Latest / Math Therapy / Why we haven't fixed math education (even though we know how) w/ Steve Leinwand

Transcript

Why we haven't fixed math education (even though we know how) w/ Steve Leinwand · Math Therapy

• 0:03
  Steve Leinwand: We know how to significantly improve the teaching and learning of mathematics and nothing drives me crazier than how hard it is to bring that to scale.
• 0:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay guys, it's me, Vanessa, and to be honest, I have no idea how to properly introduce today's guest, Steve Leinwand.
• 0:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: I really don't even know what happened in this interview.
• 0:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like all I know is he showed up like he always does.
• 0:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Cutting through the bullshit and asking the tough questions like, why can't we reform math education when we know how to fix it?
• 0:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why does some PD feel like a waste of time and money, and how can we make it more useful?
• 0:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: And finally, and most unexpectedly, what is the point of my podcast and why did I ask him to be on it?
• 0:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: All very fair questions.
• 0:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: TBH.
• 0:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Steven Leinwand has been a driving force in math education for nearly 50 years, shaping policy, curriculum, and teaching practices at the highest levels.
• 1:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: He's held major leadership roles with organizations like the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, and the National Council for Supervisors of Mathematics.
• 1:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: He has advised on national initiatives like, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and worked with organizations like the American Institute for Research, earning multiple national awards along the way.
• 1:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what really sets him apart is that thousands of educators around the world have experienced his work firsthand and have changed their teaching because of it.
• 1:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Today I am gonna take a page out of his book and just get right to the interview.
• 1:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: I need to know what you guys think of this convo, so please get in touch.
• 1:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can text the podcast, DM me on Instagram@themathguru or email me vanessa@themathguru.ca.
• 1:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: All those links are in the show notes in your podcast player.
• 1:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, buckle up and brace yourself for the one and only Steve Leinwand.
• 1:53
  Steve Leinwand: My question to you as way of introduction and framing this is what's the purpose?
• 1:59
  Steve Leinwand: What's your purpose in doing this?
• 2:01
  Steve Leinwand: You invited me yesterday.
• 2:02
  Steve Leinwand: I said sure, I'm on vacation, but I'm never really on vacation.
• 2:06
  Steve Leinwand: Um, I'm intrigued by this whole thing.
• 2:07
  Steve Leinwand: I'll talk to any audience anytime in any place about mathematics and about education and about how screwed up this world is.
• 2:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's true.
• 2:16
  Steve Leinwand: And there's my wife saying in the background, it's true.
• 2:19
  Steve Leinwand: And she's absolutely right.
• 2:20
  Steve Leinwand: So you got the whole carnival sitting here and, and so you have to answer that question.
• 2:24
  Steve Leinwand: And then the, the floor is yours.
• 2:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, thank you so much for giving me the floor on my own podcast.
• 2:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, okay, so.
• 2:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's a great question.
• 2:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: What is the point?
• 2:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: What is the purpose?
• 2:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I would like to also just add a little framing that Steve has now been on here for 45 minutes while we sort out technology, because we are recording this in the middle of a Mercury retrograde.
• 2:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Everyone, what is the point?
• 2:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, great question.
• 2:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: I, I don't know that there's a point to anything, but the reason I invited you specifically on the podcast is because Steve, there's a lot of hype around you.
• 2:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, like in the math ed spaces, people are like, that's Steve Line Oneand, that's Steve Line Oneand.
• 3:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I've always been like, who is this man?
• 3:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: So as you know, I came to one of your talks'cause I was like, I wanna see what the hype is about and I believe I came up to you after that talk.
• 3:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I said, you know what?
• 3:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: The hype is real.
• 3:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the reason I'm having you on is I just like your vibe, but also the thing about you that I love is there is zero bullshit when it comes to you.
• 3:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you are, you've been around, you know what I mean?
• 3:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like you've, been in policy, you've been in the classroom, you've been in every like, almost every single math education space.
• 3:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I feel like you have a wealth of knowledge and a delivery method that we could all benefit from because you're just gonna tell it as it is.
• 3:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I've got some questions for you.
• 3:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is that a good answer?
• 3:44
  Steve Leinwand: That's a great answer.
• 3:45
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, it, it's a great way to start.
• 3:46
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, it is really wonderful that there's this hype and this vibe and all that stuff.
• 3:52
  Steve Leinwand: I just am who I am.
• 3:53
  Steve Leinwand: I also believe that it's much more important to make a difference and sometimes piss people off than it is to just be nice.
• 3:59
  Steve Leinwand: And so once you don't feel like being nice is important, then when people tell you, I thought you were an asshole the first time I met you, and then even the second time.
• 4:09
  Steve Leinwand: And then it got to,
• 4:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the third time
• 4:12
  Steve Leinwand: find out, well, usually by the third time they go, you know what, that's just who you are.
• 4:16
  Steve Leinwand: And that's not what's important.
• 4:17
  Steve Leinwand: So, you know, it's nice to hear all those things.
• 4:20
  Steve Leinwand: I believe that it's my, passion and my experiences that make me of some value.
• 4:29
  Steve Leinwand: Um, I probably apologize more than anyone else that you know, because I, I say things that maybe I didn't think through or I do things that I probably shouldn't have done.
• 4:38
  Steve Leinwand: Um, I sent a memo off to the office of the state superintendent of education.
• 4:42
  Steve Leinwand: I'm on a task force in DC for doing high school stuff, and the first line was, allow me to begin by apologizing for my rant the other day.
• 4:51
  Steve Leinwand: Allow me to be more rational and coherent in my three page memo that sort of says the same thing, but a little with a smile.
• 4:59
  Steve Leinwand: Okay, so that's what,
• 5:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 5:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I mean, what an intro, you know?
• 5:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 5:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: I have to say something that I never thought I was gonna say.
• 5:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think we might be more alike than I actually thought.
• 5:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: What you just said really struck me about how you are the same person in every space you're in.
• 5:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think we might be similar in that way, There is so much energy involved when you have to code switch.
• 5:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: And to say not everyone has the privilege of being the same person in every single space, of course.
