Latest / Math Therapy / Why math sucks and how to fix it w/ Raj Shah

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Why math sucks and how to fix it w/ Raj Shah · Math Therapy

0:02
Raj Shah: It is like, here's this medicine.
0:04
Raj Shah: Take it.
0:04
Raj Shah: It's terrible, you know, you're gonna need to balance your checkbook someday.
0:08
Raj Shah: My daughter's like, what's a check?
0:10
Raj Shah: People have books of these things?
0:11
Raj Shah: A dream world we could just be like, math is, we should just learn it'cause it's freaking fun.
0:16
Raj Shah: Your ability to see the brilliance in someone else is completely correlated with your ability to see the brilliance in yourself.
0:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay guys, tell me if this sounds familiar.
0:29
Vanessa Vakharia: You can remember like every single lyric from Mr.
0:32
Vanessa Vakharia: Brightside, but I ask you for a single times table past the sevens and your brain's like, Hmm, no.
0:38
Vanessa Vakharia: Or maybe you're the opposite.
0:39
Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe remembering math facts is like easy for you.
0:42
Vanessa Vakharia: But when it comes to song lyrics, your brain is like swiss cheese vibes.
0:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, on today's episode, Dr.
0:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Raj Shah and I risk it all and dive into one of the most controversial topics in all of math ed: how and why memorization became such a dirty word.
0:57
Vanessa Vakharia: Raj is one of those people who like makes you rethink your entire life with one sentence.
1:03
Vanessa Vakharia: And in this episode, he's coming for all of it.
1:05
Vanessa Vakharia: The myths, the guilt, the, you just have to memorize your facts nonsense.
1:09
Vanessa Vakharia: And that one haunting question that students always ask, but teachers are terrified to answer.
1:15
Vanessa Vakharia: Why do we teach so much stuff in math class that we'll never actually use in real life?
1:21
Vanessa Vakharia: You're gonna hear us break down why memorizing might not be evil if used in the right context, why and how we should consider students' emotions in class, and why maybe just maybe we should stop, like, torturing kids with useless math and start teaching them the stuff that actually matters.
1:39
Vanessa Vakharia: If you're a teacher who's ever thought I don't know how to get through to these kids, or a parent who's tired of math homework meltdowns, or a human who's ever felt personally victimized by the timestables, this is an episode you cannot skip.
1:52
Vanessa Vakharia: We laughed, we cried, and one of us even started singing a John Legend song.
1:57
Vanessa Vakharia: I've said too much, so here's my convo with Dr.
2:00
Vanessa Vakharia: Raj Shah.
2:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Hello.
2:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Hi.
2:05
Raj Shah: Hello.
2:07
Vanessa Vakharia: I just finished your TED Talk.
2:08
Vanessa Vakharia: First of all, very cool that you have a TED Talk.
2:10
Vanessa Vakharia: My first question is, do you have to memorize that whole thing?
2:14
Raj Shah: You do.
2:15
Raj Shah: They, they recommend that you, me, they give you training once you get accepted and they want you to write the whole thing out.
2:22
Raj Shah: That is the hardest thing that I've ever done.
2:24
Raj Shah: I'm super curious, could you tell that I memorized the whole thing word for word?
2:28
Vanessa Vakharia: No, it's not that.
2:29
Vanessa Vakharia: it's not like, oh, this sounded like it was a script.
2:32
Vanessa Vakharia: It's just, it's so tight.
2:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
2:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Like you're making your point so succinctly.
2:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Just that's a skill I don't have, like I'm a very like outer processor, so, everything is said so concisely, did you memorize it, was my thought.
2:43
Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, well, I would.
2:44
Vanessa Vakharia: You.
2:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
2:45
Raj Shah: it, and it was torture because I'm used to presenting, but I'm not used to having things memorized.
2:50
Raj Shah: And so I was up in, in my head the whole time, like, don't get any of the words wrong, don't get any of the words wrong, don't stumble, they're recording this, blah, blah, blah.
2:59
Raj Shah: And it was tough.
3:00
Raj Shah: I was sweating the whole time.
3:02
Raj Shah: Uh, there's a moment.
3:03
Raj Shah: I don't know if you noticed it.
3:04
Raj Shah: I know where it is.
3:05
Raj Shah: It's the very end.
3:06
Raj Shah: And it's, it's hilarious because subconsciously I have this thought of like, oh my goodness, I have made it to the end.
3:12
Raj Shah: I have like three sentences left and I have not goofed this thing up yet.
3:15
Raj Shah: And right then in that moment, there's a hiccup and I had to like, catch my sentence and like, I dunno if I restarted it or missed a word or something, but it's in there.
3:23
Vanessa Vakharia: Huh.
3:24
Raj Shah: if you didn't, if you didn't catch it, you can go back and try and catch it.
3:26
Raj Shah: But that's one of the hardest talks I've ever given.
3:29
Raj Shah: And then I did a, did a five minute, what are those things called, Ignite?
3:32
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, like, that's what I was gonna say.
3:34
Vanessa Vakharia: It reminds me of that vibe.
3:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah,
3:35
Raj Shah: At CMC South last year, the year before on, uh, my favorite show Ted Lasso,"Be curious, not judgmental".
3:41
Raj Shah: And had to memorize that because you gotta be on that 15 second Cadence with those slides changing all the time.
3:49
Vanessa Vakharia: That's why I don't wanna do it.
3:51
Raj Shah: I don't know if I wanna do that to myself again.
3:53
Vanessa Vakharia: I don't think I ever wanna do it.
3:54
Vanessa Vakharia: And you know what it actually made me think of, like as you're talking, it's making me think about how like memorization is such a hot topic in math, right?
4:01
Vanessa Vakharia: The idea of like memorizing.
4:02
Vanessa Vakharia: And I have to tell you something.
4:05
Vanessa Vakharia: You know, I'm in a band with David and I am very good at memorizing lyrics.
4:09
Vanessa Vakharia: Like I can do it so easily.
4:11
Vanessa Vakharia: Like I'm actually really good at memorizing things.
4:14
Vanessa Vakharia: And I was like debating with David, I'm like, is this a useful skill though?
4:18
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm like, you know, part of the reason I'm so good at memorizing is so much of my education was about memorizing things, memorizing scripts when you're in drama class, memorizing your presentations, that's how you're taught to do it.
4:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Memorizing all these formulas in math class.
4:30
Vanessa Vakharia: And I have to say I'm very good at it.
4:33
Vanessa Vakharia: But let me tell you how I memorize a song and I'm wondering if this is how you memorize your TED Talk.
4:38
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not just memorizing, like, words on a page with no meaning.
4:44
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm memorizing them and my cues are all based in meaning.
4:47
Vanessa Vakharia: So like, okay, I'm gonna sing about this thing now because in the last verse I just talked about trying to like, be more like myself, and I tried to like do all these weird strategies, so now logically I'm gonna talk about how that made me feel.
5:00
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, that cues, the words that have to do with feel, like, do you know what I mean?
5:04
Vanessa Vakharia: It's not like,
5:04
Raj Shah: I do.
5:05
Vanessa Vakharia: So is that what you did for your TED Talk?
5:07
Vanessa Vakharia: Are you like,
5:07
Raj Shah: a, that was a sneaky way to get us to talk about
5:09
Vanessa Vakharia: I didn't mean to, I, that's not even, it's not on my list.
5:13
Vanessa Vakharia: That's not what I wanted to talk about, but it just occurred to me right now.
5:16
Raj Shah: Uh, gosh, now I have so many thoughts like.
5:19
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
5:20
Raj Shah: I, I, I hated memorizing those speeches.
5:22
Raj Shah: Hate is a very strong word.
5:24
Raj Shah: It's just really challenging to do it.
5:26
Raj Shah: And I think part of the reason was there was like this perfectionism thing that like creeped out, was like, oh, don't get any of the words wrong, you're doomed.
5:35
Raj Shah: And when I normally, I speak a lot in front of audiences and I get nervous beforehand, but I don't memorize anything.
5:44
Raj Shah: I have my slides and they, they're, they're my cues, like you just said.
5:47
Raj Shah: They give me the meaning and I know what goes with that.
5:49
Raj Shah: Doesn't come out the same every time.
5:51
Raj Shah: But I do also feel like comes out authentically because, every time I give the talk, it's a different version of me giving the talk.
6:01
Vanessa Vakharia: Mm.
6:02
Raj Shah: And
6:02
Vanessa Vakharia: Ooh.
6:03
Raj Shah: even if I gave it last week and I'm giving it today, I've already had some experiences in the world that may inform something about what I emphasize or what I de-emphasize, or a different story that I might put in or not put in.
6:15
Raj Shah: And when you memorize, you're sort of, you're locked in.
6:20
Raj Shah: It's so constraining.
6:23
Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm,
6:23
Raj Shah: haven't really thought about this, but I, I'm wondering now, like how does this apply to math?
6:29
Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
6:30
Raj Shah: and then if I keep riffing, the other thing I will say is that because of the way math was taught, certainly when I was growing up, and probably when most other people listening to this were growing up, you could get by just memorizing, at least K 12.
