SPEAKER_02

Hi, I'm Vanessa Vicaria, aka the Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas one problem at a time. Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist. But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. And don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast. Guys, I seriously can't believe I'm saying this, but here we are, the last episode of the season. Like, how did that even happen? Seriously, guys, thank you so much for giving Math Therapy a shot and for listening to the first season ever. So many more exciting things to come, but for now, it's time to introduce you to our last guest, and this is definitely a last but not least situation, because he is a wild one. Johnny Castles, aka J C owns Castles Tutoring, a tutoring space right near us in Midtown Toronto. He uses a really cool approach, just like us, to work with his pupils to ensure that both fulfillment and accountability are at the forefront of the process, which I love because that is something that schools do not focus on, and in my opinion, something that kids are totally lacking, which we will definitely dig into in this episode. Also, guys, JC was basically a pro hockey player at the junior A level and still coaches today. And ever since I met JC, I was like, oh, I get it. He's more of a coach than a teacher. Like his students actually call him coach, which I totally love because hey, shouldn't all teachers be more like coaches, encouraging you, inspiring you, motivating you, and like actually believing in you? Well, today we get super sporty in our math therapy session. I'm so excited for you guys to hear this. So let's kick off this episode. See what I did there? Kick off sports analogy, right, right, right? Okay, whatever. Let's get to my conversation with Johnny Castles. All right, Johnny, welcome to math therapy.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much for having me, Vanessa. I uh couldn't be more excited about being here, and I couldn't be more honored to be a guest on your podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, that's so nice. Okay, so for those of you who don't know, Johnny Castles owns Castles Tutoring, which is probably the best tutoring company in Toronto aside from the math guru.

SPEAKER_00

Fair assessment, fair assessment, obviously.

SPEAKER_02

What I love best about you though, um, is that we're so similar in terms of the way we approach education and which leads to many very long conversations.

SPEAKER_00

Totally.

SPEAKER_02

Um, and the idea that education has so much more to do with mindset than it has to do with curriculum content.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So that's definitely something I can't wait to pick your brain about. Yep. Um and I guess the first thing I'm gonna start by asking you, because I think you had a a really interesting way of putting it. You know, I don't believe in the term math person.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

But since we don't really believe in that, how would you define being a math person?

SPEAKER_00

You know, it's a really that is like a really good question because it's it's one that we kind of get uh faced with almost every day, whether from parents or or from students. Um I think that when you talk about a math person, what you're talking about is someone who's willing to engage the challenge of participating in a mathematics program, not necessarily someone who's good with numbers. Um I've you know, you and I have talked about this on a multitude of occasions, that I think that math education needs to be a little bit more contextual and less content-based. And I think right then and there, when you talk about a math person, the social architecture would dictate that it's someone who's good with numbers or who can do calculus or who can do advanced functions logarithms, you fill in the blank. But what I think it is is I think a math person is someone who's willing to create the context in their mind to engage the challenge that mathematics presents.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. I love it because A, that's a really cool definition, but B, that immediately takes away any notion of the fact that you're like born with some superpower, right? It's that idea of being open-minded and of just being open to the idea that like you can take on a challenge. So, in your obviously your day-to-day, you deal with tons of parents and kids, and I mean the idea of math therapy started because I noticed that there were so many people at every age that literally had like trauma associated with math. So whether it's an adult who like had a really bad math experience and now like shudders every time they hear numbers, or a kid that like is panicked before a math test, or anytime they deal with math homework, there's this idea of like unpacking some sort of experience that has taught them that they are incapable of doing math, or as you would kind of say, incapable of being a math person, so incapable of even engaging in the challenge.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So I want to talk to you about accountability because that's a huge thing that you talk about, and I love it so much. So why don't you tell me about just what that means to you and how you kind of use it?

