[Music]
you
you
so a while ago I was walking down the
hallway at the Middle School where I
work as a teacher and I was
eavesdropping on a couple of grade eight
boys I do have to tell you this is not
always a wise thing to do I have often
heard things I can never again I’m here
but this day they were talking about a
field trip one of them had just been on
to the local college where he was
learning all about the trades the
different courses required there were
trades people there for the kids to talk
to those friends says to him hey man how
was that trade thing you went to and the
boy responded sounding totally depressed
well I’ve always wanted to go into
construction but I found out that you
need math for all of the trades yes I’m
gonna have to find something else to do
it kills me to watch people give up on
their dreams because of math I also have
friends who didn’t pursue their dream
jobs because they would have to take a
math course as part of their degree and
they truly believed they wouldn’t be
able to pass that course because they
don’t have a math brain and because they
have so much math baggage from their
youth I bet some of you have your own
math baggage in this room who here would
say that they’re not a math person maybe
they don’t have a math brain right I am
here to tell you this whole notion of a
math brain is a big fat lie it doesn’t
exist it’s a cultural assumption if I
were in Asia right now and I asked that
exact same question no one would be
raising their hand because they assume
everyone can learn math have you ever
noticed in our society that no one says
things like oh yeah I’m totally
illiterate it’s never really understood
reading and writing so we’re just not
readers in our household but we have no
problem saying oh yeah I can’t do math
I’ve never understood math we’re just
not math people in our household I’ve
heard that hundreds of times so why is
it totally socially acceptable in our
culture to be in numerate to brag about
it even but not to be a literate part of
the problem is that we have some deeply
embedded cultural math myths
I’m here today to bust three of these
damaging math myths myth of the math
brain there’s only one right way to do a
problem and that math is all about
memorizing because math is too important
to give up on as our world is becoming
increasingly technological we all need
to become increasingly mathematical and
not just for jobs math is a basic life
skill just like reading and writing and
we use it all the time even if you’re
not aware of it we use it for everything
from managing our money programming our
phones parallel parking
so let’s bust some math myths myth
number one the math brain hogwash
humans this is just as true for females
as it is for males are born perfectly
capable of learning math to high levels
we’re actually even born with some
innate number sense the ability to
understand quantity as well as basic
adding and subtracting look at our
history from our caveman days when we
had to track the speeds of predators and
prey the Egyptian pyramids
the first navigators of the Seas the
codebreakers during the war the
modern-day computer math is always has
been and always will be the driver of
innovation but this belief we have that
only some of us can learn it gets in the
way of all of that there’s a researcher
named dr. Carol Dweck who studied this
this is what she has to say about it
people either have a growth mindset or a
fixed mindset if you have a growth
mindset you believe you can learn
anything you want to and that your
attitude and your effort determine your
success we more than any innate born
ability that’s been scientifically
proven to be true by the way if you have
a fixed mindset you believe you’re just
born good or bad at something these are
the I’m not a math person people here’s
the fascinating part neuro scientists
have now discovered that just by having
these mindsets actually changes the way
our brain works physiologically so if
you have a growth mindset you’re
actually more able to learn more of your
brain lights up when you make mistakes
and you’re in that process of learning
if you have a fixed mindset your brain
is less active
it’s less lit up and when you make
mistakes you tend to just give up so
just having this belief that you’re not
a math person actually changes the way
your brain works and the worst part is
we unintentionally pass down these fixed
mindsets to our kids when we say things
like don’t worry I wasn’t good at math
either myth number two there’s only one
right way to solve a problem okay
audience participation time I’m gonna
give you a problem to solve
don’t shout out the answer keeping their
brain there you go
five times fifteen all fit mentally Dada
okay who did it this way the traditional
way hands up hey maybe 20% of you what
about this way anyone just count by 15s
15 30 45 great and what about this way
Oh quite a few that’s my favorite way to
anyone do it this way I’ll divide by 10
and cut in half whatever hand if you did
it in totally different way than what I
showed already right so whose ways the
best way what is the right way to solve
that problem all of them but I bet you
didn’t learn that at school did you you
probably learned one way and that’s
where we go wrong as a society if we can
teach math in different ways so that all
students brains have a chance to make
sense of it they will understand it they
will retain it and they will like it i
tutored a young man named Nathan a few
years ago he was struggling through
grade 9 math and I did a few weeks of
summer tutoring with him and at the end
of that he went on to successfully
complete high school math early and took
engineering at university those parents
thought I was some sort of a
Mathemagician it was a nice reputation
there’s no magic behind what I was doing
I do the same thing with him that I do
with all the people I work with it
unlocks their ability to be successful
