Latest / Math Therapy / 9 surprising reasons math scores are dropping

Transcript

9 surprising reasons math scores are dropping · Math Therapy

• 0:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Math feels more irrelevant than ever, cause there actually is math that kids wanna know.
• 0:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: My students constantly ask me, why am I not learning how to budget?
• 0:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why am I not learning how to like buy a house?
• 0:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why am I not learning about like how to invest my money?
• 0:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: They want to learn mathematical things, but things that matter to them.
• 0:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: We don't need louder arguments about teaching methods.
• 0:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: We need smarter responses to the reality that kids are living in.
• 0:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that starts with a few simple, powerful shifts Hey guys, it's Vanessa, and welcome to another episode of Math Therapy.
• 0:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, hear me out.
• 0:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Every single time kids struggle in math.
• 0:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: We do the exact same thing.
• 0:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: We panic and then we argue about how math should be taught.
• 0:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like explicit instruction versus discovery, algorithms versus thinking, old school versus new school.
• 0:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Rinse and repeat.
• 0:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: The same thing has been happening for years and years and years.
• 0:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I'm bringing this up now because in Ontario, our EQAO scores just came out.
• 1:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's like our standardized test that we have once a year for grades three, six, and nine.
• 1:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: And every single time it's the exact same conversation.
• 1:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: And here's what I would like to suggest today.
• 1:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are having the wrong conversation.
• 1:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because kids are not struggling in math right now because we suddenly forgot how to teach.
• 1:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're struggling because the world they're growing up in is fundamentally different than the one our school systems were built for.
• 1:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: More anxiety, more distraction, less trust in grades, less patience for things that don't feel meaningful.
• 1:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: And by the way, I'm not here to say that we shouldn't be talking about how we actually teach math, but I will not be talking about that today.
• 1:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because I think we're so zoomed in on that, that we have forgotten to zoom out and look at the big, huge picture of all of the other factors that are affecting the way our kids learn math.
• 1:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: So on this episode, I wanna do just that.
• 1:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want to zoom out, not to blame teachers, not to defend a method, but to ask a more honest question.
• 1:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: What if the problem isn't how we teach math?
• 2:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: But the context that kids are learning it in.
• 2:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: So while I don't have time to go through like the very long list of potential reasons kids are struggling with math, I'm going to go through nine reasons.
• 2:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's right.
• 2:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like nine reasons that have nothing to do with the way we're teaching kids to do the math in front of them.
• 2:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Are you ready?
• 2:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Here we go.
• 2:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number one, kids are raised differently now.
• 2:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is the thing guys.
• 2:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Kids are raised differently now.
• 2:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: For all of the people who are like so focused on how we should go back to teaching math the old way, I would like to actually say this.
• 2:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I mean, this is not a conversation about how we should teach math, but I would like you to consider this.
• 2:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: The way we raise kids is different than we have raised them in previous generations.
• 2:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now this is, this is always true, right?
• 2:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Generation to generation, it's true.
• 2:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: But there is a marked difference between the way kids are raised now.
• 2:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are raised to think more critically for themselves, to advocate for themselves.
• 2:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I honestly, I have the cutest little niece.
• 2:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: She's three years old.
• 3:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the other day I went, can I give you a hug?
• 3:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: And she said to me, I need some space.
• 3:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I was like, oh my God.
• 3:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we were never taught to say stuff like that.
• 3:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: We were taught like if an adult, like, you know, if a family member wants to give you a hug, you just do it.
• 3:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are teaching kids now to advocate for themselves.
• 3:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: To say, no, I don't want a hug right now.
• 3:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: No, I need some space.
• 3:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, no, I need some time.
• 3:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: No, I'm feeling frustrated.
• 3:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like this was not stuff that our generation was taught, right?
• 3:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like it is, it's not us as adults now, we're not raised to be able to be that like to, to be self advocating like that.
• 3:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: we have been consistently raised to like respect our elders and kind of like do what we're told to do or there are consequences.
• 3:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: And this generational shift is really, really huge because most kids are not being parented that way.
• 3:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not saying all, but like I definitely have noticed this with my own students is that there is such, such a shift now between the way they have been raised, versus the way my students 10 years ago ha were raised.
• 4:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: So for example, like parents now will ask me to monitor whether or not their kids are doing homework.
