Math Therapy
Math Therapy explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it. Each week host Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, dives into what we get right and wrong about math education, and chats with some of today’s most inspiring and visionary minds working to make math more accessible, diverse, and fun for students of all ages. 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 ;)
Episodes
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The Oscars are this Sunday, and to be completely transparent, Vanessa hasn't seen any of the nominations. BUT, she is always ready to hand out an award to anyone blending pop culture and math, so today we are bringing you our 2022 interview with Ben Zauzmer, who has been using statistical analysis every awards season to predict the Oscar winners with math!
Ben is also Assistant Gener...
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Vanessa's mentor and friend, Dr. Imogen Coe, holds many distinctions: Professor of Critical Thinking in Biomedical Sciences, award-winning scholar-activist, former Dean of Science, STEM thought leader, and all-around academic badass. But her finest achievement yet? Being the first returning guest on Math Therapy!
Imogen joined us in 2020 to talk about breaking systemic barriers in STE...
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For the last month, Vanessa and Math Therapy producer David have been in the studio working on their band's next album, and Vanessa couldn't help observing many parallels between making music in the studio and learning math. If you're reading this like "huh?!" ... then today's episode is a must listen!
After a day in the studio with our good friend & produc...
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Today's episode is about storytelling. So much of our self-worth and perceived ability come from internal narratives that have been shaped by stories we've either been told or that we tell ourselves - but we have the power to change them!
Gorav Menon joins Vanessa to discuss the impact these stories have on our lives, and offers three simple steps to take control of them and unloc...
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Everyone’s always ranting and raving about why student math scores are dropping, but are they focusing on the wrong reasons?
In today's episode, Vanessa details some factors that often get overlooked:
- Kids are raised differently now
- Kids are more distracted now
- Math anxiety has never been stronger
- Mental health challenges are more common
- Math feels irrelevant
- The value of grades has cha...
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Christopher Havens is a mathematician with published research in number theory, but what makes him unique among fellow scholars is his entire career in math has taken place in prison where he is serving a 25-year murder sentence. Math was the catalyst and ongoing foundation for his rehabilitation, and along the way he founded the Prison Mathematics Project which provides resources to inmat...
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A lot of brain-related questions often come up on this podcast, like:
- Is there a difference in math ability between genders?
- Is there even such a thing as a "math brain"?
- What about the left brain right brain / math vs creativity debate?
And every time, Vanessa says "I need to speak to an expert about this!" Well, when she heard today's guest on the Mel Robbins...
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Have you ever been so convinced you were bad at something that you didn’t even question it anymore? Not just as an insecurity, but like it was your full identity: “I’m not a math person.” End of conversation.
Well, this episode is about what happens when that story gets completely rewritten.
Sue Besant was a directionless student who was literally & repeatedly told that she would amount t...
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Whenever Vanessa talks to math educator and coach Shelby Strong, they end up saying "why didn't we record that, it was basically a podcast!" So today we bring you an actual podcast with Shelby, exploring an absolutely bonkers range of provocative questions like:
- What’s the danger of defining your self-worth by being good at one thing?
- When does enthusiasm/passion cross the...
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As you may know, Vanessa and producer David are in a band together, and they're currently writing songs for a new album. The path through writer’s block and their ups and downs as a collaborative team led to some unexpected debates about the creative process that share surprising parallels with the greater discussion around mathematical thinking.
So they hopped on the mic to debate a ra...
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Happy new year! To get in the mindset for a great 2026, here's a motivating episode about one of last year's hottest topics in math ed: student engagement.
Why is it so hard to get students to really engage in the classroom? What does engagement even mean? What can we try differently this year?
In this episode, Vanessa explores four reasons students might not engage in class (an...
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Five years ago, Vanessa fell head over heels in love with a Christmas movie. The plot twist? This wasn't one of the countless Hallmark romcoms she actually consumes throughout the year - this was a movie about a little girl who literally saves Christmas with math!
Back then she interviewed Producer Lyn Sisson-Talbert and Writer/Director David E. Talbert about their groundbreaking Netfl...
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Getting students to think is a hot topic - but what does it actually mean? When kids are asked to "show their thinking", can we really blame them for being like "WTF?!?!"
Today on Math Therapy, Vanessa explores the surprising number of ways we can define & interpret "thinking", and shares 5 strategies to demystify it in the classroom:
- Explain what thinki...
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Since our humble (and as you'll find out, quite disorganized) start in 2019, Math Therapy has come a long way ... and today we celebrate our 100th episode!
Join host Vanessa Vakharia and producer David Kochberg (with a cameo from OG MT producer Sabina Wex) as they reminisce and argue about:
- The (mostly) true origin story of Math Therapy
- Where the “final 2 questions” came from
- Fave past...
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Today we follow-up last week's episode with unfiltered celeb moms Cat and Nat (listen here) by interviewing Nat's daughter Taylor! Currently in Grade 11, she's a wealth of hard-earned wisdom, having taken her education into her own hands to overcome a system that literally told her not to bother even trying.
This ep is overflowing with real lessons right from a student who&ap...
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From the moment Vanessa met bestselling authors/podcasters Cat and Nat on Breakfast Television, where the 2 moms proudly professed to hate math ... she knew she had to have them on Math Therapy to dig deeper and find out why. They are the definition of unfiltered, so they are a perfect fit!
This interview may be uncomfortable for teachers to hear - honestly, it was difficult for Vanessa at ...
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*call-out before we get into today's ep* - If you or a colleague/parent/student has a story about incorporating the absurd 6-7 phenomenon into actual learning, we need you! Seriously, send us a brief text or a voicenote via Instagram DM or email. We've heard some stories and want to do an episode about enhancing learning by reaching kids through their interests (no matter how ri...
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This past weekend, hearts across North America shattered as the plucky underdog Toronto Blue Jays lost to the LA Dodgers in extra innings of the deciding Game 7 of the Major League Baseball World Series. And if none of those words matter to you at all - then you and Vanessa have much in common!
However, as a self-admitted bandwagon jumper, even though she was down in the US on a math ed con...
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Most episodes, Vanessa is chatting with colleagues about the root causes of math anxiety/trauma and exploring how math education can change to avoid causing them.
But as long as math remains a 4-letter word for some, we need some practical coping strategies! So today, Vanessa details 5 ways you can flip anxious math moments into empowering ones - for teachers, parents, and students.
Learn ho...
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Sometimes an interview fires us up so much here at Math Therapy HQ, that we end up debriefing and debating it long after the guest has signed off - at which point producer David says to host Vanessa "we should have recorded THAT too!"
So today, we actually did! We kept the mics rolling after interviewing last week's guest, Dr. Raj Shah, resulting in a discussion on the mechan...
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