Episode 54: The Art of Problem Solving. A Conversation with Richard Rusczyk.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig
into the art and science behindkindling, the motivation,
curiosity and mental well-beingof the young humans in our lives
.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Together, we'll discover practical tools and
strategies you can use to helpkids unlock their full potential
and become the strongestversion of their future selves.
I am really bad at math.

(00:31):
That is something I tell myselfa lot.
Katie, what about you?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I also tell myself that I'm bad at math.
It's a big limiting belief thatI have and I don't wish it upon
my kids and I'm having a hardtime facilitating that for them,
coming from where I've been,and so I'm really excited about
our conversation today becausewe're talking to the founder of
Art of Problem Solving, beastAcademy.
This is a very common, likevery popular, math curriculum

(01:01):
and the guy that runs it is likenot just your average
curriculum creator, like he'sand he's brilliant.
Yeah, it's crazy, he's so smartlet me tell you a little bit
more about richard resick.
He's the founder of art ofproblem solving.
I started that in 2003.
He wanted to create aninteractive educational
opportunity for avid mathstudents.

(01:21):
The art of problem solving nowreaches hundreds of thousands of
high potential math students.
The Art of Problem Solving nowreaches hundreds of thousands of
high potential math studentsevery year through its learning
centers, online schools, books,websites and online learning
systems.
Richard authored or co-authoredseven math textbooks and was
one of the co-creators of theMandelbrot competition which is
something that I've never heardof before, so I'm going to have
to Google that and he's a pastdirector of the USA Mathematical

(01:44):
Talent Search.
Richard was a participant inNational Math Counts, a
three-time participant in theMath Olympiad Summer Program and
a USA Mathematical Olympiadwinner in 1989.
He graduated from PrincetonUniversity in 1993.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Hold on.
Before we get to theconversation, mandelbrot
competition.
I listened to a podcast thatRichard was on and Mandelbrot
was like a mathematician andthis was back in like the
nineties.
And he picked up, uh, went to apay phone and found the guy's
phone number to ask him if hecan use his name for the
competition.
And he told him yes.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Wow, that's really awesome.
All right, well, let's talk toRichard.
So we want to get started hereby hearing a little bit about
your background.
Can you tell us about, like,your math education journey?
What brought you into this work?
Why are you so passionate aboutmath and kind of like what your
big?
Why is?
What change are you trying tomake in the math world?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
All right.
Well, when I was a student Iwas always really interested in
learning.
My mom was a first gradeteacher so I started reading
pretty early because shepracticed on me.
But she also saw that I wasvery interested in math.
So when I was in middle schoolthere was a new math competition
that came out.
It was called Math Counts andshe read about it in the
newspaper and she went to theschool and said I think my son
will really enjoy doing this.

(02:56):
And it turns out she was right.
A teacher there invested a lotof time in me and some other
students and brought us to thefirst math competition, the
first math counts competition inthat area, which was the first
math competition I ever went to.
That was the first place whereI was in a room full of other
students who were a whole lotlike me.
They read the same books, theylaughed at the same jokes, they

(03:17):
enjoyed the same sorts of things.
It was the first time when Istarted to really realize that
this thing that I really enjoyeddoing and was kind of good at
might have value in a broaderworld, because there were also
other adults at this mathcompetition who weren't required
by being my parent or being myteacher to be happy about what I
could do with mathematics.

(03:39):
So that gave me a signal,because before that all I had
ever gotten that signal for orseen that signal I never got
this signal was basketball.
Basketball was very important inmy middle school.
You can't see me, I'm aboutfive seven.
Basketball was not going to bein my school, but it's math
competition.
I started to find my people anddidn't have any idea then that

(04:01):
you know, fast forward 15 yearsevery professional space I would
enter would be full of thosesorts of people.
You know you don't see thatwhen you're in middle school,
all you see is how importantbasketball is.
It was more of the same.
So I went to high school inNorthern Alabama.
I went to a high school that Ilike to describe as aggressively
, average, aggressively average.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
So our high school, maybe two thirds of us graduated
, maybe 10, 15% went straight tofour-year college.
So you know, there weren't awhole lot of other students like
me.
There were a few, but thereweren't many.
But there was.
There was a teacher there, gwenSnoddy is her name.
She would bring a handful of usto competitions all over
Alabama and then eventually allover the Southeast where I would

(04:46):
again get to meet a lot of usto competitions all over Alabama
and then eventually all overthe southeast where I would
again get to meet a lot ofpeople who would, many of whom,
or some of whom, are still myclosest friends, people that I
met through these events.
But I didn't really understandthe importance of what I was
doing in all of thesecompetitions until I went to
college.
So in college I went toPrinceton and you've heard me
describe my high school.
I was really worried aboutcompeting against students who

(05:09):
went to Thomas Jefferson youknow these high powered magnet
schools or went to Exeter, youknow these, these fancy, wealthy
private schools.
I was worried about competingwith them because they probably
had all this specializedtraining that I didn't have.
You know, the only specializedtraining I had of any sort was.
I went to a couple summer campsfor mathematics, but other than
that it was mostly just workingon old math contest problems by

(05:33):
myself.
But what I saw in college wasthat I had it backwards, I had
the specialized training thatthe other students didn't have,
and it was from all of that timethat I spent working on
problems that I didn't know howto solve.
And so it wasn't the work thatI'd done in school that had
prepared me for college.

(05:53):
It was the work I'd doneoutside school, being challenged
with problems that I had neverseen before, and that's what I
refer to as problem solving issolving problems that you've
never seen before.
So it was that experience inthe first and it happened right
away.
Right away in college I saw thatso many students really
struggling because in collegethe way the tests work is it's

(06:17):
four or five problems, you'vegot three hours, the problems
don't look anything like thehomework.
Well, that's what the hardestmath contests are like there are
five problems, you've got threeor four hours, and the problems
don't look like anything you'veseen before.
You have to find a way throughthem.
But in most of middle schooland high school pretty much
everywhere tests look exactlylike the homework, but with the
numbers changed.