SPEAKER_00

So, as you and I discussed, one of the things that really bothers me about buying into the idea that you're born with or born into a math skill or a math talent or born into being a math person, is it totally absolves you of any accountability in defining your experience of math. Um, the idea is that if you are a math person, it's something that you're born with, according to the contemporary sort of architecture. And then that means it's something outside yourself that determines your ability to participate. Oh my god, I love that. And there's no there's no power for a student or a 25-year-old person who buys into that mentality. Um what I really like to do, and I sort of touched on it in sort of the previous response, was I think math can be a context that you create, that you participate within, as opposed to something that you're either born with or you're not. And what I like about the former definition, if you buy into math as a context that you create, you're immediately empowered in terms of your participation. You're not waiting on either a switch to click in your mind that's okay, now I get math, I didn't before. Suddenly the onus falls on you to make the choice to put one foot in front of the other. And um, very often that decision has to be made courageously in the face of a lot of uncertainty. But nonetheless, you're the one who has the power to make that choice, and that's where accountability is kind of figures into my dialogue with a lot of parents and students.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so I love this because oh, you and I are constantly talking about this, but I've totally noticed that a huge theme with like our students and parents is like the opposite of what you're saying, right? Like they will constantly, right? There's like so much blame, like blaming the teachers, blaming the curriculum, blaming the institution, blaming this, blaming that. Like parents blaming themselves, being like, oh, I was never good at maths with my kids.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I hear that one a lot. Yeah. This genetic inheritance of math challenges, yes.

SPEAKER_02

So do you find that you're seeing that as like a main cause of why students don't like excel in math?

SPEAKER_00

You know what? I'm really happy that you're engaging this dialogue because it's one that doesn't really come up a lot. And I think the reason why it doesn't is that it allows the people who perpetuate that dialogue, or maybe I'll call it a narrative, who perpetuate that narrative, it it allows them to be victims of their circumstance. The idea is that when you're a victim, what's really nice is you're immediately polarizing the situation as right and wrong. And as the victim, you get to be right, and what's outside of you is wrong. And in some level, that's on some level rather that's quite comforting. You know, my son, he's not good at math, I wasn't good at math, so suddenly your son has nothing that he can do about it. He's a victim of his circumstance, and he's sort of unfairly placed in this curriculum that he has to participate in. As we just discussed, if that's the narrative we construct, our kids and our parents or our young adults, there's no moves they can make. You know, there's no bullets in the chamber, so to speak. Right. Because they're immediately, you know, they're immediately sort of pigeonholed with this complete and total lack of options. Now, you know, the one thing that I think's really important here is that the dialogue need not be polarized by right and wrong. If we're gonna look to kind of change that social architecture, and I know I've used that expression a lot, surrounding the discussion of mathematics, if we start calling that wrong, you get people on their toes. Does that make sense? People start defending that position. Um and and I think to sort of break that down is gonna necessitate a tag that doesn't, again, polarize the dialogue, but it's one that I think is incredibly destructive to creating a sense of possibility for kids and their ability to participate.

SPEAKER_02

So this reminds me of I heard this Oprah podcast with uh Edith Eger. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce it, let's pretend it is. She's in her 90s now, she survived the Holocaust, and her story is crazy. Like her story is fucking crazy, like the things she went through, like she was separated from her entire family. Like there was a million situations in which she almost died and could have made the choice to become a victim of her circumstance. Yes. And anyways, the entire book is about this idea of using um using your circumstance to to kind of like challenge you, I guess. I mean, and that's that's actually that seems like a really trivial way to put it, but her whole book is about choosing to be a victim or not. Totally. Like the idea that there are so many points in which you could choose to be a victim, or you could choose to take that victimhood and that circumstance to empower you and to strengthen you. So I feel like we both need to read it because I've heard a bunch about it, and actually someone mentioned it to me this morning, and I I she's she was talking in the podcast about, you know, she'll talk to so many people who come to her for help, and they'll be like, Well, you know, like something horrible has happened to them, and they'll be like, Well, that's nothing. Obviously, compared to you, you were in the Holocaust, and she's sort of like, Look, like everyone has had shit happen to them. Like, totally, we have all been victims of circumstance, but what you do with that is what really matters. And I know this seems like crazy that I'm comparing this to like math education.

SPEAKER_00

No, but I I think it's a very worthwhile comparison. Uh, along that vein, Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning, the notion that there's this space that exists between stimuli and your response to it. Okay. And you're accountable for that. And Frankl was again sorry, yeah. He was a survivor of uh, I think he was in Auschwitz. I could be wrong on that, or if it was I think it was Auschwitz that he he he survived, and he wrote this book about his experience there, and um the underlying message is sort of as you just described, that regardless of the stimuli, there's still present there's the space presented to you, this gift of a space between the stimuli and your response, and you're completely and totally responsible for that space.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, I love us. Okay, we'll put this in the show notes for sure, or both of these bugs, and also I'm gonna order them off of Amazon immediately.