• 5:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: But you know what you're making me think of, is you're making me think of math identity.
• 5:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because one of the biggest things when it comes to math identity is this feeling that I've always had, but I've never acted upon, that you need to be somebody different when you're in a math classroom or to belong to a math world.
• 5:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Most people feel that.
• 5:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think you and I for some reason, are just who we are in every single space.
• 5:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think that is a, I don't know, I'm gonna have to think about that because when you said that, I was like, yeah, me too.
• 5:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I've been criticized a lot for it.
• 5:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it seems like you have to, but here we are.
• 6:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, first of all, do you agree that there is this feeling out there that you need to be a different person in a math space than you are in your quote unquote real life?
• 6:07
  Steve Leinwand: I think that the, I have to be grows out of, I am a different, it's the sense that I have a different brain when I'm in math.
• 6:14
  Steve Leinwand: Well, my brain is different, and so I have to act accordingly.
• 6:17
  Steve Leinwand: I think that the thing that you just said that resonates the most is this notion.
• 6:22
  Steve Leinwand: Of code sharing.
• 6:23
  Steve Leinwand: Code sharing is exhausting.
• 6:25
  Steve Leinwand: It's being different people.
• 6:27
  Steve Leinwand: It's why I, you can't find me ever lying, okay?
• 6:30
  Steve Leinwand: It's a terrible thing to have a marriage where you don't lie.
• 6:33
  Steve Leinwand: I bite my tongue sometimes, but most often.
• 6:36
  Steve Leinwand: I just say it, I, I don't lie.
• 6:38
  Steve Leinwand: I never have to think about what I said or what I didn't say.
• 6:41
  Steve Leinwand: Um, and that's why I have to apologize so much because Yeah.
• 6:44
  Steve Leinwand: You know, I did say that that's right.
• 6:45
  Steve Leinwand: And that was probably pretty stupid, you know?
• 6:47
  Steve Leinwand: But I just think that, we know how to significantly improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in this country.
• 6:55
  Steve Leinwand: I you talk about it.
• 6:57
  Steve Leinwand: I talk about it.
• 6:58
  Steve Leinwand: We've seen it in classes and nothing drives me crazier than how hard it is to bring that to scale.
• 7:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: when you say, we know, what is it?
• 7:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: What do we know?
• 7:09
  Steve Leinwand: We know that every single school and school district has to have a clear vision of the teaching and learning of mathematics.
• 7:15
  Steve Leinwand: It has to be written.
• 7:16
  Steve Leinwand: It's probably two pages.
• 7:17
  Steve Leinwand: It not just says what we are doing, but it says we're doing this in order to achieve these ends.
• 7:22
  Steve Leinwand: These goals, and therefore we are not gonna do.
• 7:26
  Steve Leinwand: So, in fact, a vision says that if you are talking for more than five minutes, you are probably practicing inappropriate behavior.
• 7:33
  Steve Leinwand: If you are giving kids worksheets that have any more than four problems at a time before kids get feedback.
• 7:39
  Steve Leinwand: Um, if you are not giving kids to talk and turn and talk to each other and share those answers, if you're not doing a formative assessment to sort of do the hard lifting of, did the kids learn what I wanted them to learn?
• 7:52
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, I'm in a hundred classrooms or more every single year and, and this year it's, it's been down some, so I think I've only been in like 60 separate classrooms.
• 7:59
  Steve Leinwand: Kindergarten through 12th grade.
• 8:01
  Steve Leinwand: I've seen four.
• 8:03
  Steve Leinwand: Four formative assessments.
• 8:06
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, that's just malpractice.
• 8:07
  Steve Leinwand: And so, and, and then I blame principals who really, you know, are afraid to make any kinds of changes.
• 8:12
  Steve Leinwand: And then I blame the, um, the chairman of the Board of Education whose only interest is protecting the privilege of her own kid.
• 8:18
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, it's, it's a sick system.
• 8:20
  Steve Leinwand: And so I just, I've, I've seen so much of it.
• 8:23
  Steve Leinwand: I'm so frustrated.
• 8:24
  Steve Leinwand: But the flip side is I can take you to any number of places that ignore all that stuff and are serving kids magnificently.
• 8:34
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, I'm so honored to have worked with the Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City, 95% black or brown kids.
• 8:40
  Steve Leinwand: They're the highest performing school district in New York State.
• 8:43
  Steve Leinwand: They outperformed Scarsdale and Chappaqua, and Bronxville and all those places.
• 8:47
  Steve Leinwand: How?
• 8:48
  Steve Leinwand: They have a clear vision.
• 8:50
  Steve Leinwand: They implement the vision.
• 8:51
  Steve Leinwand: The principals are never in their offices.
• 8:53
  Steve Leinwand: They're in classrooms.
• 8:54
  Steve Leinwand: They're in meetings.
• 8:55
  Steve Leinwand: They are coaching teachers.
• 8:56
  Steve Leinwand: They're help helping with teachers.
• 8:58
  Steve Leinwand: They are encouraging teachers to visit each other's classrooms and learn from each other.
• 9:02
  Steve Leinwand: There is a coherent curriculum.
• 9:03
  Steve Leinwand: There is alignment.
• 9:04
  Steve Leinwand: Like in Singapore, between what is taught, how is it taught, and the assessments.
• 9:09
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, we know how to do it.
• 9:11
  Steve Leinwand: And we've written about it.
• 9:12
  Steve Leinwand: We've talked about it.
• 9:13
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, these are discussions that I've had with Dan Meyer and with Joe Boaler and with Phil Darrow.
• 9:17
  Steve Leinwand: The real people that we have to look up to, those are, those are the people whose shoulders I stand upon and, and none of us have found the key to it.
• 9:26
  Steve Leinwand: And that's what motivates me still.
• 9:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 9:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: My first question, just in case,'cause I want us to all be on the same language.
• 9:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: I wanted to find a couple of things.
• 9:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've talked about.
• 9:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've talked about code switching and I wanna say I wanted to find my terms like a good mathematician.
• 9:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is when you switch to a different set of traits, personalities, you might dress different, you might talk different to be in a different environment.