6:45
Raj Shah: And I was a good math memorizer, I think people, including myself, mistook that as being"good at math", you
6:56
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
6:57
Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
6:57
Vanessa Vakharia: I, I mean, yes.
6:58
Raj Shah: really smart.
6:59
Raj Shah: Like, was I smart or was I just good at memorizing?
7:02
Raj Shah: And also, what does smart even mean?
7:04
Raj Shah: You made a great point about meaning, right?
7:06
Raj Shah: Like there are many ways in which you can try to memorize things.
7:09
Raj Shah: And when you are able to connect them and put meaning to them, I think of it as like they sort of attach like puzzle pieces to things in your brain that were already there, which means they're gonna kind of stay locked in or more likely to stay locked in than if you just have a random collection of facts bopping around in there.
7:28
Raj Shah: 'Cause they're gonna get lost.
7:30
Raj Shah: And I think that's what happens to a lot of kids is that we may be trying to get them to memorize, but if it's disconnected, it probably won't last
7:39
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
7:40
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
7:40
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, I, sorry.
7:41
Vanessa Vakharia: I don't know.
7:41
Vanessa Vakharia: I, I, I really, that was actually fascinating, but not,
7:45
Raj Shah: Wait, I got one more thing.
7:46
Raj Shah: I got
7:46
Vanessa Vakharia: yeah.
7:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
7:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Keep going.
7:47
Raj Shah: learning how to, I'm learning how to sing.
7:49
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm sorry.
7:50
Vanessa Vakharia: What?
7:51
Vanessa Vakharia: No, you're not.
7:52
Vanessa Vakharia: Since when?
7:54
Raj Shah: Since, uh, about two or three years,
7:56
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
7:57
Raj Shah: I would've called myself not a music person.
8:00
Raj Shah: Not that anyone would say something crazy like
8:03
Vanessa Vakharia: People say that all the time.
8:04
Raj Shah: fixed mindset.
8:05
Raj Shah: Um, I was like, okay, I'm gonna challenge myself to sing.
8:09
Raj Shah: And I, I was motivated.
8:10
Raj Shah: I wanted to sing at my, uh, for my wife at our 25th anniversary.
8:14
Raj Shah: But learning the lyrics to songs is really hard for me, really hard.
8:21
Vanessa Vakharia: Really
8:21
Raj Shah: Even songs that I know really well, and you feel like, you know, you know how, you know, you have song lyrics in your brain, right?
8:26
Raj Shah: Like taking up space.
8:29
Raj Shah: But when the lyrics, when someone else isn't singing them, and when they're not on the screen to read, I actually don't know them that well.
8:36
Raj Shah: So it's like, am I good at memorizing math things, but not as good at memorizing songs?
8:42
Raj Shah: That's interesting.
8:44
Vanessa Vakharia: I do have actually quite a few questions here, because I feel that is a good question.
8:48
Vanessa Vakharia: I think there'd be a few additional questions we would have to ask to dig into it, because first of all, you're memorizing math things, you could say, okay, I'm good at, you know, I'm memorizing math things, but then I'm doing something challenging with that memory because I'm on like a high stakes test, so now I'm, or you know, I'm standing in front of people at a TED talk, so now I've gotta recite something while I'm under pressure.
9:10
Vanessa Vakharia: Now, whereas with singing, it's it, I would say equal, because you're not only memorizing lyrics, then you have to do this thing you're uncomfortable with, which is sing the lyrics.
9:18
Vanessa Vakharia: So there's an additional level of stress.
9:20
Raj Shah: Sure.
9:21
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm wondering why you're finding memorizing lyrics challenging?
9:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Is it because you're not attaching any meaning to them?
9:30
Raj Shah: I don't know.
9:31
Raj Shah: I, I was attaching meaning to them.
9:32
Raj Shah: The song I was trying to sing was, it was quite meaningful
9:35
Vanessa Vakharia: What was it?
9:36
Raj Shah: Uh, I,
9:38
Vanessa Vakharia: We all wanna know.
9:39
Raj Shah: sang, this is absurd, I sang All of Me by John Legend.
9:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, come on, give us a verse.
9:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Give us something.
9:47
Raj Shah: No.
9:49
Raj Shah: Oh, goodness gracious.
9:51
Raj Shah: I stepped into this.
9:53
Raj Shah: But see, this is the thing, like right now, without the music playing in the background, right, without some sort of cue, I literally don't remember what the first line of the song is.
10:04
Raj Shah: I.
10:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
10:04
Vanessa Vakharia: But that makes sense because your memory of that lyric is attached to the sonic, uh, representation of the music.
10:12
Vanessa Vakharia: It's actually those things.
10:13
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like when a smell invokes a memory,
10:15
Raj Shah: the, the, him playing the
10:17
Vanessa Vakharia: you'd get it.
10:18
Raj Shah: It would probably
10:19
Vanessa Vakharia: It would it.
10:20
Raj Shah: I need that before I can start it.
10:22
Raj Shah: Also, the stress of you just making me do this like on a podcast,
10:25
Vanessa Vakharia: really freaking you out.
10:26
Vanessa Vakharia: We're still waiting for you to sing the verse.
10:28
Raj Shah: it, shut the system down.
10:29
Raj Shah: Like, wait, what?
10:30
Raj Shah: How does the song, what are even the words?
10:32
Raj Shah: I, it must say all of me at some point in the song.
10:34
Raj Shah: I don't
10:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh,
10:36
Raj Shah: Oh,
10:38
Vanessa Vakharia: there it is.
10:38
Raj Shah: "Do without your smart mouth draw me in and you kicking me out.
10:44
Raj Shah: You got my head spinning.
10:47
Raj Shah: No kidding.
10:49
Raj Shah: You can't pin me down." There you go.
10:53
Vanessa Vakharia: My
10:54
Raj Shah: I did it.
10:54
Vanessa Vakharia: I did not think you were gonna do it.
10:56
Vanessa Vakharia: First of all, you sound amazing.
10:58
Raj Shah: Hey, thanks.
10:59
Vanessa Vakharia: I can't believe you just said
11:00
Raj Shah: I'm on
11:00
Vanessa Vakharia: you just, you do, and you just did it acapella because we turned the music off.
11:04
Vanessa Vakharia: This is what the fans wanna hear, like we should, we could just end right now.
11:07
Vanessa Vakharia: This is, this is, okay.
11:10
Vanessa Vakharia: First of all, let's.
11:10
Raj Shah: you also told me that you edit this so we can edit that whole thing out
11:13
Vanessa Vakharia: We could, but we won't, and we're in charge.
11:15
Vanessa Vakharia: And you've already signed your release form.
11:17
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so now listen, the reason I brought up the TED talk, by the way also, but now I've gotta say something else, which there's no reason I thought we would talk about it all, but I'm so glad you brought up.
11:28
Vanessa Vakharia: You know what's funny about that I'm not a music person thing, you'll hear this thing all the time where you o obviously always hear people say, I'm not a math person.
11:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Because people deeply believe that they are born with this thing in their brain they either have or don't have.
11:41
Vanessa Vakharia: Now the thing, the only other thing I've found that people say with the same level of, of frequency is I'm not musical.
11:50
Vanessa Vakharia: I have no musical talent.
11:52
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not able to sing.
11:53
Raj Shah: Mm-hmm.
11:54
Vanessa Vakharia: People think it's like a physical thing, right?
11:56
Vanessa Vakharia: Like your vocal chords.
11:58
Vanessa Vakharia: Now, I don't know if you found this, but I started working with a vocal coach years and years ago.
12:03
Vanessa Vakharia: And I cannot, I was like, well, this is my range, I'm an alto, this is how I sing, this is my tone of voice.
12:08
Vanessa Vakharia: Whatever I have gained over an octave of musical notes.
12:12
Vanessa Vakharia: And she's like, you could do way more.
12:13
Raj Shah: cool.
12:14
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, it's so cool.
12:15
Vanessa Vakharia: But it busted my own limiting belief of being like, well, this is, certain people just have these voices.
12:21
Raj Shah: Mm-hmm.
12:21
Vanessa Vakharia: found that?
12:24
Raj Shah: Uh, my range has definitely improved.
12:25
Raj Shah: Not an octave.
12:27
Raj Shah: Part of the reason I did it was to force me out of the box.
12:29
Raj Shah: Right.
12:29
Raj Shah: Like, and going back to your point about I'm not a x, y, Z person.
12:35
Raj Shah: I think art is another one.
12:37
Vanessa Vakharia: art is another one sometimes.
12:39
Raj Shah: I can't draw, I can't draw.
12:40
Raj Shah: I,
12:41
Vanessa Vakharia: Or athletic people do that too.
12:43
Raj Shah: um, yeah, maybe a little bit with physical things too.
12:46
Raj Shah: Sports.
12:46
Raj Shah: Mm-hmm.
12:47
Vanessa Vakharia: It.
12:47
Raj Shah: Yeah.
12:47
Raj Shah: So I guess there are, uh, we, math is not alone in this fixed
12:51
Vanessa Vakharia: No, it's just like the most frequent.
12:53
Vanessa Vakharia: It's the most frequent.
12:54
Raj Shah: to us.
12:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, and also there's the most pressure on it.
12:57
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, okay, you can't paint, you can't like play a sport, like it's not gonna affect you for the rest of your life.