SPEAKER_00

There are like, I mean, they're they're really humbling reads. Right. In the sense, because as you said, it's easy, you know, like, oh man, I had such a shit day, you know, my hot chocolate at Starbucks didn't have whipped cream. And then you go home and read one of these books, and then you really know what it means to have a shitty day. You're like, wow, I'm a candy ass. Um, but I I think what what's so what's so beautiful about those types of reading experiences is that presented in the right context, um teenagers, because I mean I think young kids would would be a little challenged to access that type of content. Absolutely. But but you know, uh teens, you know, sort of, I guess, upperclassmen in high school who've maybe had the experience to face some shit, pardon the expression, um, it presents a wonderful opportunity to explore the idea that you're the author of your experience of life.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and I love that. So I that's another thing I love that you talk about is this idea of either being caught in some narrative that either you've created or that you've let someone create for you versus being the author of it. And I think that's interesting because I mean, I started the math guru probably like eight years ago, and I don't want to be like, oh my god, back in the day, blah blah blah. But I really do feel like now there's so much more of a lack of accountability, like people and and especially just because the way the news is, right? So you're constantly hearing about how the curriculum's so horrible, and like you know, our premiere is making all these crazy cuts to education, and how could we possibly survive in such a situation? Like, how could we possibly do well in math? But the point is there are people who do, yes, right? And it's and I think the notion I what I hear a lot is parents being like, well, if you're that math person to start with, then you can do it. But if you're the type of student who needs X, Y and Z, you can't, right? But that kind of goes against what you're saying exactly, which is this idea where there is this space for you to do something.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And when it when it comes, I'm sure I don't know if you've observed this with some of your students, but um, in a lot of my students when they've come in for for either an intake or a consultation, or even as we sort of move through the paces, establishing that relationship between tutor and student, uh very common there's these so sort of quote unquote um you know non-math people in the chair beside you who actually exhibit on a regular basis uh a fair bit of acuity when it comes to the discipline. And what you really begin to appreciate is that they've exhibited no willingness to engage the process. Right. Um, it's sort of like me saying, Vanessa, I'm total dog shit at knitting. I've never tried to knit in my life. Do you understand what I mean? Absolutely. So is it really fair for me to say that I'm not good at something that I haven't really engaged with?

SPEAKER_02

And I love that. I love that because I also I will often find so for a lot of people, being good at something means you didn't have to try, and somehow it just like it just happened. Like you were born just knowing how to graph a fucking parabola.

SPEAKER_00

That's and it's you know what, and it this is one of the things that I love to encounter with students is the idea of certainty. Kids crave certainty when it comes to um, I guess you could say participating in something. And to just use a sports example, um, when I was a kid, I remember my dad got me into summer training, and in my head, the way I rationalized it was if I do this training, I will make the team. And the funny thing was is there was no guarantee I was gonna make the team. Right. And a lot of kids, and I'm sure you you you face this with a lot of your students, is they say, Well, why would I bother participating for six weeks, taking notes, doing homework, uh coming to tutoring, um, and then have the test blow up in my face. Right. And this is where I really love to create this distinction between, and a lot of my students, if any of them do listen to this, they're gonna be like, oh god, here we go. Um, there's things that you want, and there's things that you fucking want. And wanting, as I sort of define the distinction, is just the idea of sitting in a chair and putting your hand up and say, pick me. And I think, as you and I both know, there's a lot of people who are spend their whole lives sitting in that chair with their hand in the air. And life never really picks you. The circumstances never contort themselves to meet your unique needs in life. Um, fucking wanting it is the idea that you have the existential courage to stand up in the face of that uncertainty and take a chance at getting it. It's the idea of the door being held open for you versus you seeing a little crack in the door and pulling it open just for the chance to get through it.

SPEAKER_02

I love this. This applies to like every single fucking thing in life.