• 9:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it is well documented that a lot of people feel like they have to do that in math spaces, right?
• 9:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: They have to dress professionally, they have to speak academically.
• 9:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: As an example.
• 9:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Steve also brought up formative assessment, and just in case, can you just briefly wink, wink, define formative assessment for us formative versus summative?
• 10:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Give us a quickie.
• 10:07
  Steve Leinwand: if we just look at, at, the research and all the, people who have talked about formative assessment, it is the one tool that allows us to answer the question, to what degree did my students learn what I set out to teach them today.
• 10:25
  Steve Leinwand: I believe that math has to be 60 minutes.
• 10:28
  Steve Leinwand: I think that the 42 minutes and the 47 minutes is again, totally destructive.
• 10:32
  Steve Leinwand: I need an hour so that with five minutes to go, in every class I ever teach, I smile and say, awesome.
• 10:38
  Steve Leinwand: Five minutes to go.
• 10:39
  Steve Leinwand: Let's go pencil, pencils down, close your computer.
• 10:43
  Steve Leinwand: Turn to tell your partner what you learned today.
• 10:45
  Steve Leinwand: I start with metacognition.
• 10:46
  Steve Leinwand: I start with that wonderful question.
• 10:48
  Steve Leinwand: I model that in all the demonstration classes I do.
• 10:50
  Steve Leinwand: Teachers mouths go.
• 10:51
  Steve Leinwand: I can't believe what the kids, one kid says something really important.
• 10:55
  Steve Leinwand: Some kid says a crazy thing.
• 10:56
  Steve Leinwand: One kid sort of says, I learned today that you don't wear a tie when you come in this room and you just go, yes.
• 11:01
  Steve Leinwand: So the kid that has, ADHD is able to talk about it as much as the kid who like is 10 steps ahead of everybody else.
• 11:07
  Steve Leinwand: That takes two minutes.
• 11:09
  Steve Leinwand: Did, did.
• 11:09
  Steve Leinwand: Nice.
• 11:09
  Steve Leinwand: Nice, nice.
• 11:10
  Steve Leinwand: Good, good.
• 11:10
  Steve Leinwand: Let's see if you really did learn it.
• 11:12
  Steve Leinwand: Then we have one quick problem, one task.
• 11:14
  Steve Leinwand: That is artfully chosen not to be too hard, not to be the simplest, easiest thing, but then I'm able to sit there and say, oh, cool, you know, one of the most amazing lessons I ever watched someone teach, ended with a really cool formative assessment that so drove the next day's lesson.
• 11:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: What was it?
• 11:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me what it was.
• 11:36
  Steve Leinwand: Oh, it was, um, here are three equations with expressions that may or may not be equivalent.
• 11:43
  Steve Leinwand: And that question is if they're equivalent, explain why.
• 11:47
  Steve Leinwand: If they're not equivalent, fix it.
• 11:49
  Steve Leinwand: in three questions done in about four minutes, we knew that 16 of 19 kids got it.
• 11:56
  Steve Leinwand: They just got it and, and others didn't.
• 11:59
  Steve Leinwand: You know, and again, this is, this is an example from Success Academy where they just managed to, to do all the right things over and over again.
• 12:06
  Steve Leinwand: But then again, you know, Success Academy schools, you know, the ones that I hang out in, um, certainly the middle schools start at um, eight o'clock.
• 12:13
  Steve Leinwand: And from eight o'clock to nine o'clock, the kids are doing dance movement, drama, chess, debate.
• 12:19
  Steve Leinwand: no one gets that late because they don't wanna miss the most important part of the day.
• 12:22
  Steve Leinwand: Right.
• 12:23
  Steve Leinwand: And they're not being codesharing.
• 12:24
  Steve Leinwand: All they do is they say, look, look what I did with dance and movement and energy and all that stuff and focusing, or, no, I did chess and I learned this move and oh my God, wait a second, I screwed up, moving that pawn was really dumb.
• 12:34
  Steve Leinwand: And there, go now, the rest of the day is easy compared to that.
• 12:37
  Steve Leinwand: We know how to do things a whole lot better than we do.
• 12:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 12:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, and I, okay, so I love what you said there, and I, I'm, I'm even thinking like, imagine what you're describing here is like, yes, you're describing movement and things that might seem a little less transactional, but in doing that, they're literally practicing the skills that we wanna see in math class, making mistakes, collaborating, right?
• 12:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, so it's like now you've kind of framed the day with that in mind and in your body, and then you bring that same attitude to math class.
• 13:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I love that.
• 13:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: You mentioned earlier, you said, we know what we're what to do, but only, you know, in the, in the 60 schools, you are in only four schools were doing it.
• 13:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: For, for example, even this idea of formative assessment.
• 13:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: What is, why, so like, this might seem like a weird question or like simplistic or maybe way too large, but like if we know what to do, what is the reason in your opinion that we're not doing it?
• 13:27
  Steve Leinwand: I think there are a whole lot of reasons.
• 13:29
  Steve Leinwand: More and more I think that the tests drive us towards a bunch of mindless, multiple choice recall and not thinking.
• 13:36
  Steve Leinwand: I think our pedagogy and sharing the power with kids is very hard for a lot of teachers to do.
• 13:42
  Steve Leinwand: You lose control when you ask kids why, how do you know?
• 13:45
  Steve Leinwand: Turn and talk to each other.
• 13:46
  Steve Leinwand: And if you don't have classroom management, you don't have discipline, it can destroy things very quickly because the kids see as an opportunity to just screw off.
• 13:54
  Steve Leinwand: I think that the biggest reason is that we just have a terrible, terrible system of professional development.
• 14:02
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, we run people through these things after school, they, they bring Vanessa in, they bring Steve in for what?
• 14:08
  Steve Leinwand: I don't do anymore.
• 14:09
  Steve Leinwand: I, I just don't do the, the, the one day, one shot kinds of things.
• 14:13
  Steve Leinwand: Because it has no impact except on the same people who are already doing most of it.
• 14:17
  Steve Leinwand: Um, and they get, they get validated, that's all.
