to bring someone up from group four, I think they can pass.
• 23:57
  Sue Besant: The head of maths asked who it was, and when my name was mentioned, he just thought it was hilarious.
• 24:02
  Sue Besant: Genuinely thought that was a hilarious thought.
• 24:05
  Sue Besant: Like he definitely thought there was no way in the world I could ever pass.
• 24:12
  Sue Besant: And I did.
• 24:13
  Sue Besant: But there you go.
• 24:14
  Sue Besant: If that's what younger teachers, new teachers are getting from, and it wasn't just like he was, I can't be bothered.
• 24:18
  Sue Besant: He was like, really thought there was no for me, it was a waste of time.
• 24:25
  Sue Besant: And if your teacher feels that way, imagine that energy you're getting constantly.
• 24:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, and that's it.
• 24:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I was gonna say, you probably like, because you're saying, well, it took me until I was around 40 to even basically unpack what this whole experience had done for me.
• 24:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: A kid who's like, you know, 11, 12, whatever, younger, or like even a bit older, you're not thinking, oh, because this teacher did this thing, my self-esteem has become lower'cause I'm getting this message.
• 24:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: None of that is happening consciously, right?
• 24:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's just a vibe you're getting, an energy you're getting that trickles down and you just shrink smaller and smaller and smaller and don't try and don't wanna show up.
• 24:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: And conversely, for all the teachers who are making these huge differences in students' lives, they might not even know it right away.
• 25:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 25:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it does over time play out in the sense of like, oh my God, what has led me to be the person I've become?
• 25:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, that's what, I mean that's why it's so great to have you on the podcast and be able to talk it out.
• 25:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Most of us don't even reflect on what has caused us to be the way we are.
• 25:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 25:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's what like deep therapy is for.
• 25:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: So certainly most people aren't thinking about that, about their math experience, but it's there and it's so important and it's so salient and it's like so, so impactful.
• 25:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: So anyway, so you get to this point, you're passing, you're on your way up.
• 25:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: What happens next?
• 25:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'Cause I, I really want everyone to know what you ended up doing with your crazy life after this.
• 25:39
  Sue Besant: Don't big it up too much.
• 25:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's so cool though.
• 25:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're so cool.
• 25:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: But I also wanna know what you thought you were gonna do before this.
• 25:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like what was your plan?
• 25:48
  Sue Besant: Honestly, sports, as I say, I one strength.
• 25:52
  Sue Besant: I didn't know what that would mean because I knew, well, sports, what does that mean?
• 25:56
  Sue Besant: I'm not gonna be able to become a PE teacher or work in an environment, without having some qualifications.
• 26:02
  Sue Besant: But I kind of didn't know what I'd do with it.
• 26:04
  Sue Besant: Honestly, I think at 13, 14, I wasn't thinking career at all, I was thinking what jobs are gonna be out there?
• 26:11
  Sue Besant: What are my friends doing?
• 26:12
  Sue Besant: What are they getting when they're leaving school?
• 26:14
  Sue Besant: Okay, and I have many friends that ended up working at, you know, a family business or the local supermarket or that, wrong with that,
• 26:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: No, no, no.
• 26:23
  Sue Besant: Was their trajectory.
• 26:23
  Sue Besant: That's all that was there for them.
• 26:26
  Sue Besant: All that they felt, you know?
• 26:27
  Sue Besant: So I don't think I knew what I'd do, but I knew I loved music and, and sports.
• 26:32
  Sue Besant: Luckily for me, there's a lot of luck in there, I think, a friend of a friend knew this training scheme that was for sound engineering.
• 26:39
  Sue Besant: I was playing drums at the time.
• 26:41
  Sue Besant: I was in little band and she said to me, if you don't know what you want to do, this is in music.
• 26:46
  Sue Besant: I didn't know what sound engineer was.
• 26:47
  Sue Besant: What does that even mean?
• 26:49
  Sue Besant: If you don't know, you don't know.
• 26:50
  Sue Besant: Engineering sounds then?
