NCSM/NCTM Reflections: What We Are Thinking About!

Pam and Kim went to NCSM and NCTM in Atlanta!  In this episode, they share some of their favorite moments, biggest take-aways, and new insights gleaned from the sessions they attended and the people they met.

Talking Points:

• Discussing the meaning of "algorithm" with Sarah Bush and Karen Karp, authors of The Math Pact 
• Importance of talk moves and listening moves, with Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz, authors of Intentional Talk And Listening 
• The joy of celebrating someone else's learning from Vanessa Vakharia
• How the Science of Reading does not correlate or correspond with what the people who call themselves the Science of Math are suggesting
• The importance of Affirming Learning Walks
• Clarifying the meaning of the word "procedural", as in "procedural fluency"
• The misleading nature of much of the math research currently being approved by What Works Clearinghouse
• Shout-out to James Tanton for being intellectually curious!

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education
Linkedin: Pam Harris Consulting LLC 

Transcript

Pam  0:01  
Hey, fellow mathers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris sitting here at NCTM 2025 in Atlanta.

Kim  0:13  
And I'm Kim Montague, also with you at NCTM. But I'm a reasoner who now knows how to share her thinking with others. At Math is Figure-Out-Able, we are on a mission to improve math teaching.

Pam  0:26  
Because we know that algorithms are amazing human achievements, but they're terrible teaching tools because repeating, mimicking step-by-step procedures actually traps students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop. Y'all, we are in the Exhibit Hall at NCTM 2025 in Atlanta. Tons of people all around us. And we have maybe some of the best people on the Earth around us. We have Journey members, some are JourneyLEADER members, are here with us to listen to us record this little ad hoc podcast. 

Kim  1:01  
100%. I think we have a note card of... 

Pam  1:03  
Kim's got a note card. I have my iPad with... 

Kim  1:06  
Chicken scratch. 

Pam  1:07  
Let's say, yeah, chicken scratch. That's a good way to describe what we have going on here. We thought we would talk a little bit about our experience this week. Kim and I have both been here at NCSM, so that's leadership conference. And then that's followed by NCTM, that's the teacher conference. It's already been amazing. We've only had a half a day that... Well, how do you count? Like, the opening session was last night.

Kim  1:28  
One. Two. 

Pam  1:28  
And then today. So, day and a bit. Day and a bit of NCTM and off...

Pam  1:34  
What are you doing? 

Kim  1:35  
You said, how do you count, and you paused, and I said one, two...

Pam  1:37  
Oh, so you're counting.

Pam  1:39  
Oh, yeah. Well, I count by twos and tens sometimes.

Kim  1:42  
You do indeed. Okay, before we get started, I just have two notes like to say. Every time I go to a session by Jon and Kyle, Make Math Moments. They're fantastic. I walk away with... 

Pam  1:53  
Our two Canadian friends, yeah.

Kim  1:54  
We have more than two Canadian friends. Anyhoo.

Pam  1:57  
I said

Pam  1:57  
that wrong, okay. 

Kim  1:58  
I walk away...

Pam  1:59  
Kyle Pearce, Jon Orr, Make Math Moments.

Kim  2:02  
Yeah, I walk away with a post-it note of like 17 books I need to buy. I'm so annoyed with them because I keep buying all these books, and it's because of them for sure.

Pam  2:10  
Sure enough. I'll tell you a book that's on my list from a session that I went to. I was going to try to tell you when. Sometime this week.

Kim  2:16  
Mmhm. 