in math first I teach them they’re
perfectly capable of learning it I
basically help them to develop that
growth mindset secondly I teach them as
many different methods as needed for
them to understand it
all of our brains are different and
unique why would we only teach it in one
way myth number 3 math is all about
memorizing rules and facts and following
procedures it is exactly this way of
teaching that has caused so much math
baggage for so many people and we have
over 30 years of research that tell us
when we teach this way just procedurally
it does not lead to better
problem-solving skills and it does not
lead to actually understanding the math
so I ask what’s the point then nobody
likes following a bunch of rules and
rituals they’ve had no part in creating
this is just as true for employees in a
company as it is for kids being dragged
to church on a Sunday for those days as
it is for students in a math class what
I see every single day as a result of
kids who are taught procedurally is a
complete lack of thinking that an eighth
number since I was telling you about
that we’re born with gets educated right
out of them and they just become these
mindless rule-followers often not
following the right rules half of the
grade eights at my school get this
question wrong every year even though
it’s a grade four question why they were
taught to light up the decimals notice
the three has no decimal they have no
idea what to do with it that’s all that
here’s another one they think 235
thousands is bigger than 7 tenths
because it has more digits they’ve taken
a whole number rule and applied it to
decimals where it doesn’t belong and
this one really drives me nuts uh when I
ask them how do you get positive 9 when
you add a negative 4 and a negative 5
they always respond the same way two
negatives make a positive
not always folks I literally have
hundreds of these I could do this all
day long I call these rules gone wrong
there are over 500 rules in K to 12 math
is it any wonder why kids get them all
mixed up Tim it rules gone wrong and
they just give up altogether eventually
but when we teach math in a way that
helps them to understand it
use visuals we dig a little deeper
amazing things happen like it did for
Julie
Julie’s a teacher that I mentored
recently and I’m sharing her story with
you today not because it’s exceptional
or rare but because it’s actually the
most common story I hear but Julie was
really good at math in elementary school
she was a great memorizer she followed
the rules she felt very successful
completing worksheet after worksheet
unfortunately she didn’t actually
understand any of the math she was doing
so by the time she got to grade 11
she hit what’s no one is the math wall
the painful hit she went from getting
aids to getting C’s and even though she
had a tutor and worked hard every night
she barely squeaked by and by the end of
it she hated math she was determined she
was not a math person didn’t have
anything more to do with it really
becomes a teacher a languages teacher
now fast forward 15 years she’s working
in a middle school and she’s in a
position where she has to teach math to
her grade seven and eight class G is
panicking she’s thinking how am I
supposed to teach math I hate math I
can’t even do math I haven’t done it
since I was in grade 11 one thing she
knows for sure she is not going to teach
it the same way she was taught because
what a disaster that was that’s where I
come in
my job is to help mentor teachers and
making this shift from teaching
procedurally the way we were all taught
the teaching Y those procedures actually
work the Julie starts by watching the
videos I produce on educating now
learning why the math works and how to
use visuals to dig a little deeper then
I come in and modeled with some lessons
for her in our class I love this part
because what I saw was that Julie’s
journey so closely mirrored my own as
well as so many other teachers that I’ve
worked with over the past ten years
Julie saw that when we use visuals and
we focus on why the math works it leads
to a deeper understanding like this
simple example Y 7/10 is greater than
2700 even though it has less digits at
the end of lessons her whole face would
light up she’d be like this is so cool
I love this I even caught her nudging
students sometimes going did you know
that’s why we did that
for the first time in her life she
actually understood all of those
procedures she had so diligently
memorized in her youth and she saw the
beauty in math she realized it was
actually a web of connections and
relationships and that it actually did
make sense and that it was relevant
I found it useful in her own life she
was able to understand her finances
better and she could do things like
mentally calculate percentages to the
shock of her husband julie was so
inspired by her newfound love for math
she wanted to share it with everybody so
she did friends family she often did
this with her dinner party she told me
didn’t always go over as well as she
hoped I can only imagine what Enterprise
with me are like it’s a lot of fun facts
I snuck in a little for Smith there I
don’t know if you noticed a lot of
people think that if you weren’t good at
math by high school that it was game
over I have seen hundreds of adults
learn math anew this way features
educational assistance parents never too
late when we shatter these myths and we
help people to believe and to see that
they can learn math and we teach
different methods so everyone has a
chance to understand it and we focus on
actually understanding what it means it
is transformative it transforms
struggling learners into high achievers
and math phobics into passionate math
teachers at the end of the school year
Julie was given a choice for the
following year she could either return
to teaching her beloved languages or she
could continue teaching math he chose
math thank you
[Applause]
you
you