• 26:53
  Sue Besant: So she said, listen, if you're into music, you can play drums all day.
• 26:56
  Sue Besant: They've got a recording studio, can play drums, you can, I thought not?
• 27:02
  Sue Besant: And I went for an interview and I needed my maths and my English to get into that course.
• 27:07
  Sue Besant: What are the chances?
• 27:09
  Sue Besant: I at least needed those passes.
• 27:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, Deepak Chopra always says that luck,'cause you keep saying, oh, there's a lot of luck involved, and his definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.
• 27:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right, you're prepared, and then the opportunity comes and you can take it because you have prepared, like just what you said, what are the chances you need English and math?
• 27:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, you've prepared and now the opportunity's there and you can seize it.
• 27:33
  Sue Besant: Um, and it was scary, I'll be honest.
• 27:35
  Sue Besant: But I was loving it.
• 27:36
  Sue Besant: It was absolutely amazing, and I was there for two years.
• 27:39
  Sue Besant: So now I'm on this, in this school of audio engineering.
• 27:43
  Sue Besant: You learn theory of music and practical and I was loving it.
• 27:46
  Sue Besant: Like I was just absorbing all of this, thought this is something I'd really love to do.
• 27:52
  Sue Besant: I mean, how fun is that as well?
• 27:53
  Sue Besant: You're on a course where you're just, you know, you are a musician, David's a musician.
• 27:57
  Sue Besant: Imagine just being in a recording studio and being told all day, just do this.
• 28:03
  Sue Besant: You know?
• 28:04
  Sue Besant: And we got paid a little bit.
• 28:05
  Sue Besant: Just a little bit.
• 28:07
  Sue Besant: That that's insane.
• 28:10
  Sue Besant: Like this is like a dream.
• 28:13
  Sue Besant: And And then you are given a place, given a placement.
• 28:15
  Sue Besant: They try and find you a studio to work in and again, luck met preparedness, and I was put in this little tiny studio with it was actually in Fleet Street, which is not somewhere you normally have recording studios.
• 28:29
  Sue Besant: It's where all the newspapers are produced over there.
• 28:33
  Sue Besant: I was 17 then and it was managed by two older guys and they owned the business.
• 28:38
  Sue Besant: and that's where my learning really, really happened.
• 28:41
  Sue Besant: That's where I really grew in this, in the industry.
• 28:45
  Sue Besant: We were writing songs for people.
• 28:46
  Sue Besant: They'd come in with an idea and so I had to learn chord progressions and so on, on the keyboard.
• 28:51
  Sue Besant: 'cause we wrote them more, it was all produced with a live band.
• 28:54
  Sue Besant: So I started learning that and I picked that up real quick.
• 28:57
  Sue Besant: I couldn't really read music well.
• 28:59
  Sue Besant: And we just became thick as thieves myself and Za, who was my business partner.
• 29:04
  Sue Besant: We grew in the business and went on to set up our own recording studio.
• 29:08
  Sue Besant: So I was there for about two and a half years.
• 29:11
  Sue Besant: Then we went out on our own, moved to another part of London, holloway, and set up a recording and rehearsal room of our own.
• 29:18
  Sue Besant: We were luckily funded, luckily funded by the person who had the studio in Fleet Street.
• 29:25
  Sue Besant: He saw something in us and luck gave us an opportunity to set up our own studio.
• 29:32
  Sue Besant: That's what we did.
• 29:33
  Sue Besant: We had a 24 track studio, had rehearsal rooms and, you know, 18 years old to have your own business of that kind.
• 29:41
  Sue Besant: It actually wasn't overwhelming because we both felt totally ready for it, again amazing.
• 29:48
  Sue Besant: Amazing.
• 29:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: How much math did you use in your job as a Sound Eng, you know, at the recording studio?
• 29:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Did you, do you think you used a lot of math?
• 29:56
  Sue Besant: Well, I must have.
• 30:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can say no, I'm actually just curious.