Pam  2:17  
Karen Karp and someone. Oh, shoot. Yeah. Her wonderful co-author of The Math Pact did a great session. They are also the authors of Rules That Expire. And they have a new book out called The Math Pact. And they were talking all about it and kind of help all of us. Sarah Bush, you were amazing. So sorry I didn't pull up your name right away. Yeah, they did a great job. And maybe my favorite part of it was, at the end of the session, I wanted to meet... I don't know. I think I've met Sarah in person, but I hadn't met Karen before. And I just had a delightful conversation where I

Pam  2:59  
was pushed back a little bit. No, like you know where you sort of asked for clarification just a little bit? I wanted to know about algorithms and what they thought about algorithms. And fascinating. Like, I think both of them...I really respect both of their work. But I think we define algorithm a little bit differently, which I think is noteworthy. So, as we define algorithm differently, they kind of said, "Well, it's any thing that you do to reason through a problem, to solve a problem." Which then I kind of pushed on, "Is that a strategy? Is that an algorithm?" And we kind of came to a great place where we agree that what we want students to do is to be reasoning as they solve through a problem. Maybe we don't quite agree with where the algorithms places in it. Where, at least the way I define algorithm. But it was a great conversation. And I think we're all trying to move math forward. And I appreciate. I think The Math Pact could help schools come to some agreement about things to do and not to do as they move forward to teaching math that's more

Pam  3:59  
figure-out-able. 

Kim  4:00  
Yeah, we today went to a session with by Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz. That was fantastic. A whole bunch of us got to go and sit together. And they were talking about working on talk moves. But also maybe more importantly, I think helping kids understand listening moves. Really fantastic.

Pam  4:17  
Well, and super cool because, yeah, they announced that a seminal work I think that is fantastic, Intentional Talk, they've written the second edition.

Kim  4:28  
Yeah.

Pam  4:29  
Or new edition. A new edition. Now, called Intentional Talk And Listening. Oh, golly. I might have... Is that that title? 

Kim  4:35  
Yeah. I don't know.

Pam  4:35  
I'm looking at some friends that are with us. It's close to that. Yeah, yes. And I think that's fantastic. And the chat with them afterwards is to just really compliment them on the fact that they are learners, that the book came out 10 years ago, and they've learned since. And that's teaching, right? Like, good teachers, we're always learning, we're always improving our craft. Really appreciate the fact that they're now giving us even better help with Intentional Talk And Listening.

Kim  5:01  
Yeah, fantastic. I also went to a session Vanessa did. Vanessa 

Pam and Kim  5:07  
Vakharia

Kim  5:07  
And it was a beautiful moment because she was sharing the story about something that she had just learned that she felt like everybody in the world knew. And there was somebody in the room who also didn't know the fact that maybe a lot of people would call a common sense or like common knowledge. And the other person the room didn't know as well. And she told a story about it, and she said, "Oh, you're one of the Lucky Ten Thousands Club. And it was so fantastic, because in that moment, she was sharing that there are... Like, there's a Lucky Ten Thousands Club and how... Gosh, and I don't have the words for right now. She talked about how there are, at any time, 10,000 people who don't know the same thing, I think is what she said.

Pam  5:50  
Oh, interesting.

Kim  5:50  
Yeah, and so it's just... I'm getting it wrong. But the way that she framed it was about how instead of being like, "Oh, everybody knows that," it was like this moment of you're one of the lucky ten thousands. 

Pam  6:02  
(unclear). That's interesting. Huh.

Kim  6:03  
And like everybody in the room celebrated and were excited for this person who we got to watch learn this very common thing, or what most people would call common, in that moment. And instead of being like, "Oh, that's sad," she was excited about it, and we got to celebrate it. We got to watch her learn this really cool thing in

Kim  6:18  
this moment. So beautiful.

Pam  6:19  
Yeah, and I love how you just were really clear there that we're not celebrating the fact that she didn't know something. We're celebrating that she just

Pam  6:26  
learned!  

Kim  6:26  
We got to watch her learn this great thing. 

Pam  6:29  
Like, learning in action. Like, learning happening.

Kim  6:31  
It was so much fun.

Pam  6:31  
 That's unbelievably cool. 

Pam and Kim  6:33  
Yeah.

Pam  6:33  
Nice.

Kim  6:33  
Yeah. 

Pam  6:34  
So, one of the things that I did. I was able to go to Catherine Beals' session. So, she's in State Department for the state of Idaho. Yay, Idaho! Where I grew up, and which is kind of fun. Though, funny, Cathy, because in the middle of the session, she said something about Idaho, and I was like, "Whoop!" She goes, "You don't count." And I went, "Wait," because now I'm in Texas. It's okay. We made up. We're friends. She was discussing that there are some people that are asking about the people who call themselves the Science of Math. And she suggested that wherever you fall in this discussion that it would be good for you to be sort of clear on what you think. And so, she kind of helped us. And this is what I found really noteworthy. And, Kim, we might dive into this more on another podcast episode. She took a book from the Science of Reading. So, it's a rather small kind of pamphlet book. And she walked us through tenants of the Science of Reading, and then compared how really a lot, if not maybe all, of the Science of Reading does not correlate or correspond very well at all with what the people who call themselves the Science of Math are suggesting.

Kim  7:38  
Yeah.

Pam  7:39  
And that was actually very useful to me. I don't know very much about reading. You know, when my kids my kids came home from school, I would say, "How was school?" Which really means, "How was math?" Yeah. I mean, I read. I'm a voracious reader. But I don't claim to have anything. You elementary teachers are much better at, you know, teaching kids to read and teaching them to write. So, I don't claim to have any expertise there at all. I now know a little bit about the Science of Reading, and I now have a resource that I can sort of think about. Maybe the biggest thing that I'll mention today was mentioned by her and by Rachel Lambert at a wonderful station... Station? In a wonderful session that I went to by Dr. Rachel Lambert, who talked about that the Science of Reading is from a fifty-year-old body of interdisciplinary research.

Kim  8:21  
Right. 

Pam  8:22  
Whereas the people who call themselves the Science of Math happened during Covid. 

Kim  8:25  
Hey, (unclear).

Pam  8:26  
There's what's her name. That's Cathy and... Okay, so some people just walked by that I really would like to say hi to at some point, so we'll find them later. 

Kim  8:33  
We're kind of busy right now. 

Pam  8:34  
So, that's Kathy Fosnot and just sort of wandered by us. Didn't even say hi. That's okay. It's alright. She's busy. She's busy.

Kim  8:40  
Oh, there she is.

Kim  8:42  
We're waving right now. 

Pam  8:43  
Well, she's... Oh, she's... Brandon was going to go get their attention, and I wish I could... No, okay, they're walking by. And we should maybe keep talking because... Oh, and maybe she's going to come over and say hi. 

Speakers  8:56  
(unclear).

Pam  8:56  
And here comes Cathy Fosnot who is like mentor extraordinaire. So, Cathy, we're...

Speakers  9:01  
(unclear)

Kim  9:01  
Cathy, we're recording an episode

Kim  9:07  
of our podcast right now. 

Cathy  9:08  
Oh, my God. 

Kim  9:09  
No, do it. Say Cathy Fosnot.

Pam  9:10  
Would you mind

Pam  9:10  
just saying hello?

Kim  9:11  
Would you like to say hello?

Pam  9:12  
You can say hello to our listeners. 

Kim  9:14  
Cathy Fosnot

Cathy  9:15  
Hello. Cathy Fosnot. Loving Pam's strings, and now I call them Problem Strings too.

Kim  9:23  
Nice to see you, Cathy.

Pam  9:24  
Carol, it's wonderful to see you. Would you like to say hi on our podcast? No, okay. Alright, Carol Mosesson-Teig, Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Have a great conference. We'll see you later. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so total mentors walking by. And then this is why you go to conferences.

Kim  9:38  
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Pam  9:39  
You go to conferences to connect and to... Yeah, connect. Connection is so important.

Kim  9:45  
I'm glad you said that because one of the things that is so fueling when we come, right. We have these conversations all the time between us and between the members of our team.

Pam  9:53  
Yeah.

Kim  9:53  
But it's really fun to come year to year and see people that you maybe haven't connected with face to face and see what they've been thinking for the last year. 

Pam  10:01  
Yeah.

Kim  10:02  
There are people that we both communicate with throughout the year and start making lists of like this is what we want to talk about. You sit down face to face, and this is a nice place to do it. To say, "What have you been learning this last year?"

Pam  10:12  
Absolutely true. Yeah. 

Kim  10:13  
It's so much fun. 

Pam  10:14  
Yeah. When I was saying to connect, there was another word I was looking for. And learn. 

Kim  10:17  
Yeah.

Pam  10:18  
Yeah, the connect and learn. Super important. Alright, your turn.

Kim  10:21  
I have one other thing. Or the next thing I want to talk about is I went to a session about Affirming Learning Walks. You know, as leaders, sometimes we spend a lot of time talking with our teachers, coaching our teachers about things we see, and we're thinking about like the one right thing to say that's going to make a big impact in their classroom. And sometimes the thing that they need is no words about what you need to change or do. And I think it's really important that, especially with everything that's going on now. Teaching has always been hard, but right now, it is almost unbearable for our teachers. And the idea of Affirming Learning Walks being completely separated from evaluation, being separated from coaching. They were talking to principals and curriculum developers. All these things about saying there is a moment where you coach about Affirming Learning Walks, where you gather teachers together, and the only purpose is to give feedback about the things that they're seeing their students do that's going well. And teachers like almost can't believe it because they're waiting for like, "Oh, here's the three nice things. And then here's the one that you could be working on." But they literally. And what they have found is that through this process, teachers are more willing to invite people in because they're excited to have you in. They're excited to be celebrated. They're excited to share what their kids are doing. And then, you know, over time... That this is not necessarily the purpose. But over time that they saw that their teachers were willing to have enough people in and the trust was built. I can't tell you how much I loved that session and how teachers need that right now.

Pam  12:02  
And it's all about relationship. Right. What a better way to relationship to than actually getting to know each other by like just observing.

Kim  12:11  
Yeah.

Pam  12:11  
And noting what's happening well.

Kim  12:13  
Yeah. 

Pam  12:13  
I think that's brilliant. 

Kim  12:14  
Lifting teachers up is really important.

Pam  12:15  
Absolutely. 

Kim  12:16  
Yeah. 

Pam  12:16  
So, one of the other things that Rachel Lambert said in... I went to a couple sessions that she did. She did a great one with Kara Imm. who's also brilliant.

Kim  12:23  
So good. 

Pam  12:24  
One of the things that she said, which kind of helped me. Kim, you and I did an episode not too long ago where I poked on the Count It Up, Counted Out. No, not the movie. The strands, who wrote, Adding it Up. There, got it. Oh, got it. Okay, sorry, the five added strands for proficiency mathematics. 

Kim  12:44  
Yeah.

Pam  12:45  
And one of them is procedural fluency. And I've said, "Let's drop the word 'procedural'. Like this is... Why or do we have procedural fluency (unclear)." Fluency. Let's define fluency the way we mean it. We've had a long conversation. I'm still going to sort of stand behind that. But I also now I'm willing to give a... How do I say? I'm a little bit understanding of why some wonderful people in education refuse to drop the word. 

Kim  13:09  
Yeah.

Pam  13:10  
And Rachel explained because it comes from the other sciences that use the word "procedure" and "procedural" not to mean mimicking steps of an algorithm, but they mean that you are successfully accomplishing the thing. I wrote down... Oh, golly, can I read my own writing? Cognitive science, when they use the word "procedural fluency", they mean you have a way of solving the problem. 

Kim  13:35  
Yeah. 

Pam  13:35  
And so, because we have, you know, one of only math education is one field in a lot of fields that are looking at education, and the way kids learn, and cognitive science, and everything. If the literature is using the term "procedural fluency" to mean that you have a way to solve the problem, okay. Then maybe if we're going to communicate with other fields, then I can see why we need to understand what they mean when they use the term. Now, I would offer, if we're going to do that, we would need to help all teachers understand what we actually mean by "procedural fluency" and not what they think we mean, which is having kids, you know, dive in and just mimic steps of

Pam  14:11  
an algorithm. 

Kim  14:12  
I love that you had that moment. Like, rethinking our thinking is exactly the kind of work that happens when we collaborate with other people. You know, they push back, and we push back, and we think, and we share, and we reflect, and we change our perspective maybe a little bit based on the input that we have from them. Yeah, I'm excited for you to have that. I have one other thing.

Pam  14:30  
Alright.

Kim  14:30  
It's kind of a big topic, so we might have

Kim  14:33  
to just... 

Pam  14:33  
Should I do one small thing before you do that, that's kind of along with what Rachel was saying?

Kim  14:35  
Sure, yeah. 

Pam  14:35  
So, one of the other things that she said was the What Works Clearinghouse is based on the IES, which I should probably know. Something educational something.

Kim  14:46  
Mmhm.

Pam  14:46  
Okay, pretend I knew those letters. Anyway they create this What Works Clearinghouse.

Kim  14:53  
Yeah.

Pam  14:53  
Which the intent is to bring education, so that educators are... Sorry, bring research to educators. So, it's kind of supposed to be the bridge between research to educators. And lately, I have noticed this trend where some of the research that they bring forward is frankly, I don't agree with. Right. And they're like the preponderance of the... Oh, good, we have helpers here that are saying it's the Institute of Education Sciences. Bless you, Laura. 

Kim  15:17  
Shout-out to Laura.

Pam  15:17  
Glad you're here. 

Kim  15:19  
Shelby helped us earlier. 

Pam  15:20  
That's... Oh, thank you, Shelby. And thank you, Aleashia. Don't tell me. I was thinking, Aleashia. I didn't even look at your name tag. Did you notice? 

Aleashia  15:28  
I did.

Pam  15:28  
Okay, because I was... Aleashia's here too. We're glad. Where was I? That they only, What Works Clearinghouse, for whatever reason, they've decided that they're only going to accept one form of research. And it's a rather narrow form.

Kim  15:42  
Oh, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about now.

Pam  15:43  
And because they only accept that one form of research, one of the things that Rachel's done in her work is she has looked at... She took a span of years, rather recently, and she looked at education research in mathematics.

Kim  15:55  
Yeah.

Pam  15:55  
Sorry, in multiplication.

Kim  15:57  
Yeah. 

Pam  15:57  
Pick an M word.

Kim  15:58  
Yep. 

Pam  15:58  
And in multiplication, she had about the same number of studies that were done in general education and in special education. And noted that the kind of study... And maybe I shouldn't even have said that split because she did that split, but the one that's more important is that was on direct instruction. And that if it was on direct instruction, it was the kind of research that is accepted.

Kim  16:21  
Right.

Pam  16:21  
And if it was on any other kind of instruction, there was a couple that were mixed methods, but they were all the other kind of studies. And so, what that means is that the What Works Clearinghouse is drawing from is a very narrow band of kinds of research.

Kim  16:38  
Yep.

Pam  16:38  
So, then that's all they can draw from, no wonder we're only kind of hearing one sort of focus. At some point, I think that is going to come out a little bit more. Like, we'll see that being written up, and then we'll kind of have the information that she's presenting live. I'm sure she's going to write up someday. And then we'll sort of use that in more detailed fashion, so

Pam  16:57  
everybody can... Yeah, know that.

Kim  16:58  
I'm so glad you mentioned that session. It was almost shocking to see as she was layering on the specifics of these studies.

Pam  17:05  
Very nice graphical representation where we could sort of see, "And this is this kind. And now, notice how many of these are this. And notice how many of them aren't." And, yeah. It's very nice. 

Kim  17:11  
It's really

Kim  17:13  
unfortunate because it almost feels like special education teachers are finding support for some of the things that are saying about, you know, what their kids  need. And it's just simply because that's the kind of research and kind of study that is being approved, if you will, for the What Works Clearinghouse. 

Pam  17:30  
Okay, what do you got? 

Kim  17:30  
Well, I'm just going to mention that I've been to quite a few sessions. And also shout-out to you because we did math in your sessions. And, you know, I always get a little... I want to do math at a math conference, so I'm super excited when you do math, and I'm super excited when I go to sessions where there's the math, like we're wrestling with math, because I think we all are learners. And building numeracy together in these kinds of conferences is super cool. And I also have really appreciated when people model kids' thinkings. You know, have some some representations of student thinking. But I think there's some work there to be done about the way that we model students' thinking and making sure it's an accurate representation of what they're saying and what their ideas are, rather than what we superimpose is our ideas. Yeah, I want to keep talking about modeling.

Pam  18:24  
Okay. You just said that in a very asset, sort of like there's still work to be done. 

Kim  18:29  
We all have work to be done. 

Pam  18:30  
It was a very positive spin. 

Kim  18:31  
Thank you.

Pam  18:32  
Am I hearing that you saw someone modeling not well? 

Kim  18:36  
I

Kim  18:36  
saw some areas of improvement in some modeling. And we're going to continue sharing conversations about.

Pam  18:43  
Like from presenters? 

Kim  18:44  
Yes.

Pam  18:45  
Ah, okay.

Kim  18:47  
We're all learning. 

Pam and Kim  18:47  
We're all learning. 

Pam  18:48  
We're all learning.

Kim  18:49  
And I think we can talk about it and say like these are some things that we find really relevant and important in the ways that we model with students. And maybe somebody would push back, but I think there's some people that maybe are representing students' work in ways that could be clarified, so that it communicates to the students in their classrooms.

Pam  19:08  
Little loose modeling happening. Yeah. Little... Yeah, maybe

Pam  19:11  
with less. 

Kim  19:12  
And I've been to a million sessions, so it's not... You know, it's not.

Pam  19:14  
Yeah,

Pam  19:14  
if you saw Kim in your session...

Kim  19:17  
I was

Kim  19:17  
excited to be there. I mean, like we chose to be at your sessions.

Pam  19:20  
Yeah, and we're all learning.

Kim  19:21  
And we can't go to them all, so I am sad for all the sessions we're missing. 

Pam  19:24  
So,

Pam  19:25  
I'm super clear that our editors probably heard this way too many times. These... NCTM, fix the name tag thing. 

Kim  19:31  
What's wrong with them? What do you not?

Pam  19:32  
Okay, so at NCSM, you can move all you wanted, and you didn't hear this. 

Kim  19:35  
I totally do not hear it. I'm sorry that you do. 

Pam  19:38  
We were chuckling at NCSM because we were like, "Aren't we glad these are not as bad as the name tags last year at NCTM?" I get to NCTM today, and I'm... 

Kim  19:46  
This is the first time hearing of your frustration. 

Pam  19:47  
I just barely like shift during one of the sessions, and I feel like the entire room can hear me.

Kim  19:52  
Stop moving!

Pam  19:53  
Okay. You notice

Pam  19:55  
it too? Yeah, Aleashia noticed it too, so there. Anybody else? Anybody else? Okay, several people are nodding. Couple people are looking at me like I'm silly. Yeah, okay. Alright. Kim, I did not prepare you for this. But do you have a surprise? Or was there anything that particularly like struck you? That like small, minor? Can I share one? You can think. And if you can't come up with one, maybe I'll share one of mine. Y'all, I got to meet James Tanton this morning. I have never had the opportunity to have a personal conversation. I was actually in the room with him once several years ago. And I was genuinely... What is a good word? Amazed? Happy?

Kim  20:33  
You were really excited to have this conversation. 

Pam  20:36  
And very pleasantly, not suprised. Surprised is this maybe the wrong word. Fulfilled? Give me a word. Because he was so intellectually curious. 

Kim  20:47  
Yes. 

Pam  20:47  
So, not to put anybody else in any of the less light. But often, when I meet with sort of other experts, they'll kind of almost I feel like a little bit of like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good work." And I'm like, "Do you know what we do at Math is Figure-Out-Able?" Like, I feel like we do some unique things here. And very delightful people. They're busy. They have their own work. They're doing really good things. But he was so intellectually curious. And he had read my whole book and had like very pointed things to say. And it was just a delight. And so, maybe I'll just give a public shout-out. That was my... I've had a lot of wonderful conversations. But it was a bit of a highlight to have just that. Yeah, intellectually curious, sharing of ideas with a mathematics education expert. So, thank you, James. It was a pleasure. 

Kim  21:34  
That was fun. 

Pam  21:34  
Alright, you got anything?

Kim  21:35  
I do actually. 

Pam  21:36  
Okay, bam. What do you got?

Kim  21:37  
I'm going to share. So, apparently you talk about me when I'm not there.

Pam  21:42  
I mean... It's all good. It's all good

Kim  21:43  
I know, I know, I know. Alright, well apparently.

Pam  21:46  
Except the pencil thing.

Kim  21:48  
Oh, Ryan Flessner is on my bad note. Because he made me say. I actually texted him, and I said, "You're canceled," because he was talking about how you have to do with math with a pen. 

Pam  21:58  
Go, Ryan, go. Go, Ryan, go.

Kim  21:59  
And I sent him a picture, and I was like, "Canceled." And then I listened to his session, and I sent a follow-up text that said, "Okay, in the way that you want to do it, I totally agree, but don't tell Pam." That's literally what my text

Kim  22:10  
said. 

Pam  22:11  
So, we should probably tell everybody, and maybe we'll have a picture that we'll post on social media, but we're wearing our podcast pen and pencil shirts on purpose because that's silly. 

Kim  22:19  
Okay,

Kim  22:19  
well, let me tell you.

Pam  22:20  
Okay. Oh, yeah. 

Kim  22:22  
I spoke with another leader who said...

Pam  22:24  
I thought that it was that you used a pen. 

Kim  22:25  
No, that was my side note. I'm distracted just like you get sometimes. 

Pam  22:29  
I was really sort of happy that you were ever going to agree with me about a pen. 

Kim  22:32  
Well, I did today. 

Pam  22:32  
Carry on.

Kim  22:32  
Today's the day. Mark it.

Pam  22:33  
Okay, go, go, go. What was

Pam  22:34  
your cool thing? 

Kim  22:35  
So, another leader came up and said, "I just want you to know that Pam always says that you do this for her." Like, this thing that you like, "Hey, Kim does this thing that makes me better."

Pam  22:47  
We're good together. 

Pam and Kim  22:47  
Yeah.

Pam  22:48  
Okay. 

Kim  22:48  
And they said, "Like, I wonder if you would ever be willing to like help me in that way." 

Pam  22:52  
Oh, wow. 

Kim  22:53  
And I felt so honored. 

Pam  22:54  
Aww.

Kim  22:54  
And I love that you said something nice. I don't think you say bad things about me, but it was so... I appreciated...

Pam  22:59  
Not often.

Kim  22:59  
...knowing that you said that something nice that I helped you with. And then they were like, "Could you offer that help to me?"

Pam  23:04  
Wow.

Kim  23:04  
(unclear). It was really nice.

Pam  23:06  
Alright, y'all, let's get from our studio audience in the room, let's get a great big "Math is Figure-Out-Able." Ready? One, two, three...

Everyone  23:13  
Math is Figure-Out-Able!

Pam  23:15  
Y'all, thanks for joining us on the podcast and making math more and more figure-out-able. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement, visit mathisfigureoutable.com. And keep making math...

Everyone  23:27  
...figure-out-able!