• 4:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like they'll say things like, Hey, can you make sure that you impart the importance of doing homework to my child?
• 4:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, when they're in there for their tutoring session.
• 4:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: 10 years ago?
• 4:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, that wouldn't have happened.
• 4:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: It was kind of like, assumed that kids were going to do their homework or there would be consequences.
• 4:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I just have to say like, again, not every parent is the same, but generationally I think we can see that our kids are more self advocating.
• 4:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are more, likely to stand up for themselves.
• 4:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's a good thing, right?
• 4:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we want to raise kids to advocate for themselves, to stand up for what they believe in, to think critically and say, hold on, why am I doing this thing?
• 4:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: But the problem is to us, that looks like defiance instead of compliance.
• 4:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 4:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we're like, what do you mean?
• 4:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why?
• 4:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, just do it because I said you should do it.
• 4:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: But we can't assume that attitude as educators in front of a classroom when that attitude is not being imparted at home.
• 5:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: And also, I know it sucks for us, and I know it's hard, like it would be a lot easier if kids just like complied and did what we said, but I think if we zoom out, we don't really want to raise kids that way, right?
• 5:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: If we think about our world and change taking place and like fighting systems and like doing, you know, challenging problems that haven't been challenged or solved yet, like we need kids to be able to really step up and step into their own, in order for those big changes to take place on a collective level.
• 5:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that unfortunately and fortunately, starts on the individual level at home and in our classrooms.
• 5:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: So kids aren't motivated by fear or punishment anymore.
• 5:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're just not.
• 5:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's not a teaching failure.
• 5:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's a cultural shift and a cultural shift we should be excited about on the whole.
• 5:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it does mean we have to reexamine how we are motivating kids in the classroom.
• 5:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 5:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number two is the distraction is unprecedented.
• 5:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like guys, kids have infinite dopamine inside their pockets.
• 6:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes, school and math was always competing with things like TV shows or even like more recently video games or like the internet.
• 6:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: But now it's like wild, like TikTok, YouTube, Discord Ai.
• 6:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like the competition is fierce.
• 6:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like not only is the competition fierce, like there's so much more to do, so much more to do, that's literally in their pockets that they can access it, but their attention is fragmented.
• 6:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're carrying so much information in their minds because they are so aware of everything.
• 6:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Information is at their fingertips.
• 6:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: How many times a day do you think they're getting a piece of new news?
• 6:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Uh, seeing a new meme, a new piece of you know, celebrity intel.
• 6:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Even like politics, like there's so much new information being fired at them that they are distracted.
• 6:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: So kids are not not choosing math per se, but they are choosing stimulation above all else.
• 6:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: So this is not about rigor, it's about relevance and engagement in a noisy world and how we compete.
• 7:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number three, guys, math anxiety is louder than ever, like.
• 7:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want you guys to think about how, I don't know how many years ago this was, but I remember there were all these articles in the news that were like, if your kids don't know how to code, like they're gonna be out of jobs, like it's over for, Remember, there was that whole like coding scare and it was like this whole thing?
• 7:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: That has happened on different levels consistently, so the coding thing is over now.
• 7:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think we're over that now, but now it's like if kids don't know how to program or if they don't know how ai, if they don't know math, like they're never gonna have a job.
• 7:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: I remember like a decade ago, there was all of this fear mongering being like if you don't know math, you're screwed.
• 7:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I remember it was predicted that like 70% of jobs were going to require math.
• 7:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, cool.
• 7:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Except what happens is that fear trickles down.
• 7:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: The parents are freaked out'cause they're like, oh my God, my kid needs to do really, really, really well at math.
• 7:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Instead of being like, yeah, cool, like I want my kid to feel good about math, but they don't need to go into like a STEM career, they'll be okay.
• 7:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's shifted from parents being like, oh my God, kids have to do so well at math, not just for the math component, but because they need high marks.
• 8:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Which by the way, we'll talk about in a second, I'm not even on that reason.
• 8:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm on the reason of math anxiety.
• 8:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: My point is parents are more scared than ever.
• 8:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's all this news being like test scores are lower than ever.
• 8:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Universities are, universities are saying that students are showing up unprepared, not even knowing how to add like one plus one.
• 8:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like that trickles down to the parents and then that fear trickles down to the students.