• 14:19
  Steve Leinwand: So that's great.
• 14:20
  Steve Leinwand: But, we don't have a mechanism to use videotape in our department meetings, in our PLCs, in our faculty meetings.
• 14:29
  Steve Leinwand: I know some amazing elementary principals who ask teachers to videotape some of their work on their iPad and then use it in a faculty.
• 14:38
  Steve Leinwand: It's their kids.
• 14:39
  Steve Leinwand: And look what they're doing.
• 14:40
  Steve Leinwand: And, and when you sit there without this sense of I am, um, embarrassed or all, and, and in every school I've ever seen people do it, they all go, oh my God, you got such guts that, I can't believe you did that.
• 14:51
  Steve Leinwand: And so they get all kinds of, of wonderful feedback.
• 14:53
  Steve Leinwand: And the classroom visits.
• 14:55
  Steve Leinwand: You know, I mean, this is not just an NF one, but I was in a school doing connected math sixth grade, hard stuff before the common core.
• 15:02
  Steve Leinwand: Sixth grade math, connected math is as hard as it gets, and this kid's 23 years old and it's January, and he is teaching like a master teacher, and I'm going, what the hell?
• 15:12
  Steve Leinwand: Who's a first year teacher doing connected math and always says, oh, it's easy.
• 15:15
  Steve Leinwand: He says, I was having so much trouble the first two weeks of school that my principal says, well, you know what?
• 15:21
  Steve Leinwand: We are gonna take your first period and take your study hall and you're gonna go co-teach with Lisa.
• 15:27
  Steve Leinwand: Lisa's been teaching connected math for a bunch of years.
• 15:29
  Steve Leinwand: Lisa is great.
• 15:29
  Steve Leinwand: He co-teaches first period.
• 15:31
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, that's the best professional development you can have.
• 15:34
  Steve Leinwand: He's there, they're co-teaching.
• 15:35
  Steve Leinwand: She's helping him, he's learning it, and by the time he gets to second period, he's got his own class.
• 15:39
  Steve Leinwand: He's a different human being.
• 15:41
  Steve Leinwand: So in other words, we really do have answers.
• 15:43
  Steve Leinwand: Now, you can't do all of them, but I marvel at how little time and effort goes into that kind of stuff.
• 15:52
  Steve Leinwand: Although you got to college, you got into teaching degree.
• 15:54
  Steve Leinwand: Alright, you're all set.
• 15:55
  Steve Leinwand: Go do it.
• 15:56
  Steve Leinwand: It's absurd.
• 15:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, if a leader is listening to this right now and they're like, fuck yeah, I know that this one and done PD isn't working, like I don't really know where to even start.
• 16:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: What advice would you have for them?
• 16:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, what is a first step they could take to creating a better professional
• 16:10
  Steve Leinwand: Build a coherent system of every teacher visits another teacher at least once every other week.
• 16:13
  Steve Leinwand: That when you have music or art or we have a free period, that's it.
• 16:16
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, there's no such thing as a free period.
• 16:18
  Steve Leinwand: Okay?
• 16:18
  Steve Leinwand: Make it Friday.
• 16:19
  Steve Leinwand: I don't care.
• 16:19
  Steve Leinwand: Okay.
• 16:20
  Steve Leinwand: No one can tell me when not to go into a classroom.
• 16:23
  Steve Leinwand: The school is, doesn't have moats around it.
• 16:25
  Steve Leinwand: Nobody owns their classroom.
• 16:26
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, again, you know that I am not a nice person.
• 16:29
  Steve Leinwand: When I'm in a school and the principal says, oh, we're so happy.
• 16:32
  Steve Leinwand: This happens all the time.
• 16:33
  Steve Leinwand: The principal says, I'm so happy to hear you know that you're gonna see, you know, the math department.
• 16:37
  Steve Leinwand: He says, there are nine teachers.
• 16:39
  Steve Leinwand: He says, listen, we'd prefer that you not go into rooms 201 and 107.
• 16:45
  Steve Leinwand: I said, oh, okay.
• 16:45
  Steve Leinwand: I understand that.
• 16:46
  Steve Leinwand: You know where I go first?
• 16:48
  Steve Leinwand: I go right to room 1 0 7, I knock on the door and the teacher going, no, I don't think you're supposed to be here.
• 16:52
  Steve Leinwand: I said, you're teaching math, right?
• 16:53
  Steve Leinwand: What good am I if I don't see the people don't want me to be in the room?
• 16:57
  Steve Leinwand: They're so scared.
• 16:58
  Steve Leinwand: I need to see that to see what really is going on.
• 17:02
  Steve Leinwand: And when that person is a sixth grade teacher in a middle school, it just screws up seventh and eighth grade.
• 17:06
  Steve Leinwand: When that's the fourth grade teacher and fractions aren't done, the fifth grade teacher is screwed.
• 17:11
  Steve Leinwand: And you're gonna tell me, principal, I'm not supposed to be in that room and you're gonna kowtow to that, that's absurd.
• 17:17
  Steve Leinwand: So that's what I do.
• 17:18
  Steve Leinwand: I, I tell those stories.
• 17:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: What's usually happening in those rooms?
• 17:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is it like, what's happening in there that they don't want you?
• 17:22
  Steve Leinwand: It varies.
• 17:23
  Steve Leinwand: It varies.
• 17:24
  Steve Leinwand: Some people just don't want to, you know, they're shy, you know, and, and you get to talk.
• 17:27
  Steve Leinwand: But most of the time, you know why they don't want me in the room.
• 17:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 17:31
  Steve Leinwand: It's, it's mediocre stuff.
• 17:34
  Steve Leinwand: So I think that that's number one.
• 17:35
  Steve Leinwand: And number two, um, is the use of video.
• 17:37
  Steve Leinwand: People can't do what they can't envision.
• 17:40
  Steve Leinwand: And I ask you, so how do we help teachers that we know care about kids, actually do know some math.
• 17:46
  Steve Leinwand: How do we help them envision?
• 17:48
  Steve Leinwand: And we don't use video anywhere near to the degree that we should.