13:01
Vanessa Vakharia: But as you said in your TED Talk, which is literally the whole fucking reason I brought up your TED Talk, and 15 minutes later we're gonna actually go to this, you start your TED Talk by saying, and this literally, wow, the segue I'm coming up with right now is just blowing my own fucking mind.
13:15
Vanessa Vakharia: You say, as a society, we've done a really good job of telling everyone, if you can't do math, you are in trouble.
13:23
Vanessa Vakharia: But we've done a really poor job of making people feel like they can do math or want to do math.
13:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Now, I want you to elaborate on that, but just to tie the bow on what we were saying, we don't tell people if you can't draw or you can't play basketball, you're in trouble.
13:36
Vanessa Vakharia: So there's just way less pressure on those things.
13:38
Vanessa Vakharia: People don't have necessarily as much anxiety around it because it's like, I can't do it.
13:42
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, fine.
13:43
Vanessa Vakharia: Whereas with math, it's like, you can't do it, you're fucked.
13:46
Raj Shah: You're doomed.
13:47
Raj Shah: You're doomed.
13:48
Vanessa Vakharia: So tell me more about that statement.
13:51
Raj Shah: So speaking of like things that people have decided they can't do or they're not
13:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
13:56
Raj Shah: We touched on the word smart.
13:58
Raj Shah: When I think about it, I think for the most part have put a lot of connection between mathematical ability or proficiency and smartness.
14:09
Raj Shah: If you are really good at writing and reading, we probably don't call you smart.
14:14
Raj Shah: We probably call you like a bookworm or a writer or
14:16
Vanessa Vakharia: God.
14:17
Raj Shah: right?
14:17
Raj Shah: If you're really good at sports, you're not smart, you're athletic, right?
14:22
Raj Shah: We could go down the list.
14:23
Raj Shah: I could do this forever,
14:24
Vanessa Vakharia: Like Picasso isn't smart.
14:26
Vanessa Vakharia: He's a talented genius.
14:27
Raj Shah: smart.
14:29
Vanessa Vakharia: Yep, yep, yep.
14:30
Raj Shah: it's the one subject they're like tied together like this.
14:33
Raj Shah: So in our culture we've made this like tie.
14:35
Raj Shah: So like, and, and then obviously I think in this culture we've also made it that you would wanna be smart as opposed to not be smart, which means you better be good at math.
14:45
Raj Shah: That is lot of freaking pressure.
14:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Pause on that for a second.
14:48
Vanessa Vakharia: That is so much pressure.
14:51
Vanessa Vakharia: But then you go on to say the next part, which is I think even adds to the pressure, which is then we make it seem like only certain people can do it.
14:59
Raj Shah: Yeah.
15:00
Raj Shah: And that I always wonder like, is that an accident
15:05
Vanessa Vakharia: Mm.
15:06
Raj Shah: master design?
15:07
Raj Shah: But I'm not ready to get into that in this
15:08
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm ready.
15:09
Vanessa Vakharia: And it's obviously the second one, but go on.
15:11
Raj Shah: I don't have form thoughts about it yet,
15:13
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
15:13
Raj Shah: um.
15:15
Raj Shah: we live in a culture that believes this idea, this absurd idea that some people can do math and some people can't.
15:22
Raj Shah: And I've heard you talk about like your research into the media and the way it portrays math and all the things, right?
15:28
Raj Shah: Like every sign that you can possibly get in Western or American culture is like math people are introverted, they're quiet, they're super special, they're gifted genius, and along with that genius comes all the quirkiness and it's like, no, I can, I can do math and be sort of normal.
15:47
Raj Shah: And so what if I'm quirky?
15:49
Raj Shah: It's like both things at the same time
15:51
Vanessa Vakharia: I kind of think also what's cool is not only does it make sense, but you're kind of saying, we've done this really good job of freaking people out, but then we've done this horrible job of, what did you say, I wanna make sure, of making people feel like they can do math or even like making them want to do math.
16:07
Raj Shah: to do it.
16:08
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
16:09
Vanessa Vakharia: So it's like you,
16:10
Raj Shah: it is like, here's this medicine.
16:11
Raj Shah: Take it.
16:12
Raj Shah: It's terrible,
16:13
Vanessa Vakharia: but so why?
16:14
Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me.
16:15
Raj Shah: 13 years.
16:16
Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me, tell me why you think that is.
16:19
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, okay, we're not gonna go into our conspiracy theory of maybe it's by some grand design.
16:23
Vanessa Vakharia: Let's pre, let's pretend everyone's very well-intentioned.
16:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay?
16:26
Vanessa Vakharia: Cause what we're we're gonna get to next is that you have all of these incredible ways of making math fun and irresistible, and bringing out the brilliance in everyone, right?
16:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Your eyes are opening wide there.
16:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, are you agreeing or are you saying no, Vanessa, that's completely incorrect.
16:39
Raj Shah: I guess I'm agreeing.
16:41
Raj Shah: I, I wonder sometimes about fact that math is useful,
16:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
16:48
Raj Shah: that you're going to quote, unquote, need it in real life, whatever the heck that means.
16:54
Raj Shah: And these like tropes that we that people still use to this day that I just laugh at.
16:59
Raj Shah: Like, you know, you're gonna need to balance your checkbook someday.
17:02
Raj Shah: And like my daughter's like, what's a check?
17:05
Raj Shah: People have books of these things that I don't even know what a check is.
17:08
Raj Shah: What, what?
17:08
Raj Shah: Nobody, nobody is balancing a checkbook in 2025.
17:12
Raj Shah: This is absurd.
17:13
Raj Shah: But yeah, you're gonna need it.
17:14
Raj Shah: Like, can we just be honest and say most of the stuff you learn in K 12 math, you're never going to need.
17:23
Raj Shah: Most of the skills.
17:24
Raj Shah: I'm
17:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Yep,
17:25
Raj Shah: not the thinking, right, but the skills, you're not! Long division, don't need it.
17:30
Vanessa Vakharia: Don't need it.
17:31
Raj Shah: don't need it.
17:32
Raj Shah: Factoring, polynomials don't need
17:34
Vanessa Vakharia: SOHCAHTOA.
17:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Why?
17:35
Raj Shah: Polynomials don't need that either.
17:37
Raj Shah: Trig functions don't need it.
17:38
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
17:38
Vanessa Vakharia: We don't need this stuff.
17:39
Vanessa Vakharia: We don't need it.
17:40
Raj Shah: Most of the math that is in the school of math.
17:43
Raj Shah: Like if we were being really honest questioning our own value in the world as teachers, like you don't need the skills.
17:50
Raj Shah: A hundred percent, math gives you an amazing way, an amazing lens through which to see the world that's super duper useful.
17:57
Raj Shah: Like being skeptical of being able to quantify things, being able to look at data and decide whether this makes sense or that makes sense or that conclusion, or correlation and causation and all these things that you can learn through the study of mathematics, super valuable.
18:12
Raj Shah: I want everyone to have that ability to put that lens on when it is appropriate.
18:18
Raj Shah: and like okay if you didn't memorize all your facts, you're still gonna live a perfectly life.
18:30
Vanessa Vakharia: but tell me this, okay, because you know what, I don't know when your interview's coming out in relation to these other people.
18:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe it's come out, maybe it hasn't, but this week I interviewed two moms.
18:39
Vanessa Vakharia: The conversation was, I actually don't even know if I can publish it'cause I might get canceled.
18:44
Vanessa Vakharia: But it was, it was heartbreaking because these moms were like,
18:47
Raj Shah: Hmm,
18:48
Vanessa Vakharia: math was horrible for us, it's horrible for our kids, they just feel like shit all the time.
18:52
Vanessa Vakharia: But then they just were like, why aren't they learning this stuff?
18:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Why the fuck are they learning it?
18:57
Vanessa Vakharia: And I was like, you know, I don't have much of a good answer and I'm so glad you just brought it up.
19:02
Vanessa Vakharia: 'Cause I really wanna ask you, you're telling me all this stuff is useless.
19:06
Vanessa Vakharia: I, I mean, I had some answers.
19:07
Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, well, they're learning it because maybe if they wanna go into a college program where, right, like a, a part of it is a like preventative almost.
19:15
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like, well maybe you're gonna wanna do this thing and then you need the prereq this, or like, well, they need the skills that they're learning.
19:20
Vanessa Vakharia: Exactly.
19:20
Vanessa Vakharia: Like you said, they need skepticism thinking.
19:23
Vanessa Vakharia: But dude, why are they learning this shit if there's so much other stuff they could be learning?
19:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Can you tell me why?
19:29
Raj Shah: Why we have all that stuff in the K 12?
19:31
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah, why?
19:31
Raj Shah: Yeah, because we always did.
19:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh shit.
19:35
Raj Shah: there was probably a time when knowing all these things and having them super duper committed to your memory and being able to calculate quickly arithmetic things was useful.
19:45
Raj Shah: Like my dad grew up with slide rules.
19:46
Raj Shah: Okay, we
19:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Same.
19:47
Raj Shah: rules anymore, right?
19:48
Raj Shah: Like we have calculators and we have phones that you can just ask what 42 divided by 19 is and get an answer like, super accurate, super quick.