• 30:02
  Sue Besant: It, I must have been using it without realizing, of course, I'm not thinking, okay, well when did hypotenuse come into the picture, and when did, but I would've applied some of the learning, the way I learned in the studio work, you know, and once we became computer based, you know, and timing and other things, I would've made use of it.
• 30:21
  Sue Besant: I just don't think I was aware of it.
• 30:24
  Sue Besant: What I thought at that point is it got me what I needed to get here.
• 30:30
  Sue Besant: Which it did, it got me
• 30:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: which it did.
• 30:32
  Sue Besant: didn't understand the scale of it, and it got me here, as in now I feel like, I felt like I could learn anything that point.
• 30:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 30:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let us just pause on that because it's interesting.
• 30:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was asking a leading question.
• 30:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, I'm gonna actually ask her if she thinks she learns math.
• 30:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: If she used math, and you kind of went to where.
• 30:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: What I was sort of thinking is, yeah, perhaps you didn't use the quadratic formula or Pythagorean Theorem and the hypotenuse, but did you use the skills you learned in math class?
• 31:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 31:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Persevering to a problem, like figuring out another way of looking at it, like relating things to what you already know so you can learn the new thing.
• 31:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: You kind of did, right?
• 31:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: You went into this brand new space, you didn't know anything about sound engineering, and you fucking figured it out.
• 31:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what's even bigger is what you said that you had the confidence that you could learn anything.
• 31:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's almost the biggest thing that you used, right?
• 31:25
  Sue Besant: And with maths being the most, the scariest, you know, when, it's the scariest subject.
• 31:31
  Sue Besant: It's the one you just, of every class you want to go to, you do not wanna go to maths.
• 31:35
  Sue Besant: Please don't
• 31:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why?
• 31:38
  Sue Besant: Well, when I say it was boring, it wasn't I just didn't get it.
• 31:43
  Sue Besant: Just numbers on a page and more numbers on another page and more numbers that you will not use in real life.
• 31:51
  Sue Besant: You know, why do I need to know divide that by whatever.
• 31:54
  Sue Besant: Who cares?
• 31:54
  Sue Besant: I've got a calculator, I'll use that.
• 31:56
  Sue Besant: You know, it was really, it wasn't, I was, I thought I was bored.
• 32:01
  Sue Besant: It was a foreign language.
• 32:02
  Sue Besant: And if you can learn the most, the most difficult thing that you thought was the most difficult thing, just by thinking of it in another way to say it opens the door, I felt, I did feel invincible, I probably felt too invincible, know, I thought that anything was possible, but then anything becomes possible.
• 32:18
  Sue Besant: And me and, and me and my business partner we're both really young, you know?
• 32:22
  Sue Besant: Everyone coming into the studio was always amazed that it was these two kids running the studio and applying to all different things and being able to be flexible in that environment, as in feeling you can learn anything, it really was anything and everything.
• 32:38
  Sue Besant: You know, from running a studio, running rehearsal rooms, working out how to,'cause we had storage there, how does storage work?
• 32:44
  Sue Besant: How do we put, and then you're making bacon sandwiches for them sometimes, you know, we had a little kitchen, we'd make breakfast for them as well.
• 32:50
  Sue Besant: All those things from A to Z, I never looked at anything and thought, well I can't do that one.
• 32:55
  Sue Besant: As, from every, as complicated or simple as, we had to be able to be multitasking, flexible, open-minded and up for anything, and we were.
• 33:06
  Sue Besant: And we problem solved constantly in that studio.
• 33:09
  Sue Besant: Whether it were on a financial level, on a level of how are we wiring this, we wired up that studio, we completely built that studio ourselves.
• 33:18
  Sue Besant: We put all the soundproofing paneling up, we put the carpet in, we painted the walls, and we did all of the wiring.
• 33:23
  Sue Besant: Even that small job, well, this isn't working, well how can we do it?
• 33:27
  Sue Besant: And I know that came from what was given to me when I was 14 16 years old, really.
