Latest / Math Therapy / S4E09: Giving students the voice they deserve w/ Rosalind Wiseman

Transcript

S4E09: Giving students the voice they deserve w/ Rosalind Wiseman · Math Therapy

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: My experience with young people is when you acknowledge the messiness of their past experiences with education and you frame what they're learning in a way of them saying, Oh, I understand why I'm learning this, young people will do anything for you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're engaged and they get it, and they're so crazy about having an adult who cares enough to actually frame education in a way that makes sense to them.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Vanessa Vicaria, aka the Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas one problem at a time.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and don't worry.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: No calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I know I talk a lot of hype and I use a lot of math types.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But today's episode is the real deal, so I'm going all out.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready for a legit full circle interview.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: See what I did there?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you've listened to math therapy before or know of my work at all, you probably know that I referenced the iconic movie Meme Girls all the time.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because my entire master's thesis was called Imagining a World where Paris Something Loves Math, and was all about math and pop culture, and like I cannot think of anything more math and pop culture than Meme Girls.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today I actually got to talk to Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees, the nonfiction book that Meme Girls was based on.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: As you can imagine, I was beyond excited to discuss the social dynamics at play in the math classroom.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, the craziest and most frustrating thing is that even though Me and Girls came out like forever ago, we still see the same kind of messaging in the media about girls and math that Lindsay Lohan's character suffered from.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know, I still can't think of a single fucking movie where the cheerleader character likes math.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what the fuck is up with that?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard me rant about this two billion times, so I can't wait for you to hear it straight from the source.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I started out by asking Rosalind about the inspiration behind her book and how it felt to see it adopted into a movie.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So my book is a how-to nonfiction guide for parents.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so there weren't necessarily characters in it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I was describing was um things, the world and the social world of girls and what they, the pressures they felt, and um how they would sometimes please other people and sacrifice the things that they wanted or their personal boundaries or their passions or their their sense of purpose in the world to sacrifice, you know, to sacrifice that to maintain relationships with people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so, you know, one of the things that's been really that was, I think, classic, but has has really, I think, changed, and you uh know more about this than I do, that um that there's been a long history of girls pretending that they're not as smart as boys in various areas of school.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And math was really one of the classic areas where girls were pretending that they weren't as capable as boys.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, that's that's kind of what I meant.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, I wanted to know how accurately they think you think they represented that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because what's so interesting is so I did my master's thesis in 2010, and I partially did it because I was teaching in a classroom and I was noticing myself, like I was noticing that girls were actually performing better than boys.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But when I asked them, you know, when I'd say something like, oh, Sarah, put that answer on the board, they would self-select out and they would often do what we used to call back then, and I wouldn't call this now, but like quote unquote dumbing themselves down.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was kind of the phrase used back then.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I thought it was so interesting because of it is very similar to mean girls.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually ended up using that a lot in my thesis work and a lot when I interviewed the girls themselves.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also such an interesting dichotomy because at the same time, girls would get really excited for that part in calculus class where they could say the limit does not exist.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually always, even now when I give talks, when I ask young women, I'll be like, can you think of a single movie out there or a single TV show out there that makes math cool or that makes it seem like as a girl, you're allowed to retain your identity and also be good at math, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to completely ditch it and turn into a nerd.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes half of half of the group will say mean girls, and half of them will say no, mean girls is actually the opposite.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually wondered what you thought of that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's an empire?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think they're well, I think first of all, I think whatever young people define for themselves and their experiences is true for them.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think, and I can easily see both sides, easily see both sides, um, because there is proportionately a lot more um in the movie where the girl is, you know, not coming forward about how smart she is and that she's smarter than the boy and all those things.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's only at the end where she is able to shine.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and she allows herself to shine.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that, yeah, I completely agree with um, I mean, I agree with both sides.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And but more to the point is I think that it's really important for people to define their own experiences and whatever is true for them is true.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that at the very least, I think the most important thing, if there's anything important about being girls, is that um as a movie, is that there's a way to look at the things that were portrayed in the movie and then decide for yourself what your personal experiences are and um bounce it off of that um if you choose to and say, well, how do I want to be in the world?