SPEAKER_00

And that's and the thing is, is where I think a lot of confusion and anxiety gets created is kids sort of mix up what they want versus what they fucking want. And the thing is, is I want good grades, but I'm not getting them, but I want them. So what's the problem? What's the disconnect? Where's the issue? Why isn't this materializing for me? So I've been told that if I want it, I should get it. Right. And without that distinction, they sit there and sort of in this in the sort of the ether, in this flux of this is what I want, this is what I'm not getting. And then you start to see the rationalization mechanisms that you've described. Well, I'm not a math person, that's why I'm not getting it. Or I have these extenuating circumstances that preclude me from getting it. It's almost as if people, and I think the education system has a space in this, have failed to acquaint kids with the idea that they're responsible for defining what constitutes, if we want to use a sports analogy, winning the game. You don't have to get a 90 in math. My students, like, I always say, I want you to just be fulfilled. And if the idea is if you're being told that you want a 90 in math, but you're not, you don't fucking want it, you're not gonna get it. And then there exists this disconnect between what you want, and I put little quotey fingers there because you know we're on a podcast. Um, what you want versus what reality has presented.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And they don't reconcile immediately, and that's where I think you and I see a lot of these rationalization mechanisms for justifying that the two don't dovetail with one another.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, this is this is great. This is so good. Okay, so you're giving me a lot to think about, and now I'm actually because I'm also like very particularly interested in how people develop this like math trauma, let's call it. So, like, let's say we're taking this kid that you're describing who wants a 90 but doesn't fucking want a 90, and ends up sitting kind of around a 70. And in their mind, they're trying, but they're not trying the way they would if they fucking wanted it. Exactly. And then they become like 30, and in their mind now they're 30 and they were they've just they were never a math person in their mind, right? Because they never got the 90 and like they tried and they could never get past a 70.

SPEAKER_01

Totally.

SPEAKER_02

So, you know, a lot of people have that experience where they were really humiliated in math class, but they just couldn't understand something. Yep. But there's there's a whole other range of people, these people who like were fine at math, yep, but never scored really high grades. But because for some reason that was the standard imposed upon them, they still feel like they weren't math people and they still have this whole trauma around it. But like, is this making sense? No, totally. Exactly. I was gonna say it doesn't add up, and I was like, that's too much. I can't throw that pun in there. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

That's exactly what you're saying, and it's the idea that there was this expectation that doesn't reconcile with the experience. Right. And in between, in that space between the expectation and the experience, you know, the human mind tries to make sense of it. And very often when we begin to rationalize as human beings, we rationalize from the perspective of trying to make ourselves right. Right.

SPEAKER_02

So I exactly. I think I think all of these students or adults now, and I do hear because I've interviewed a lot of adults who are like, you know, I tried, I tried so hard and I couldn't get it. And then I'll be like, so tell me how you tried.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Right?

SPEAKER_02

And they'll be like, Well, I did the I did my homework every night, and then you know, and you're like, tell me about you doing your homework, right? So what you mean is you got the 10 assigned questions, yeah. You went home, you did them, you got half of them wrong, and then you went and you wrote your test and you got a 70, and you were like, Well, fuck, I did everything I could.

SPEAKER_00

That's exactly it. And that's where I love when I when I engage a lot of students in this type of dialogue where it's not necessarily content support, but actually the sort of mindset support, is if we use the you know, with a lot of uh boys, you know, the idea of like sports and games, it kind of like, you know, really sort of resonates with them. So there's the idea of what does it mean to win the game.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And once they're they create their definition of winning the game, then you can move on to the how.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, I love that.

SPEAKER_00

It's the transition to the how. And that's with the how is where you can sometimes bring in outside assistance, right? Teachers, parents, tutors, uh, someone like yourself or me, someone, you know, maybe in a more of a mentorship role. Right. Um, and that's where you can begin to ask those questions of the how. So And put so many kids, sorry, I don't mean to put you up. But so many kids never define the what so that they don't get to the space of the how and asking the how. Right? So that anecdote you tell me, they have a preconceived notion of what defines the how. I just gotta do my homework. And then when that doesn't work, oh well fuck, you know, hands in the air, it's yeah, the world's conspired against me. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

And I also hear a lot, what I what this is another thing I find is people will kind of use this comparison, right? Well, like Sally over there just did her homework and got 90, and I did my homework on 60, end of the story, and not actually, this is really funny, right? Because I I find that people are very, very eager to claim that they need all sorts of additional help and resources, but they're not eager to then admit that they need to put in additional work. Yep, right? Like it's like, okay, yeah, you're you're different than like Johnny over here. You're two different people. So you need maybe you need additional resources, but also you need to work harder for whatever reason, right? So it's like there's it's so easy to be like, well, I need all these other things from other people. Totally. But not from myself.