• 8:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: What happens when we are anxious and in fear, our amygdalas literally get hijacked.
• 8:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: We cannot access the prefrontal cortex.
• 8:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: We can't perform or disseminate information, even though we are capable of doing so as human beings, stress shuts down working memory.
• 8:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like now math anxiety is more rampant, which means that kids perform at a lower level, like they, they don't perform at the level in which they're actually capable of because they can't access their working memory because their brains are shutting down.
• 8:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: So that's another reason why test scores literally are lower.
• 8:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's another reason you can think about.
• 9:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: By the way, I'm not even talking about during this episode the flaw in using test scores as a measure of anything.
• 9:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not even gonna be talking about that.
• 9:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: So don't hate on me for even mentioning test scores.
• 9:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm mentioning it because it's such a hot topic and I would like to provide other reasons other than like the whole algorithm versus thinking thing, why kids are quote unquote performing worse than they were before.
• 9:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 9:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: And like, yeah, I really would like to actually start getting into the flawed system of test scores and how they are not an adequate measure of knowledge, but I will not be addressing that during this episode, it doesn't mean I don't have thoughts on it.
• 9:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 9:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: But I just wanna stay focused.
• 9:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 9:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Anyways, back to reason number three, which was that math anxiety is louder than ever before.
• 9:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: We just have to remember that kids cannot perform cognitively when their nervous systems are in fight or flight.
• 9:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: And we are seeing more of that than ever.
• 9:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that leads to reason number four, which is that mental health challenges are higher.
• 9:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know this.
• 10:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know this, right?
• 10:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma.
• 10:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are real.
• 10:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are widespread.
• 10:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are so much more, um, frequent and common that they have ever been in the past.
• 10:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: So you have that on the one hand, and then you have math and math class, which is this perfect storm.
• 10:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's, It can be public because we're often having to answer questions, you know, raising our hands in front of people in class.
• 10:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is evaluative.
• 10:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: There is a right and wrong answer.
• 10:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is timed.
• 10:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is identity threatening because we know that math intelligence says so much about you because collectively we believe that mathematical intelligence is linked with intelligence in general, even though that is, ah, we've gotta stop with that.
• 10:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it doesn't matter.
• 10:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: We, we, you know, I always say this, when someone is good at math, we call them smart.
• 10:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: We don't call Picasso smart.
• 10:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: We don't call Mozart smart.
• 10:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: We don't call Bad Bunny smart.
• 10:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have different words reserved for them.
• 11:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: But when someone can do math, when they can perform mathematically.
• 11:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: We call them smart.
• 11:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: What does that tell kids?
• 11:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It tells kids that their mathematical identity is hinged upon the premise of performance and their mathematical identity as being intelligent or non-intelligent, well, that says a lot about worth.
• 11:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: So think about all of that weight, like all of that weight, couple that with the mental health issues already happening, and it's like, oh my God, these kids are in survival mode.
• 11:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're not in learning mode.
• 11:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: So a dysregulated nervous system cannot access problem solving.
• 11:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: No matter how good our lesson is, no matter if we're using explicit instruction or discovery, which we don't call it that anymore, but that's not the point.
• 11:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, you know what I mean?
• 11:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have to think about their nervous systems and what's going on with them.
• 11:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 11:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number five, sorry, I feel like I'm talking really fast guys.
• 11:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Are you guys okay?
• 11:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: I feel like I, I haven't even, I don't even drink caffeine anymore, and I feel like I sound like I've had 40 espressos.
• 11:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna take it down a notch because I feel like I'm maybe making you anxious.
• 12:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 12:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number five, math feels more irrelevant than ever.
• 12:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: How old is our fucking curriculum in Ontario?
• 12:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like how old, sorry.
• 12:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: By the way, for US listeners, in Canada curriculum, the word curriculum is used to refer to like the content of what we teach.
• 12:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know that for you guys, curriculum means something different, for you guys it's like the standards.
• 12:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 12:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: How old are the standards?
• 12:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: How old is the curriculum?
• 12:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 12:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: The content, the standards, the Canadian curriculum, whatever you wanna call it, the content of what we are teaching, sure, it goes through a few changes.
• 12:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're constantly rehashing it, there's a new this or that.
• 12:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: But I want you to be honest about this.