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And do I want to pretend that I'm not as good as um in some areas of my life to maintain a relationship and or to look like I'm being attractive, to seem like I'm attractive in ways that are I'm being told that are attractive but aren't really true to me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think if their movie is is helpful in any way for people, it's about um being able to ask yourself, well, that isn't true for me.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so how do I want to be different?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: How do I want to be true to myself?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm curious, was there a common thread?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I know as you said, everyone has such a different experience of why we, you know, why we shape our identities the way we do, why we fit certain roles, why we just choose to fight others.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a common thread when you spoke to young people about math specifically?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like was there a theme that came up?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so there are two things that um I think are important about the issue that you raise.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one is is that I think there's a lot of girls who now, because of people like the work that you've done and what people have done around STEM, that um girls don't have as much a sense of shame or a sense of hiding, like that they're good at math.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I certainly, certainly have experiences with girls much more so than I did when I first started teaching, where girls are proud to be good at that subject and they don't see it as a, you know, as a thing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what they find annoying is sometimes like like some of the dynamics of boys talking over them or um the group dynamics in the classroom are still there, but they themselves do not feel like, you know, that they don't have the right to be there.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think that's the and I that's that I think is still exists.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um, and at the same time, I think that it's actually pretty common for boys to say that they're not good at math.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think math is one of those things that we we unfortunately get to say, like, oh, I'm just not good at that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just no hope that we're ever gonna get better.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely think that too.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Math's just hot.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Math itself needs a rebrand.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it's girls or guys, I guess it does.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is really funny because, in the one sense, you're right, I even think about when I started doing this research like a decade ago, and I'm like, wow, things have changed so much.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think with all um social systems, on the one hand, you're like, wow, things have changed so much.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the other hand, we're like, uh, things have barely changed at all.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I still get phone calls from parents who will say strange things like, My son is naturally so good at math, but my daughter really has to work hard at it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even though she's getting a higher mark than him, she's the one who needs a tutor, you know, or this is actually so fucked up.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I did this interview, this was only last year, with a radio show host.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm on radio and the host says to me, So, a study just came out to prove that in younger years, brain scans show that both boys and girls are equally as good at math.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I know, I'm like, we don't need brain scans to tell us that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And his only comment was, I wonder what happens after puberty.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What the fuck?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, so it's it's interesting.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we have come so far, but I mean, obviously, just like every stereotype, it takes so long to actually get that out of the fabric of our whole way of well, it's not only the stereotype, there was there was a lot of brain, I mean, there was very rudimentary brain education um that made people feel like um that boys, you know, that the bell, we that we never focused on the fact that boys and girls together are much more similar than they are different.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: We want to have this dichotomy, and it's so sad.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is so incredibly sad.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so because we refuse to look at the majority of the people in the bell curve and we look at the edges, and then we decide those are the facts, then for example, that radio host was really did not was not educated correctly or heard what they were sort of predisposed to hear.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because people in this, in people who are writing books about this were talking about the significant differences between boys and girls, and they were feeding this stereotype.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Many people were.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's really understandable reasons why people had this assumption and then were shocked and amazed when actually they realized or the some studies came out that showed what was always the case, which is that boys and girls' brains, in majority, are the same, are very similar.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's totally it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I always think that when these articles come out, because there's usually one a year that's like, oh, we've proven, and you're like, I feel like it does it such a disservice.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm like, A, this is not new information.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: B, how about we just stop talking about it?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like just stop talking about it like it's not so totally because it's not helpful no matter, it's not helpful no no matter what.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's important is understanding the group, like, for example, in a math class, like you know, like group dynamics and teachers understanding group dynamics and understanding when kids are speaking over somebody or a child doesn't feel that they can take an academic risk in the classroom because of social stigma or humiliation or whatever it is, that's important.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things, I mean that's why I do what I do so much is that but teachers are so rarely taught, which is you know, I've been to I've been doing this for for a long time, that um no matter what you teach, you know, social dynamics are not a distraction in the classroom, they are the classroom.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, totally.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to be able to understand it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's if there is, you know, a high-tracked math class and there's two girls in the class and ten boys, and the girls are having maybe having a hard time or getting shouted over or getting frustrated because the boys are, I don't know, making fun of them or whatever, and they don't really want to go back at them and that kind of stuff, then um, you know, or the teacher doesn't handle any of that well.