• 17:51
  Steve Leinwand: So those are,
• 17:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: So who should we be videoing?
• 17:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: We should be videoing ourselves?
• 17:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Who are we videoing?
• 17:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me how to use the video.
• 17:57
  Steve Leinwand: I, If I come in and do a demonstration class, by definition you're gonna video it so that we can tear it to shreds.
• 18:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 18:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: And this is actually advice we've always thought about our band.
• 18:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're always like, we should be videoing our performances.
• 18:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like hockey player, like sports, they, that's what they do, they video their performances
• 18:12
  Steve Leinwand: We wanna talk about the NFL or the major league baseball.
• 18:14
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, the use of video and the, um, coaching.
• 18:18
  Steve Leinwand: You know, these guys are making$17 million a year, and they have four coaches, including a life coach, and a mental coach, and a nutrition coach, and a physical coach.
• 18:27
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, and, and we sit there and go, oh yeah, well we just teach, you know, we, we're not making 17.
• 18:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 18:31
  Steve Leinwand: We're the ones who need to be coached.
• 18:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know what, I, what I love that you just actually gave everyone listening by the way.
• 18:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: You just gave all of our listeners a free professional development plan.
• 18:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's free.
• 18:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: The teachers are in your school, the coaches, the mentors, the whatever are in your school.
• 18:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: So literally, if you're listening to this and you're like, fuck our grant this, our budget that, like, whatever.
• 18:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's like, but it's all in there.
• 18:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I love, I love this solution.
• 18:55
  Steve Leinwand: So you know what I say to coaches, Vanessa.
• 18:58
  Steve Leinwand: When, when they're fighting the budget cuts and, well, the coaches aren't important.
• 19:01
  Steve Leinwand: I go, so I just watched Robin.
• 19:05
  Steve Leinwand: I want you to see Robin's interaction with the kids and the teachers.
• 19:10
  Steve Leinwand: When I'm in a school with a coach who makes a difference, you cannot walk down the hall without that person being interrupted every third door.
• 19:18
  Steve Leinwand: Oh, thanks Robin.
• 19:19
  Steve Leinwand: Oh my God, that stuff, it really worked.
• 19:20
  Steve Leinwand: I hope you go back to my classroom and see it.
• 19:22
  Steve Leinwand: These people have value because of what they deliver and the ideas they have.
• 19:26
  Steve Leinwand: And then, when you walk into a classroom with Robin, so I walk into a third grade classroom with, with Robin, and the kids just go, oh, Miss Robin is here.
• 19:37
  Steve Leinwand: They know.
• 19:37
  Steve Leinwand: They know that what's gonna happen in that room is gonna touch their brains.
• 19:41
  Steve Leinwand: When you see that, I want people to recognize, shouldn't that be available in reading language arts and in mathematics in every school?
• 19:50
  Steve Leinwand: How hard is it to have one person for two elementary schools and spend two and a half days in each, or more likely two days in one, two days in the other?
• 19:59
  Steve Leinwand: And I believe that all the coaches get together on Friday when no one wants to be coached and they use video to hone their craft.
• 20:06
  Steve Leinwand: That's what they do.
• 20:07
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, you know.
• 20:07
  Steve Leinwand: Yeah.
• 20:07
  Steve Leinwand: It's like, here's a lesson.
• 20:08
  Steve Leinwand: This is a lesson I saw, you know, Max teach yesterday in algebra one.
• 20:12
  Steve Leinwand: Um, this class was perfect.
• 20:13
  Steve Leinwand: It was perfect in the sense of there was some wonderful stuff and some awful stuff.
• 20:17
  Steve Leinwand: Okay.
• 20:18
  Steve Leinwand: How, what do you do as a coach?
• 20:19
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, that's the kind of professional development the coaches need to have.
• 20:22
  Steve Leinwand: So, so again, what's really neat, when you have been in thousands of math classrooms, over the last 50 years, I just feel like I have a responsibility to sort of write about it, to talk about it, to sort of share some of that stuff.
• 20:36
  Steve Leinwand: And I've learned to do it without anger.
• 20:38
  Steve Leinwand: I've learned to do it, with opportunities.
• 20:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let me ask you this, because, you know, we are on a podcast called Math Therapy and my work, as you know, is around math, trauma, and anxiety.
• 20:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you've said some very useful things like the idea of formative assessment, the idea of coaching, the idea of mentorship.
• 20:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: And what I'm wondering is if you were to pick a move or something you've seen in classrooms that has the ability to either exacerbate math anxiety or mitigate it, what would that be?
• 21:04
  Steve Leinwand: I think that what I love most is, turn and tell your partner.
• 21:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
• 21:11
  Steve Leinwand: I think that there's just not enough of that.
• 21:14
  Steve Leinwand: You turn and talk your partner, then we switch partners, you know, every other week or something like that.
• 21:19
  Steve Leinwand: Um, and then all I care about is what you said or what you heard.
• 21:23
  Steve Leinwand: I take the pressure off because it can be, you didn't have the idea, but your partner did and, now you have to articulate it.
• 21:28
  Steve Leinwand: But I think that shuts us up and it gives us some sense of, of what's going, going on.
• 21:34
  Steve Leinwand: So, I am watching a class where the question on the board was, are they equivalent or not?
• 21:44
  Steve Leinwand: Six times five and then four plus two, parentheses, times five.
• 21:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay,
• 21:55
  Steve Leinwand: Wonderful.
• 21:56
  Steve Leinwand: Nice, simple thing.
• 21:57
  Steve Leinwand: Turn and tell your partner.
• 21:58
  Steve Leinwand: Are they equivalent or are they not?
• 22:01
  Steve Leinwand: Of course.
• 22:02
  Steve Leinwand: Good.
• 22:02
  Steve Leinwand: Raise your hand if you, pardon your partner.
• 22:04
  Steve Leinwand: Agree that they are equivalent.
• 22:06
  Steve Leinwand: Hands.
• 22:06
  Steve Leinwand: Go up.
• 22:07
  Steve Leinwand: Raise your hands if you and your partner disagree.
• 22:09
  Steve Leinwand: Couple hands go up.