• 12:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: How new is it really?
• 12:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: How new is it really?
• 12:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, like, yes, we tweak things.
• 12:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: We, I, I find we do a lot of shuffling, so it's not so much new content.
• 12:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: We just shuffle when it is, we're gonna teach it.
• 12:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, oh, maybe we're gonna teach like systems of equations actually earlier, and then we're gonna actually move slope to here.
• 13:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: And then we're actually gonna talk about slope, but we're gonna talk about it in terms of rate of exchange so we can introduce it earlier.
• 13:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well fine, but we're not really addressing the core thing here and the core thing, okay, let's be honest about it, is should we be teaching half of this shit at all?
• 13:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Does any of it matter?
• 13:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, of course some of it matters, but I would argue that some of it does not matter.
• 13:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: A lot of it does not matter.
• 13:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: So what's happening is it maybe mattered at one point.
• 13:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, I love to rant about long division, so I'm just gonna do it again'cause this is the perfect place to do it.
• 13:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Think about it.
• 13:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: There once was a purpose to teaching long division, a very strong purpose.
• 13:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number one, we didn't have calculators, so like you fucking needed to long division to divide big things.
• 13:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now that that has waned, okay, that the whole purpose of that has waned.
• 13:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, when I ask teachers why we teach long division, there is some arguments here and there like, oh, it's nice to, I've heard teachers say some stuff like, oh, it's important for kids to learn how an algorithm works, or it's important for them to learn how to do multi-step things, or it's important for them to, or it teaches them like place value, like, okay.
• 14:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Fine, whatever.
• 14:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I'm not gonna get into the weeds of that.
• 14:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm just gonna say, if you wanna do all of those things mentioned above, there are better ways to do it than teaching them an algorithm that they don't really need to use and they know they don't need to use.
• 14:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because if you wanted to divide 1,000,032 and like whatever, whatever, by 27, you would use a calculator, in real life.
• 14:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: I am not, by the way, arguing that we do not need numeracy or conceptual understanding or to know our math facts.
• 14:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not saying that, but I am saying that we don't need to know how to divide 1,352,000 divided by 27 by hand.
• 14:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: More importantly, kids know that.
• 14:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like I think we have to just, reason number five is that math feels more irrelevant than ever, and this is part of the reason why, right?
• 15:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like it's like.
• 15:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: First of all, we really should be reexamining for real, not just shuffling around our content.
• 15:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: We should really be reexamining it.
• 15:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'Cause there actually is math that kids wanna know.
• 15:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: My students constantly ask me, why am I not learning how to budget?
• 15:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why am I not learning how to like buy a house?
• 15:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why am I not learning about like how to invest my money?
• 15:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: They want to learn mathematical things, but things that matter to them.
• 15:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: The thing is, guys, if students don't see meaning, no instructional method will save you because series and number one that I brought up before, which was that kids are raised differently now.
• 15:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're not raised to just do what the teacher told them to do, do what the adult told them to do, and to not question it.
• 15:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're not raised that way, so we do need to give them meaning.
• 15:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I'm about to go to reason number six, but a law, let me just do a quick little recap.
• 15:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 15:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: So we have gone through number one, kids are raised differently now.
• 15:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number two, distraction is unprecedented and everywhere.
• 16:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number three, math anxiety is louder than ever.
• 16:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number four, mental health challenges are higher.
• 16:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: And reason number five, math feels more irrelevant than ever.
• 16:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want you to, I mean, I'm gonna keep going.
• 16:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've got four more reasons, but if right now you're like, oh my God, this is what I have been saying, this is like what I really wanna say.
• 16:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: When someone tells me that it's time to go back to basics, or when someone tells me how much we need to, I don't know, stop teaching algorithms forever more and like you're thinking to yourself.
• 16:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, they say that stuff and what I'm thinking is.
• 16:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: No, there are other things we need to focus on, and if I have just listed some of those reasons, please text that person right now, send them this episode and be like, Hey, next time we're arguing about math instruction, can we talk about these things instead?
• 16:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Or maybe this is your common ground where you're like, look, I know we both think math needs to be taught differently, but maybe we can agree on some of these things and have a more productive conversation around these instead.
• 16:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Text it to them right now and remember.
• 16:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Text me if you want.
• 17:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can text the podcast by hitting the link in your show notes.