• 33:34
  Sue Besant: And another thing to say, friends now that I meet from days, all different walks of life.
• 33:41
  Sue Besant: They still sort of think, well, you were special.
• 33:44
  Sue Besant: There must have been something special about
• 33:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Ha.
• 33:46
  Sue Besant: I wasn't.
• 33:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 33:48
  Sue Besant: I wasn't special.
• 33:49
  Sue Besant: Just, was ready for it.
• 33:52
  Sue Besant: There was a kid sitting right next to me that could have done everything that I'd done if they'd have wanted to, but maybe just not quite ready whether it's because of home life or whatever else has that block up of, I'm resisting that at the moment, I'm not ready for it, but there's nothing special about me.
• 34:07
  Sue Besant: I just had the right opportunities and the right people to be able to become what I became, what you know, to, to fulfill my potential.
• 34:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: we have the tendency to attribute our failures to ourselves.
• 34:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: So if I fuck something up, I'm like, oh, it was my fault.
• 34:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: But if something good happens to me or if I, if something good happens, like I'm successful at something, i'm more likely to attribute it to external circumstances.
• 34:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I fuck something up, I'm like, that was my fault.
• 34:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: I do something good, and I'm like, oh, well that's because it was easier, that's because I got this other person helped me, that's because, you know what I mean?
• 34:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like so in this case,
• 34:43
  Sue Besant: Yeah, I do do that too.
• 34:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, it's funny, you do, you keep saying like, oh, I, I'm, I'm lucky.
• 34:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it's like, well, you also like you work hard and you this and that, right, um, so it is something I think we have to be aware of, and I think that's really interesting that you say your friends still will be like, oh, well you're special
• 34:58
  Sue Besant: and knowing them now as adults and even think of them, I think we talked about this before at some point, even thinking of them as kids now and knowing them as adults.
• 35:07
  Sue Besant: Like their potential, and not everybody, some people are happy with how things panned out in
• 35:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: Totally.
• 35:13
  Sue Besant: but I know a couple in particular that felt like there should have been more out there for them.
• 35:19
  Sue Besant: but they just never found that, lifeline.
• 35:22
  Sue Besant: They
• 35:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 35:23
  Sue Besant: and when I think of what they used to do,, some of the ingenious ways they find to get around doing work to get what they wanted to
• 35:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 35:31
  Sue Besant: They were so smart and so capable and so able, but couldn't find it in them.
• 35:37
  Sue Besant: And when I look at that now, that kind of makes me a little bit sad because, you know, and there's some of those people are people I did move away from because I saw that.
• 35:45
  Sue Besant: I saw you're not, you're not gonna be able to come along for the journey.
• 35:48
  Sue Besant: I'd never tell that group of people that I was going back for extra work at school.
• 35:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 35:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:54
  Sue Besant: a no no.
• 35:55
  Sue Besant: And that's the other thing, if you are around a group of people where you don't feel like you can do that, are you really gonna leave this lifeline, these people around you?
• 36:04
  Sue Besant: Are you gonna choose them, or you're gonna get torn between?
• 36:07
  Sue Besant: And you know, I made that choice.
• 36:09
  Sue Besant: I was able to, I was, everything was set up right for me to do that.
• 36:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 36:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: And this is also why we, I think we have to be very cognizant, especially we're talking about like teenagers or kids, right?
• 36:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, there's a point where a school shifts, like, you know, in elementary school, school is actually largely about education.
• 36:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: When things get to grade seven or eight, it becomes predominantly about the social.
• 36:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's like where we find our social groups, it's like where we figure out who we are.
• 36:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's very hard, especially in schools where like, it kind of sounds like how you're describing your school a bit, but it's still like this at a lot of schools.
• 36:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's also very gendered that like, it's still not very cool to be smart if you're like in this type of school or that type of school.
• 36:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not that cool to like math if you're, you know, wanna be this type, whatever, all the American teen movies
• 36:52
  Sue Besant: know, your
• 36:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: A teacher's pet, yeah, exactly.