so a while ago I was walking down the
hallway at the Middle School where I
work as a teacher and I was
eavesdropping on a couple of grade eight
boys I do have to tell you this is not
always a wise thing to do I have often
heard things I can never again I’m here
but this day they were talking about a
field trip one of them had just been on
to the local college where he was
learning all about the trades the
different courses required there were
trades people there for the kids to talk
to those friends says to him hey man how
was that trade thing you went to and the
boy responded sounding totally depressed
well I’ve always wanted to go into
construction but I found out that you
need math for all of the trades yes I’m
gonna have to find something else to do
it kills me to watch people give up on
their dreams because of math I also have
friends who didn’t pursue their dream
jobs because they would have to take a
math course as part of their degree and
they truly believed they wouldn’t be
able to pass that course because they
don’t have a math brain and because they
have so much math baggage from their
youth I bet some of you have your own
math baggage in this room who here would
say that they’re not a math person maybe
they don’t have a math brain right I am
here to tell you this whole notion of a
math brain is a big fat lie it doesn’t
exist it’s a cultural assumption if I
were in Asia right now and I asked that
exact same question no one would be
raising their hand because they assume
everyone can learn math have you ever
noticed in our society that no one says
things like oh yeah I’m totally
illiterate it’s never really understood
reading and writing so we’re just not
readers in our household but we have no
problem saying oh yeah I can’t do math
I’ve never understood math we’re just
not math people in our household I’ve
heard that hundreds of times so why is
it totally socially acceptable in our
culture to be in numerate to brag about
it even but not to be a literate part of
the problem is that we have some deeply
embedded cultural math myths
I’m here today to bust three of these
damaging math myths myth of the math
brain there’s only one right way to do a
problem and that math is all about
memorizing because math is too important
to give up on as our world is becoming
increasingly technological we all need
to become increasingly mathematical and
not just for jobs math is a basic life
skill just like reading and writing and
we use it all the time even if you’re
not aware of it we use it for everything
from managing our money programming our
phones parallel parking
so let’s bust some math myths myth
number one the math brain hogwash
humans this is just as true for females
as it is for males are born perfectly
capable of learning math to high levels
we’re actually even born with some
innate number sense the ability to
understand quantity as well as basic
adding and subtracting look at our
history from our caveman days when we
had to track the speeds of predators and
prey the Egyptian pyramids
the first navigators of the Seas the
codebreakers during the war the
modern-day computer math is always has
been and always will be the driver of
innovation but this belief we have that
only some of us can learn it gets in the
way of all of that there’s a researcher
named dr. Carol Dweck who studied this
this is what she has to say about it
people either have a growth mindset or a
fixed mindset if you have a growth
mindset you believe you can learn
anything you want to and that your
attitude and your effort determine your
success we more than any innate born
ability that’s been scientifically
proven to be true by the way if you have
a fixed mindset you believe you’re just
born good or bad at something these are
the I’m not a math person people here’s
the fascinating part neuro scientists
have now discovered that just by having
these mindsets actually changes the way
our brain works physiologically so if
you have a growth mindset you’re
actually more able to learn more of your
brain lights up when you make mistakes
and you’re in that process of learning
if you have a fixed mindset your brain
is less active
it’s less lit up and when you make
mistakes you tend to just give up so
just having this belief that you’re not
a math person actually changes the way
your brain works and the worst part is
we unintentionally pass down these fixed
mindsets to our kids when we say things
like don’t worry I wasn’t good at math
either myth number two there’s only one
right way to solve a problem okay
audience participation time I’m gonna
give you a problem to solve
don’t shout out the answer keeping their
brain there you go
five times fifteen all fit mentally Dada
okay who did it this way the traditional
way hands up hey maybe 20% of you what
about this way anyone just count by 15s
15 30 45 great and what about this way
Oh quite a few that’s my favorite way to
anyone do it this way I’ll divide by 10
and cut in half whatever hand if you did
it in totally different way than what I
showed already right so whose ways the
best way what is the right way to solve
that problem all of them but I bet you
didn’t learn that at school did you you
probably learned one way and that’s
where we go wrong as a society if we can
teach math in different ways so that all
students brains have a chance to make
sense of it they will understand it they
will retain it and they will like it i
tutored a young man named Nathan a few
years ago he was struggling through
grade 9 math and I did a few weeks of
summer tutoring with him and at the end
of that he went on to successfully
complete high school math early and took
engineering at university those parents
thought I was some sort of a
Mathemagician it was a nice reputation
there’s no magic behind what I was doing
I do the same thing with him that I do
with all the people I work with it
unlocks their ability to be successful
in math first I teach them they’re