19:59
Raj Shah: So I don't feel like we've kept up with that.
20:03
Raj Shah: And then the, my other half of it would be, and I was answering your other question, which is I think the fact that math is useful in real life, we've like drank too much of that Kool-Aid
20:14
Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
20:15
Raj Shah: and convinced ourselves that like everybody's doomed if they don't learn all this stuff and um, put all this pressure on it and all that stuff.
20:23
Raj Shah: And it's like, what if we just like it?
20:26
Raj Shah: What if a dream world we could just be like, math is, we should just learn it'cause it's freaking fun.
20:31
Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
20:31
Vanessa Vakharia: That was what you were getting at.
20:32
Raj Shah: Puzzles are fun,
20:33
Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
20:34
Raj Shah: you know, like, one of my favorite examples to give is like escape rooms.
20:39
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
20:39
Vanessa Vakharia: I love escape rooms.
20:41
Raj Shah: Okay?
20:42
Raj Shah: So believe it or not, people who will claim to not be math people also love escape
20:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
20:48
Raj Shah: But what is an escape room?
20:49
Raj Shah: It's absurd.
20:50
Raj Shah: You're locking yourself in a room with some friends for 60 minutes and you're taking a test.
20:56
Raj Shah: This is what you're doing, And you're paying money to do this for someone to do this to you, like giving up your most precious resource, which is time.
21:11
Raj Shah: But if I gave you a math test, you'd be like, oh, math, this is terrible.
21:14
Raj Shah: You
21:14
Vanessa Vakharia: is boring.
21:15
Raj Shah: Yeah, like we just took all the fun stuff out, left it, we called it a K 12 math, and then we're like, how come nobody likes this?
21:22
Raj Shah: Well, because you took all, every, anything that could possibly could be good has been sucked out of it.
21:27
Raj Shah: Now, of course, over the last few years, I think people are trying to infuse back curiosity, wonder, puzzle, problem solving, all those things, just for the sake of those things, because that's what human beings want to do.
21:41
Raj Shah: We love challenge.
21:42
Raj Shah: We love being curious.
21:43
Raj Shah: We love cha.
21:43
Raj Shah: You know, I said challenge twice.
21:45
Raj Shah: We love doing these things.
21:47
Raj Shah: We like risk taking.
21:47
Raj Shah: People like take risks.
21:50
Raj Shah: Do it in a math class.
21:51
Raj Shah: Take some risks, put up a problem that you think nobody can solve and see what happens.
21:57
Raj Shah: Chaos will ensue.
21:57
Raj Shah: That'll be fun.
21:59
Vanessa Vakharia: You've really just made me think of something because, well, a few things, but what you said a few beats ago about saying, I think it's because we are so, um, bent on being like, it's this thing you're going to use.
22:16
Vanessa Vakharia: That actually just really struck me because I started mentally being like going through the other subjects.
22:21
Vanessa Vakharia: You know what I mean?
22:22
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, I was like, okay, hold on a second.
22:23
Vanessa Vakharia: Is this gonna hold up?
22:24
Vanessa Vakharia: And yeah, like, okay, so like, yeah, math is this thing it's going to use, so it ha it's gonna be like utilitarian basically, and therefore the two cannot coexist, right?
22:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, we're just gonna, it has to be like, we can't have anything fun in that.
22:39
Vanessa Vakharia: And now I'm kind of going down your path of like, okay, so like, let's imagine I mean, what's something where you don't think you're gonna use it, like art,
22:48
Raj Shah: History.
22:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
22:49
Vanessa Vakharia: Art or history?
22:50
Vanessa Vakharia: History is pretty boring.
22:51
Vanessa Vakharia: But yeah, like, Yeah.
22:52
Vanessa Vakharia: Let's say something like that.
22:53
Vanessa Vakharia: Art or history, like you're approaching it.
22:56
Vanessa Vakharia: Not like, alright guys, you need to make sure you leave with these skills, memorize and you know what you're doing.
23:02
Vanessa Vakharia: Because in the real world you're gonna need them for a job.
23:04
Vanessa Vakharia: It's more about it exploring, like history is like all the stories and the tales and the character and like whatever.
23:10
Vanessa Vakharia: And art's, like all about imagination and curiosity.
23:13
Vanessa Vakharia: Find this thing you like and just go for it.
23:15
Vanessa Vakharia: Try this strategy, try that.
23:16
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, but imagine we approach math that way.
23:19
Raj Shah: Right.
23:20
Vanessa Vakharia: But
23:20
Raj Shah: we think, if we take the history analogy, like there's one way history is taught where it's like you need to know the
23:26
Vanessa Vakharia: the dates.
23:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
23:28
Raj Shah: the people and the
23:29
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
23:30
Raj Shah: and the rulers and whatever, right?
23:32
Raj Shah: And you pro if you had a teacher like that, you memorized all that stuff.
23:35
Raj Shah: You tried to spit it back out on the test, and then you
23:37
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
23:38
Raj Shah: remember any of it.
23:39
Raj Shah: But if you had a good history teacher, they would tell you the story, right?
23:43
Raj Shah: They'd immerse you in the story, the, the intrigue of like, why these people felt this way and were at war with those and what, you know, like you get into the story of it and then maybe you would notice that, oh, some things like that are happening today in today's world.
23:58
Raj Shah: You'd make those connections.
23:59
Raj Shah: That would be a much more meaningful way, I think.
24:01
Raj Shah: Not that I've ever taught history, but that feels more meaningful to me.
24:05
Raj Shah: And maybe it's like that, like I try to, I don't know a lot of math history, but I try to infuse as much of it as I can
24:12
Vanessa Vakharia: There's like some juicy stuff like
24:14
Raj Shah: Yeah.
24:15
Raj Shah: Or like the kids were laughing there, you know what's off, because I was like, you know, there's this guy Archimedes, who was in the bathtub, and I don't even know if this story's true or not, but it doesn't matter.
24:24
Raj Shah: And he was so happy about the water flowing outta the bathtub he ran through the streets naked and they were like, you know, middle schoolers, like, what did he just say?
24:32
Raj Shah: And then the one kid couldn't stop saying Eureka for the entire class.
24:35
Raj Shah: But
24:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
24:36
Raj Shah: something he will not forget.
24:39
Raj Shah: He's
24:39
Vanessa Vakharia: But
24:39
Raj Shah: that.
24:40
Vanessa Vakharia: I, this is, I, I mean, I've always said this, I'm like, I think we should treat mathematicians like celeb culture and talk about all the tea behind it and be like, you know what?
24:49
Raj Shah: that.
24:49
Raj Shah: I love it.
24:49
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm it.
24:50
Vanessa Vakharia: So into it.
24:51
Vanessa Vakharia: The thing is though, now what I'm wondering is,'cause obviously people are gonna be like, well, hold on a second though, but you do need math.
24:57
Vanessa Vakharia: Like they need skills.
24:58
Vanessa Vakharia: But I'd like to, I'd like to get out of this dichotomy of it's either fun or it's functional.
25:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Like why can't it be both?
25:06
Vanessa Vakharia: Like I think you're not saying, scrap any necessary math skills.
25:09
Vanessa Vakharia: You're just sort of right.
25:11
Vanessa Vakharia: Like you're like, no, let's teach math skills that matter.
25:14
Vanessa Vakharia: But also.
25:16
Raj Shah: yeah.
25:16
Raj Shah: And I, I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to say that.
25:19
Raj Shah: Like, I love to say provocative things like nobody needs long subtraction and long division and all the other,
25:24
Vanessa Vakharia: But nobody does need long division.
25:26
Raj Shah: Fair enough.
25:27
Raj Shah: I'm not arguing against all of the things that are in math class.
25:30
Raj Shah: There's lots of good stuff.
25:32
Raj Shah: I'm trying to find the ways to make the stuff that is there fun and that the reason we're learning it, yes it has practical value, but like, we're just learning'cause it's fun to learn it.
25:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, you know what actually might be a good, almost like a bridge for us it might be English class.
25:50
Vanessa Vakharia: because I, I, I kind of feel like that's a class where, okay, you're gonna need these skills.
25:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Like you need to learn how to read, right?
25:57
Vanessa Vakharia: You need to know how to read and write, you will need that.
26:01
Vanessa Vakharia: But we do it, let's forget high school for a second,'cause I don't wanna talk about essays and shit, that's debatable if you even need that with ChatGPT.
26:07
Vanessa Vakharia: Just kidding.
26:08
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
26:08
Vanessa Vakharia: But like, let's take it to like elementary school, we're teaching kids how to read.
26:12
Vanessa Vakharia: It's utilitarian, as in you need the skill, but the way we do it is through like fun ways, like stories, things you're interested in.
26:20
Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
26:20
Raj Shah: Thousand percent, yes.
26:22
Raj Shah: And the analogy to storybooks for math is games.
26:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me about your whole video game thing,
26:29
Raj Shah: Yeah.
26:30
Raj Shah: but you're making a a, an amazing point.
26:32
Raj Shah: How do we get kids to be interested in reading?
26:35
Raj Shah: It's picture books, right?
26:36
Raj Shah: Like when you're really little and we've convinced everyone that you should read to your child every night, right?