• 22:11
  Steve Leinwand: Raise your hand if you and your partner both disagreed.
• 22:13
  Steve Leinwand: I go, oh, awesome.
• 22:15
  Steve Leinwand: So convince me that they're not equivalent.
• 22:18
  Steve Leinwand: If I don't ask the kids that, I miss out for the rest of my teaching career on this notion that, english,"equivalent", the same.
• 22:28
  Steve Leinwand: So one has four plus two, the other has six.
• 22:33
  Steve Leinwand: They're not the same.
• 22:35
  Steve Leinwand: In math,"equivalent" means the same value, so who's right how we do that?
• 22:40
  Steve Leinwand: If I don't catch that in sixth grade?
• 22:43
  Steve Leinwand: Kids are screwed for a long time.
• 22:45
  Steve Leinwand: Um, and so it's, it's that kind of listen to the kids that I just think is, is what's so important.
• 22:51
  Steve Leinwand: You know, I go back to Principles to Actions and so I see the goals.
• 22:54
  Steve Leinwand: It's in the book.
• 22:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Wait, what is Principles, can you just tell us what is Principles to Actions for those
• 22:57
  Steve Leinwand: actions is the NCTM book that came out in 20 15.
• 23:01
  Steve Leinwand: NCTM basically lost real credibility and ground because its standards were trashed.
• 23:07
  Steve Leinwand: And the common core came along in the United States and everything was Common Core, Common Core.
• 23:11
  Steve Leinwand: And NCTM realized that it was being marginalized.
• 23:13
  Steve Leinwand: And so I had a discussion with somebody, and we said that we need to put ourselves back on the map.
• 23:19
  Steve Leinwand: We are the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and one of the highlights of my whole professional career was working with an amazing, amazing team of, of writers and planners and smart people, and, and we churned out Principles to Actions, which all these years later is still the go-to place, it's the most cited research piece or NCTM piece.
• 23:41
  Steve Leinwand: Um, it's sold more than anything else that NCTM has ever done except the original standards, I think.
• 23:45
  Steve Leinwand: What it says is all it takes for us to have high quality instruction is a clarity of your goals.
• 23:52
  Steve Leinwand: Often not the case, but they're there, they're stolen.
• 23:54
  Steve Leinwand: Tasks that promote reasoning and thinking.
• 23:56
  Steve Leinwand: Hmm, sometimes, sometimes not.
• 23:58
  Steve Leinwand: I can't tell you how many classes I'm in that we've won those.
• 24:01
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, people have got a sense of the goal.
• 24:02
  Steve Leinwand: They deal with the materials, they've got reasonable tasks.
• 24:05
  Steve Leinwand: The difference between effective and medium so effective is the questions we ask, the representations we use and the discourse that we inspire.
• 24:16
  Steve Leinwand: And, and so you know what you say,
• 24:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Wait, are these five different principles?
• 24:20
  Steve Leinwand: Those are the first five.
• 24:21
  Steve Leinwand: Then there's also okay, struggle, fluency, and in, uh, evidence.
• 24:25
  Steve Leinwand: Okay?
• 24:25
  Steve Leinwand: But, but I need those out for right now because, you know, I can't worry about them if in fact there's nothing to measure because you didn't ask questions, you didn't engage kids
• 24:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: didn't ask the questions.
• 24:35
  Steve Leinwand: Simply great tasks isn't enough.
• 24:37
  Steve Leinwand: So I mean, all these years later, that's still a guiding force.
• 24:41
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, NCSM members, the coaches use that stuff all over the time.
• 24:45
  Steve Leinwand: And then NCTM upgraded it into equitable teaching practices by adding some some layers to it.
• 24:52
  Steve Leinwand: But that stuff is just really exciting and it's the stuff that makes me incredibly, incredibly proud.
• 24:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: So tell me the difference between, you said, you know, I, I asked the question, what can either, what can mitigate math, anxiety, you know, what is the thing, and you said turn and talk, asking this very rich question.
• 25:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: What is the difference between the turn and talk and the teacher simply putting those two equivalencies or non equivalencies on the board and asking students to answer the teacher versus taking the time to turn and talk.
• 25:21
  Steve Leinwand: When you ask the whole classic question, you know, half the kids just shut their brain down.
• 25:24
  Steve Leinwand: They don't have it.
• 25:24
  Steve Leinwand: I don't care.
• 25:25
  Steve Leinwand: I don't have to do anything.
• 25:26
  Steve Leinwand: Why work?
• 25:26
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, it just, there's no incentive to even think about it for, for half the kids and the kids that know the answer already or you know, are, you know, a way ahead, you know, they scream it out and they don't explain how, because we don't ask, how did you get that?
• 25:38
  Steve Leinwand: What's really important is the differentiation.
• 25:40
  Steve Leinwand: It's the most important word, the most underplayed word is differentiation, which doesn't mean doing things differently.
• 25:48
  Steve Leinwand: Differentiation to me says, you've got 20 brains in your class.
• 25:53
  Steve Leinwand: Anytime they're trying to learn something, two things are going on.
• 25:57
  Steve Leinwand: You've got four or five different ways that the mathematics is being processed and you've got four or five different ways that the mathematics is being pictured.
• 26:04
  Steve Leinwand: When I ask teachers or when I ask kids, how much is, five plus negative nine?
• 26:10
  Steve Leinwand: And it's amazing.
• 26:11
  Steve Leinwand: This happened just the other day and it's amazing how many people just sit there and say, well, I subtract the two, and I just adapt a sign.
• 26:17
  Steve Leinwand: You know?
• 26:17
  Steve Leinwand: It's like, well wait, why?
• 26:19
  Steve Leinwand: I don't know.
• 26:19
  Steve Leinwand: It's, it works.
• 26:21
  Steve Leinwand: And I said, well, who did it differently?
• 26:22
  Steve Leinwand: And, and one person says, you know, the quarterback gained five yards of first play, lost nine on the second play, and therefore was four yards behind scrimmage.
• 26:30
  Steve Leinwand: And, and I said, so how do you, well, I just, the way I do all my sign numbers, another person does it on a vertical number line, because in every class there are two kids for whom a horizontal number line doesn't make sense.
• 26:39
  Steve Leinwand: The vertical number line is what they can do, and then the the brain fits in.
• 26:42
  Steve Leinwand: I don't understand all that why that happens.
• 26:44
  Steve Leinwand: I just accept the fact that there are different brains.
• 26:47
  Steve Leinwand: We limit math anxiety when we honor the fact that you have this obvious reality of different ways to picture it, different ways to process it.
• 26:59
  Steve Leinwand: So that to me is, is why differentiation is this term bandied around, you know, I'm not nice.
• 27:05
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, you know, when, when I hear, I mean, I tell teachers that when they get an evaluation, their principal has said, oh, you are really impressive and I really love coming to your class.
• 27:13
  Steve Leinwand: But, you know, you know, the, the, the word of the, of the year they went to an ASCD meeting or, or they, um, you know, got, got the word in the, from the assistant superintendent that doesn't understand it either, that we need to do more differentiation here.
• 27:25
  Steve Leinwand: So it says it on the evaluation.
• 27:27
  Steve Leinwand: It would help if you did a little more differentiation.
• 27:29
  Steve Leinwand: I tell teachers, you have a responsibility to go down to that evaluator, go down to your principal, go down to your assistant principal, and thank them profusely for suggesting that you need to focus more on differentiation.
• 27:42
  Steve Leinwand: How about if you come down to my class tomorrow and show me what it means?
• 27:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Talk to the teacher right now who's listening to this and is like, differentiation, yes, I think I know what it means, but how do I actually do it?
• 27:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'Cause in a way, you were like, it's honoring the fact that we have 20 different brains or whatever amount of brains.
• 27:56
  Steve Leinwand: Yes.
• 27:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: So is it giving students opportunities to like show their work in different ways?
• 28:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is it teaching it in different ways?
• 28:01
  Steve Leinwand: So sometimes I am actually suggesting these other ways, other times I'm waiting for the kids to supply them.
• 28:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know what I'm thinking of what the kids are saying right now, which is, it's not that deep.
• 28:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: It actually, we don't actually have to make it complicated.
• 28:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's just what you fucking said.
• 28:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's respect, the fact that there are different ways of knowing, gives students opportunities to learn and express in those ways.
• 28:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: The end.
• 28:21
  Steve Leinwand: I, I need to, before you get to your last two questions.
• 28:24
  Steve Leinwand: So you were very kind in the introduction.
• 28:27
  Steve Leinwand: When you called yesterday and texted and said, would you do this?
• 28:31
  Steve Leinwand: So we did talk last time, okay, I have not watched you do a whole session, but you are an incredibly interesting person, your Math Therapy stuff.
• 28:42
  Steve Leinwand: And so I have, as my dominant approach to our business at 77 years of age, is mentoring.
• 28:51
  Steve Leinwand: I spend immense amounts of time absolutely in joy as I do Zoom talks with supervisors, with coaches, pick Steve's brain, I do with state supervisors.
• 29:03
  Steve Leinwand: And so immediately yesterday I said, oh my God.
• 29:08
  Steve Leinwand: A chance to take this amazingly creative, interesting person and to get to know her better.
• 29:14
  Steve Leinwand: And so it really is mutual.
• 29:16
  Steve Leinwand: And I wanna thank you for taking the lead in this.
• 29:19
  Steve Leinwand: I've really enjoyed this immensely, and this is just the start of what I think will be a really cool friendship.
• 29:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 29:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna cry on the pod.
• 29:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is so nice and like you are, I mean that, thank you.
• 29:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you.
• 29:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are, you, you are.
• 29:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, you are an icon.
• 29:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I mean, guys, Steve just turned 77.
• 29:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know what you're all thinking right now.
• 29:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: He is a Pisces.
• 29:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Tune in next episode when I read his birth chart.
• 29:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, it really is an honor.
• 29:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: I respect you so much, so, I know everyone else does, but for me, like you are someone I really, really look up to and I'm glad you took the time.
• 29:54
  Steve Leinwand: All right, enough of this stuff.
• 29:55
  Steve Leinwand: Question.
• 29:57
  Steve Leinwand: Every one of these with two questions.
• 29:58
  Steve Leinwand: Number one.
• 29:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, here we go.
• 30:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Final two questions, and you gotta make a brief.
• 30:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Under 60 seconds.
• 30:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: If there was one thing you would change about the way math is taught in schools, you can pick one thing.
• 30:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: What is it?
• 30:09
  Steve Leinwand: Oh, it would be differentiation It, it would be recognized that almost everything has more than one right way and gets pictured in different ways.
• 30:15
  Steve Leinwand: That's the way in which we undo some of the math anxiety.
• 30:18
  Steve Leinwand: That's the way we help kids learn.
• 30:19
  Steve Leinwand: There is no way that the one right way can serve all kids.
• 30:25
  Steve Leinwand: Question two.
• 30:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Holy shit.
• 30:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, question number two.
• 30:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Someone's listening to this, they're like, oh man.
• 30:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like I love what Steve was saying and like, yeah, I'm gonna try some of this stuff.
• 30:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: But the thing is like, I don't know if it's gonna really work because you know, I'm just not a math person and some of my students just aren't math people.
• 30:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: What do you say?
• 30:42
  Steve Leinwand: Partner up.
• 30:43
  Steve Leinwand: The fact is that the single greatest obstacle to any of these things that we haven't talked about is the professional isolation of the professional.
• 30:50
  Steve Leinwand: Uh, we just don't have mechanisms in most schools for people to share and people to collaborate.
• 30:54
  Steve Leinwand: One of the things at Success Academy, one of the things that some of the most amazing high schools I've ever been in, in some of the public schools, some of the private schools, some of the urban schools is, is there is a team of six high school math teachers that collaborate and that, and that work together.
• 31:07
  Steve Leinwand: And so, what I think has to be done is break down the isolation.
• 31:13
  Steve Leinwand: Find a new friend, visit a class, invite someone into your class, go out and have a beer with that person.