perfectly capable of learning it I
basically help them to develop that
growth mindset secondly I teach them as
many different methods as needed for
them to understand it
all of our brains are different and
unique why would we only teach it in one
way myth number 3 math is all about
memorizing rules and facts and following
procedures it is exactly this way of
teaching that has caused so much math
baggage for so many people and we have
over 30 years of research that tell us
when we teach this way just procedurally
it does not lead to better
problem-solving skills and it does not
lead to actually understanding the math
so I ask what’s the point then nobody
likes following a bunch of rules and
rituals they’ve had no part in creating
this is just as true for employees in a
company as it is for kids being dragged
to church on a Sunday for those days as
it is for students in a math class what
I see every single day as a result of
kids who are taught procedurally is a
complete lack of thinking that an eighth
number since I was telling you about
that we’re born with gets educated right
out of them and they just become these
mindless rule-followers often not
following the right rules half of the
grade eights at my school get this
question wrong every year even though
it’s a grade four question why they were
taught to light up the decimals notice
the three has no decimal they have no
idea what to do with it that’s all that
here’s another one they think 235
thousands is bigger than 7 tenths
because it has more digits they’ve taken
a whole number rule and applied it to
decimals where it doesn’t belong and
this one really drives me nuts uh when I
ask them how do you get positive 9 when
you add a negative 4 and a negative 5
they always respond the same way two
negatives make a positive
not always folks I literally have
hundreds of these I could do this all
day long I call these rules gone wrong
there are over 500 rules in K to 12 math
is it any wonder why kids get them all
mixed up Tim it rules gone wrong and
they just give up altogether eventually
but when we teach math in a way that
helps them to understand it
use visuals we dig a little deeper
amazing things happen like it did for
Julie
Julie’s a teacher that I mentored
recently and I’m sharing her story with
you today not because it’s exceptional
or rare but because it’s actually the
most common story I hear but Julie was
really good at math in elementary school
she was a great memorizer she followed
the rules she felt very successful
completing worksheet after worksheet
unfortunately she didn’t actually
understand any of the math she was doing
so by the time she got to grade 11
she hit what’s no one is the math wall
the painful hit she went from getting
aids to getting C’s and even though she
had a tutor and worked hard every night
she barely squeaked by and by the end of
it she hated math she was determined she
was not a math person didn’t have
anything more to do with it really
becomes a teacher a languages teacher
now fast forward 15 years she’s working
in a middle school and she’s in a
position where she has to teach math to
her grade seven and eight class G is
panicking she’s thinking how am I
supposed to teach math I hate math I
can’t even do math I haven’t done it
since I was in grade 11 one thing she
knows for sure she is not going to teach
it the same way she was taught because
what a disaster that was that’s where I
come in
my job is to help mentor teachers and
making this shift from teaching
procedurally the way we were all taught
the teaching Y those procedures actually
work the Julie starts by watching the
videos I produce on educating now
learning why the math works and how to
use visuals to dig a little deeper then
I come in and modeled with some lessons
for her in our class I love this part
because what I saw was that Julie’s
journey so closely mirrored my own as
well as so many other teachers that I’ve
worked with over the past ten years
Julie saw that when we use visuals and
we focus on why the math works it leads
to a deeper understanding like this
simple example Y 7/10 is greater than
2700 even though it has less digits at
the end of lessons her whole face would
light up she’d be like this is so cool
I love this I even caught her nudging
students sometimes going did you know
that’s why we did that
for the first time in her life she
actually understood all of those
procedures she had so diligently
memorized in her youth and she saw the
beauty in math she realized it was
actually a web of connections and
relationships and that it actually did
make sense and that it was relevant
I found it useful in her own life she
was able to understand her finances
better and she could do things like
mentally calculate percentages to the
shock of her husband julie was so
inspired by her newfound love for math
she wanted to share it with everybody so
she did friends family she often did
this with her dinner party she told me
didn’t always go over as well as she
hoped I can only imagine what Enterprise
with me are like it’s a lot of fun facts
I snuck in a little for Smith there I
don’t know if you noticed a lot of
people think that if you weren’t good at
math by high school that it was game
over I have seen hundreds of adults
learn math anew this way features
educational assistance parents never too
late when we shatter these myths and we
help people to believe and to see that
they can learn math and we teach
different methods so everyone has a
chance to understand it and we focus on
actually understanding what it means it
is transformative it transforms
struggling learners into high achievers
and math phobics into passionate math
teachers at the end of the school year
Julie was given a choice for the
following year she could either return
to teaching her beloved languages or she
could continue teaching math he chose
math thank you
[Applause]
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