• 17:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you're like fired up right now and you wanna comment on something.
• 17:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let's go to reason number six.
• 17:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Grades do not mean what they used to.
• 17:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so reason number five, I was saying math is not that relevant because like, you know, our content isn't that relevant.
• 17:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: But another reason it's not that relevant is it used to be this gateway, potentially to careers or university admission or college admission.
• 17:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it isn't all that it's cracked up to be anymore because the devaluing and inflation simultaneously of grades.
• 17:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 17:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we know that grade inflation is happening.
• 17:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: An article just came out saying in Ontario alone, in the past two years, grades have been inflated by 7%.
• 17:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is a lot.
• 17:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: That means someone who is getting like a 63% is now getting a 70.
• 17:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we're going from a C to a B.
• 17:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's like a, that's a huge jump.
• 17:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's a letter jump.
• 17:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Also research is showing now that across North America, like high grades no longer guarantee university admission and that just didn't use to be the case.
• 18:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I mean, university admission requirements to some universities is cray cray now.
• 18:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like there are universities in Canada where to get into a specific program, it's like you need a 98%.
• 18:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like what are you talking about?
• 18:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: And like even then, right?
• 18:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think there was a report last year of four students who graduated high school with a hundred percent, sorry, I know I'm talking in like Canadian terms, but you guys do, you can do the conversion, a hundred percent.
• 18:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: And they did not get into the universities of their choices.
• 18:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: So kids see through this system, right?
• 18:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like this is such a bigger global context conversation about like meritocracy.
• 18:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think it's like effort doesn't really feel rewarded the same way it used to.
• 18:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: So not only does it feel like the content of what they're learning is irrelevant, but they're like, and also where is this even getting me?
• 18:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like what is the point?
• 18:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like literally what is the point?
• 18:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: So when the payoff disappears, so does buy-in from our students.
• 18:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Without like results or outcome and with without meaning, what is the point of math class?
• 19:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's why it's like we've gotta rethink, we've gotta give them new meaning.
• 19:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've gotta give them a new reward.
• 19:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've gotta be thinking big picture.
• 19:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now.
• 19:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number seven, learned helplessness.
• 19:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know you're wanting to throw your phone across the room right now, or whatever device you're listening to this on because we know the learned helplessness is real.
• 19:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 19:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Kids who just like the second you give them a question, they're like, I can't do it.
• 19:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Help me.
• 19:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like they just don't even, it feels like they don't wanna try.
• 19:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: We talk about them like they don't wanna try, right?
• 19:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're like, oh my God, these kids, they don't wanna try, but they literally feel helpless.
• 19:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's learned helplessness because they are so used to being rescued, not just by you, by fucking ai, right?
• 19:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's like the second, and I can speak to this personally by the way, because I am telling you I am having a really hard time right now.
• 19:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: And by that I mean ChatGPT is ruining my life.
• 19:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes, is it making my life better in some ways, but on the whole, I know it's ruining my life and I can't stop it.
• 19:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Me and David actually went to write an album last week.
• 20:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 20:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: We were away writing our album.
• 20:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're in the studio recording it this month.
• 20:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It was harder than ever.
• 20:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've been in this band for 14 years.
• 20:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is our fifth album, I believe.
• 20:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: It has never been harder for me to write songs because every time I would get stuck, I'd be like, I'll just ask ChatGPT, and then I'd have to fight with myself to not do it because I was like, no, by the way, guys, I never, I will say right now, I never asked ChatGPT.
• 20:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: I realize I'm lying.
• 20:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 20:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: And David's gonna produce this.
• 20:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: He's not here.
• 20:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm actually recording the solo.
• 20:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: He's gonna hear this, right?
• 20:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 20:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I should stop.
• 20:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's too late.
• 20:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm already talking.
• 20:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: David, I'm sorry, but No, you'll be happy to hear this.
• 20:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: For one song I did, I caved.
• 20:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, you know what?
• 20:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm just gonna ask Chat GPT.
• 20:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm stuck, and I did, the answer was actually so bad that I didn't use any of it, and I felt so gross.
• 20:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, oh my God, as if I was gonna put this into my art.
• 20:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: But my point is, okay, so David, now cat's outta the bag.
• 20:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: The point is none of the AI lyrics made it into a single song.