26:43
Raj Shah: That's a thing.
26:45
Raj Shah: We should be convincing people that you should play one game with your child every night.
26:49
Raj Shah: Because every game that you can possibly think of has math in it.
26:54
Raj Shah: Even Scrabble.
26:55
Raj Shah: That's a math game.
26:56
Raj Shah: It's not a word game.
26:57
Raj Shah: it's a math game.
26:58
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, hot takes, talk about saying provocative things.
27:02
Vanessa Vakharia: I'd like to pause and note that Dr.
27:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Raj Shaw here did not say you should be doing a math worksheet with your kid every night.
27:11
Vanessa Vakharia: He said, you should play one game and that, because I get so many parents saying, well, what do I do with my kids at night?
27:19
Vanessa Vakharia: What math thing?
27:20
Vanessa Vakharia: And I, I, this is the most beautiful and important thing.
27:24
Vanessa Vakharia: Regardless if you're a parent who loves math or doesn't love math, we all love games.
27:28
Vanessa Vakharia: And any game you play will be doing the work of teaching your child a math skill.
27:33
Raj Shah: Yeah, a hundred percent.
27:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Sorry, I really interrupted you.
27:38
Raj Shah: get to bond over
27:39
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
27:39
Raj Shah: to have fun.
27:41
Raj Shah: When you give worksheets, you know there are some kids who will gobble up worksheets and great, you know, I might've been one of those kids, but those kids are not normal.
27:49
Raj Shah: And if you're having to force your child to do
27:54
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
27:54
Raj Shah: creating a negative association for your child to math and to you.
28:02
Vanessa Vakharia: Ooh.
28:03
Raj Shah: Yeah.
28:04
Raj Shah: Yeah.
28:05
Raj Shah: And later in life, when they're whatever and you're like, fighting them about math, it's gonna, like, it started when you started that.
28:12
Raj Shah: Like,
28:13
Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
28:13
Raj Shah: blaming anyone, right.
28:14
Raj Shah: But I'm just trying to bring an awareness to like, I listen to your podcast about success we define success.
28:21
Raj Shah: And the thing I loved most about it was at the end you talked about how do I want to feel?
28:28
Raj Shah: We live in a culture that is hyper rational.
28:32
Raj Shah: We value thinking, intelligence, math to the highest level, right?
28:39
Raj Shah: But we have disconnected from feeling.
28:44
Raj Shah: What you feel in your body.
28:46
Raj Shah: We've disconnected from it completely.
28:47
Raj Shah: Most of us.
28:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
28:49
Raj Shah: I'm just learning how to reconnect to it.
28:51
Raj Shah: What do I want my child to feel when they're experiencing mathematical things?
29:00
Raj Shah: And if doing the worksheet is torture, I'm now creating an association with mathematics and pain.
29:09
Raj Shah: And that is really hard to break apart.
29:12
Raj Shah: You would need, wait for it, Math Therapy.
29:18
Raj Shah: Do you see what I did there?
29:19
Vanessa Vakharia: So
29:19
Raj Shah: It's freaking brilliant.
29:20
Vanessa Vakharia: it was,
29:21
Raj Shah: so good right now.
29:22
Vanessa Vakharia: it was expert level,
29:24
Raj Shah: But it's
29:25
Vanessa Vakharia: but it's, what you're saying is so important.
29:26
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
29:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Keep going.
29:27
Vanessa Vakharia: It really is.
29:28
Raj Shah: a game with you and we're having fun, we are bonding.
29:32
Raj Shah: I am creating an association, a positive association between you and me and the game, and at some level math, even if they don't know that we're sneakily doing
29:42
Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
29:43
Raj Shah: Because when they do see a problem in math class, not a worksheet, that part of their mind, that was the game playing part of their mind is gonna kick in and think, oh, this is like a game.
29:52
Raj Shah: It's like a puzzle.
29:53
Raj Shah: I can do this.
29:54
Raj Shah: Let me play around with this.
29:55
Raj Shah: And it's okay if I lose'cause I lose in games all the time.
29:59
Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
30:00
Raj Shah: That's it.
30:01
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, I mean, no, that's not, I mean, that's just, I feel like the beginning and it sets such a strong foundation for so much of the way, I think we can think about this because you're right now talking about like, you know, like a parent doing something with their kid, but my mind is going to, oh my gosh, like most kids and adults actually have that negative association with math.
30:22
Vanessa Vakharia: Not just from parents doing or not doing worksheets.
30:25
Vanessa Vakharia: From school.
30:26
Vanessa Vakharia: What is the feeling?
30:28
Vanessa Vakharia: We, and and this is what I always do focus on with math therapy, you know, there's that quote that says something like, I can't remember who said it, so I'm sorry.
30:34
Vanessa Vakharia: But, uh, kids don't remember the things you say or teach them.
30:37
Vanessa Vakharia: They remember how you make them feel.
30:39
Vanessa Vakharia: And the truth is that,
30:41
Raj Shah: a Toni Morrison.
30:42
Raj Shah: I think don't remember how you
30:45
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh,
30:47
Raj Shah: they remember how you made
30:48
Vanessa Vakharia: that's it.
30:48
Vanessa Vakharia: You're right.
30:49
Vanessa Vakharia: That is exactly what it is.
30:50
Raj Shah: Okay, there you go.
30:51
Vanessa Vakharia: Can you fact check that over there, please?
30:53
Vanessa Vakharia: Toni Morrison.
30:53
Vanessa Vakharia: Thanks.
30:53
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
30:54
Vanessa Vakharia: Um, you're right.
30:55
Vanessa Vakharia: It wasn't even, it wasn't anything to do with education, but it was exactly that.
30:58
Vanessa Vakharia: Here's the thing is like a very, unfortunately, when, you know, if you're a teacher listening to this, a kid is probably walking into your classroom with baggage around math.
31:08
Vanessa Vakharia: They just are.
31:09
Vanessa Vakharia: And a lot of that baggage is negative because so many of the feelings associated with math are about being scolded for being wrong, being told you're doing something the wrong way.
31:17
Vanessa Vakharia: Not doing something fast enough, feeling like you're not smart.
31:19
Vanessa Vakharia: It's just like icky, ugh, whatever.
31:21
Vanessa Vakharia: And we do constantly, I do find in math, in the, in the math ed bubble we're in, where there's all this wonderful professional development.
31:29
Vanessa Vakharia: Everyone's like, curiosity, wonder, joy.
31:31
Vanessa Vakharia: And I keep thinking to myself, okay, cool babe.
31:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Like I, yes, we want kids to be curious and wonder, we want them to be playing games, but they're, right now, most of them are scared and they feel like anything that is called math is going to elicit those same negative feelings they've, they've already had.
31:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
31:48
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like, you know, we could get into very deep into like their childhood parts have already developed that association.
31:57
Vanessa Vakharia: So, what you're kind of saying is you don't, even if you're a parent or you wanna do something external, or even if you're a teacher, would you say that one way to break this and to at least start with getting into their curiosity, is to just drop the word math from it and do something tangential to math, like playing a game?
32:14
Raj Shah: Math is a four letter word for a lot of people.
32:18
Vanessa Vakharia: It is
32:18
Raj Shah: Maybe.
32:19
Raj Shah: Maybe.
32:20
Vanessa Vakharia: so like even, I'm just thinking if you're a teacher and you're like, I really wanna do this, I would almost be like, don't even call it a math game.
32:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
32:26
Vanessa Vakharia: You could just be like, we're gonna solve a puzzle.
32:27
Vanessa Vakharia: We're gonna play a game.
32:28
Raj Shah: Don't call it a math game.
32:30
Raj Shah: Are you nuts?
32:31
Raj Shah: It's a game.
32:33
Vanessa Vakharia: It's a game.
32:34
Vanessa Vakharia: It's a game.
32:35
Raj Shah: Don't sabotage yourself by like, Hey kid, we're gonna go play a math game.
32:40
Raj Shah: Are you nuts?
32:41
Vanessa Vakharia: Well,
32:42
Raj Shah: a game.
32:42
Vanessa Vakharia: playing a game and I also think that, you know, some people will be like, yeah, but what about they're not learning like addition or, or through the game.
32:50
Vanessa Vakharia: But what you're saying is yes, but when they go into the class and solve any type of problem and face any type of challenge, which is what they're doing all the time, those same skills that they've built while playing whatever game with you will translate into the classroom.
33:05
Vanessa Vakharia: So yes, they've built skills of resilience, perseverance, not worrying if they're losing, liking a challenge, trying to think creatively being curiosity.
33:12
Vanessa Vakharia: Now they go into school, they learn integers, they don't know, integers, but all of a sudden it opens them up to being more curious and resilient about learning the thing of integers, the concept and they're more able to absorb it.
33:25
Vanessa Vakharia: When students have a more positive math identity, when they feel less anxious in general, when you're in a flow state, when you're curious, you will learn more.
33:35
Raj Shah: You had mentioned like if the, they learned addition while playing the game, that'll translate.
33:39
Raj Shah: I don't know for sure if that's true or not.
33:40
Raj Shah: I kind of has to be, but but the feeling, I think translates.