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's where gender issues happen.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really about the teacher not being educated about understanding how to manage the social dynamics of a classroom.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love that you just said that, like social dynamics, you know, that is that those are the classroom, but it's so like I'm getting so mad even thinking about this because I do a lot of my work like you do in certain ways in education.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, so we're in Ontario, um, they just introduced socioemotional learning last year as part of the curriculum.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And first of all, I've been doing socio-emotional learning with students since I started because I think that is the learning, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like actually taking those emotional cues and those social cues, understanding where a student has come from with math and their math trauma and like what they carry to it is just as important as anything else.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's always been super important to me.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: But they introduced this into the curriculum and never trained a teacher on it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they were like, yep, it's there.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to what you're saying, like I think it's actually so unfair to expect teachers, especially those who might be older, who might have been in the classroom longer, to understand how social dynamics are constantly forming, constantly being reshaped, constantly being informed by everything that's happening outside.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that needs to be like a yearly, if not more frequent training.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not like, well, I think that's about math therapy.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, actually, I don't believe that teachers inherently know about math anxiety.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why would they?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not taught that.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something you just know, like you need to learn it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that if it's too bad that we don't place more of an emphasis in that in teachers' colleges and programs, in schools, in professional development, as being like, oh, look at this new way to teach math.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like we need to always be like, and like here are new things we're learning about how people carry math trauma.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Here are new things we're learning about how like gender stereotypes are playing a role in the learning or like whatever it is.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I remember there was there was even this one study once about a teacher, not a teacher, but they were noticing in elementary classrooms that teachers were walking up and down, like you know, the row when you check on people's notes and you're checking like Johnny's homework and you're checking Susan's homework, and teachers were just without thinking about it, saying to the boys, great work, great problem solving.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then they were saying to the girls, your notes look so nice, they're so pretty, they're so organized, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And like those cues you're giving to students of what their value is.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I'm working with students, I have, well, I mean a couple things.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: One is I'm really careful about not um, I want to when I'm doing group activity, I want to compliment, you know, people's hard work.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I and I also like, for example, handwriting.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Handwriting is such a loaded issue for boys and for girls.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there's, you know, the stereotype that boys have terrible handwriting, and we don't spend a lot of time um working on handwriting, also.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but girls, you know, if I see really good handwriting, I'm now really um aware of how I'm complimenting the person because it sort of feeds into what you're talking about.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's really what's what's really hard about being in education because yeah, yes, I write books and I write books on parenting and I write, you know, things on culture for young people.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, really what I've been doing, especially for the last five years, is I've been in schools.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what is so extraordinarily frustrating to be part of a system that purports to want to do one thing, but does not do the things that it says it needs to do.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: So in math, we talk about core, you know, the core standards and things like that.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we want people to be whole learners, but we actually don't teach to create whole learners.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: We don't, we we focus on extrinsic motivation instead of intrinsic motivation.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: We focus on grades when we know from research that grades don't actually help kids learn, like for long term for to really internalize the concepts that they're trying that they're learning.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We know the things we actually know, we know how to actually teach young people.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And yet this the institution, the educational sort of system, in large part refuses to implement to literally learn the things.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's so ironic, but they won't learn from the information that they, the institution, the system knows to actually do what it's supposed to do.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then we go after kids and grade them on things that um actually they're just not going to retain the knowledge.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're shocked and amazed that kids don't like school, are disengaged, half-math, anxiety, and don't want to take the standardized tests.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, but why?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they doing it?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do you think?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think we don't want to because adults because the history of education is that adults give in the teachers give information there in the authority, no matter how they use that authority, ethically or not.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the students are there to receive the information, and we are deeply, deeply uncomfortable with giving young people a voice in their education.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the things that we're seeing right now is that young people are demanding a voice, but they haven't in large part been given the skills to communicate it with civil dialogue.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things that we're seeing with like cancel culture from teenagers, because adults are abysmal on cancel culture.