• 36:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you, you, we do have to be aware.
• 36:57
  Sue Besant: And I do think because I was coming out as well.
• 37:01
  Sue Besant: At the time and having another teacher that was coming out at the time, and they were friends, these, you know, Jackie and Jo, were good friends, that, that all fed into it because I also felt at the time, this group of friends, I'll never be able to be myself, because I'll never be able to come out in front of these people.
• 37:18
  Sue Besant: I, we were still telling homophobic jokes and I'm telling them as well,'cause I wanna be part of this group, I'm saying things against, knowing, you know, I probably knew when I was 10 years old, you know, I like girls, this is different, but I'll keep that under wraps.
• 37:30
  Sue Besant: Because I hear what my friends are saying.
• 37:32
  Sue Besant: So that migration for me was pro, was definitely pushed on as well, I know I'm different and I won't be able to thrive with this group of people or ever be myself.
• 37:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, learning and like being seen as a person.
• 37:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you weren't just like a number to them, you weren't a student, you were this whole person.
• 37:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: They recognize that like, okay, A, people have never showed up for her.
• 37:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: B, she's on this coming out journey.
• 37:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like she like, there's this going on.
• 37:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: It sounds like Jo and Jackie really could see the whole picture of who you were and what the situation was you were in, and kind of target a bunch of those different things instead of just putting the paper down on the table.
• 38:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 38:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: And as humans, we all want to be seen and understood and valued.
• 38:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 38:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like, just letting a student know that you care about them as a person can be a huge game changer and you've really highlighted that.
• 38:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: But we have not told as we're gonna need to wrap up soon, and still we have not told anyone that after your studio stuff, you moved to Indonesia and like took over sound engineering.
• 38:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because I think people need to know what, like going from bunking, bunking off, sorry.
• 38:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm obsessed with getting this right.
• 38:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: From bunking off in the bullocks, from bunking off to bougie bitch in Bali.
• 38:48
  Sue Besant: So I, uh, in, initially I moved over to Brunei, I worked for the Royal Family of Brunei
• 38:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: The Royal family guys,
• 38:56
  Sue Besant: we were taking care of concert venues for the royal family
• 39:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my fucking God.
• 39:01
  Sue Besant: Of the royal family.
• 39:02
  Sue Besant: We were in the palaces.
• 39:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Shut up.
• 39:05
  Sue Besant: No word of a lie.
• 39:06
  Sue Besant: Yeah.
• 39:06
  Sue Besant: So I did that for two years, and then I just, I, I was homesick for the first six months and then I just loved this part of the world.
• 39:13
  Sue Besant: Didn't wanna go home.
• 39:14
  Sue Besant: I heard about a job in, in Bali.
• 39:17
  Sue Besant: A friend put me onto a job in Hard Rock Hotel Bali.
• 39:19
  Sue Besant: They were just opening, they needed someone to head up audio visual.
• 39:23
  Sue Besant: They had all this state of the art equipment and no one to run it.
• 39:28
  Sue Besant: Went for an interview, got that job, was there for another two years, and then set up my own company in Bali, I ran for about 20 years.
• 39:37
  Sue Besant: Renting equipment for events and sound and lighting and video equipment, and then just started really doing consultancy work myself throughout Southeast Asia for sound installations, for events, festivals, show directing, and it just, Bali was right place, right time where I'm meant to be.
• 39:54
  Sue Besant: Because here, anything you could think of doing, you can do.
• 39:58
  Sue Besant: Everyone around you is positive.
• 40:00
  Sue Besant: And I love London and I had lots of opportunity there, but not like being in this part of the world where everyone around me was an entrepreneur.
• 40:08
  Sue Besant: Everyone around me was like, yeah, you can think it, you can do it.
• 40:11
  Sue Besant: And this is where I really flourished.
• 40:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: Here's the crazy thing you just said that I don't even know if you realize what a full circle moment this is, you were like, it just suited me so much more here where people are like, if you can think it, you can do it.
• 40:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Anything's possible.
• 40:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the the, craziest thing is when we go back to your math journey, what sparked in you that moment when you realized you could do math, this thing you've always been told you can't do, you started being like, oh my God, if I can do that, I can do anything.
• 40:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: And now you literally have ended up in a place where that is the ethos.
• 40:43
  Sue Besant: Very
• 40:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: like that?
• 40:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you like that?
• 40:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: I thought that was okay.
• 40:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: I have, I have to ask one more question before I like, do my wrap up.
• 40:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Be honest.
• 40:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 40:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, be honest.
• 40:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you,
• 40:54
  Sue Besant: honest.
• 40:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: I, I actually have spent enough time with you that I think I know the answer.
• 40:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: So if you lie to me.
• 40:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, do you think, do you think you like math now?
• 41:04
  Sue Besant: Okay, what is what?
• 41:05
  Sue Besant: What does that even mean?
• 41:06
  Sue Besant: Does that mean what I remember when I was 14 years old?
• 41:09
  Sue Besant: Or does that mean what math could be?
• 41:12
  Sue Besant: I like, I like solving problems.
• 41:15
  Sue Besant: Can I say that?
• 41:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: She's beating me at my own fucking game.
• 41:19
  Sue Besant: I still don't like hypotenuse and the square root of, I still don't like any of that stuff, but I do like problem solving.
• 41:26
  Sue Besant: It's a part of everything I am today.
• 41:30
  Sue Besant: Maths is a part of everything I am today.
• 41:33
  Sue Besant: That's as honest an answer as I can give.
• 41:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's so honest.
• 41:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: And, you know, be I, I actually thought you were gonna say no, only because anytime I'm around you and math comes up, you're always like, Ugh, math, like, you guys do this.
• 41:44
  Sue Besant: I only say that'cause sometimes it's a simple thing and I'm like, there's an easier way of figuring that out.
• 41:48
  Sue Besant: 'cause I think I know everything.
• 41:50
  Sue Besant: If I'm around maths people, I love a challenge and I'm devil's advocate and I'm still a pain in the ass.
• 41:56
  Sue Besant: So I'm just
• 41:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: True
• 41:57
  Sue Besant: see if
• 41:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: can confirm.
• 41:59
  Sue Besant: So there you go.
• 42:00
  Sue Besant: We're using it all the time every day.
• 42:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love you.
• 42:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're, you're such a sweetie, but also pain in the ass.
• 42:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's so confusing.
• 42:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: But, and, and the thing, the thing is, I just wanna say one quick thing, which is that, you know, even if your answer was no, which it was, david is doing, he literally did that, exactly that! He's got his head buried in a pillow.
• 42:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'Cause you did exactly what he was doing.
• 42:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Exactly
• 42:22
  Sue Besant: I know the wrap up move.
• 42:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are gonna do, we're gonna wrap up.
• 42:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've got two final questions I have to ask, and you have 30 seconds to respond to each.
• 42:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number one, if you could change one thing about the way math was taught in schools, what would it be?
• 42:35
  Sue Besant: To be more creative.
• 42:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Such a good answer.
• 42:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: That took two seconds.
• 42:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: That was incredible.
• 42:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Question number two.
• 42:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Someone listens to this podcast.
• 42:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're like, yeah, I get what she's saying.
• 42:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, I guess, but it, that just couldn't happen to me.
• 42:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, you know, like I'm just not a math person.
• 42:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: What would you say?
• 42:52
  Sue Besant: Well, I'd say I'm the proof, right?
• 42:55
  Sue Besant: It couldn't have been more of a turnaround.
• 42:58
  Sue Besant: absolutely the proof and you know, everything that Jo Boaler teaches, of course I've watched her career and her, you know, the books and everything she's done, it's all just makes total, total sense to me.
• 43:10
  Sue Besant: And if you just have a look at that, what that research shows, shows everything about, it's just, just being creative, teaching it a different way, having a bit of energy about it, getting off the paper so everyone can learn.
• 43:26
  Sue Besant: If I can do it, anyone can do it.
• 43:27
  Sue Besant: That I can say.
• 43:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, and actually Jo Boaler does talk about Sue in her, second latest book, Mathish.
• 43:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's actually a whole section about you.
• 43:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, the math legend lives on.
• 43:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: I this.
• 43:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Aren't you glad you said yes to this?
• 43:43
  Sue Besant: on this podcast and I'm honored to like, even, this is like, I tell people I'm going to be on this podcast, and they're like, which one they think is gonna be to do with music or something else, and they say, it's The Math Guru.
• 43:52
  Sue Besant: And they're like, what?
• 43:54
  Sue Besant: It's like I'm honored to be here.
• 43:56
  Sue Besant: The, the thought, the 13-year-old me would be here now, and really, I feel, yeah, very, very proud and very honored and thank you for having me on.
• 44:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Ugh.
• 44:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's honestly, I'm so glad we finally convinced you,'cause I, this is such an inspiring story.
• 44:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want everyone listening to know that if Sue could do it, you can too.
• 44:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: You've gotta find your person, you've gotta find your way.
• 44:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: But there are people out there, and you know what?
• 44:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: If no one has told you what Jo told Sue, Sue and I believe in you.
• 44:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: We believe in you.
• 44:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whoever's listening, we believe in you for sure.
• 44:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know you can do it.
• 44:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know you can build a better relationship with math.
• 44:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know you're able to do it, so we believe in you.
• 44:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you for being here.
• 44:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: This was so great.
• 44:35
  Sue Besant: Thank you.
• 44:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know we say all the time that all it takes is one teacher, like one person who believes in you to change your entire life, but Sue is living proof and a message for all of you listening that you must never underestimate the impact you're making by simply believing in someone.
• 44:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Sue and Jo are lucky to still be connected and to be able to share how much of an impact they had on one another.
• 44:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: But the truth is most people wander the earth like never knowing the difference they make in someone's life because no one ever tells them.
• 45:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's why I want you to share this episode with one person who impacted you, but who might not know it.
• 45:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: Send it to them right now and say, Hey, thank you.
• 45:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: You were my Jo Boaler.
• 45:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: I would not be who I am today without you.
• 45:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Life's honestly too short to not let people know that they matter.
• 45:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you know what I wanna know too, like, who was your Jo Boaler?
• 45:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Text the podcast by hitting the link in your podcast app.
• 45:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: DM me on Instagram@themathguru, or email me at vanessa@themathguru.ca.
• 45:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Math Therapy is produced by David Kochberg.
• 45:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: The music you're hearing right now is by our band, Goodnight Sunrise.
• 45:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I am your host, Vanessa Vakharia.
• 45:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you so much for being here and for believing in someone who really needs it.
• 45:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: And guess what?
• 45:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: I believe in you and your ability to change, to grow, and to make a positive impact in this world.
• 45:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: You matter, and I believe in you.
• 45:59
  Sue Besant: Everyone around me was like yeah, you can think it, you can do it.
• 46:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: That might be the episode title.
• 46:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you can think it, you can do it.
• 46:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Please write that down.
• 46:07
  Sue Besant: I think that's in a song as well.
• 46:09
  Sue Besant: trying to
• 46:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: who?
• 46:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Who.
• 46:10
  Sue Besant: anyway, I'll think
• 46:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: What, the fucking Beatles.
• 46:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: That was just such a
• 46:14
  Sue Besant: seriously saying the fucking beat, don't you?
• 46:16
  Sue Besant: Down the
• 46:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: look.
• 46:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: I can't get into it right now with the Beatles.
• 46:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not that I don't like.
• 46:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: I appreciate them.
• 46:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think they've done great things for music.
• 46:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm just not putting on the beat.
• 46:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: I just, I just, here's the thing.
• 46:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Here's the thing.
• 46:28
  Sue Besant: They're okay.
• 46:29
  Sue Besant: They did a
• 46:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're fine.
• 46:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Not my cup of tea.