33:45
Raj Shah: And what I try to tell teachers when they're, I don't know what word to use, but when they're struggling with kids who don't appear to want to engage in mathematics and have tuned out and all the things, is like you gotta get the attitude and the mindset first.
34:02
Raj Shah: I know you, everyone feels like if I could just get them to memorize their multiplication facts, then we could do the fun math.
34:09
Raj Shah: And so they, they like default to going back to that which is really boring.
34:13
Raj Shah: And all the things, because if you're older and you're supposed to know that, then there's all that, all that feeling is gonna come with that, right?
34:20
Raj Shah: Like, here we go, we're remediating you guys again'cause you didn't get it the first seven times, so we're gonna do it again.
34:26
Raj Shah: And we're just, we're actually solidifying the idea that you are the kind of kids who don't get this stuff.
34:34
Raj Shah: Right.
34:34
Raj Shah: And I think we just, we don't think about feelings at all.
34:38
Raj Shah: My number one job when you come in that room is to make you feel safe, to make you feel seen, to make you feel heard.
34:44
Raj Shah: Right?
34:45
Raj Shah: If I can't do those things, I got no shot.
34:47
Raj Shah: And then after that to make you feel like this thing that we're doing is fun.
34:53
Raj Shah: You're capable of doing something.
34:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
34:56
Raj Shah: Maybe you don't get right answers yet.
34:58
Vanessa Vakharia: Sure.
34:58
Raj Shah: But you can do something.
34:59
Vanessa Vakharia: You can do something.
35:00
Raj Shah: Things like Annie Fetter's"notice and wonder", right?
35:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
35:03
Raj Shah: Everyone can notice.
35:05
Vanessa Vakharia: Talking about feelings, I wanna kind of continue a bit with it, because we don't talk about it a lot because we are so disconnected from our bodies and like
35:12
Raj Shah: yes.
35:13
Vanessa Vakharia: Also emotion and feeling are like bad words almost.
35:17
Raj Shah: We've been taught to like, push'em down and not worry about them,
35:21
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
35:22
Raj Shah: we have all these other problems.
35:23
Raj Shah: Which, real quick about body language
35:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Take your time.
35:26
Raj Shah: This may resonate, if there's a teacher watching, uh, listening.
35:29
Raj Shah: Read their body language, I was somewhere, when we were just talking with adults, and eventually, you know, it comes out that I teach math for a living and then, you know, there's the, uh, but I, but for the first time when somebody was giving me that reaction, I watched their bodies and I was sitting at the end of the table and these two women were sitting like this.
35:51
Raj Shah: And literally when they were like talking about themselves in math, their whole system collapsed.
35:56
Raj Shah: Like they went, oh, math.
35:59
Raj Shah: So like that tells you that all of that is literally in their entire body.
36:06
Raj Shah: The idea that they can't do math and all the sadness that they have, pain and suffering and trauma, if we're gonna use that word.
36:13
Raj Shah: Right?
36:14
Raj Shah: It's all in the body.
36:15
Vanessa Vakharia: mm-hmm.
36:16
Raj Shah: you're not going to solve that.
36:18
Raj Shah: I, there's no way I can solve that by being like, Hey, let's work on your multiplication facts.
36:22
Raj Shah: If you can just memorize what seven times eight is, I guarantee you'll feel better about yourself.
36:26
Raj Shah: It's not gonna work.
36:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Well, it makes me think too of like kids slouching and being called like lazy and it's like, so sit up in your chair, da, da da.
36:35
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like if somebody is in that position, there is something taking over their whole body.
36:40
Vanessa Vakharia: And not only should that, is that really actually helpful for teachers?
36:43
Vanessa Vakharia: Because I always say it's like you can look for very like, explicit signs of like math anxiety and trauma in things like that.
36:49
Vanessa Vakharia: Like a kid with his head down or just she's slouching or just like eyes darting around the room or arms crossed.
36:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Like those are signs that like something is not okay.
36:58
Vanessa Vakharia: But I think we often are like, oh, just like sit up and do your work.
37:02
Vanessa Vakharia: And it's like, that is the biggest, we should be grateful for that gift.
37:06
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like we are now seeing how deep this like math trauma runs for this person and you're so right that the way to an embodied experience is never through the mind.
37:18
Vanessa Vakharia: So if we are dealing with something that has gotten that far in a student's body, the way to do it is not to be like, just do more questions or just listen to me explain this concept.
37:30
Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
37:30
Vanessa Vakharia: Like somatically, we have to get them, we have to meet them where they are, which is in their bodies.
37:36
Raj Shah: Yeah.
37:37
Raj Shah: So educate me, what would you do in that situation?
37:40
Vanessa Vakharia: I think it can be really scary.
37:43
Vanessa Vakharia: Because educators all want the best for their students.
37:45
Vanessa Vakharia: We want to help our students.
37:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Sometimes that's how I feel when I talk about math anxiety and math therapy is like, I have these math teachers who are like, well, I know how to teach math, but I don't know how to like, talk to someone about their feelings.
37:56
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, no one trained you on how to do that.
37:58
Vanessa Vakharia: And I, I really get that.
38:01
Vanessa Vakharia: So I think we first have to be like, the more you know, the more you know you don't know, you know, like the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know.
38:09
Vanessa Vakharia: And that's cool.
38:10
Vanessa Vakharia: And you know why that's cool?
38:11
Vanessa Vakharia: Because as educators we are also lifelong learners.
38:14
Vanessa Vakharia: That's what makes us great educators.
38:17
Vanessa Vakharia: I would say a, an entry point into like, if a student is in front of you, arms crossed, slouching, like obvious, you know, I'm not gonna say obvious'cause it's not obvious, we're learning what that means.
38:27
Vanessa Vakharia: They're shut down because there's math trauma that lives in their body.
38:31
Vanessa Vakharia: They have a series of bad experiences.
38:32
Vanessa Vakharia: They don't feel like they can do it.
38:34
Vanessa Vakharia: We don't know the exact thing.
38:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, my first tip is to get to the feeling center.
38:40
Vanessa Vakharia: Whatever you're comfortable with, you're comfortable at asking questions'cause you're a teacher.
38:45
Vanessa Vakharia: But instead of asking a math question, crouching down, getting down next to'em so you're at their level and being like, are you okay?
38:51
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, what are you feeling right now?
38:54
Vanessa Vakharia: That's it.
38:54
Vanessa Vakharia: It can be, that simple.
38:56
Vanessa Vakharia: And I am, I am thinking this'cause it's really interesting.
38:58
Vanessa Vakharia: I just interviewed a grade 11 student for the podcast, which I've never done.
39:02
Vanessa Vakharia: And she said, she doesn't know anything about all this Building Thinking class, which doesn't know any of the shit.
39:07
Vanessa Vakharia: And she said what made such a big difference is she had this teacher when the teacher came over to talk to her about math, the teacher would crouch down and get on her level and say, Hey, I can tell you're feeling stressed, don't worry about it, like we get, we're gonna get through this together.
39:22
Vanessa Vakharia: As, and she was like, all my other teachers would stand above me and hover over me.
39:25
Vanessa Vakharia: And it, it would be so obvious that they were impatient.
39:27
Vanessa Vakharia: They just, and I was like, it's, you know, you're talking about body language.
39:30
Vanessa Vakharia: We can read a student's body language, they can read ours.
39:34
Vanessa Vakharia: You know, so just getting, you know, I won't get into this,'cause now it's really in the weeds, but I know you and I have been talking about the nervous system and one of the things I'll say is just know this if you're listening, don't worry about the terminology, but we as humans seek to co-regulate.
39:50
Vanessa Vakharia: That means we seek to feel safe around other people through energy.
39:54
Vanessa Vakharia: So the biggest thing you can do, crouch down next to a student, look at them kindly in the eyes, relax your body and really feel sympathetic towards them.
40:04
Vanessa Vakharia: And just like we're on the same team.
40:07
Vanessa Vakharia: And that's the starting point.
40:08
Vanessa Vakharia: You don't need to be like, and now we're gonna do some deep breathing, like, if you're comfortable with that, cool.
40:12
Vanessa Vakharia: But really just the question, how are you feeling right now?
40:16
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, let's just take a beat, don't worry about the math, tell me how you feel.
40:19
Vanessa Vakharia: And then my next favorite question is, do you feel like you've had like negative experiences with math before?
40:24
Raj Shah: Oh.
40:26
Vanessa Vakharia: We're talking about feelings.
40:29
Vanessa Vakharia: You can't logic out a feeling.
40:32
Vanessa Vakharia: It's emotion, if someone is, is in an emotional state, you've gotta react emotionally.
40:36
Vanessa Vakharia: You get what I'm saying?
40:37
Vanessa Vakharia: Did that, does that help, do you think?
40:39
Raj Shah: That helps.
40:39
Raj Shah: That helps.
40:40
Raj Shah: The, the word that just keeps flying into my brain is compassion.
40:43
Vanessa Vakharia: Compassion, yes.
40:45
Raj Shah: that you know how to
40:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
40:47
Raj Shah: for someone, can you do that?
40:49
Raj Shah: And I get that there's like 29 other students in the room and so you can't spend minutes with this pers, you know, with this child who's in pain, but find those moments where you can show that compassion, like you said, get down at their level.