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that they're not, but this it sort of uh focus on young people, you know, going after people, um, I think they're angry, rightfully so, for the um ineffectiveness of education overall.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they have not been given the skills to be able to advocate for themselves effectively because that we do not teach civil discourse in school.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: We don't acknowledge the experience they have in math about math anxiety.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: We just test them.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's you know, so I don't exactly know why.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason why I think we're shocked and we're shocked is that we don't want to face the messiness of our own complicity and how young people can't learn.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, I just need a moment of silence for this.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because like, I no, seriously, that was so like I have never thought about it that way, but I think you're right in a way.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was just, as you were starting to talk, I'm like, we are kind of seeing an uprising, but you're right, it's like an uprising without like the necessary skill set needed to make it like really successful.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I actually think it's coming.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, okay, I mean, at least it's something.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than I was doing in high school, that's for sure.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, like when I'm interested to hear your opinion for a while.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think you're right.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're so uncomfortable with it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: The roots of education are from way back when, like, when we were in an industrial revolution, we were trying to actually like create totally different types, different skills were needed entirely, first of all, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, we've never seemed to move on from that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's almost like, like, you know, when you see those teachers' worksheets and you're like, this is from 1972.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like this literal, literal worksheet.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think the thing, like, for example, in math, one of the things that I know that young people will say is, well, how is this relevant to my future?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a classic and extremely understandable thing for a young person to say.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And because education in large part was based on control and compliance of young people, and especially children who had less resources or were brown and black, is that, or immigrants, you know, from you know generations ago, that it was really based, education was really based on control and compliance.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's the reason why we use respect in schools so much, because we don't use respect actually in schools to say to treat people with dignity, which is what my focus is about, is like inherent words.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: We use the word respect in schools to be able to demand obedience from young people.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when we don't, when they aren't obedient, then they're being disobedient, which means we get and defiant, which means we get to discipline them.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so when a young person in that says in a snark, maybe even we'll throw this a bone, like to like they say, they say, like, what's the relevance?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see the point of this.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they say it in in a rude way, and in, but also a in a developmentally appropriate way for a teenager.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not excusing the behavior, what I'm saying is that they actually have the right to say that that's actually a question.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is the relevance of what I am learning?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so for a teacher to respond, like, well, you'll to not actually frame the learnings around relevance is disrespectful to young people's time sitting there.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why adults think that by doing that, young people should just sit there and take it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yes, I'm getting so mad.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it's actually true.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, and also, like, shouldn't you want like go back to your point?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we should want young people to ask questions.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we should.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: We should.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we should, when they ask questions, we should also acknowledge when a kid says, Yeah, like I've never seen the point in any math class I've ever taken.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why what I'm gonna need this for.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then it's really the responsibility of the educator to acknowledge a, that the child probably has had experiences in the past where the teacher has, you know, where they haven't had the answer to that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And two, that the responsibility is my responsibility in this class to just show you the relevance.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is my responsibility to you.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not only to teach you the skills, it is to teach you why.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, my experience with young people is that when you teach, if when you acknowledge the messiness of their past experiences with education and you frame what they're learning in a way of them saying, Oh, I understand why I'm learning this, young people will do anything for you.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: They, I mean, they will work their tushies off for you because they're engaged and they get it and they're so appreciative of having an adult who cares enough to actually frame education a way that makes sense to them.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's it too.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm focused so much on math therapy and math trauma because of my own like experience.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I think especially like just even listening to what you said, I'm like, oh my God, like people have educational trauma, forget the content just because of years of being taught to like shut up and listen, even right.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I'm sorry, but in my mind, I'm kind of taking it to like areas of consent.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, so you want, you want girls, any kid, you want kids to shut up and do what they're told, even if they don't feel right about it or don't think there's a point, they should just take it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like what kind oh my god, like I'm honestly actually getting very worked up.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that is messed up.