(06:37):
So I'd had this experience offiguring out how to overcome
fear and how to apply the basicideas I knew to solve harder
problems.
And what I found in college isthat this skill transferred.
So while I had learned it inmath, I could take that same
skill and apply it in physics,chemistry, economics, philosophy

(06:58):
, computer science, engineering.
It was all basically the samegame Take basic ideas that you
understand and combine them innovel ways to solve problems
that you haven't seen before.
And that's where I started torealize this stuff that I, these
skills that I developed in mathcontests.
They're really valuable.
Why do students have to waituntil math contests to see that?

(07:19):
And that's what inspired me tostart to bring this to more
students.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's amazing.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat the art of problem solving
is, and then, yeah, like justwe'll just leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I've got a lot of follow up questions.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
But what is the art of problem solving so?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
I mean our mission is to discover, inspire and train
the great problem solvers of thenext generation.
So there's a lot of pieces inthere.
I mean discovery is not justfor us to discover them but for
the students to discoverthemselves.
And that for me happened atmath competitions is when I went
there and I was like, oh, thisis the sort of stuff that most

(07:57):
resonates with me and I think alot of students.
They may not have thatopportunity in mathematics
because what they're introducedand what they're shown all
through elementary, middle andhigh school is.
Mathematics is the thing whereyou're taught a trick, you
master the trick, you repeat thetrick on the test and then you
learn the next trick and that'sall math is.
And if you can't get the trickperfectly right, then you're not

(08:18):
good and that's a terriblething to teach a child.
We'll come back to that later.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yes, so many people just think they're bad at math.
But yes, keep going.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Where were we?

Speaker 1 (08:31):
What is the art of problem solving?

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, art of problem solving.
So let's discover the inspirepiece is to get students really
excited about mathematics and toget them to see the beauty that
we see, to get them reallyinspired to learn more and to
work through the hard points andto have that aha moment and get

(08:54):
addicted to that aha momentwhen they really understand
something new.
And then that last piece train.
Of course, that's where wespend a lot of our time is to
give the students both thefundamentals but then also the
general problem solving skillsso that we can empower them to
make that same transfer stepthat I found in college.
We work in a lot of differentlanes now because students learn

(09:16):
in a lot of different ways.
So we have now, by the end ofthis year, we'll have 15
learning centers around thecountry.
We have two online schools.
We have a series of books allthrough elementary school, all
through high school, high school, middle school and high school
are textbooks.
You recognize them as textbooks.
Elementary school, we have acurriculum called Beast Academy,

(09:36):
where the books they'reworkbooks, like things that
people recognize as workbooks,but they're also comic books and
comic books.
That's our main pedagogicalvehicle, aside from the problems
in the practice, and we wentwith comic books for a few
reasons.
First and foremost, you havechildren.
You know how well lecturingthird graders works.
Wow, it does not work at all.

(09:59):
You need to have a conversationand that's what the comic books
allow us to do.
The comic books allow us tosimulate a conversation.
So we create classrooms of thelittle monsters and the kids
love the monsters they send.
They send us pictures ofthemselves dressed up as our
monsters for for Halloween.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
And the illustrations are beautiful.
My son used Beast Academy andit's like he loves reading
graphic novels.
So when I showed him that it'slike it's like he loves reading
graphic novels.
So when I showed him that it'slike wait, this is my math
workbook that I'm using becausehe does not do well with
workbooks and traditionaleducation.
We would just sit in theparking lot for hours and he

(10:36):
refused to go into the classroom.
So I had no other choice.
But, ok, I guess you're cominghome, and the first thing that
we did for math was I discoveredBeast Academy and I was like,
yes, this is totally in linewith the way he loves to learn
and the illustrations.
Because you're like oh, we havethis comic book.
No, you guys, it is reallyawesome Graphic novel and and I

(10:56):
learned so much in learned mathin a way that I had never
discovered.
So I just had to interject.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Well, thank you for sharing that.
We love to hear that, and Ithink what you're responding to
a bit there is.
What we were doing in thesecomic books is we're creating a
space and the kids willemotionally put themselves in
that space.
And what we're doing insidethat space isn't just doing math
, it's we are kind of simulatingthe behaviors we'd like the
students to adopt.
You know this creative struggle, working together, being okay

(11:27):
with being incorrect, sometimeslike that's not bad.
Learning, trying new things.
Sometimes they work, sometimesthey don't work.
We get to simulate a lot ofthese things inside that comic
book format.
In a way, you can't do that ina workbook.
Then we also, of course, knewwe were going to go digital
someday.
So that's another reason wewent with the comic books is we

(11:48):
would be.
We didn't want to go digitaljust with, you know, black and
white worksheets, and we havedone that.
So we've created an onlinelearning systems Beast Academy
Online where we have a lot ofpractice for the students.
Of course, we have onlineversions of these books.
We have lots of videos thatI've done.

(12:10):
I think it's nearly 900 videosnow on the Beast Academy
platform and, once again, likewe're delivering the material in
a lot of different avenuesbecause students learn in so
many different planes.
We also have two differentonline schools, one of which is
video audio video.
We started that during thepandemic because we took all of
our learning centers and pushedthem online.
We couldn't use our olderonline school the online school

(12:30):
we started way back in 2003.
Our older online school, whichis mostly for middle and high
school, we teach math in a chatroom.
Basically it's text and imagesonly, which is a fantastic
medium for students who arereally dialed in, they're really
motivated and they don't wantto be on screen, because there

(12:50):
are some kids who definitelydon't want to be on screen.
They don't.
They don't want to listen toother people, they don't want
people to hear them, but they dowant to communicate.
And the other thing they can doin this room is that they can.
They can read much better thanthey can listen.
My wife will tell you that I canread much better than they can
listen.
My wife will tell you that Ican read much better than I can
listen to.
So you know, it's somethingthat was made maybe to fit my

(13:12):
learning style, but the kids canalso reread, and this is
something that students can't doin a typical classroom is they
can't re-listen to what theteacher said, they can't scroll
back, they can't have a sideconversation and then go back
and see what was actually goingon in class while I was paying
attention to something else.
They can accomplish that inthis other online school, but

(13:33):
once again, different learningavenues for different students.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, something that you keep saying, that I just
keep hearing, is that these kidsare really dialed into the
signals that adults are sendingthem about what's important and
what success is Right, andsometimes we forget that that's
like their primary motivator,right?
So like be connected to theadults in their life, to be seen
as good, to be accepted and tobe seen as valuable to their