41:04
Raj Shah: For sure.
41:05
Raj Shah: And I love that you said like, ask a question more about feelings and less about logic.
41:09
Raj Shah: That's, that's good advice.
41:11
Vanessa Vakharia: And also keep in mind like we're adults and we often don't know why, I mean, think about, I just think about all the therapy I've done where like think I know everything and then my therapist will ask me a question and all of a sudden some story will unravel that I'm like.
41:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Wait, what?
41:26
Vanessa Vakharia: I don't even know what's coming outta my mouth right now.
41:29
Vanessa Vakharia: I didn't realize I even remembered this memory and all of a sudden, blah.
41:33
Vanessa Vakharia: And I'm an adult that's been through therapy, so our student is not sitting there thinking, I know what's going on, I've got boatloads of math trauma.
41:41
Vanessa Vakharia: They, they're not, all they are thinking is, I, I hate this.
41:44
Vanessa Vakharia: I don't feel good,
41:45
Raj Shah: Yeah.
41:46
Raj Shah: I hate this or there's something wrong with me.
41:47
Vanessa Vakharia: or there's something wrong with me, which is me in therapy all the time.
41:50
Vanessa Vakharia: There's something wrong with me.
41:52
Raj Shah: Yeah, there's a book by Dr.
41:55
Raj Shah: Becky Kennedy.
41:56
Raj Shah: it's called Good Inside.
41:58
Raj Shah: The premise of the book is everyone is good inside.
42:01
Raj Shah: And you know, I read that and it really, the moment I read it where I was in my life, it just like hit me like a ton of bricks.
42:11
Raj Shah: And I've been going around now saying something almost identical, which is that every child is brilliant and, realizing now that my job, my entire job, is just to help them recognize the ways in which they're brilliant and reinforce them.
42:31
Raj Shah: And if that's all I did, I'm successful.
42:35
Raj Shah: And then I'll layer on some math every once in a while.
42:37
Raj Shah: But like the math, like watching them do math gives me the opportunity to see all the ways in which they're brilliant.
42:45
Raj Shah: To me, when I'm doing that, it is so much fun to teach kids math.
42:53
Vanessa Vakharia: I love this so much because I not to make this about me, but I will for one second.
42:59
Vanessa Vakharia: I, I always just say the goal of Math Therapy, like has nothing to do with right answers or marks, is just to help every child build a better relationship with math and therefore themselves, right?
43:08
Vanessa Vakharia: It's about self-worth.
43:08
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, that's all I want.
43:10
Vanessa Vakharia: But one question I have for you, because I love this idea of being like, my only job, again, it kind of goes back to that Toni Morrison quote.
43:19
Vanessa Vakharia: Is it Toni Morrison?
43:20
Vanessa Vakharia: We haven't decided, but that quote of being like, at the end of the day, kids are gonna remember how you made them feel.
43:24
Vanessa Vakharia: And there's no better gift.
43:26
Vanessa Vakharia: There's no better thing you can give a student than to have them leaving your care thinking, I feel brilliant, I feel really good about, like, that's, there's nothing better you can do for like them as an individual.
43:38
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
43:38
Vanessa Vakharia: And us as a generation.
43:39
Vanessa Vakharia: Like we, you know, like just that feeling of worth translates to every area of life.
43:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Not just for themselves and what they end up doing because they now have the confidence, how they treat other people.
43:49
Vanessa Vakharia: But I have a question.
43:51
Vanessa Vakharia: Do you have any tips for what you can say at the end of like a lesson or a challenge or something, like any verbal cues that can help a child leave a lesson feeling brilliant.
44:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Like, do you have any things like, regardless of how they performed on a task or anything like that, is there anything a teacher listening can just start incorporating to help kids feel really like they're brilliant?
44:15
Raj Shah: Your ability to see the brilliance in someone else is completely correlated with your ability to see the brilliance in yourself.
44:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God,
44:27
Raj Shah: So step one is recognize all the ways in which you are brilliant and gifted.
44:34
Raj Shah: Do not minimize them.
44:36
Raj Shah: Do not caveat them.
44:38
Raj Shah: Do not be like, well, I'm nice, but everybody's nice.
44:41
Raj Shah: It doesn't count.
44:41
Vanessa Vakharia: hmm.
44:43
Raj Shah: Like if you're nice, then you're freaking nice.
44:45
Raj Shah: Like own it.
44:46
Raj Shah: And you know what's funny?
44:47
Raj Shah: uh, I've been doing this, uh, with teachers and I'm having them write down like three of their superpowers and how they apply in the classroom.
44:53
Raj Shah: And then I tell them what mine are.
44:58
Raj Shah: And do you know that I try, I kind of caveat them when I say that.
45:01
Raj Shah: Like,
45:02
Vanessa Vakharia: What are they?
45:02
Raj Shah: people tell me that like, I'm kind of good at
45:05
Vanessa Vakharia: Uhhuh.
45:06
Raj Shah: And I was like, oh my God, I'm doing
45:08
Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah,
45:09
Raj Shah: Right?
45:09
Raj Shah: Because it's sort of embarrassing to say in front of a group of people, like, this is why I'm amazing.
45:14
Raj Shah: But if I believe that all of us are amazing, then it's a little less crazy.
45:20
Raj Shah: Right?
45:21
Raj Shah: And egotistical.
45:22
Vanessa Vakharia: What are your three superpowers though?
45:24
Vanessa Vakharia: Just tell us quick.
45:25
Raj Shah: Uh, one, I'm really, I think, oh, see, I did it right there.
45:30
Raj Shah: Really good at making students feel like I'm in it with them as opposed to the, the sage who has all the answers and that we're, we're struggling through this together, like,
45:41
Vanessa Vakharia: Which is also, by the way, one of the tips I was giving earlier of like a student loves when they feel like, Hey, there's nothing wrong with them, you're in it with them.
45:50
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, next step.
45:50
Vanessa Vakharia: What's the next superpower?
45:52
Raj Shah: Oh, I'm, I'm listing.
45:53
Raj Shah: Okay.
45:54
Raj Shah: You want a second one?
45:54
Raj Shah: Uh, second one.
45:56
Raj Shah: My silly one is that I'm really good at forgetting the answers to math problems so that when kids are like, was this right?
46:02
Raj Shah: I like, literally don't know'cause I forgot.
46:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Love it.
46:04
Vanessa Vakharia: So you're not a liar.
46:05
Raj Shah: That's my silly superpower.
46:06
Raj Shah: And then a third one, if I had to say a third one.
46:10
Raj Shah: I think I do a pretty good job.
46:12
Raj Shah: I will caveat this a tiny bit'cause it's always, you're always in the process of this, I think.
46:16
Raj Shah: But my favorite quote is, be curious, not judgmental.
46:19
Raj Shah: Ted Lasso, uh, season one, episode eight, the greatest scene of TV ever made in the history of the universe.
46:25
Raj Shah: And I try really, really hard to not judge and just respond with curiosity all the time.
46:32
Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
46:33
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
46:35
Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you for sharing that.
46:36
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm sorry I interrupted the initial flow.
46:37
Vanessa Vakharia: I need you to finish what you were saying.
46:39
Raj Shah: Okay.
46:40
Raj Shah: I think I was saying that your ability to see the brilliance in others is correlated a hundred percent directly to your ability to seller.
46:47
Raj Shah: So
46:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Yep.
46:47
Raj Shah: find your own brilliance.
46:49
Raj Shah: Like, change that if, if you have a problem with that, which lots of people do, um, that's being human.
46:55
Raj Shah: And then because you've seen it in yourself, you will see it in other people.
47:00
Raj Shah: So you'll see, you'll start to see their kindness.
47:02
Raj Shah: You'll start to see their curiosity.
47:03
Raj Shah: You'll start to see their lack of judgment.
47:05
Raj Shah: You'll start to see all and then all you, it's not that complicated.
47:08
Raj Shah: Just when you notice it, you're obligated to tell them,
47:12
Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
47:13
Raj Shah: I love how curious you are.
47:14
Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
47:16
Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
47:17
Raj Shah: what color the cars are in this problem, I love that curiosity, it has nothing to do with the math of this problem, but never thought about the color of the cars.
47:29
Raj Shah: That's super cool.
47:30
Raj Shah: Tell me more.
47:33
Vanessa Vakharia: There it is there.
47:33
Raj Shah: obviously i's made a little bit
47:35
Vanessa Vakharia: No, no, no, no.
47:37
Raj Shah: but you get my point.
47:37
Raj Shah: Also it is so much more fun to come to school every day if you do that.
47:43
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
47:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Step one, find the brilliance in yourself.
47:46
Vanessa Vakharia: List three things that are your superpowers.
47:49
Vanessa Vakharia: Do it.
47:50
Vanessa Vakharia: No caveat, if you're literally having trouble, call your best friend and be like, tell me three things that are amazing about me.
47:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Step two start noticing the brilliance in the kids around you, because now you've realized three superpowers that you didn't even know you had.
48:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Just start being curious about what brilliance lies amongst the people around you.
48:07
Vanessa Vakharia: And step three, point it out.
48:09
Vanessa Vakharia: Every time you can point it out, you're obligated to say something about it.
48:13
Vanessa Vakharia: Every time you do.