• 21:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Everything's fine.
• 21:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: I learned my lesson.
• 21:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: But my point is that like it was so hard because I had completely sunk into learn helplessness, which I never used to be like, especially with art, like with writing songs, like I've usually been able to tap in and let things just come out and flow.
• 21:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: But because I've been using AI so much, it made me get stuck faster.
• 21:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like this is the thing is like struggle feels unnecessary and like almost threatening to kids because they're so used to not having to struggle, that when they do, they're like, well, I should be able to just get rescued.
• 21:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: And then lands the belief that when I get stuck, the only way to get out of it is to be rescued.
• 21:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like these persistence muscles that we always talk about that we need in math class to like, when you get a test and you can't actually be rescued, you need to be able to persist on your own, they're underdeveloped.
• 21:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: And this matters for math more than any other subject because the truth is you are gonna get problems on a test that you do not know the answer to.
• 22:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're gonna have to persist and you're gonna have to fail and like make mistakes and try things and get things wrong despite the fact that, you know, there is one right answer and you might not be on the right track to finding it as you are persisting.
• 22:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's why it's so hard in math.
• 22:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know there is only one outcome you're supposed to be getting and you have to be okay with struggling on a path, following a path, knowing the path might not lead you to where you're gonna go but following it anyway, because you might get something out of it.
• 22:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: You might get something out of it that you need.
• 22:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 22:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Reason number eight.
• 22:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Guys, this is a hard one to hear, but it's so real.
• 22:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Adults are more anxious too.
• 22:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are more anxious than they ever have been.
• 22:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Teachers are burnt out, parents are stressed.
• 22:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Anxiety is contagious in the sense that polyvagal theory tells us that we evolve to co-regulate.
• 22:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: That means our energy is literally contagious.
• 22:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like if someone walks into the room in a huff, you kind of get into a huff, like you tense up.
• 22:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just think of it that way.
• 22:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: And with that anxiety lingering around everywhere, kids feel that they absorb it.
• 23:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: They feel your anxiety around learning, around math, around grades, around not getting through the curriculum on time, around your class being too big and being frustrated.
• 23:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not your fault.
• 23:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: You have been put into an untenable situation.
• 23:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you are in a hard place, but just remember that kids feel adult panic and pressure.
• 23:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: We all feel it.
• 23:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Your coworkers feel it.
• 23:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: You feel it.
• 23:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: You feel it from your students.
• 23:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: You feel it from like the higher ups.
• 23:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're all more stressed out.
• 23:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: And guess why?
• 23:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: We we're all more stressed out for the same reason students are.
• 23:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have information at our fingertips all the time.
• 23:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are stressed out by the weight of the world.
• 23:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're stressed about what the future even means.
• 23:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like all of, so give, give yourself some grace like we are more stressed out and that impacts things.
• 23:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not our fault.
• 23:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are only individuals in a giant system, and we are human too.
• 23:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Finally, reason number nine, school has not caught up to reality.
• 23:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's it.
• 23:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's the fact.
• 24:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: The world has changed faster than our classrooms have.
• 24:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're still debating methods from decades ago.
• 24:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Kids are living in 2026 and schools simply are not.
• 24:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Think about the way our classrooms are structured.
• 24:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: Think about the fact that research now has shown us a billion times over that an ideal learning time for kids is not eight in the morning.
• 24:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like that's not how their bodies work.
• 24:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: They shouldn't be sitting all day.
• 24:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: But we haven't caught up to it.
• 24:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have not changed the model.
• 24:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's just one example.
• 24:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: By the way, I'm not even talk, remember I said I'm not gonna talk about instructional methods for math.
• 24:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not gonna talk about it, but I'm just saying like.
• 24:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Huh.
• 24:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: The school system itself has not caught up to what we know and to where the world is.
• 24:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: It just hasn't.
• 24:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: So that's a real hard pill to swallow, but it is the fact.
• 24:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is a fact.
• 24:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: And, and you know, it, look around a classroom, look at what kids are doing.
• 24:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Look at what their interests are, look at what tools they have on them.
• 24:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Look at, um, what stressors they're coming into the classroom with.
• 25:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Our classrooms have not caught up to the reality of 2026.
• 25:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the thing is, guys, it's only gonna get worse.
• 25:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Think about it, technology is moving so quickly, like at lightning speed, whereas schools are just like, sludging along, like this is like a turtle and the hare situation.
• 25:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: I feel like, although in that story, the tortoise won, so it's not like that.
• 25:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not like that at all.
• 25:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just the speeds are like that.
• 25:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Schools are just kind of archaic when it comes to where the world is now.
• 25:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: And we have this very interesting, like I feel like there's a metaphor here that I can't think of, but we have this like archaic institution with these like new kids in it, right?
• 25:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: These kids that are like of this time in a system and building that is not of this time with structures that are not of this time.
• 25:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: And then we're expecting them to do just as well as they did before.
• 25:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: All right, so that, I know that was a lot and I know that maybe I stressed you out.
• 25:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: I hope I didn't stress you out.
• 26:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: I hope that now we're just able to think about this in like a broader sense than all we need to be talking about is explicit versus discovery or whatever.
• 26:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Again, I'm not saying instructional debates don't matter, but they're not the root cause.
• 26:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: There are so many other factors.
• 26:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the reason instructional debates grind my gears is that we ignore every, I've just named nine other factors and there are more.
• 26:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: I just, I need, like, I'm at half an hour with this episode, I need to stop.
• 26:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: But like we are treating instructional debates like they're cause and effect debates and they're not.
• 26:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that's what really pisses me off is fine.
• 26:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Talk about that as one of the factors if you'd like.
• 26:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've just listed nine others, so you better incorporate everything into your discussion of why you feel that kids are performing not as well as they used to.
• 26:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: If universities, professors are really like kids are coming in here not knowing stuff they used to know before.
• 26:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Fine, we should do something about that.
• 26:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it's not really cool to then be like, oh, well it must be because of this instructional practice, because that is bad math.
• 27:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is bad data, that is bad stats.
• 27:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is bad research.
• 27:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: There are other factors.
• 27:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: There are extraneous factors in that argument that are not being considered, and every good mathematician knows that is not how you make an argument.
• 27:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: If we keep arguing about methods without addressing motivation, anxiety, relevance, mental health, meaning trust, we will keep coming up with the wrong solutions to the wrong problem.
• 27:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: So if we are serious about helping kids do better in math, here's the part we can't skip.
• 27:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: We don't need louder arguments about teaching methods.
• 27:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: We need smarter responses to the reality that kids are living in.
• 27:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that starts with a few simple, powerful shifts that I will just share right now.
• 27:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: First, stop motivating with fear, start motivating with meaning.
• 27:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: If consequences don't work anymore.
• 27:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Connection has to get to know your students.
• 27:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Get to know what matters to them.
• 27:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Start there.
• 27:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: And this isn't about necessarily being like, oh, like my students, like hamburgers.
• 27:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I'll make problems about hamburgers.
• 28:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, that's great too.
• 28:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: But research shows that simply connecting to a student, showing them that you're grateful that they're in the room like, they have something useful to contribute.
• 28:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is a form of connection that matters.
• 28:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: Next thing you can do, assume distraction and plan for it.
• 28:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: Kids will be distracted.
• 28:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Engagement is not automatic.
• 28:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: It has to be designed.
• 28:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: How can you design for engagement?
• 28:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number three, treat anxiety as a barrier, not a personality trait.
• 28:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Calm brains learn better.
• 28:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: What can you do?
• 28:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just you can, again, assume that most kids are feeling some level of anxiety.
• 28:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: We just know that that's the reality.
• 28:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: What can you do about it?
• 28:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you orchestrate a calm moment?
• 28:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you get some movement in?
• 28:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you have students walking around?
• 28:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you have stress balls or fidget toys for them to play with during the lesson?
• 28:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number four, make progress visible.
• 28:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: If grades don't feel rewarding anymore because they don't feel like they matter as much, growth has to feel rewarding.
• 28:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: How can you show kids that they are gaining something from your classroom that they're learning and growing, not just in math class, but beyond.
• 28:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number five, stop taking disengagement personally.
• 29:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know it's so hard.
• 29:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is one of the four agreements.
• 29:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you've read that amazing book, don't take it personally.
• 29:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: A lack of engagement is often a sign of unmet needs, not laziness.
• 29:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: And just going through this list of reasons, hopefully you can see there are so many unmet needs that have nothing to do with.