(13:58):
community.
And so what I hear you beingreally receptive towards is like
building learning environmentsand using lots of different
mechanisms that cater to thatand that assume that that's what
the child's looking for, and Ithink that's really that's
something that really sets theart of problem solving apart
from other like learningentities that I've seen.
Like you really get that, andthat's something that I feel

(14:20):
like we, like at Predna, have incommon because that's like our
primary motor motivator too.
It's just like how can we createlearning environments that
assume the child's looking for arelationship and doesn't forget
, we're not just trying to teachthem tricks and then, like you,
what did you say?
Like if you, if you learn thetrick, you can do you repeat the
trick, and if you can't repeatit, just right, then you're not
good and it's like, oh I, my son, really, really struggles with

(14:41):
math and I feel like even inPrenda he's like surrounded by
the message that it doesn'tmatter if you get that one
problem wrong.
It's like the creative problemsolving and the persisting.
But it's like it's still reallyhard to get kids to believe
that unless you're likesignaling that in a lot of

(15:02):
different ways.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, you need to model it.
And that's one thing forparents is you said this really
well that the kids are verytuned into what their parents
think and what their kid, whattheir parents value.
So if you're sending the signalthat they're supposed to get
every single question right, oh,they're going to have a hard
time with getting one wrong hereor there, and like if they're

(15:23):
getting every single questionright, that just means they're
not learning efficiently enough.
They're not being challenged, sowe don't even want them to be
in a world where they're gettingevery single question, right,
right?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Or even what testing cultivates.
Take the test once you don't dowell, and then you're just
moving on.
In a traditional classroom andyou mentioned multiple times you
have I've mastered finding allthe different avenues and all
the different ways that eachunique child learns.
And what I keep hearing in yourstory, and what has translated

(15:53):
into the art of problem solving,is the science of intrinsic
motivation.
You said I found my people thatis related personal and
autonomy and working on it onyour own, and so then you've
taken that and translated itinto a company to reach

(16:13):
thousands of kids, which is socool.
And you did teach for a littlewhile as well, right?
How'd that go.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Well, so I dropped out of grad school because I
wanted to be a math teacher.
So then I taught.
I was a high school mathteacher for one semester One
semester, so solid effort.
Yeah, I was 22.
I'm 52 now, so you can imaginewhat I looked like when I was 22
.
Um, it did not go.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Like the students.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
So the first day I'm in there, I'm up there at the
board.
You know, I started in themiddle of the year.
I'm trying to teach and thekids are like what's the new kid
doing?
Pretending to be the teacher?

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Oh, no, that's hard, yeah it was.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
But I mean there were some students that I could
really reach.
So I had, I had an honors classand those students were a lot
like me.
They were still solidlyattached to learning.
All of my other classes werenot that.
There were always in one ofthose in those classes, one or
two or sometimes three studentswho they had the interest, they
had the potential and maybeearlier teachers hadn't seen it

(17:23):
and hadn't been able to draw itout.
I could reach those kids, butthe kids who had already tapped
out on learning I was notequipped at 22 to reel them back
in.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, so I look what you're doing now, which is so
cool.
It's like full circle.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, I mean part of it.
Part of it started then was I'dalso I'd started, I'd co
written a pair of math books.
I started during my senior yearof college and then finished
during this year while I wasteaching, and those math books
were for students who wereinvolved in middle school and
high school math competitionsand these books were starting to
get some traction.
In that semester that I wasteaching, you know, we were

(17:57):
selling, I don't know, 50 or 100books a month, which was great.
It was enough to pay rent andpay for food, so that was good.
But I was also looking at thatsaying, oh, I'm reaching a lot
more students with those booksthan I am in this classroom and
I'm not.
I didn't feel like I wasserving the students in the
classroom all of themparticularly well, but I was
serving the students that I wasreaching with the books because

(18:19):
that was the audience Iunderstood, that was the
audience that I could serve.
So I left teaching after thatand I took a hiatus.
I got distracted, I tradedbonds for four years and then I
took some time off.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Got distracted.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, I mean, it was way easier than teaching, way
way easier than teaching and agood bit more lucrative as well,
but it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, you don't have to discipline bonds, you know.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
You don't have to worry about bonds.
talking back to you, thediscipline goes the other way, I
assure you, yes, but it wasn't.
It didn't.
That wasn't a creative enough,creative enough endeavor for me,
so I left.
I left bond trading and theneventually actually the way I
got started with with thecompany was I started working

(19:06):
with a couple of students.
I'd moved to San Diego.
I have one student locally inSan Diego and another one in
Northern California that I wouldwork with on.
It was either Yahoo Messengeror AIM, which you know.
I mean, y'all are too young toremember those.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
No, I know what that is.
We're not too young.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I do too.
Sorry, we're not that muchyounger than you.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
But then I.
So one day I got the two ofthem online at the same time and
I just put them online in aroom together and it was magical
just seeing them go and Ithought, wow, if it's this good
with two students, what's itlike with 10?
What's it like with 100?
And that's where I got the ideato build an online school.
This is 2002, 2003 is when Igot started with this, where I

(19:52):
could put up a sign and saywe're going to do challenging,
interesting mathematics.
If you're looking for a greaterchallenge in school, or if
you're just bored in school,come here and we'll work with
you.
And it turned out there are alot of kids like me.
I didn't know it at the time,but it turns out.
There are a whole lot of kidsout there who need something
more, and it's not just the kidswho are getting hundreds on all
their tests.
You know.
There are plenty of studentsout there for whom math is not

(20:14):
working for them.
But they have.
They have the aptitude, butwhat we're doing with them in
elementary school isn't isn'tworking.
So I had a.
Just a couple of days ago, we weopened up one of our academies
in Mountain View up in NorthernCalifornia and we host an event
there and I stand in a room, youknow, meet with families, take
pictures, sign books, that sortof thing.
And early on a mother and herdaughter came in and described

(20:42):
to me in tears.
Both of them described to metheir experience.
I'm starting to tear up justrelating this.
But their experience.
Like she was in third grade, shewas sometimes even withheld
from her classroom.
She was struggling with math somuch she was one of the weakest
students in the class.
And now I'm meeting her.

(21:04):
She's entering seventh grade,she's the top student in her
class, she's entering algebraand the difference between those
two things was Beast Academy.
They started working throughour Beast Academy curriculum and
then went through ourpre-algebra and that, I want to
say it rescued her.
Like the experience she washaving with math.
She was never going to have agood relationship with

(21:24):
mathematics.
And here she is, you know,three, four years later,
describing herself as like I'mgoing to do something good
relationship with mathematics.
And here she is, you know,three, four years later,
describing herself as like I'mgoing to do something with math
in my life.
We have the reputation of we're, for the quote, smart kids and
I think the challenge here is Idon't think the world is very
good at identifying those kids.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Totally, oh, a hundred percent.
Because a lot of those kids, ifthey don't have the motivation
to do it, then they see, like somany gifted kids just don't
have the, they don't have theinterest.
Therefore they don't have themotivation.
But if you can capture them ina way that is in line with the

(22:02):
way they get excited aboutlearning and truly can feel
empowered.
Because, you know my son, wehad tried not to throw a mathnas
, because, you know my son, wehad tried not to throw a
mathnasium under the bus oranything, but we had tried
mathnasium and it was just allthese worksheets and it was like
how many worksheets you want todo?
And it was all these rewardsystems.
It's like the more worksheetsyou do, the more rewards you get
.
So my son no-transcript, likeliterally would not get out of

(22:37):
the car to go back, like he.
So those extrinsic motivation ormotivators only lasted a very
short amount of time wheresomething like beast Academy,
it's fun, it's engaging, it'syou know, looking at math and
even your videos, your videos,or you're teaching math, I was
excited about math and I was oneof those students that felt
like, or one of those peoplethat I would say I'm bad at math

(22:57):
.
I would memorize all theformulas.
I would get A's on tests.
I could not retain any of theinformation I learned or even
tell you what I was doing, but Iwas just really good at
memorizing formulas and beingable to spit it out.
So, watching your videos, I'mlike, oh, that's what we're
doing, like it makes so muchmore sense now.
So I think that's a really bigkey.

(23:19):
And so what would you like?
What would you say is the mainchallenge in traditional math
education and the way teachersare taught how to teach it in a
traditional classroom?

Speaker 3 (23:32):
I mean, you might have just hit the nail on the
head, for the main challenge isthe way teachers are taught.
It has nothing to do with howto teach it in a classroom.
Teachers a lot of teachers aregoing to come in and teach math
the way they were taught it.
So this problem just keepsfeeding itself until there's an
intervention and we changeteachers' relationships to
mathematics, and I think that isone of the big challenges.

(23:55):
So you look at elementaryschool and that's where the
problem really sets in.
Again, my mom was a first gradeteacher.
Love first grade teachers.
They love children.
They love reading and writing.
Math maybe not so much, and Ithink that's one of the
challenges we have is inelementary school.
A lot of our elementary schoolteachers are there to teach
reading and writing, and they'rethere because they love

(24:17):
children and they have to teachmath and to get them to change
their relationship withmathematics is a challenge
because for a lot of them, mathwas the hard part of school and
they didn't have a greatrelationship or a great that
right there.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's like we're all coming up through the same, like
trick based approach to math.
We don't really get it.
We don't see the beauty and thewonder in math.
We don't get it like therelationship, like how math
makes my desk stand up, or likehow math was used in the real
world, like you know.
And then you something, um, aquote that I like I can't think
of.
Who said it right now?

(24:57):
Um, but you cannot lead a childto a place you have not been.
And if you can, if you do notlove, like I can very easily
transfer my love of children'sliterature, for example, to my
kids, because another greatquote this is Gordon Neufeld a
child's heart finds something toattach to and becomes like it.
So if I'm building thisrelationship and creating this

(25:19):
relationship of warmth andcompassion and mentorship, and
the kids are like, this is myperson, what does my person
think is important?
It goes back to those signals,right, and the person giving the
signal is like lukewarm on math, then they're going to be like,
oh, they're going to take that,they're actually going to dial
it up a notch, Like every timeit transfers, it gets dialed up.
So they're like oh yeah, mathis not useful.

(25:39):
Math is boring, like all ofthose stories, the narratives,
the limiting beliefs around mathget turned up and then we have
to overcome them.
We overcome them withworksheets and bribes.
We don't try to overcome themwith art and beauty and like
wonder of the world.
Right, because we don't knowhow to do that, because I can't
describe that, because I haveinternalized it myself.

(26:00):
So there's no way that we cantake the hundreds of thousands
of teachers in the United Statesand have them transfer like
love and wonder and likemotivation for math, because
they don't have it.
So it absolutely has to start,like at the fount, the head of
the river, right Before we alllike go fill our water bottles
up like the water's muddied.
We got to fix that.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's right and I think part of the
way you do it.
You just I mean Adrian'sdescribed it a little bit right
here, and we hear this from alot of parents who use our
materials and some teachers.
This is the way I wish I hadbeen taught math.
When the parents or the teachersare learning the math alongside
the child going through BeastAcademy or relearning the math
or learning a differentperspective on the mathematics,

(26:41):
that's where the relationshipchanges.
So we have several schools nowthat are implementing Beast
Academy as a full curriculum,and in one of these schools I
was visiting recently there's ateacher there who she described
herself as pretty severely mathphobic before starting to teach
Beast Academy, and she's hadsuch a good experience over the
last two years teaching mathwith Beast Academy that when the

(27:05):
math specialist position openedup in her school, she switched
into that lane so she couldteach math all the time, which
is something that she didn'timagine she'd ever do.
You know, this is 20 odd yearsexperience teacher, and every
year is this like I'm going toteach math because I have to,
but I'd really rather dosomething else too.
I want to teach math all thetime because now I understand it

(27:26):
and now I enjoy it.
And that that, I think, is theway you start to change these
relationships, is get goodmaterials in the hands of the
teachers and some of them willgradually, some of them will
convert.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Totally so.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
I want to know if teachers will be better, if we
can teach more of the kidsbetter.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Right, right, right, yeah, yes, totally.
So walk me through.
Like you get a student in oneof your schools, or maybe
someone a Beast Academyparticipant, and they're just
like not vibing with math.
They maybe have some of thoselimiting beliefs Like how do you
guys go about getting kidsexcited to learn math?

Speaker 3 (28:04):
to learn math.
Yeah, there are a few.
I mean, there are a fewdifferent things, a few
different strategies.
One can try One is get around.
Get them around other kids whoare excited about math.
That can help.
But you have first you have tofigure out where their level is.
And sometimes that's tough,because sometimes you've got a,
you've got a parent with aseventh grader and they're like
my student should be learningalgebra and you're like, no,
your student should maybe doBeast Academy 4 and Beast

(28:27):
Academy 5.
They'll go through it prettyquick.
A lot of it will be review, butthey'll be rebuilding their
foundations and then they'll beable to go faster later.
So, finding the right level,being willing to maybe place
down a level, maybe even twolevels.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's an amazing moment where you, as a parent,
right there, like this is asignaling moment.
It's like, and is this aproblem?
And am I disappointed?
Are we frustrated with this notbeing where we're supposed to
be?
Or is this a moment where thatparent can sit in that spot and
be like awesome, I'm so excitedthat you're going to get what
you need.
And like I love you and I'mjust as warm and excited with

(29:03):
you as if you had.
Like we're on level right.
Like that is a big, powerfulmoment that we sit in as parents
and it's hard as parents tohear that your kids are behind.
We see this at Prenda all of thetime, because we do adaptive
diagnostic testing and placementand make sure that kids we
don't we literally don't carehow old you are, like we only
care what you need to know nextand we want to match you with

(29:25):
that as soon as possible, sothat your learning minutes we
call it their learning frontier.
You know all of your learningminutes can be spent at your
learning frontier, becausethat's when your learning is the
most effective and efficientand that's when you experience
the most amount of competenceand that's where we retrain
these limiting beliefs.
And then we have time, becausethat learning is so much more
efficient and effective.
We can go outside and playright.

(29:45):
We don't need this big, big,long, long sit in your seat
eight hour school days, causeit's like if we can get where
you're going make some progress,like go play baseball, it's
great, go play basketball.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Go play basketball.
I think labeling them withlevels too, and numbers versus
grades I think is so helpful aswell, cause we've done a lot of
different math curriculums andright start is one of them too.
It's like letters instead ofgrades, cause my son he's twice
exceptional and can be, you know, have some rigid thinking and
we've been working on hiscognitive flexibility.
He'll say well, I'm supposed tobe in this grade and he tests

(30:21):
many grade levels aheadtypically, but there are always
holes, right.
So I'm like well, you're onlevel G, it's not even you're on
4A or 4B.
So I think that helps to undosome of the shoulds and where we
should be and look at thatindividual, unique child and
place them where they are tohelp that.
Because if they're working at alevel that they're not ready

(30:43):
for, or if it's too like they'reway more advanced, like what
they're thinking, then how areyou going to empower that child?

Speaker 3 (30:51):
When we originally released Beast Academy, the
cover was grade one, grade two,grade three, grade four.
And then we had some teacherscome back to us and said you
know, if you change that gradeto level, I'll be able to use
this with a lot more students.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, powerful.
What are the other excitingways that you get kids excited
about learning?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
To show them surprising things.
Once you, once you start to getthem to engage with any sorts of
questions like there are a lotof things in math that are
really, really surprising, andthat if you can get kids to see
some of those and start to getcurious about why some of those
things are true, or just thefact that they know them and
their parents don't, that's kindof fun as well.

(31:30):
So that's another one Answeringthe why question being able to
explain to them why these thingsare the way they are.
There are kids out there whowill get very frustrated with
not knowing why.
They may not communicate that,they may not enunciate that, but
they will be shutting downbecause they're just doing this

(31:52):
routine but they don'tunderstand why it works.
Okay, I stack the numbers up, Iadd the ones in this column and
then I take the extra numberand I put it here and I like
that's not terribly motivating,but when you get them to really
understand the why, why thesetools work the way they do, that
can really turn it on.
Another, of course, is justbeing excited about it yourself.
It's not now we have to do math.

(32:15):
It's now we get to do math.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, and just as I say, you bring so much energy in
your videos, which I think is areally key component to get
kids excited, because if you'reexcited and you're like look how
this works, like it's so fun,because then you see that same
energy.
Even though it's a screen andyou're not here in my living
room, it still comes through thescreen and it's really exciting

(32:40):
.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
So follow up question to this what do you mean when
you say teach math throughproblem solving?
Like, how is it different?
How, like we kind of paintedthe picture of the trick base,
like, how is this different?
What does the approach looklike?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
The approach looks different because we lead with
problems.
We ask the students questions.
So in a lot of our classes orall of our classes, but a lot of
the time the teacher doesn'tstart by telling the students
stuff.
The teacher starts by askingquestions and the students
answer.
The students work throughproblems.
The teacher should be askingquestions more than giving

(33:14):
answers.
At the end, the teacher comesback through and summarizes Okay
, this is what we learned andthis is.
These are the main lessons we'regoing to draw from it, but the
goal there is to get thestudents to make a lot of leaps.
They won't make every singleone, and they might need to be
led pretty close to the waterbefore they can drink, but the
ones that they discoverthemselves.
Then it becomes their mathinstead of math that's been

(33:36):
handed to them.
It also gets them.
It gives them some practice inthe actual experience of
learning and discovering newthings.
Gives them some practice in theactual experience of learning
and discovering new things, andthat, I think, is the critical
thing we need to teach thesestudents, because that's the
human thing that we still get todo, when AI is doing everything
else Regurgitating old stuff.

(33:57):
Computers are way, way betterat it than humans will ever be.
So if we set students up withthat, we're setting them up to
compete with computers, which isguaranteed to set them up for
failure.
We need to train them for humanthings, but we need to get
practice, otherwise they'regoing to be formula memorizers.
I was as well, so that was theway I approached mathematics all

(34:19):
the way until I got to thehighest level of competitions.
I could memorize my way througha lot of the levels of
competitions, but there was alevel, at the Olympiad level,

(34:47):
where you had to write proofsfor things.
It took me two years to be ableto solve any of the problems't
solve a single problem for twoyears that I did this, and
that's when I had to go back andrelearn most of my mathematics
from a lens of not what is true,but why is it true.
And it was that shift.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
I'm curious Do you think it's important that kids
are memorizing math facts andmultiplication, because you're
talking about AI and tools andcalculators and things like that
, and so I'm just curious whatyour thoughts are they?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
need to know some math facts.
They need to know some.
In my perfect world, a studentdoesn't get a calculator until
they can prove the quadraticformula.
It is not my perfect worldanymore, and that's not because
we want this.
Math is a great tool to learnhow to solve new problems.
That's its power.
When I'm teaching math, I'm notteaching math.

(35:34):
When I'm teaching math, I'mteaching everything, and that's
the goal.
The goal is not for them tolearn the mathematics.
The goal is for them to learnhow to learn, and when you give
them a calculator, you're takingaway that opportunity.
You're taking away thatopportunity.
They'll have their calculatorto punch the numbers in and
they'll get the answer.
What they're learning is thealgorithm of the things to punch

(35:56):
to get the answer, and by thetime they're actually doing
problem solving, the problemsare really, really hard.
We could start with easierproblems and take away the
calculator, and they're going tohave to reason their way
through.
Now you talked about memorizingmath facts.
Just about the only thingthat's worth memorizing is a
multiplication table, and that'snot that many math facts we

(36:16):
don't want them memorizing.
5 plus 7 is 12.
They should develop a numbersense to do that.
But 5 times 7,.
At some point we don't wantthem going okay, five, seven,
seven and seven is 14, 21.
Like, yes, get them through themultiplication table.
They can move on to otherthings if they haven't mastered

(36:37):
the multiplication table, butit's there's.
There's not that many that theyactually have to learn.
It's like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, so you're saying my 14 year old.
He still does not have hismultiplication facts memorized.
And I do have, uh, some kind ofa book.
It's like memory.
It's helping you memorizethrough story and there's
illustrations.
I can't remember what it'scalled.
It's behind me in this cabinetand so I'm like, okay, when he
gets home today it's like Vaughn, you do have to know.

(37:04):
Richard said we need to memorizethose multiplication facts.
He could probably go up to five, but it is something that he's
like I don't even need to use it.
But I think about how manytimes I use multiplication, just
when I'm grocery shopping, justwhen I'm really happy that I
had drill and kill and I learnedthose facts at least, because I
do use it day to day.
I don't want to have to keeprelying on my phone.

(37:31):
You said it's really importantthat they see the why, and so I
think that's what we really needto lead with with.
A lot of these kids are so usedto having phones now and
computers and it's like, okay,well, we tell you why you need
to use this and it's going tohelp you.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
then maybe they'll be more willing to do so yeah, and
you want them to have a basicnumber sense, and so you need
that sort of basic addition andbasic multiplication to have
that number sense, because somany things you'll see in the
news I mean the news is almostentirely innumerate.
So when they're telling yousomething, sometimes you can
just very quickly be like, oh,that's obviously wrong, because
if you multiply those twonumbers, you're telling me that

(38:03):
you know, whatever you'reexplaining here is going to cost
$4 trillion.
That's obviously not true.
So, uh, let's not believeanything else we're talking
about here.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
So these are yeah, well, in my middle son, he had
his multiplication factsmemorized before he was three,
so it's like their brains workso, and they're both twice
exceptional, but they just cause.
My middle son is the one thathas done Beast Academy, and he
his number sense is he justcalculates stuff.
He has like a human calculator,and so it's really cool, though
, to see how they learn and thenfinding different ways that

(38:34):
make them want to have a, youknow, or cultivates that
positive relationship with math.
Okay, so let's shift gears alittle bit.
What are some common causes ofmath anxiety you've observed?
We talked about this a littlebit and you said we were going
to come back to it, so I wouldlove to dive into that, and can
you also, you know, share sometechniques to help students

(38:56):
overcome their fear of math?

Speaker 3 (38:58):
It's.
It's almost entirely due to badexperiences, and a lot of the
root of the bad experiences iswhen students are put in an
environment where gettinganswers incorrect means failure,
and I think that's you know,for parents of very young
children is to try to just avoidever teaching them that,

(39:18):
because it's not natural forkids to believe this.
You know, you've had littlechildren, when they're four,
like everything is hard, theycan't do anything, but they want
to do everything.
They see you doing amazingthings chopping vegetables,
riding a bicycle and they wantto do that too.
They can't do it, though,because, or they're going to try
anyway, um, they're not goingto be able to do it because

(39:38):
they're still four.
They're going to cry and cryand cry and go running and
screaming and hollering because,yeah, they are four, but then
they're going to do somethingreally amazing, because they're
four and they haven't learnedyet how to quit forever.
They're going to come back,they're going to keep trying.
We train this out of kids andso, yes, they're kids who are
perfectionists and to someextent, sometimes that's going

(40:02):
to be an inherent behavior, butit's also somewhat a learned
behavior.
If they're told that that isthe expectation, particularly in
a math class to be perfect,they'll internalize that, and
then, when they start missingthings, then it becomes very
anxious and they don't have thisrelationship with writing.
Because writing, when you'refirst learning, it's obvious

(40:22):
that it's hard.
It might actually be hard towrite, but it's also.
There's not a clear right and awrong In math.
Three plus seven, there's aright and a wrong here, but if
the student answer is nine, it'snot and you're wrong, it's well
, let's try that one again.
And this is part of why, inmost of our homework, students
aren't marked, you know, if theyget it wrong the first time,

(40:46):
they get another shot at it.
It's not like you get the bigred mark, you don't get another
shot at it.
We want kids to try again, tryagain and be okay with missing
problems from time to time.
A lot of our assignments youdon't have to get every single
one right to be passing.
A lot of elementary schoollearning systems.
They'll have five problems andif you miss that fifth problem,

(41:11):
well, you've got to do fiveproblems again.
And if you miss the fifthproblem on the next time around
you've got to do five problemsagain and it's torture for the
kids.
So I think that is a big partof avoiding the anxiety coming
up in the first place.
Now, once a child has it, thenyou have extra work to do as a
teacher, as a parent, to getthem over it and you have to
model that behavior.
You have to be.
You know you sometimes do somethings that are wrong and being

(41:33):
like oh, I got, I did that,let's just try this again, not
freak out, not make a big deal.
Oh, I did it wrong, no, okay,let's just.
Let's just do this again Erase,erase, erase, start over again.
So I think that's that's areally big part, a really big
part of it.
Another piece there is get themto a successful point and

(41:55):
celebrate the success when theyget there, like overcoming
failure feels so good,overcoming a challenge feels so
good, and getting them to shiftfrom thinking of it as
overcoming failure to overcominga challenge.
Well, now you've won, becausethen they're going to want to do
it again and again, and againand they're going to believe
they can.
But it's going to take time forkids who have really

(42:15):
internalized this.
So when kids come into ourcurriculum there's a learning
period where students have toovercome this fear, particularly
kids who have always gottenhundreds on everything.
And it's new For students forwhom they already have a shaky
relationship with math.
They're already used to havingsome struggle.

(42:36):
But we've seen this all the timewith our materials.
We had our introduction algebrabook out before our pre-algebra
book.
And when the intro algebra bookwas out and no pre-algebra in
the homeschool community, whenthe intro algebra book was out
and no pre-algebra in thehomeschool community, the intro
algebra book had this reputationof being so hard.
And then we released thepre-algebra book and the
pre-algebra book had thisreputation of being so hard, but

(42:59):
the algebra book that was kindof easy.
And you see what happens there.
Right, they adjust.
They adjust their expectations,they understand what's expected
of them and how to approach thematerial and how to react when
not getting everything right.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Something I really had to work on was not just
modeling, but how I talked aboutmy relationship with math,
especially because the child Iwas attempting to homeschool
could really school me in mathand, like I said, he could do
all the calculations.

(43:34):
I'm like, okay, hold on, I'mlike counting it in my head and
he's like it's this number, youknow, and um or was.
He loves problem solving andloves riddles and and figuring
those kinds of things out.
So I had to really work on howI talked about how I felt about
math, instead of saying thingsthat were like I'm really bad at

(43:55):
it or math is not my thing, andbecause then they start even
though he loved it, like Istarted to see that he started
to have that same mindset aboutmath too.
I'm like, wait, no, you love it, like this is your thing, but
he was listening to me talkabout it in such negative ways
for so long.
So I think that's reallyimportant that we pay attention
to that Funny story.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
The other day I am in a position at Prender right now
.
That really challenges me.
I'm at my learning frontier.
It's not something that I'mlike late technically qualified
to do, I'd say, but so I'm likelate technically qualified to do
, I'd say, but so I'm learning aton Right.
And I had to like calculatesome sort of like rate of.
I just was doing math and Iliterally did not know.
I could feel my brain.

(44:36):
I was asking my brain to solvethe problem and my brain was
like I'm coming up short here,sis, like just like I had
nothing for you, like, do youwant me to do something?
It was like feeding me, like doyou want this phonogram or this
literacy principle?
It's like just blank zone formath.
And so I ran out and my husbandwas, luckily, good at math and
good at spelling.
Those are my, my, um, thethings that I have a fixed

(44:57):
mindset around my competencies.
We'll say so.
I ran out and my kids I have an11 year old and nine year old
boys who are in Prenda and wetalk about this stuff all the
time.
I'm working so hard as a parentand their guides are working so
hard to give them this likethis framing, that it is okay to
make mistakes and that my boysare really close together.
So there's a little bit ofcompetition and the younger one
is a little bit like he will trya thousand times.

(45:20):
He was literally I was like doyou want to be on this like
fancy?
Literally I was like do youwant to be on this like fancy,
like hard club volleyball teamthe other day.
And he was like I do not careif I am the worst person, I know
that I will get better if Iplay with those kids.
And I was like okay, great,we'll sign you up.
And then the other boy, myoldest boy, was like doesn't
sound fun to me.
And I'm like okay, cause he,his personality is just a little
bit more like I don't want tobe bad, I don't want to, I'm the

(45:43):
older brother, I'm alreadysupposed to be like, better,
like, so he you know thatcompetition is is tricky for him
.
So I ran out.
I was just trying to solve thismath problem.
I ran out and I was like canyou just tell my husband, can
you just come watch me do thismath?
Like this is a very high stakesmath problem.
This isn't a practice, right?
It's like if I get this wrong,our company will do like it will

(46:05):
not be good for our company.
So like, come watch me do mymath.
And I was like talking throughmy husband, like we were just
having a conversation about mathand my boys are watching me in
the real world do math at a highlike a high risk, you know.
It's like I need to get thisright.
But then I'm like you know,using my resources and getting
double checked and like talkingabout it.
And and my son was like I thinkthat that problem, like a very

(46:28):
similar problem, was in my mathlast year.
And I'm like, yes, I'm going toignore that.
That makes me feel very sadpersonally, but I'm going to
celebrate you.
I'm like, yes, you are, you cando.
Like the math you're learningis very relatable to the real
world and we really need to havethese skills.
And and his, his math attitudehas been a little bit different
since he saw that, but it was,it was a.
It took a lot of vulnerabilityfor me, like I wasn't, you know,

(46:52):
and that it's hard to lead thatway as a parent.
It it is.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
It's really hard being willing to ask for help.
Like so many students, it'shard for them to ask for help,
particularly students who havecoasted and are hitting choppy
waters for the first time.
So the longer a student goesbefore needing to ask for help,
harder it's going to be.
So showing them yourvulnerability in being willing

(47:15):
to ask.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, any other tips you can add to that about, like
building a growth mindset aroundmath that you've seen?

Speaker 3 (47:23):
I mean, part of it is just living it.
Living it yourself is likelet's go learn how to do the
thing.
So, whether it could beanything, you know any challenge
you're encountering in thehouse where you've got to figure
out how to do something and youdon't know how to do it.
Well, let's go get on theinternet and look for a video
that teaches us how to do this,so to show that, oh, we can

(47:45):
actually learn how to do newthings.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
The other day my husband was fixing our minivan
doors and we have a very commonminivan and he was like Googling
it and you know, like the boysare like kind of helping, like
shadowing him, and he got onYouTube and Googled that and was
watching this video and itended up it was my older brother
in real life that had made thisvideo, put it on YouTube and my

(48:08):
husband had found it and he waslike, come here, those are your
brother's hands, isn't thatyour brother's voice?
And I'm like, yeah, that is mybrother's hands.
How does he know your brother'shands?
His face was not in the shot.
I was like, can't you, isn'tthat his watch?
So then my boys were able tosee like I come from a family of
learners, like we are DIY,figure it out people and when we
know something we can help.
And so it really is aboutsetting that example as a parent

(48:35):
, as an educator, building thisnew culture around, like the
idea that it's okay to not knowand that you can get help.
And I think that the more thatwe lean into that, like, the
healthier this next generationis going to feel around problem
solving and to really attacklife as if it's just one big
problem, like it might not haveto do with math, like you've
said several times, like it'severything right, it's the and I

(48:56):
love that you call yourorganization the art of problem
solving.
It's not like let's teach mathtricks, right, it's the opposite
of that which is so powerful.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
So we talked about beast academy a lot.
You have a high school programtoo.
You have like the online school, but do you have like workbooks
and like a curricula orcurriculum specifically for high
schoolers?

Speaker 3 (49:15):
we've talked a lot about beast academy.
That's beastacademycom.
That's our elementary school.
That's where you'll find thebooks, you'll find the learning
system then for middle schooland high school.
That's actually where westarted was middle school and
high school.
That's actually where westarted was middle school and
high school.
We started with contests.
Then we expanded to a fullcurriculum for students who have
high interest and highpotential in mathematics.
So we have a full strand oftextbooks.

(49:37):
So this is pre-algebra, algebra, geometry.
We also have explorations inareas that you typically don't
see in school, like counting andprobability.
So these are the beginningsteps of discrete math, and
discrete math is the mathematicsthat's kind of the fundamentals
of computer science.
So it's gotten a lot moreimportant than you know your
standard kind of pre-calculuscalculus.
So we've got all that intextbooks.

(49:59):
We also have the two onlineschools.
One of the online schools goesthrough all that curriculum that
I just discussed.
It also has classes now inphysics we're building out a
computer science curriculum andthen in our learning centers we
also have a language artscurriculum that goes grade two
up to 12.
That's in all of our physicallearning centers and in our

(50:19):
newer online school that westarted.
So the flagship website isartofproblemsolvingcom aopscom
either one of them point to thesame place but also as a large
online community.
So we have you know.
On any given day, there arethousands and thousands of
students from all over the worldon the community, mostly
talking about math, sometimestalking about video games, um,

(50:40):
but they're coming together.
It's often.
It's often honestly.
For a lot of our kids, it'stheir first experience of the
internet.
It's the thing their parentswill let them do when they're 10
or 11.
And what they find is they findfriends, they find a community,
so that when they start latergoing to this program or that
program, they'll often havefriends already there.

(51:01):
So that's the AOPopscom.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Then our learning centers are, uh, aopsacademyorg,
aops, academy all one word,thereorg, and, like I said, we
have 15 around the country andthat's are thosea supplement to
regular school or are they kindof like I feel like mathnasium
doesn't open until three becausethey're more like for kids
struggling in school and then weuse that even as a homeschool

(51:24):
family?
Or are they open during the day?
What is that?
They're?

Speaker 3 (51:26):
open.
They're mostly they're afterschool and summers, because most
of our students are also inschool, though we do have a lot
of homeschoolers as well inthose classes.
There are places where we'rewhere we've gotten large enough
that we started to experimentwith some homeschool times, but
generally we find that that thethey end up going to the evening
or early evening classes,because some of them start as
early as 3 or 3.30.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Awesome.
Okay, so this has been such agreat conversation.
I'm so excited I got to meetyou.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
I want to go do some math now.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
I know I'm like okay, let's learn, let's challenge
ourselves.
We can do it, katie, learningover comfort.
So this is a question we askall of our guests is who is
someone who has kindled yourlove of learning, curiosity,
motivation or passion?
Because I'm hearing all ofthose things as we talk to you.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Yeah, I mean I'd say that the teacher that enabled it
most was Gwen Snoddy that Imentioned before was our math
team coach for Austin HighSchool and she, like I said, she
drove us almost every weekend.
We went somewhere in Alabama toparticipate in some sort of
event, but the fosteringinterest was mainly my parents
and that, like I said, my mom,first grade teacher.

(52:32):
She was 21.
Maybe she was 22 when she had me, so she had just finished
school, so she's going topractice all of her first grade
teacher wiles on me from when Iwas very young and all through
my childhood.
Like they would say no to candy, they would say no to toys
sometimes, but they never saidno to a book, and that, I think,
was a big part of my childhood,was reading, and so that's

(52:55):
another thing.
People ask me how to?
What should I be doing with myseven-year-old to get them to be
great at math?
I'm like feed them books, givethem books, because that's where
they're going to.
They're going to learn aboutdeveloping new minds.
I still spend a lot more timereading than I do, uh, than I do
solving math problems, sothat's uh that's.

(53:17):
That's the kind of cultureyou're trying to build in your
homes as well.
I can see all the books in yourbackground.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
I love yeah, I love just imagining that your mom and
that that teacher that you had,like sure it wasn't convenient
all of the time, but I have andthey have no idea like the
ripple effects of like gettingthe kids in the car and drive,
like you know, just doing allthe things that we do as parents
, like your decisions to stepinto a child's life.
As a kindler, someone who knowshow to, how to do that and how

(53:43):
to change a life trajectorythere, like you just can never
know the ripple effects.
So you're now affectingthousands and thousands of
families and kids and even likethat seems like a big work, but
the ripple effects of your workwill be ongoing.
So thank you so much for takingthe time to chat with us today
and for coming on the Kindlepodcast.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
All right.
Well, thank you as well.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
All right, we'll talk later.
Thank you, all right.
Well, thank you as well.
All right, we'll talk later.
Thank you, that's it for today.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode of the kindled podcast
and you're as excited about mathas katie and I.
We are going to go fail we areat math and get better so that
we can learn things.
And I love the fact, katie,that you said you talked to your

(54:24):
brain.
That is just so cool.
It's a little secretary upthere, so let's go talk to our
brains about math and tell themthat they can do it.
So if this episode was helpfulto you, please like, subscribe
and follow us at Prenda Learn.
Katie and I have been creatingsome really fun content that's
for parents and educators andit's really packed with value.

(54:46):
If you have a question you'dlike us to address, please leave
a comment or email us atpodcast.
At prendacom, you can subscribeto our weekly newsletter the
Sunday spark.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
The Kindle podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy for you tostart and run an amazing micro
school based on all the thingswe talk about here on the Kindle
podcast.
If you want to learn more aboutguiding a friend of micro
school, go to Thanks forlistening and remember to keep
kindling.

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