48:14
Vanessa Vakharia: It's like complimenting a woman's eyeliner.
48:16
Vanessa Vakharia: It always ends well.
48:18
Vanessa Vakharia: They always are happy after they always smile and they pass that on.
48:22
Raj Shah: Oh,
48:22
Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
48:23
Raj Shah: tip.
48:24
Raj Shah: I'm gonna keep that eyeliner
48:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Eyeliner every time.
48:26
Vanessa Vakharia: Yep.
48:27
Vanessa Vakharia: Dude.
48:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Wow.
48:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Wow.
48:29
Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, what a great time.
48:30
Vanessa Vakharia: I, you know, I could talk to you for hours.
48:32
Vanessa Vakharia: You know I absolutely can't.
48:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Is there anything you want people to go look up?
48:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Like if, you know, if people wanted to go find you, where should they go?
48:39
Raj Shah: Okay.
48:39
Raj Shah: If, I mean, if they want to, they can go to my website, Dr.
48:42
Raj Shah: Raj Shaw, drrajshah.com But what would be even cooler, because you asked everyone to write down their three superpowers is if they emailed them to us.
48:53
Vanessa Vakharia: I want that to happen.
48:54
Vanessa Vakharia: Let's do it.
48:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Email them.
48:55
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so you can now actually text this podcast.
49:00
Raj Shah: Ooh.
49:00
Vanessa Vakharia: But I don't understand where they find that in the show notes, the description The description.
49:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
49:04
Vanessa Vakharia: So here's what's gonna happen.
49:05
Vanessa Vakharia: You can text us your three superpowers to me and Raj, in the description of this episode.
49:11
Vanessa Vakharia: There will be a number in the podcast player.
49:14
Vanessa Vakharia: What?
49:14
Vanessa Vakharia: Say it again.
49:16
Vanessa Vakharia: David's so annoyed, David.
49:17
Vanessa Vakharia: Just tell everyone.
49:19
Vanessa Vakharia: He's coming.
49:20
Vanessa Vakharia: David will tell you how to te
49:21
David Kochberg: You should really learn how to do this.
49:23
Vanessa Vakharia: But just tell us,
49:24
David Kochberg: in the podcast player that you're listening to this on, you just should be able to see a link right at the top that says, of the description that says, see now I'm not trained at this.
49:34
David Kochberg: I'm not as experienced a host as you.
49:36
David Kochberg: In the podcast player.
49:37
David Kochberg: Look at the description of this episode and there should be a link that says, text us or something like that.
49:42
Vanessa Vakharia: Great.
49:42
Vanessa Vakharia: Text us your three superpower
49:43
David Kochberg: Standard messaging rates apply.
49:45
David Kochberg: I think it's a US number.
49:46
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, fine.
49:47
Vanessa Vakharia: And if you don't wanna do that because we just made it so confusing, DM your three superpowers to me on Instagram@themathguru.
49:53
Vanessa Vakharia: Email them to me, Vanessa, at the math guru.ca, and I will share them all with Raj and we will look through them all and we will celebrate you.
50:01
Raj Shah: I can't wait!
50:01
Vanessa Vakharia: We can't wait.
50:03
Raj Shah: Wait, we, we, we left off something extremely important.
50:05
Vanessa Vakharia: Wait.
50:06
Vanessa Vakharia: There's more.
50:06
Raj Shah: Yeah.
50:08
Raj Shah: We don't know what your three superpowers are yet.
50:10
Vanessa Vakharia: Oh God.
50:12
Vanessa Vakharia: Uh, okay, let me, you're right, it is hard, right, you don't, it's true.
50:16
Vanessa Vakharia: And honestly, I'm really trying to work on this, but it's so hard'cause you feel like you're bragging.
50:20
Vanessa Vakharia: You like this and that.
50:20
Raj Shah: I'm gonna call you out when you caveat,
50:22
Vanessa Vakharia: Watch.
50:23
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm not gonna, okay.
50:24
Vanessa Vakharia: My three superpowers are, I don't, I was about to be like, I think I'm pretty funny.
50:28
Vanessa Vakharia: I'm, I, I, I think I'm pretty funny.
50:31
Vanessa Vakharia: That's number one.
50:31
Vanessa Vakharia: Do I have to, I'm not allowed to say.
50:32
Vanessa Vakharia: I think, fuck.
50:33
Vanessa Vakharia: Superpower number one.
50:35
Vanessa Vakharia: I am funny.
50:37
Vanessa Vakharia: Superpower number two.
50:40
Vanessa Vakharia: I do, I keep wanting to say, I think superpower number two.
50:43
Vanessa Vakharia: I love asking questions.
50:45
Vanessa Vakharia: That feels better than saying I'm great at asking questions.
50:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
50:48
Vanessa Vakharia: Superpower number three.
50:51
Vanessa Vakharia: Um, oh, oh.
50:52
Vanessa Vakharia: Superpower number three is I can see both sides of basically everything.
50:57
Vanessa Vakharia: I can always see the other side.
50:58
Vanessa Vakharia: I can always find something in common with someone.
51:00
Vanessa Vakharia: Always,
51:02
Raj Shah: That's cool.
51:02
Raj Shah: And your eyeliner is on point.
51:08
Vanessa Vakharia: honestly does look really good today.
51:09
Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you.
51:10
Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, final two questions.
51:11
Vanessa Vakharia: Number one, if you could change one thing about the way math is taught in schools, what would it be?
51:17
Raj Shah: No assessments,
51:18
Vanessa Vakharia: Shit.
51:18
Vanessa Vakharia: All right.
51:19
Vanessa Vakharia: Number two.
51:20
Vanessa Vakharia: Someone's like, Raj, I love your work, that's so cool, whatever.
51:23
Vanessa Vakharia: But the thing is, I'm just not a math person.
51:25
Vanessa Vakharia: What do you say?
51:27
Raj Shah: No such thing as a math person.
51:30
Vanessa Vakharia: Quick, efficient.
51:31
Vanessa Vakharia: I loved it.
51:32
Raj Shah: You've bought into a fake idea that doesn't exist.
51:35
Vanessa Vakharia: And on that note, everyone, that's a wrap.
51:39
Vanessa Vakharia: That was great.
51:40
Vanessa Vakharia: I loved it.
51:41
Raj Shah: too much fun.
51:44
Vanessa Vakharia: Can we just talk about that moment for a second?
51:47
Vanessa Vakharia: Like Raj literally said he couldn't remember the lyrics, and then the second he heard that one musical cue, he suddenly could, I swear, every time I re-listened to that clip, I get goosebumps because I watched it happen.
51:58
Vanessa Vakharia: Like I saw in his face that hesitation, that flicker of recognition and then like, boom, he went for it.
52:04
Vanessa Vakharia: It was this perfect human reminder that memory and meaning are not separate, they feed each other.
52:09
Vanessa Vakharia: And I know this might sound like a stretch, but I think this was such a perfect analogy for how we can help students overcome math anxiety.
52:17
Vanessa Vakharia: Some kids have no problem recalling facts under pressure, but others draw a blank, even if deep down they really know the answers.
52:23
Vanessa Vakharia: They need a little nudge.
52:25
Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe it's the pressure of time, like maybe it's social anxiety.
52:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe it's this internal, I know I know this, I know, I know this, like, what's wrong with me, why can't I remember?
52:33
Vanessa Vakharia: But if we allow students a little cue, whatever personal helping hand they need, they can break through those walls.
52:40
Vanessa Vakharia: And before you know it, they're singing John Legend live on a podcast.
52:44
Vanessa Vakharia: I don't know.
52:45
Vanessa Vakharia: I loved every direction this conversation went, and I was so inspired by how thoughtful and hopeful Raj is and how much faith he has in everyone to find meaning in what they're learning.
52:54
Vanessa Vakharia: So here is your Math Therapy homework this week.
52:57
Vanessa Vakharia: Think about the last time something finally made sense, like really clicked for you.
53:02
Vanessa Vakharia: What made that happen?
53:03
Vanessa Vakharia: Was it the pattern?
53:04
Vanessa Vakharia: Was it the story, the why behind it?
53:07
Vanessa Vakharia: And now I want you to bring that energy into your next math class and see what kind of magic happens.
53:12
Vanessa Vakharia: And if that moment with Raj hit you like it hit me, share this episode.
53:16
Vanessa Vakharia: Send it to a teacher who's struggling to connect with a student, a parent who's trying to help their kid find meaning in their homework, or literally anyone who's ever thought, I'm just not a math person.
53:27
Vanessa Vakharia: And you guys know the drill.
53:28
Vanessa Vakharia: Text the podcast.
53:29
Vanessa Vakharia: DM me on Instagram@themathguru, or email me at vanessa@themathguru.ca.
53:34
Vanessa Vakharia: Links for all of that are in the show notes.
53:36
Vanessa Vakharia: Tell me what this brought up for you, I love hearing from you guys.
53:39
Vanessa Vakharia: And remember, my book Math Therapy is now available on all audiobook platforms narrated by me, and my Math Therapy merch line is out.
53:47
Vanessa Vakharia: So head to maththerapy.com/merch and get yourself something cute.
53:51
Vanessa Vakharia: Until next week, xo xo.