• 29:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: They have to do with the weight of the world, the distraction in their pockets, the things that kids today are dealing with that we didn't have to, like online bullying, like online everything.
• 29:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's so much.
• 29:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: So don't take disengagement personally.
• 29:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just gently empathize and find a way to try to reel them back in.
• 29:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: And also have some grace with yourself.
• 29:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we are disengaged.
• 29:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have dopamine hits in our pockets that we're struggling to get away from.
• 29:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are more anxious so.
• 29:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just remember we're all humans.
• 29:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, yes, they might be like smaller humans, smaller versions of us, but we're all the same.
• 29:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: We all have the same needs and wants and desires.
• 29:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: So try to find that empathy and remember that you are doing your best.
• 30:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: These are just factors and reasons that hopefully will help you realize that it's not you.
• 30:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are not the problem.
• 30:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it's not just the instructional method.
• 30:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: There is so much going on and we have to stop having this one dimensional argument.
• 30:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: None of this means instruction.
• 30:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Doesn't matter.
• 30:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: It does, but instruction cannot do all the heavy lifting when kids are anxious, overwhelmed, distracted, and unconvinced that math matters to their lives.
• 30:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: So maybe the most important question isn't what's the best way to teach math, but instead, are we teaching kids who live in a completely different world than the one our system was built for?
• 30:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what do those kids need in order to be ready to learn anything at all in 2026?
• 30:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay guys.
• 30:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, I'm tired.
• 30:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: I just tired myself out.
• 30:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: I hope, I hope I fired you up instead of tired you out.
• 30:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I personally need a lot of water.
• 30:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: I feel dehydrated right now.
• 30:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I would love to know what you think, like I listed, I, I, I'm curious, like are you like, Nope, the only thing that matters is the way we teach math.
• 31:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, do you agree with any of these methods I listed?
• 31:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you wanna add more to the list?
• 31:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because I am down, like, I think it's really important to list all of the factors affecting teachers and students right now that are leading to this like, ugh, feeling we all have around kids' relationships with math because we need to see the forest for the trees.
• 31:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: We need to see the forest and we need to see the trees, actually.
• 31:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: We need to see them all.
• 31:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I would love to hear from you.
• 31:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can text me by hitting the link in your show notes.
• 31:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: DM me at the Math Guru on Instagram.
• 31:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Email me Vanessa at the math guru.ca.
• 31:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I would love to hear what you think, what other factors are influencing this whole vibe going on that kids are showing up to university less prepared than before.
• 31:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: That kids, you know, don't know their facts as much as they used to before.
• 31:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: That kids dislike math more than before.
• 31:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: That I actually, by the way, do not feel is true.
• 31:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I feel like.
• 31:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Most of the population has always disliked math, so I actually don't think that's a vibe, like I think, I think there's more of a, the things that have been substantiated are like.
• 32:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: A lot of university professors are like, kids are showing up not knowing what they used to know.
• 32:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: And like high school teachers are like, kids are showing up to my class not knowing a lot of the stuff they used to know from elementary, like there's definitely something going on there.
• 32:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: What do you think the reasons are?
• 32:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you agree with the ones I said?
• 32:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you think there are more add to my list?
• 32:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let's get a list going.
• 32:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let's make this a comprehensive like outlook into the state of things so we can stop focusing on this debate that has literally taken up way too much air time and I'm actually done talking about it.
• 32:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 32:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: As usual, I do have to tell you that Math Therapy is hosted by me.
• 32:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Vanessa Vakharia, your lovely fired up Gemini host.
• 32:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is produced by David Kochberg, who has not listened to this episode and is not here during the time of this recording, and I feel like he is going to pass out with how agro the energy of this episode is.
• 33:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: But let's see.
• 33:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: The music you're hearing is by our band, Goodnight Sunrise.
• 33:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are currently releasing a song tomorrow, tomorrow, because this comes out on Thursday, February 12th, and a new song comes out tomorrow, Friday, February the 13th.
• 33:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: And yeah, if you like this, share it.
• 33:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, that's the best thing you can do.
• 33:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Share it with a friend.
• 33:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Share it with a colleague.
• 33:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 33:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: How was this episode?
• 33:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: 38 minutes.
• 33:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: David is going to kill me.
• 33:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, bye.