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is really messed up.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's really messed up.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is really messed up.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is a really messed up.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Education is really messed up.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's so messed up.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's really messed up and it disproportionately, right, and disproportionately and and educational, you know, I work in all different kinds of schools from you know, boarding schools, you know, very fancy boarding schools to private schools to public schools, charter schools, all different kinds of schools.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And people are getting different experiences of education.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so, and that is real, that is real.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um and this control compliance stuff is still alive and well in our public school system by and large, and in some in some some some private schools, but you know, there has been this real movement.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's complex, it's messy, we have a long way to go, but there's a movement to include student voice in education.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what does that really mean?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: What does that really mean?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's, you know, that's an interesting, it's a really interesting, huh?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can decide what the word is, but it's an interesting pattern to be in education.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wrote an article, I co-wrote an article with this amazing woman named Michole Washington, um, who studies the experiences of black students in math class.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was basically talking about how math class discipline reflects police brutality measures often in black populations.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And even in talking to her and writing that, I was like, this is crazy, like I was, it's so upsetting and it's so messed up.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it is crazy.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, we have to now almost wrap up, which is insane because I just want to keep sitting here with you being like, it's messed up.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's messed up.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast episode is going to be called messed up.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I but on in the positive, I will say, no matter how, you know, it's amazing to me the teachers, because teachers are so tired for good reason this year.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think this is the most difficult year I've ever taught in education.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but I do think that when you teach core curricula teachers about a reset of norming and of a sense of belonging in the classroom, include very much including math teachers and science teachers and science and Spanish teachers and language teachers, things like that, and definitely English teachers, because they don't necessarily have this on lock, that um, that if you really work with them and teach them and give them some amount of autonomy, but give them the starting place to create co-created agreements, norms with young people, um, then and that you teach them how to do that, and that you then from those norms create a whole system of how how do you create as um a sense of belonging in a classroom?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Teachers are so responsive and so grateful because they don't get this.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it's not one more thing and one more program, it's how do you act how do you create a classroom where young people can take the risks that they should?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And how does the teacher come across as being an ethical authority leader?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when that that happens, teachers really move forward.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we just that's it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know for us in Ontario, and I know it's the same in the states often, like so much funding just keeps getting taken away and being put in weird places, and you're like, this is what people actually need.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I agree that like teachers are hungry for this stuff.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think we just have to give it to them.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um I want to before we wrap up with the two final questions, I do want to ask about your new book because I want you to tell us about it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a new book coming.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's not out for so long.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not out for so long.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but brief.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, give us the quickest rundown.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is the book?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: So my new book is actually the first one I've written for the general population.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Brave, Life-Changing Conversations About Race and Racism.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote it with um a colleague and friend of 25 years who's also a pastor in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for the United Methodist Church.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we've been doing this work for you know 25 years.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what we did was thought of the 20 questions that people have asked us about race and equity and discrimination over the years.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then we tell a stuff, we ask that question, we tell a story based on that question, we unpack the dynamics around the situation, and then we say, Here are situ, here are ways to do better.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that's that is the book, and it will be out August 2nd.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I need three.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pre-ordering it like now.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I actually like even in the past few weeks, I've like been like having conversations that require this exact book.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So amazing.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Glad we we talked about it for two seconds.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna ask you the two questions we ask all guests on the podcast.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you've kind I mean you've kind of mentioned it, so it might be a bit repetitive, but like whatever.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna do it anyway.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, question number one is if you could pick one thing about the way math is taught in schools, what would you change?