• 31:20
  Steve Leinwand: All the things that business people do all the time to help them get better.
• 31:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
• 31:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you know, it's funny, it's like partner up, we, we want our students to do that, right?
• 31:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, we wanna form these like, you know, random groups or whatever.
• 31:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: We want students to collaborate and we often.
• 31:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Isolate ourselves, right?
• 31:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like we don't feel like we, so I think that's a really, really, really cool concept of the idea of not feeling like a quote unquote math person is often about isolation.
• 31:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: And these thoughts you're ruminating on.
• 31:47
  Steve Leinwand: So it's one of the reasons why the building thinking classrooms and all of Peter's work has just been so important.
• 31:54
  Steve Leinwand: The fact that you have these random groups and kids working three at a time or four at a time at a non-permanent vertical white space, white, whatever it is, Um, it's, it's, you ask the kids and they go, it's safe.
• 32:05
  Steve Leinwand: We write it out.
• 32:06
  Steve Leinwand: You know, we, we don't have that same pressure.
• 32:08
  Steve Leinwand: Okay, we can learn from each other.
• 32:10
  Steve Leinwand: It's like what took us so long to recognize that?
• 32:13
  Steve Leinwand: And then, you know, I tease Peter and everyone else that in fact it's the, um, consolidation of learning that is far and away the hardest of all of his 14 practices.
• 32:22
  Steve Leinwand: And it's the one that gets the least attention.
• 32:24
  Steve Leinwand: And Peter and I go back and forth with Yeah, that's right.
• 32:26
  Steve Leinwand: And what do we do about it?
• 32:27
  Steve Leinwand: And all that stuff.
• 32:28
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, I just think it's great we have a, um, an on-ramp to those things.
• 32:33
  Steve Leinwand: Give kids cards, have'em in different groups, have'em working together, put part of the lesson, having them collaborate, having them share, doing gallery walks and all that kind of stuff.
• 32:40
  Steve Leinwand: But, but the next step is, yeah, but how do you turn all that stuff into real learning, as opposed to just good teaching.
• 32:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, and also as you're talking, I'm like, why aren't we doing that for ourselves as professionals?
• 32:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Gallery walks, all this stuff.
• 32:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: This goes to you being like, let's use videos.
• 32:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, let's like, oh my God.
• 32:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: So what I'm hearing, how we're ending this, is a call out to Peter Lial to write a BTC for teachers.
• 33:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: You heard it from me and Steve, Peter.
• 33:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do it.
• 33:08
  Steve Leinwand: That'd be really cool.
• 33:10
  Steve Leinwand: It'd be fun.
• 33:10
  Steve Leinwand: I mean, I, I'd love to get
• 33:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right, like a professional learning.
• 33:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 33:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Steve, I think we have a lot of power, you and I, a Pisces and a Gemini.
• 33:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think people are, I mean, thousands of people are gonna listen to this episode, and now Peter has a lot of work to do.
• 33:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Great.
• 33:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you so much for being,
• 33:24
  Steve Leinwand: This has been a delight.
• 33:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: A delight.
• 33:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: I, I'm so glad we fought.
• 33:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mercury, nice try.
• 33:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, let's, we're gonna say goodbye.
• 33:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Don't go anywhere, but have a great time on the trail.
• 33:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you.
• 33:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: We are now gonna take a selfie.
• 33:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Dave, I'm not, I'm not saying bye to him.
• 33:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not doing it.
• 33:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just set up the, just can you set up the, the windows.
• 33:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: So we're both on here.
• 33:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay guys, can someone please text the podcast right now and tell me what just happened?
• 33:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because quite frankly, I still have no fucking clue.
• 33:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: All I know is that I feel fired up and ready to be like, no, for real guys, things need to change.
• 33:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: We cannot keep doing what we're doing.
• 34:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Steve covered so many bases and yes, that is a baseball reference, and yes, the Blue Jays home opener was last week, and yes, I now know what that is.
• 34:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: And yes, I'm still a fan.
• 34:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: But for real, he covered so many bases showcasing how many different areas of education need a makeover.
• 34:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I want to know which one resonated most with you.
• 34:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: So text the podcast by hitting the link in your show notes, DM me on Instagram or shoot me an email.
• 34:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: And if something in this episode made you think, huh, so and so really should hear this, then send them a link to this episode right now.
• 34:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Once again, you should know that Math Therapy is produced by the one and only David Kochberg, who is in my band called Goodnight Sunrise, and my band's music is what you're listening to right now.
• 34:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: And me, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, I am your host, and I will see you guys next week, same date, same channel, same unhinged chaos.
• 34:59
  Steve Leinwand: You can cut it out if you want, but I mean, people need to understand that, I mean, for the last 45 minutes, I am looking at myself, um, I am looking at you, and then I've got this third picture of you sort of, eating somebody's ear.
• 35:12
  Steve Leinwand: I mean this Goodnight Sunrise has been on the screen and it's like, wait a second, I mean, do you know what distraction goes on here?
• 35:20
  Steve Leinwand: And I'm supposed to think about math and this guy is looking like, is she kissing me?
• 35:24
  Steve Leinwand: Is she biting me?
• 35:25
  Steve Leinwand: Is she touching my ear?
• 35:27
  Steve Leinwand: It's so great.
• 35:29
  Steve Leinwand: It's
• 35:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Why has he had that on his screen?
• 35:31
  Steve Leinwand: Oh, it's great.
• 35:31
  Steve Leinwand: Thank you.
• 35:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: I don't have that, Steve.
• 35:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like
• 35:34
  Steve Leinwand: It's, David.
• 35:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm so sorry,
• 35:35
  Steve Leinwand: David.
• 35:35
  Steve Leinwand: I was, David put it on his, he put it on his screen and um, it's just, it's just, it's what makes you who you are and I love it.
• 35:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 35:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, well, just so you know, in the picture, I'm actually licking David's face
• 35:46
  Steve Leinwand: Even worse,
• 35:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: but, but people have said it looks like I'm biting his ear.
• 35:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: It was our album cover for our last album.
• 35:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: You should check go to our band.
• 35:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: David, can you set this up?