SPEAKER_00

And it and that's like a really, like, really beautiful point. Because one of the things that I love to attack with students, in what world, and I don't know how we got born into this, but we did get born into it, somehow there's been this narrative constructed socially that we're meant to go through this without problems. Problems like if you have problems, there's something wrong with you. In what world did that? Become the predominant narrative, whether it's mathematics or science, English, history, whatever, you fill in the blank, but let's focus on math here. When did that become the narrative that if you face problems, there's something wrong with you? As far as I'm concerned, education is about creating a sense of possibility that wasn't present before, very often through the exploration of yourself in the context of problems. That's so well put.

SPEAKER_02

But that right but why isn't that a thing at all?

SPEAKER_00

Your guess is as good as mine, to be perfectly honest. Uh I I I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

But that is not the thing, right? Especially you get from parents and students that like they are trying to eliminate any potential source of problem. Yeah. Right? It's supposed to be a smooth journey.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Exactly. It's just a drive eastbound on the 401, no ups and downs, just four rush hour traffic. No rush hour traffic. There's a ride to go, or you order a Tim Horton sandwich that has no meat and it's just two pieces of bread, and you try to no. I'm going too far. Pretty far, yeah. No. Exactly. It's meant to be smooth sailing. And on some level, we've lost the appreciation for the problem. And when I say the problem, I don't mean a specific problem, but the idea of a problem and being confronted by it. I remember, you know, you and I, we we have a shared student that we had the pleasure of working with, and she was having difficulty in a course. And I remember you talking to her when I was there, and I remember you gave a really, a really eloquently constructed, empowering talk to her where you said, What did I say? Well, you you basically, you know, I'm not gonna do it justice, but you alluded to the idea that it's not about the content here, it's about showing yourself that you can do something. It's about proving to yourself that you have the capability to be taken out of your comfort zone and respond to adversity in like a very positive and meaningful way. And that's an experience. That sounds brilliant. Yeah, like but that was it. And I was thinking that I was like, yeah, this isn't about financial accounting or or you know, again, logarithms. This is about confronting problems. Right.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and and that is, I always think like that's what education should be about. Like the whole point of education is to get a young human ready to like exist in the world without these like walls. Yep. And I feel like we're doing an incredible disservice by removing every possible obstacle.

SPEAKER_00

Totally. And that's and that's what we're looking to do. And it's so funny, you said you know, you opened bath group eight years ago and it seems different. I opened task tutoring just over four years ago and it seems different. Yeah. Like it it there they're as you said, we're trying to remove the problems or we're trying to to picture frame the problems. I mean, I think my own high school experience, like, you know, thank God my parents didn't have heart problems because that first report card I got back in grade seven would have sent them straight to the emergency room. It was terrible. I remember that we got my first set of exams I wrote uh in in sort of middle school, I failed four out of five. Was there a problem present? A biblical one. But it didn't, you know, yeah, it was a problem, but if you view the problem as just part of a process, it doesn't seem as anxiety inducing. Right. It's something that's just meant to happen. Do you know it's like you know, with a new like with a newborn, there's always gonna be like little signal, like you know, the chicken pox. Like, so that's small, that's a it's an iteration of smallpox. That can be quite panic-inducing for a parent. But the context of this is part of a process alleviates a lot of the anxiety that surrounds that. And I think with problems, when it comes to the educational infrastructure and the sort of story we tell our kids about education, I think it's super problematic when you try to convince them that problems are not meant to be part of the process.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Absolutely. So what okay, a couple things. So you you use sports analogies a lot, and that's because you were a hockey player.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know, I had the any other analogies were knocked out of my head. So uh no, I'm kidding. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But it's oh I what I love about that, I think it's cool coming from someone who actually like played semi-professional sports.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but I I find it so interesting because if you use a sports analogy with a kid, yeah, they like immediately get it, right? Like when you're like, how many times did you fucking run and fall flat on your face before you scored a goal? And they're like, a hundred, and you're like, why was that not an issue?

SPEAKER_00

That's you know, it's it's really funny because one of my one of my favorite things to tell kids who are athletes, um, I you know, I'll ask them, why do you play soccer? Do you play soccer to be a pro soccer player?

SPEAKER_02

And what do they say?

SPEAKER_00

Usually the answer is no. That's not at the forefront of my mind. I do it because I love it.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

It's fun. And then sometimes the rationalization I get from those same students if they're having trouble in a subject like math. Well, I don't want to be a mathematician. So why should I have to hate that? I don't want to take that. And it's really interesting that you can rationalize it one way. Yeah. So my thing is, is what I use that for is I don't look to tell them that they're wrong. I look to demonstrate to them that there's a selective applicability to that rationalization mechanism.

SPEAKER_02

That's not what happened.

SPEAKER_00

Well, the idea is, you know, I wish I could tell you that they suddenly go from getting 60s to 90s, but my goal again is not to get them to 90s, it's to get them in a place where they're content with their participation and fulfilled and aware of their role in creating their experience of math.

SPEAKER_01

Right?

SPEAKER_00

And I think if you become cognizant of the reality that, okay, I'm making a choice not to participate, rather than, well, I don't want to be a mathematician, so why should I participate? Also, the second one has no power for you. Right. Or like when I say you, the student. The student has no power in the second one, because on some level they've created a belief structure that math is designed to funnel people into mathematics degrees or math professions.

SPEAKER_02

So what about because I'll hear, I'll hear that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I'll I'm also like, I think about this later in life, what I always hear, like what the outcome of this thought process is. Yes. Right? With math, it'll either be, well, I didn't try because I couldn't do it. I didn't try because I didn't like it and it was boring. I didn't try because I couldn't see the relevance. Those are the three things.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, absolutely. Right?

SPEAKER_02

It's boring, or there's no point, or I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, or no, and I in even in the I can't do it, I'll throw in. Like, I had I'm sure you've had that, I had a teacher who just sort of you know sucked the love out of my you know, I was a great math student, and then one year, yeah. It all fell apart because of this one teacher. I just want to add that one in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So then, so where how do how do we help those kids when you get those excuses? I mean, I have like my response. I'm just wondering what yours is. Like, what do you say?

SPEAKER_00

In in that situation, as you know, and you you touched on it at the beginning of the podcast, is that I'm an I'm an avid proponent of accountability. And and and you know, it's not about being hard on yourself and it's not about being easy on yourself. It's about allowing someone who makes a claim like that to take ownership of that claim as their own. And what I mean by that is taking responsibility of creating that claim. Because that's what it really is. When you boil it down, it's a creation, it's it's a creation, it's a function of a narrative that they've established in their view to rationalize not being able, again, not being able to reconcile the expectation with the outcome. And if you can own that as your own, I don't think there's much of an issue there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But why I think you see a lot of in math anxiety is a thing, and it's not just reserved for high school students as you talk to, it's people in their 20s and their 30s. I think the anxiety really boils down to you might say something like that, but deep down inside yourself you know that's not the case, and then that's where the anxiety happens. That's because there's an uncertainty that gets created into well, why didn't the expectation become the reality? And I think where what my response is is is it's about a series of questions that allows them to discover their role in fabricating, and I use that word, fabricating that component of their story. Whether, as you said, it's I couldn't do it or I got bored or I had a bad teacher, you know? Whatever it may be, there was no absolute bad teacher. There was no absolute representation of boredom in the classroom. Now we're getting a little ontological, but the there you you made a choice there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and now like actually as we're talking about this, like I'm I'm deep into the self-help realm. Like I love all these books. Like I love everything Oprah, I love like you are a bass. But it really is it it it comes down to like kind of the same thing over and over that. I mean, we're talking about math now. We're talking about math now because that's the most, I find one of the most common manifestations of this of the idea of excuse. Like the idea of excuses, because and and actually what I really find is most people don't actually believe they can do anything they set their mind to.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

But if you actually really dig down with most people and you say, This is why I like using math. Yeah. Because math math is one of the manifestations of that. So this idea, if someone says to you, I can't do math, I'm not good at math, I'm not a math person, that is an absolute. You are you are in in saying that statement, you are stating that there's something in the world that you think you're incapable of.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

But if you really say to someone, do you think that if you spent 10 hours a day doing math that you wouldn't be good at math? Yep. The answer is usually, well, no, I think I actually could. And that is the game changer because then you're like, okay, well, I'm not even saying it needs to be 10 hours, but you're saying that this thing you've decided you could never do no matter what, you actually there is a way you can do it. Totally. So now it's your choice, and you can choose not to do it, but it's possible for you to do it. So now you can't say you tried everything anymore. That's right. Like now you can't say that, like, no, I'm not a math person or I'm not the type of person or whatever. Now you've changed your entire life.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, 100%. And it's like sort of what we discussed. It's like me saying I'm I'm shit at knitting. Right. I really haven't exhausted all possibilities. Yeah, you know, I haven't picked up the needles and the yarn, you know what I mean? I haven't done that. Um and and and what you see is when you're able to unpack it in the way you just described, again, you're not telling the person they're good at math, but you're showing them, you're allowing them to discover that they made a choice in terms of how they authored that that math experience. Yeah. And it's again, you as far as I'm concerned, it's not necessarily our role to try and tell people that they're good at math, but it's our role to get people accountable for their for their authorship of that experience of math. And I think there's a really, really meaningful distinction there.

SPEAKER_02

Love it. Yeah. Love it. Oh, okay. Well, as you know, we could talk forever. We've done it before. Oh, absolutely. Time to wrap it up. The two questions I ask everyone on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So the first one is what would you say to someone who claims to not be a math person?

SPEAKER_00

What what we just sort of discussed, I would ask what's the origin of that claim, and then I would ask them to unpack that claim and in a way that enables them to discover their role in creating the claim.

SPEAKER_02

Love it.

SPEAKER_00

And if you're the one who's created it, theoretically you're the one who can destroy it.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. And what would you change about the way math is taught?

SPEAKER_00

You know, what's really interesting is I took physics in high school, and physics was something I actually understood pretty readily because it was so tangible and applicable to my sort of my world. You know, if we studied inelastic collisions, I could understand that relative to two pool balls making con or billiard balls making contact with each other, or even two cars hitting each other. Um with math, it kind of floats in the ether. And I don't think enough effort is made. If we talk about pure content can content communication, there isn't enough effort, and I know how challenging it is for a classroom teacher. Let me be just for 30 seconds here. I you know, I get the opportunity to teach one, two, three students at once, maybe. Teaching 25 or 30 is like a nightmare. Like that is so hard. But to answer the question is finding ways of making it more tangible. I found, for example, if we're if I'm teaching transformations, getting a piece of yarn out and a piece of grid paper and just getting them to sort of kinesthetically move. Absolutely, yeah. I'll use pieces of string.

SPEAKER_02

So you have experience with knitting. You're using yarn, huh?

SPEAKER_00

So, you know, to be honest, my mom was a designer for Vogue knitting, God rest her soul. So she she used to she was a super, she made from when my older sister got married, she was the one who made the dresses for the bridesmaid and everything. They're beautiful too. It was like unbelievable. So, like, yeah, she's she was an incredibly talented woman. So, yeah, there's some yarn probably there's I probably got those the genetics to do it. Yeah, to totally unravel everything we just talked about.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, unravel, oh, you're still going.

SPEAKER_00

I'm still going, you know what I mean? Um, got the chops for it, no. Um, but basically, I think that making it more kinesthetically accessible would I think just give students a better opportunity to sort of solidify their understanding. If we're talking about pure content communication, if I had free reign, the first two weeks of a math course would be about discovering the context you've created for math before you even get into teaching the material. Yeah. So it's you get to establish what you want versus what you fucking want. And then that's where once you have the what, you can get into the how.

SPEAKER_02

I feel like this is a book. What you want versus what you fucking want. Did you make that up?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well that's I mean, what what it comes, well, I guess what the inspiration for that was is there's this show called NHL 24-7, and the head coach of the Washington Capitals, they videotape uh an inter-period speech between the second and third period of the game as team's down, and he has this quote that you know anyone who's a hockey player will like know this. He's like, you know what, guys, you can't just go out there and want it. You gotta fucking want it. Oh my god. And when I heard that, I was like, Yeah, that's it. You gotta go and fucking want it. Oh my god. So that was the springboard for that.

SPEAKER_02

I think you're onto something because all books with like fuck in the title are really in right now. I think you should get on top of that.

SPEAKER_00

I think this is a trend I gotta jump on. Yeah. We could get it. Imagine that Twitter hashtag, hashtag fucking want it. Anytime you do a tweet about like going to the gym in the morning. So good. I just think it could go viral. I gotta I got a feeling on this one. Oh my god. It can't be, it's gotta be fucking without the G. Yeah, obviously. Maybe an apostrophe. You know what I mean? Just that, you know, like guns and roses.

SPEAKER_01

You can't put an apostrophe in the tweet.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so then we just gotta go fucking want it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, fucking want it.

SPEAKER_00

And I think that'd be unreal. People eating raisin bran for breakfast instead of four eggs. Hashtag fucking want it. You know what I mean? Taking the stairs up two floors instead of the elevator? Hashtag fucking want it. Becoming a gold.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, make us shirts. I'll start wrapping up.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I would wear the man, I would wear those crop tops. Oh my god, crop tops with fucking want it. With fucking want it on it? You could buy like the pear acid wash pre-ripped jeans and the ankle case. Sign me up. Oh man, it is 1933 all over again.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so final thing is I have to give you a prescription as your math therapist. Absolutely. I'm ready. I have zero ideas. What do you want it to be? What should it be? Do you have any ideas? Um make me a shirt, actually. Make me a shirt. Make me a shirt that says fucking wanted. Make me a piece of clothing.

SPEAKER_00

That says fucking wanted on it.

SPEAKER_02

I actually really love this idea. Yeah. Yeah. Make me something.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I can do I can do that.

SPEAKER_02

Make me something.

SPEAKER_00

You've seen the way I dress my sense of aesthetic. Yeah, but so I think there's like a symmetry there.

SPEAKER_02

Make me something, and I'm gonna I I want it to represent. I love what it represents, and I'm gonna wear it with pride and talk about it. Do it.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. We're on it. It is okay if it's like a crop top. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

I love a good crop. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I'm in. I'm in.

SPEAKER_02

It has been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, an absolute delight. It always is. And I can't thank you enough for having me on. I love the idea of the podcast and being able to uh to just, you know, as I said, you and I have had a lot of long conversations. Be able to do it and share them with other people is like extremely meaningful and something I'm so happy to be a part of.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I'm so excited for my new shirt. Okay, bye. Wow, this guy, am I right? Fucking want it. Seriously obsessed. And guys, you're gonna die. But JC did follow up with his prescription and made us the sickest crop tops. Head over to our website to check those out, themathguru.ca slash matherapy. I love the idea of defining what it means to win the game. I feel like we all need to do that in every aspect of our lives because like I find that everyone always wants more, you know? Like, we never think that we've made it. There's always this vibe of like, yeah, but if only blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I encourage you guys to look at your jobs, relationships, lives, whatever, and write down what it means to you to win the game in each of those categories. Frame it, save it, whatever, so the next time you feel like things aren't good enough, you can remind yourself of what your goals were, of what it means for you to win the game. Feel me? Just call me coach, guys! Jokes, actually, like, please don't call me coach, that's weird. Okay, you can find the actual coach in this episode, aka J C at Castles Tutoring. And that's not like Castle, like the place where like Meghan Markle lives, but it's like Castles, like C-A-S-S-E-L-S. Also, remember to follow us on all social media at the Math Guru for more math therapy. That's where we're gonna post even more pictures of those sick crop tops and a ton of stuff to tide you over until next season. And of course, a reminder that math therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vicaria, produced by Sabina Wex, and edited by David Kochberg. And that song you've been hearing all season long, it's called Waves, and it's by my band, Goodnight Sunrise. Guys, I just want to say thank you one more time for giving our first season of Math Therapy a shot. It means so much to us. And once again, if you know someone who needs to hear this season, needs to get math therapy, or just needs to hear someone getting math therapy, please, please, please share this podcast and throw us a review on iTunes or the podcast app. Those things make such a big difference for us, and we just can't wait for bigger and better things in season two. And now, this is all about you. This is your chance to tell us what you need math therapy for, what you want to hear about next season, whether you want to be a guest on the show or know someone who would be like the best guest for the show, hit us up. You can do that on all social media or on our website, themathguru.ca slash math therapy. Find us, tell us what you want to hear. I'm determined to change the culture surrounding math. I know you are too because it sucks right now, and I really, really need your help. So please spread the word and let's get pumped for the next season. All right, that's all for this week. It's all for this season, so stay tuned for our next episode in our next season, which is coming out who knows when, but soon. I'll see you guys later.