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: If I could change one thing, it would be that math teachers are taught when they are learning to teach about a sense of belonging in the classroom and how to create agreements among the students about one specific thing about if students are not understanding the content or they're frustrated about what's happening in class, whatever that is, that the teacher in the very beginning of the of the of the class says something like, or you know, the beginning of the semester says, you know, we're gonna do amazing things to do together in this in this class, like for this year.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it could be the case that you get mad at me about something or you work on something really hard and you don't get the grade that you think you deserve.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if this happens, this is the way that I want you to come to me.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then give a protocol of how you want that the kids to come to you, and then say, because it's really important to me that you're treated with dignity in this classroom, that you feel acknowledged, that you feel seen for this experience, this learning experience you're going through.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So here's how I want you to approach me.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because we really might have some challenges along the way.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the process of learning.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you really might get frustrated at me.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do, here's how I want you to approach me.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love this, because honestly, so many times we'll even get students to like for tutoring that'll be like, oh, so I'm not doing well, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be like, Have you talked to the teacher?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll kind of be like, No.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or they won't have any options for recourse.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's that I love this.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or they feel that they don't.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: They feel that they don't have an option for recourse when the teacher might be thinking, Well, they could have come to me.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, did you create the environment in which the child would?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen um like act, like the uh not have you ever seen, but it came to my attention like years ago that there like teachers were making actual math agreements that they would put on the wall.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like some of them would be like, What to do?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like things, yeah, and they would do it with their class.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are things we like and don't like in math class?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't like when you pick my pick on me when my hand isn't up.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, of course.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they'd make a deal, like, okay, yeah, I won't pick on you as long as you participate once a week or whatever it is.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Great, exactly.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, love it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, final question, final question, and we are done.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to someone who's like, but Rosalind, I'm just not a math person.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I mean, I could say that about myself.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've, you know, because I I have tended towards writing and words for my career.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that it's um really scary to try new things.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that I would the what I would say is start small.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would start with the smallest feeling or goal of achievement, not the biggest.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the smallest could be just try because we get to a place where we just don't even feel like we should try.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I would focus on what is the smallest goal that you could identify that would give you a sense of achievement or a sense of purpose, sense of movement in the right, in the you know, in a positive direction where you're growing.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's I think we just focus too much on a sort of nebulous goals, and I think we need to focus on the smallest goals.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of just that idea of like, what's the first step that would make you feel good or feel better if feel make you feel capable?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, thank you so much.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've given me so much to think about.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really loved your take on everything, and I'm just so excited for everyone to hear this interview.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all the work you do to change math culture for real.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's thank you.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone go buy all of Rosalind's books.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Rosalind is just so badass, and I can't stop thinking about that one thing she said that education knows what it needs to be and do, but it's neither being nor doing it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what gives?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, to me, knowledge is power, and the fact that you guys are listening to this right now is knowledge.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So now we are all more empowered to take action, to do something, anything about this BS injustice.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Even if that's something is just sharing this episode so that more people can join the village it takes to uproot math education once and for all.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Deep sigh.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Deep sigh.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird to say deep sigh, but I'm deeply sighed.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, before you go, make sure to hit up Rosalind at Rosalind Wiseman, wherever you get your social media.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to pre-order her book, Courageous Discomfort, How to Have Brave, Life-Ching Conversations About Race and Racism.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: If something in this episode inspired you, please tweet us at Math Therapy.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you can also follow me personally at the Math Guru on Instagram or Twitter.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vicaria, produced by Sabina West, and edited by David Kochberg.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our theme song is Waved by my band Goodnight Sunrise.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And guys, if you know someone who needs math therapy or needs to hear someone else getting math therapy, please share this podcast and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those things actually make such a difference.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am determined to change the culture surrounding math, and I need your help, so please spread the word.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's all for this week.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday.