September 25, 2025 • 49 mins
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When Mike Flynn started teaching, math was just one of many subjects he had to guide his students through. The problem was, the way he was taught math made him hate it!
But when a new career opportunity gave him the chance at a much deeper understanding of the concepts and a reason "why" they mattered in the real world, Mike realized that he wasn't confined to just teaching the way he was taught - he could give students and teachers the chance to value math right from the jump.
On today's episode he joins Vanessa to discuss:
- Why making mistakes is essential to deep mathematical understanding
- How shifting from “right answer” thinking to a focus on reasoning and flexible thinking can transform the way we approach math problems
- Strategies for helping students (and adults!) overcome math anxiety and see themselves as capable, creative problem solvers
Links discussed:
- Open Middle - for encouraging flexible thinking
- Vanessa's interview with co-founder Robert Kaplinsky
- Books mentioned:
- Beyond Answers: Exploring Mathematical Practices with Young Children by Mike Flynn
- 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions by Peg Smith and Mary Kay Stein
- Nix the Tricks: A guide to avoiding shortcuts that cut out math concept development by Tina Cardone
About Mike Flynn: (Website, Twitter, Instagram)
Mike Flynn is an internationally recognized math educator, Director of Math Programs at Mount Holyoke College, and founder of Flynn Education. He has led professional development for teachers around the world, authored Beyond Answers: Exploring Mathematical Practices with Young Children, and served on the NCTM Board. His work focuses on helping teachers move beyond rigid instruction to curiosity-driven, identity-building math learning.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Flynn (00:02):
if you're a thinker, you can do math.
That's all it is.
You were given experiences whereyou weren't allowed to think,
we're gonna give you experienceswhere you can think Every lesson
I teach, I'm learning alongsidethe kids because I know enough
of the math that I'm teachingthat I can back up and listen
and be present.
I'm not trying to hold ontowhat's the thing I'm supposed to
say?
What's the thing I'm supposed toshow?
What's the slide telling me todo here?
(00:23):
I can just be in the moment.
Vanessa Vakharia (00:26):
Hey guys.
It's me, Vanessa, AKA The MathGuru, and we are here for
another week of Math Therapy.
Okay.
Have you ever been in asituation where someone asks you
a question and you freezebecause you don't know the
answer, and then suddenly yourbrain is screaming, I should
know this, and if I don't, doesthat mean I'm stupid?
(00:47):
Maybe you felt that yourself, ormaybe you have a friend or
colleague who struggles withthat exact fear, the kind of
fear that keeps them from goingafter the promotion or speaking
up in meetings or tryingsomething new because they're
scared they won't have all theanswers.
And if that sounds familiar,you're gonna love this episode.
Honestly, I've been there.
I used to think that if I didn'tknow the answer to something, I
(01:08):
had to fake it or scramble tomake something up, or I'd get
really flustered trying to covermy tracks.
I thought that not knowing meantI wasn't qualified or that I'd
lose credibility.
But here's the truth.
Not knowing doesn't make usweak.
It makes us all learners, and italso can make us the best
teachers.
And that's exactly what today'sguest, Mike Flynn, is going to
(01:31):
help us with.
Mike is a math educator whoworks with teachers.
All over the world, and he'shere to show us how a deeper
understanding of math can healour own math trauma, and prevent
us from passing it onto the nextgeneration.
He'll help you reframe those"Idon't know" moments into
opportunities for growth, forus, but also for our students.
(01:51):
So if you've ever feltuncomfortable not knowing the
answer, or you know someone whoholds themselves back because of
that exact fear, this episode isgoing to give you exactly what
you need.
So let's get into it.
Mike, welcome to the podcast.
It has been a long time coming.
I'm so excited.
I'm really just having you hereso I can hang out with you for
(02:12):
an hour.
Mike Flynn (02:13):
Eh, good excuse.
I like it.
Vanessa Vakharia (02:15):
You are the first guest, I have to say,
whose birth chart I have.
Normally I'm just willy-nillyguessing people's astrological
signs.
Sometimes I'm right, sometimesI'm not.
I'm usually not, but sometimes Iam.
But I actually have your birthchart in my hot little hands
because you let me read it foryou one time.
Thank you for that.
How was the experience?
Mike Flynn (02:36):
That was great.
Yeah, I, it's not something Inormally followed or anything,
so I didn't even know what anyof that meant.
So I, I learned quite a bit withyou and it's interesting, what
things are coincidental, whatthings are, uh, you know what,
what was really neat is that youdidn't know a lot of things
about my profession or thethings I do, and you were naming
things that were like, Ooh,that's kind of aligned to what,
(02:56):
where we're going or what we'rehoping will happen.
So
Vanessa Vakharia (02:58):
my god.
Thank you, and now it's itsounds like I've brought you on
the pod to validate my skills anastrologer, which I, I have not,
but thank you for saying allthat.
Let's actually talk about whatyou do in that realm.
Like how did you start, youknow, because there are so many
instructional coaches and likeadmin that listen to the
podcast, so many people who helpother teachers help their
students and help other teachersbuild their own relationships
(03:21):
with math.
How did you get into this, andmaybe just tell us like
specifically what it is you do.
Mike Flynn (03:26):
Well, what I do is I help and my, team at our
company, we help build teacherscontent and pedagogical
knowledge and as well as.
help them develop effectiveteaching practices and then we
build lots of great resourcesthat they can then use to
support this work to reallybetter math education for all
students.
Um, it's not really the path Ioriginally chose for myself,
(03:47):
even when I became a teacher,because I never liked math.
I didn't like math as a student,I hated it as a teacher.
And the thing that kind ofbrought me where I am now is I
actually had a really goodprofessional learning experience
for myself where it wasn't justsomeone showing me how to use a
curriculum or someone saying,here's how you teach.
Instead, it actually was allfocused on just relearning math,
(04:10):
like learning math deeply.
And it wasn't a, a course forsomeone who doesn't know the
math or like needs a boost up.
It was just that, the basicsense was that all of us have
students only got a fraction ofthe depth of math that we're
supposed to really understand.
We, like the way I look at, it'slike if you imagine there's a
book of math that has all themath knowledge that ever was and
(04:31):
will ever be is in this book,and when we were kids growing
up, our teachers skimmed thechapters.
Like they skimmed fractions,they skimm multiplication.
So we got just the gist of it.
And then when we becameteachers, what we were expected
to teach was a lot more of thosechapters, but we didn't learn it
ourselves.
And so a lot of us, I, me inparticular is I would just force
(04:52):
all my lessons to be the littlebit that I remembered.
Like, oh, just line the numbersup and just do this.
So as much as I hated math whenI became a teacher, I taught
math the same way that I wastaught.
'cause I didn't know any better.
And when I took that course, itwas like getting a chance to
read the chapter deeper, like toactually go through the whole
thing.
And I was like, I had no idea.
(05:13):
I remember turning to someonewhile I was learning this
saying, if I had learned maththis way, it would've made it
the biggest difference in mylife.
And so from that, I started tochange my teaching practices to
basically make those kinds ofexperiences for my students,
which then transformed the waymy kids learn math, the way I
taught, and then I becameaddicted to it.
So I kept going back and gettingmore and more of this kind of
(05:36):
professional learning, that mademe a confident teacher, made me
love math.
And then as I developed myskills and my comfort, I started
to share what I knew with otherpeople.
And that started around 2003 andI've been doing it ever since,
is is just helping teachers andleaders basically create these
kinds of experiences for theirstaff or for their students.
Vanessa Vakharia (06:00):
Okay.
I have about 10 questions, solet's just, first of all, this
is sounds really cool and I'mobviously wanting an example Let
me, let me say why, becauseyou're saying this idea of
saying, you know, imaginethere's this book of math and
it's, I mean, it'd probably beinfinite.
I mean, I can't even imagine allthe math knowledge in the world,
but when you're learning math atschool, your teachers were
skimming those chapters, right?
(06:21):
So they were just giving youlike the kind of like icing
layer of fractions, the icinglayer of multiplication.
Then you said that when youbecame a teacher, you know,
let's say all of us, thecollective we, when we become
teachers, we're expected to domore than that.
Is that correct, we're expected?
My first question is, why are weexpected to do more than that,
(06:42):
but those teachers who taught uswe're not?
Mike Flynn (06:44):
I think because for a long time that, that there
wasn't this need for deeperthinking in math.
I mean, if you go back to likevery early education, the
beginnings of education, mathwas, it's just arithmetic.
You're basically, you, learningto do computation,'cause all
computation had to be done byhand, with a quill and a ledger
or whatever it is.
(07:05):
Right.
Like parchment and stuff, youknow what I mean?
Vanessa Vakharia (07:06):
so cool.
Mike Flynn (07:07):
It's like Hogwarts time.
Right.
You know, but that's, by theway, that's just such a weird
thing to me that you have allthat magic and you still have to
write with a quill, like I I,that, you know what I mean?
There's like a, just things thatI just wonder, like there's, it
doesn't make.
Vanessa Vakharia (07:20):
of the magic though, is like there are
certain experiences that arelike tangible.
Like it's almost like the magicis in these little things.
Mike Flynn (07:28):
Yeah, yeah,
Vanessa Vakharia (07:29):
it's like, it's like writing with a quill,
doesn't that make you feel sopowerful, as opposed to like
snapping your fingers and thewriting appears you're not
getting the, I don't know.
I also have never watched HarryPotter.
Is that where Hogwarts is from?
Mike Flynn (07:41):
Yeah.
That's it.
I'm just making randomreferences for you.
So,
Vanessa Vakharia (07:45):
That's fine.
Go ahead.
Back to what you
Mike Flynn (07:48):
but, but here's the idea is like, that's like for a
long time, just being able to dofast rote.
Vanessa Vakharia (07:54):
Yeah.
Mike Flynn (07:54):
Calculations by hand.
That was, that was all youneeded.
And what, what we're seeingtoday is like people need to
know how to think, how toreason, how to problem solve,
how to be creative.
There aren't companies that arehiring people that are like, how
good are you at long division?
I've never had that interviewquestion.
I've never seen that interviewquestion.
Right?
It's they, but they wanna know,how do you solve?
(08:15):
how do you creatively solvethese problems?
I mean, I remember Google usedto have, sometimes they would
put out these really interestingproblems, like really complex
problems.
And the answer to the problemwas like the phone number that
you would call to get a jobinterview.
Like that's the kind of thingthat where these companies are
looking for people that arethoughtful, creative problem
solvers.
And because of that, the needsshift.
(08:36):
And so there's a recognitionthat.
Just skimming the surface ofmath and just having math just
beyond getting quick answersaccurately is it's not enough,
and that we wanna have thatdeeper understanding because we
also saw that at least at theelementary level, that you can
teach all these rope proceduresand kids can perform well on
(08:57):
tests and things for a littlewhile.
But as soon as you get intoalgebra, as soon as you get into
any of this higher math, well,you have to actually understand
like what it means to multiplyand, and you have to understand,
the properties of operations,how they work.
If all you have is memorizedfacts and procedures, that all
that starts to fall apart.
And so a lot of us kind of wentthrough life with this like
(09:19):
vague understanding of math,like just enough to like get by.
But.
If you talk to any, I mean,you're, this is all your work.
How many adults do you talk tothat talk about math, trauma,
that talk about, just the, theicky feelings they have when
they think about math?
There are so many people that wehear that from, that are older
than us, that are our age, thatare younger than us, that we see
(09:41):
that this is actually a problem.
If you just are taught the waywe were taught, that doesn't
work.
We have way too many people whoare underserved with that kind
of teaching.
And there's a reason why mathhas such a bad reputation is
because, you know, imagine if wetaught reading the same way we
teach math, where it's just,just focus on saying these words
really fast and don't worryabout what it means.
(10:03):
Right?
If that's how we taught reading,people would say, I hate
reading.
I, I, I can read, but I don'tget it.
I don't, I never liked reading.
But with reading, we alsoembrace the comprehension.
In fact, the comprehension's themost important thing, and the
speed and accuracy help us toget to that meaning faster.
But in math, we just disregardedthe meaning.
It's like, oh, don't worry aboutit, just.
Just do this thing I show youand do it fast.
(10:26):
And if you do it right, you'regonna get all the right answers.
But don't worry about what itmeans like I was taught.
Yours is not to reason why, justinvert and multiply like the
teacher was actually saying,don't even worry about why.
Yeah.
that's,
Vanessa Vakharia (10:37):
Yours is not to reason why?
That's actually fucked.
Mike Flynn (10:41):
It is.
But I remembered it.
Vanessa Vakharia (10:42):
What an insane thing to say! Oh, yeah, say, oh
Yeah, you know how to, you know,how to divide fractions,
Mike Flynn (10:47):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (10:47):
Like, you're literally told like, your job is
not to think.
Like, do not.
Okay this is so interestingbecause I'm of two minds here.
I'm like, Absolutely, like wewant to have deep knowledge.
We wanna understand the why.
So your job here is to helpteachers understand the why
behind what they're teaching.
(11:07):
Is that like a, a simple way to,am I correct?
Mike Flynn (11:10):
Yeah.
And some of the what too, yeah.
But understand why it all works,it's the one of the best things
we can do for teachers.
Vanessa Vakharia (11:16):
And also you can imagine just talking about
magic and Hogwarts and the quilland everything, unlocking
knowledge and meaning is magic,right?
Like when someone can see whywe're actually flipping and
multiplying, like actually thewhy behind it.
All of a sudden, as we know,many teachers and students
remember that aha moment whereyou're like, holy shit, it's all
coming together.
You know?
Like now I completely get it.
(11:36):
I mean, I remember seriouslywhen Deborah Peart like two
years ago, I'm a high schoolmath teacher, right?
I understand fractions.
But when she showed me why weflip and multiply, like she
showed me visually, it did feellike magic.
It really felt like magic.
So I get that feeling.
Now, you're saying, you know,we're now in this time where we,
(11:56):
kids need to know how to think,they don't just need to know
arithmetic.
So here you are teaching theseteachers or showing them that
magic, the thinking, thecuriosity, them getting to the
deeper knowledge of why we'redoing certain things.
Now they're in the classroom toteach the kids, right?
They're gonna pass this on.
Do you think that the contentthat's in the curriculum hinders
(12:19):
that do you think it's like,yes, cool, we wanna teach
thinking everyone can agree, butthen we get to certain content
in the curriculum where it'slike, but this isn't teaching
thinking.
Mike Flynn (12:29):
Here's a way we can kind of look at it, all
curricular resources are tools,and the tools are designed by
people to achieve certain means,right?
Part of it is like, I think of,uh, Tina Cardone who wrote the
book Nix the Tricks.
Like one of the things that, ifpeople aren't familiar with Nix
the Tricks, it was, I loved itbecause it was a, it was
created, uh, she curated it withthe collaborate of the, the
(12:52):
greater math ed community thatwas at the time, blogging and on
Twitter, when that was like abig thing.
And what the book did is gaveteachers ways to take all these
things that were like magic,right?
These like the tricks, and, andlike foil and the butterfly
method and all this and it, andit was basically, uh, instead of
doing this, do this instead tobuild meaning.
(13:15):
So it's like getting that,what's the underlying math that
this trick is trying to get kidsto do?
Because the trick goes rightover the thinking because it's
like, how can I get a kid toremember, memorize this and do
it really quickly withoutthinking?
And, and so she and the otherpeople who contributed to that
basically found a way to helppeople bring in the meaning to
(13:35):
it.
Vanessa Vakharia (13:36):
Well, and I now I am saying this and I'm
like, I think what's happened isI've been very affected by an
interview I had yesterday withtwo moms who I interviewed for
the podcast.
And they were very much like,and so rightfully so, they were
like, we don't understand whatthe point is of half this shit
our kids are learning.
Like, what is the point of this?
Why do they need this?
Our kids are frustrated, we'refrustrated.
(13:57):
And I was like, you know what,like, you're right.
Like I don't even know what totell you.
Like I, I don't, I don't know,like a lot of it is like, I
don't know why they're learningit.
But you're kind of like, yeah,and tell me if I'm wrong, but I
hear you being like that aside,since I don't have, I don't have
control over that, that aside,there is an opportunity in
everything they're learning toteach a thinking skill.
Mike Flynn (14:17):
Yeah, that, that, that comes right down to it.
And I think part of it is like,if you as an educator, like once
you start to go down that pathfor yourself to understand the
math better, it's, like, I'mgonna use another metaphor.
'cause I just constantly thinkin analogies and metaphors, but
like, when I wrote my bookBeyond Answers, the very first
chapter is called Lost in Bostonbecause, um, I live in Western
(14:38):
Mass, but it's, uh, Boston, ifanyone's familiar with it.
Like cities are hard to drive inanyway, but many cities are a
grid.
Boston is the most, it's just,I, I, one time I got lost, I
went to a gas station, showedthem the directions I had, and
the guy laughed.
He's like, you're never gonnafind it.
'cause those two roads don'teven exist anymore.
Like, that's like the level ofcraziness that.
Vanessa Vakharia (14:57):
hands, like a physical map?
Mike Flynn (14:59):
It was a MapQuest, like I'm dating myself too.
It's like, like this is like preGPS, like this.
Is that?
Yeah.
All you young folks, this isbefore we actually had to print
out directions.
Vanessa Vakharia (15:08):
They had maps on paper, guys.
Okay.
Mike Flynn (15:10):
Yeah.
Charts and stuff.
Yeah.
It's uh.
I was, I was like, Magellan,basically.
Yeah.
But here's the thing is I had togo to Boston quite a bit for
meetings and I would leave anhour earlier than I should to
give myself getting lost time.
It was really frustratingbecause when you would get these
printed out directions, you alsocan't read while you're driving,
right.
You, technically, and so I wouldtry to memorize these
(15:33):
directions, right?
So I knew like everywhere to,Boston, I kind of had, but once
I got got into Boston, I wouldjust memorized, okay, take it
right on here, get off at thisexit, dah, dah, dah, whatever.
Then I, the whole time, eventhough I had those directions
memorized, I was panickingbecause if the way Boston
worked, there was too muchtraffic.
There was a detour.
Anything that got me off of whatthe predictable path that I
(15:54):
memorized was, I had no ideawhere I was.
Even when I was following thedirections, I didn't know where
in Boston I was.
I just knew, like I knew the,yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (16:04):
Right! This is me every day in my life.
Oh my God, dude, wow.
I could not relate more to this.
Mike Flynn (16:10):
And this is what math feels like for most people
when they're just taught thesememorized procedures.
'cause there's no thinkingreason, including when we become
teachers.
So I taught math like theMapQuest way.
I just would show and explainand tell and stuff.
But when you have a chance, andthis is what happened to me in
Boston,'cause my brother, heused to have a, his own limo
company and stuff is a wholeother story.
(16:30):
But, uh, he would want me todrive for him sometimes.
And as a teacher, I need to getany money I could, so all, all
these side hustles.
But I would always say I'm nevertaking anyone to Logan Airport,
the Boston Airport.
And that's like one of his best,like all these people wanted
trips to Boston.
And I refused to do it'cause Ididn't know how to navigate it.
And he actually took me, hesaid, we'll figure it out
(16:50):
together.
So he knew Boston, like the backof his hand.
So he would have me drive, wewould look at a map first just
to kinda get the layout, knowall the main arteries and
landmarks and stuff.
And then he said, so we wannaget to the science museum, how
are you gonna do it?
So I would sort of chart it outand then we just put that away
and then I'd have to likenavigate looking at the lay of
the land and stuff.
And then he would never help me.
(17:11):
So even when he knew I was aboutto make a wrong turn, he'd let
me make the wrong turn and thenhe would say, so now whatcha
gonna do?
And I, as frustrating as thatwas,
Vanessa Vakharia (17:20):
it's like Thinking Classrooms in a car.
Mike Flynn (17:22):
That's what it was.
And he, Scott's not he's, he's aEMT and all that, he is not a
teacher, but he was the bestteacher, because he let me
struggle productively, right?
I, it wasn't where I just gaveup and stuff when I was getting
frustrated, he would come in,but he made me own most of the
stuff.
I had to constantly think.
I couldn't just ask, I couldn'tjust follow the directions.
(17:42):
And in just a few hours, Bostonmade sense to me.
And, I can navigate the cityreally easily.
I'll still like, I'll put in theGPS directions and things now,
but there are times where I'mlooking at where GPS wants me to
go.
I'm like, I'm not doing that,like it's so much faster to go
around this way.
So that's what we're trying todo with in math is, when we as
teachers engage in professionallearning, it's the equivalent of
(18:04):
driving around, just kind ofmucking around Boston and
getting the lay of that land.
And once you have thatunderstanding, then you could
look at the curriculum orcurricular resource or anything
and you can decide how importantis this thing?
Or if you look at how it'swritten, if it says, oh, teach
this, like teach the butterflymethod or something, you could
say, Hmm, I, I see what theywant me to do here, I'm gonna
(18:28):
actually teach it this other waybecause my kids are gonna
understand it better and they'regonna remember it better
Vanessa Vakharia (18:33):
Or like that's gonna connect to this thing I'm
gonna teach in two weeks,'causeI know where I'm going.
Mike Flynn (18:37):
Exactly.
Vanessa Vakharia (18:38):
This is a wild metaphor.
First of all, you could not havepicked a metaphor that relates
more to me because I always sayI have horrible spatial
awareness, and now I say thiswith growth mindset as in like,
I've not ever tried to getbetter.
I've not done what your brotherdid, for example.
Like I'm just like fuck it, youknow what, I don't need to work
on this skill right now, like Ijust put on my GPS.
Like where I'm sitting rightnow, I have driven to this
place, it's two hours away frommy home.
(18:59):
I have driven here maybe ahundred times.
I could not get here without myGPS.
I turn on my GPS and I blindlyfollow it.
I have no clue how to get here.
Mike Flynn (19:07):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:07):
No clue where it is in relation.
Like, you know, we're in a bandhere and every time we're
planning a tour, David's like,what the fuck are you talking?
I'm like, could we get from dah,dah, dah to blah, blah, blah?
And he's like, have you lookedat the map?
Like, no.
Like, what?
Why would you think?
And I'm like, I don't know.
It just like, and it's reallymaking me think of like, my poor
attitude of being like, well, Ican just use the GPS, so
Mike Flynn (19:30):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:30):
I can just use the GPS, just like teachers
Mike Flynn (19:33):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:33):
can theoretically just, follow the
book like you could.
But what I'm missing out on hereis, first of all, if the GPS
ever broke down, I'd actually befucked.
Like I would have no clue whatto do.
Mike Flynn (19:46):
Would you though?
Would you?
Let me, so you would feelfucked, right?
But you would not be fucked.
And there, let me clarify.
let's say it did break down.
Let's say the, all thesatellites went down.
There is no more GPS right nowand you have to go home from
this place.
What are you gonna do?
Vanessa Vakharia (20:01):
Okay Well, so actually this did happen to me,
and so I did, you're right, I,this happened to me.
A few months ago where my phonedied on halfway on my way here.
And I was like, shit.
So the first thing I did is Iwent to a gas station, so I
asked for help.
So I went to the gas station andI was like, I need to go, you
know, this way.
So I did that and then I waskind of like, okay, hold on a a
(20:22):
second.
Some things are lookingfamiliar.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, some, I was looking forlike, but that was a bit tricky
because it was like, I'm in farmcountry and all the farms looked
familiar because they all, youknow, like I hadn't been paying
attention to the signposts Icould have been paying attention
to The other thing is too,'causeI mean the gas station guy gave
me a plan, went towards it, butit was a different one than I
(20:46):
was used to with my GPS.
So I was still going in theright direction, but I wasn't
going in the direction I wasused to.
So the usual signs weren'tthere.
Anyways, then I charged my phoneat the next gas stations, but
okay.
Mike Flynn (20:56):
But imagine this though.
What if, what if this, you arein that scenario again, but you,
you, you just get on a computeror something, right?
Or you could basically look upthe direction.
Let's say you were planningahead, right?
Or that you found a way whereyou could actually.
get a map.
I mean, you can go to a gasstation.
I'm sure they still have maps orsomething, right?
That like, I don't know when'sthe last time.
(21:16):
Right.
But let's say you do that,right?
You could go through and likelook at the map, kind of map out
the path, look at where theroads are.
Now we could say like, if youhave the choice of GPS or
navigating planning out yourroute with a map, which one
takes more work?
Vanessa Vakharia (21:34):
Planning out the route.
Mike Flynn (21:35):
Right.
Which one results in morelearning?
Vanessa Vakharia (21:38):
Planning out the route.
Yeah.
I've learned
Mike Flynn (21:40):
That's the crux.
That's the crux, yep.
Vanessa Vakharia (21:42):
Like, and that's I guess why I'm like,
this is such a good analogy.
'Cause it's like A, you'd beokay, I guess you wouldn't be
fucked if the whole thing brokedown, but I have to, basically,
I've not learned a single thingin years.
Right.
Mike Flynn (21:53):
yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (21:54):
I could plan out the route and then maybe
also if I planned out the route,I'd be like, oh my God, there's
all these cute places to stopalong the way.
And oh, if there's traffic, orif I wanted to visit this person
or if I wanted to get a coffeeor groceries, I could take this
other thing.
And, oh, like there's so muchmore.
I, I get it.
I don't know.
Like, I'm like, I wanna be likeMike, that's it.
The way home next week I'mgonna, maybe I'll, maybe I'll
(22:15):
plan out my route home.
Mike Flynn (22:17):
Here's, here's the way you kind of think about it.
So when I talk like I loveBuilding Thinking Classrooms, I
know you, you do as well.
And one of the things that whenwe, we talk, when Peter talks
about like kids not thinking,like sometimes people like hear
that and think that he'sthinking like down on kids, that
kids can't think of stuff.
And that's not actually at allwhat he's saying.
But it's almost like what'shappening here is like, you can
(22:38):
navigate with a map.
You could plan out routes andthings.
You could take the time to getto know all the different areas
so that you could really, like,understand where you are at any
given point in time and know allthe different detours, but you
choose not to because you haveother things that can get you
where you need to go thatdoesn't require you to think as
much, and right now you don'thave that need.
(22:59):
Which is fine.
Right?
We as humans have to choose howmuch mental energy we wanna put
in anything.
Now, when we as teachers or whenstudents are given procedures
and formulas and all thesethings to memorize and stuff,
it's basically teachers givingkids GPS directions for all the
math that they're learning.
And it's really easy, theybecome dependent on it.
And the difference between youand students here is that you
(23:23):
don't have a, a great need foryou to really understand an
area.
Like you're not an Uber driver,you're not working, you're not
an EMT or something that youneed to know how to get around
things.
So it's not essential, but it isessential for our students to
learn the math deeply and tothink for it.
And so what we're having to dois, is basically get students
to, almost get detoxed from thereliance on the GPS and to see
(23:46):
the value in it.
But I'll tell you right now, assomeone who also didn't really
like mucking around in Boston,once I started to do it, I
realized how empowering it waswhere I could see those
connections.
So it can help you also as youstart to, break free from things
that reduce the amount ofthinking you had to do.
You'll find that it can bereally powerful, whether it's
(24:08):
directions or it's math, beingable to think and reason and
make sense, and you realize, Iown this idea now, like it can't
be taken from me.
It's powerful.
Vanessa Vakharia (24:19):
Well, and the other thing I'm thinking is,
there is so many reasons why,think justifiably kids don't
like math or math class.
Like it's boring, some of thecontent seems irrelevant, like,
you know what I mean?
Like, we're literally justtaught to copy things down.
Like, so I think if anythingtoo, it at least alleviates a
(24:39):
lot of that, is to be like,okay, we get it.
Like some of this content mightseem irrelevant and you know,
you don't wanna just sit thereand be like, uh, you know, doing
data entry, basically likecopying things into formulas and
spitting them out.
At least this I think adds tolike the, a bit of the
motivation or inspiration ofwhat, like what you can get out
of math class, even if contentitself seems irrelevant and
(25:00):
boring, you can, exactly, feelempowered.
You can a moment of feeling likebasically like a detective or
you're solving like a, who doneit.
But the other thing is like,we're talking about kids, but
really like, I wanna dial itback for a second.
We're talking about teachingteachers how to think this way,
right?
So I kind of wanna peel back andask you, or you mentioned
earlier on in the interview thata lot of teachers have carry
(25:22):
their own math trauma.
And you kind of alluded to thefact that it was because
potentially they were taught inthis way that was very rote.
Can you expand on, on that?
Because I argue this all thetime, right?
I say, you know, the way weteach math in this way of like
mimicking can lead to mathtrauma.
I'm curious why you think so andwhat you've seen.
Mike Flynn (25:40):
Part of it is, it just is that vague
understanding, kind of like withdirections, right?
If I, can follow directions, Ican get to where I'm supposed to
go, but it doesn't mean that Iknow anything about that area.
And so, anytime I've memorizeddirections, I never had
confidence in my ability to getwhere I'm going,'cause any
little thing could throw me off.
And that's what it feels like inmath when, when everything is
(26:02):
mimicking and memorization, isthat I have enough to get
answers, but I don't have enoughto feel confident in my math
ability, and if we don't usethings enough, we eventually
lose it.
So I may memorize something fora while and I'm okay in that
class.
I might pass that test orsomething, but a couple years
(26:23):
after, I'm not gonna rememberthese things.
And so there's a lot in maththat I have a vague notion of,
oh, I remember doing that, or Iremember going there, but I
don't actually, I can't callthat up.
And so, so much of our mathlearning when we're taught that
way is fragile.
It's like a very fragilefoundation.
And because of that, it can beunsettling because we just don't
(26:44):
have that level of confidence.
So I think that unsettledfeeling is what a lot of people
carry with them.
Now, if you take on top of that,you have any intense teachers,
that are hammering things down,or you're like the grades or
there's that high pressure, yougotta get up on the board and
you gotta perform thiscomputation in front of the
whole class and you're gonna bepublicly wrong.
You add all of that other stuffon top of it, and that's where
(27:07):
the anxiety comes in.
That's where the shame comes in,those things.
And I experienced all of that.
Because one thing about me isthat, I've learned later as a,
as I got older that I have,A-D-H-D.
I, you look at any of my reportcards, so you could see writing
was all over it, there, likeclearly, like talks too much,
too active, out of his seat, inthe principle all the time,
(27:27):
office all the time, all ofthat.
But, one, for those that aren'tfamiliar with ADHD, it's not
that I can't pay attention, likeI can't shut my brain off.
I pay attention to everything.
And so what would happen in mathsituations, even like fact
fluency tests, is that I wouldbe look like everything on
whatever was on the page, I'mtaking all that in.
(27:47):
I'm also taking the sound of theteacher walking up and down the
rows with her high heelsclicking, like that noise.
And the pencil noises, I'mlistening to the pencil noises.
All of that's happening.
Before I've even started thefirst problem.
And I'm just trying to quiet allthat down just to get that.
So by the time I start to getinto it, the time's up and I
couldn't get my stuff finished.
And then she, this, I'm thinkingone particular teacher had the
(28:09):
wall of fame where you had yournames.
It's a wall of shame, right?
So everyone's like all at thesevens tables eights tables of
stuff.
I'm still back on threes becauselike, I'm just stuck there and
for me it's like that shame theembarrassment of like everyone
seeing how far behind I am, andit made me feel like inadequate.
But the thing is, is one thetimer and stuff, when, when, if
(28:32):
I just had those, I could dothem all fine.
It wasn't that I didn't know it.
But when you get that, all thatinformation overload and then
when you start to panic, yourworking memory gets blocked.
You can't access facts that youknow, and so I would freeze and,
and then it just becomes thisexacerbated thing.
Now that's third grade.
Then imagine fourth grade, fifthgrade, and before you know it,
(28:52):
I've accumulated enoughembarrassment that I just, even
being in a math classroom, youcould just feel that like
tension.
And I, I hated it and I, a lotof people carry that with them.
Vanessa Vakharia (29:05):
How and why did you become a math teacher?
How did you end up at thisschool?
Like where was the, where's the
Mike Flynn (29:12):
Oh, just a Oh, second grade teacher.
So I, I was, um, I.
Vanessa Vakharia (29:15):
so you weren't, you were like, I'm
gonna become a teacher,
Mike Flynn (29:18):
gonna become a teacher.
And so, and I wasn't math, itwas, well it was generalist,
right?
So I just became a teacher andmath was one of the many
subjects I had to teach.
Yeah.
So it was low priority for me.
So, so anyway, I was more ELAand uh, science and stuff.
And there was this position openat our school to be a
coordinator for literacy.
Like I got to, there's this hugegrant and stuff, and I was all
(29:40):
about it.
Fairly young.
I think I was like 24, 25,something like that at the time.
And I wanted to be the literacycoordinator.
I wanted to do this and I didn'tget it.
I was told that I was too youngto be taken seriously, and it
devastated me, right?
And, and I was so bummed and mycolleague Anne-Marie came by and
(30:01):
she said, Hey, now that you'renot doing that, there's this
field test for the new versionof the investigations curriculum
and they need field testteachers and uh, you do some
professional learning and stuffand all that.
And I'm like, hard pass.
Like, no, that's the last thingI want.
Really, you're coming at me withmath.
Like, but she said there's likea$2,500 stipend to do it.
(30:22):
And yeah, I'm a brand newteacher broke, and like, I'm
like, yeah, I'm in, I'm in.
I, say no more.
And I agreed to it, notrealizing that part of agreeing
to be, field test teachers, youhad to commit to, monthly or
weekly professional learningwith the authors of the program
and stuff, which I, again, I wasso far removed from this.
I had no idea the big names thatwere involved in the creation of
(30:45):
this.
It's sort of all theseinfluential people.
So I ended up.
saying yes, and I had to agreeto use this curriculum and teach
it the way it was intended,which meant I had to, I couldn't
just fake it.
I had to like read the materialsand things.
I had to have ongoingprofessional learning with
people like Anne-Marie and hercolleagues and things.
And this is where I started torelearn math and to start seeing
(31:06):
like, this is how I should havebeen taught.
If I was taught math this way,it would've made the biggest
difference in my life.
Vanessa Vakharia (31:12):
Can you remember like one thing you
learned, like one moment, thatone thing you learned that
caused you to be like.
Oh my god.
Mike Flynn (31:18):
Yeah, I, so I had no idea what everyone, we were in
this session and we had to dothings with a arrays, and I, I
thought it was a raise, likegetting a raise.
What's a raise?
Like, I didn't even realize itwas R-A-A-R-Y, like I had no
idea what they're talking about.
Vanessa Vakharia (31:32):
array, so this is probably gonna blow my mind,
so intimidated by the word even.
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know what
Mike Flynn (31:36):
Yeah.
yeah, like rows and columns andthings like, and so we were.
So once I got some confidence toask like, what are our, what are
raises?
Or something like that.
Like, oh, you mean array?
Right.
And so my colleagues, we wereworking on this math problem and
we started to sketch out and Icould see basically the
distributive property.
like, how it made sense.
(31:57):
Like none of it made sense tome, and then it all made sense
to me.
And it was like, and that wasjust one thing.
And the more I uncovered, it waslike I couldn't stop going down
that rabbit hole because it'slike, what else don't I know?
What else don't I know?
And that was it.
Game over.
It just blew my mind.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:14):
So this is actually so cool because you are
literally like the least likelycandidate, right?
So this is like, good evidenceto be like you were the least
likely candidate.
You hated math.
You had a horrible experiencewith math.
You didn't want anything to dowith math.
You were literally just in itfor the money.
You were bribed and you came outa changed man.
Mike Flynn (32:33):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:33):
And to show what a difference that meant and
look at you now,
Mike Flynn (32:37):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:37):
You, you were so taken by it that you were
like, I must do this.
I must show other teacherswhat's happening here.
Because there, I mean, we knowthere are so many teachers that
carry their own math trauma, andin fact, these wonderful
teachers often become teachersbecause they have math trauma
and they wanna, they wanna havea, they wanna give a more
positive math experience tostudents.
And there are so many ways to dothat.
(32:58):
And one of them is through usgaining deeper understanding of
the math we're teaching,
Mike Flynn (33:02):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (33:02):
Like that is just a way to do it.
And you're here providing that,which is so incredible.
And it's, I, you know, it'sfunny, like we were talking
about the math trauma and youwere kind of explaining why
being taught in sort of a veryprocedural right way might lead
to having math trauma.
And I always, when I talk aboutmath trauma, I'm always like,
look, it's basically a negativeexperience with math that lasts
with you long after theexperience is gone.
(33:24):
And a negative experience couldbe exactly what you described,
that feeling that you're justslightly on edge all the time
'cause you don't quite have it.
You know, you're like, I've gotit in this scenario, in that
scenario.
But I mean, I don't know if Ihave it, if I'm timed, I don't
know if I have it if theychanged the words, like I don't
know that I really understandit.
Like, so that feeling of justbeing on edge for so long and
(33:45):
feeling not confident, you know,like that lack of confidence
carrying that with youthroughout your math experience,
that is just such an icky, heavyfeeling.
And I hear this from so manyteachers, and I'm sure you do
too, since you work with them ofbeing like, probably a lot of
the reason people want to takeyour professional development is
that they're like, they don'twanna feel like that, right?
They wanna feel like, like wewant to encourage kids to ask
(34:06):
any question they have and tothink whatever way they want.
But if we don't feel confident,that's actually really
threatening to us because I'mlike, well, if you ask any
question you want and you dothis math in a way that I don't
understand, now I'm on the hook.
Right?
So like this is, I think, such agreat way to be like, look we
wanna encourage kids to makemistakes and teachers to make
mistakes too.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout progress, it's about
(34:27):
process, this and that.
But in order to, I think, reallyfacilitate a student's learning
process, like we have to notonly be open-minded, but like
have a level of openness tounderstanding that we don't
fully understand.
Mike Flynn (34:40):
That's so profound because it's, but it, right, it,
it comes down to thatunderstanding.
It's that meaning piece, right?
That when we understand it, it'smuch easier for us to back up a
bit and allow the students toalso come to their own
understanding.
Because if, if we don't, if wedon't understand it and we're
afraid to open up and get alltheir ideas and flexible
strategies and these things thatif we're, if we don't have that
(35:03):
comfort, then we just force kidsinto the way we think about it.
And so and, and then there's,we're not giving them a chance
to understand because there'sjust, here's the way I'm gonna
show you how to do it.
I'm not getting a chance toexpand my understanding because
I'm not learning with thestudents.
One of the things that oftensurprises people is that a lot
of what I learned about earlyelementary math, I learned from
my seven and eight year olds, mysecond graders, when I first
(35:24):
started teaching, because once Ilistened to them and I could see
how they were approaching it, Icould understand the way kids'
minds worked around these mathideas.
And now, like the work I do nowis I teach preschool through
high school, so I get to seethat all the time at every
different grade level,everything we do is around
building understanding.
So I get to listen to studentsand hear how they build these
(35:47):
strong connections.
And when you just, when you'reat a spot where you understand
the math enough, where you canback up a bit, then everybody
learns, you and the students atthe same time.
You create this mutual learningspace.
And I, it's, it's nonstop.
I still, every lesson I teach,I'm learning alongside the kids
because I, I know enough of themath that I'm teaching that I
(36:08):
can back up and listen and bepresent.
I'm not trying to hold ontowhat's the thing I'm supposed to
say?
What's the thing I'm supposed toshow?
What's the slide telling me todo here?
I can just be in the moment.
Vanessa Vakharia (36:18):
Well, and I think this is an important
message, it's okay to beconstantly learning.
I always am like if I am donelearning, like if I am ever in a
position where I am teaching andI'm like, there's nothing left
for me to learn, like I knowevery possible answer a
student's gonna give.
I know every scenario thisquestion like, no thank you,
like I'm done.
(36:39):
It's time to move on tosomething else.
You know what, what, what is it?
There's some really profoundquote, lifelong teachers are
lifelong learners, or something?
What is it?
Something like that.
Right?
Mike Flynn (36:48):
Yeah.
And that, something like that,so, sounds good.
Sounds like a thing.
Vanessa Vakharia (36:52):
Sounds like a thing.
It's like the, the endlesslearning and you're modeling to
your students what learning is,you're modelling what knowledge
is.
Knowledge isn't, I knoweverything.
Mike Flynn (37:02):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (37:02):
Knowledge is being open to knowing more than
you know right now.
I just came up with that.
I liked that.
I thought that
Mike Flynn (37:09):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (37:09):
David, shut up.
Okay.
Alright.
He's really rolling his eyes.
I thought that was good.
Um, What would you say to ateacher though that's like,
yeah, it sounds fascinating, butlike, there's no way I have time
for that.
You know, it's just gonna takeso much more time.
It's easier to just teach whatI'm supposed to be teaching.
Mike Flynn (37:25):
Two things.
One is that, first of all, likewhen if we teach the way we, we
were taught if in that we'rejust like, I don't have time to
go and learn this and that I'mjust gonna show them.
I'm gonna ask that teacher, howoften do you have to reteach
content?
Vanessa Vakharia (37:41):
Mm-hmm
Mike Flynn (37:42):
Because it's like, that's one of the things,'cause
the time factor always comes up.
It's a real thing.
I don't want to invalidate that.
Right.
And I think about any timeteachers are like, yeah, I, I
constantly have to like reteachthis thing.
I have to keep going back andlike they don't get it.
And I'm doing afterschooltutoring, I'm doing all of these
things because my kids aren'tgetting it long term, right?
(38:03):
They, they learn it for thetest, but then they forget it.
And you realize like if you justtake a little bit of time first
for yourself and then to spend alittle bit of time with your
students to develop thatunderstanding deeply, you're not
going to have to reteach it.
So it's a, you give a little bitto get a bigger return on that
investment.
And it's scary at first.
(38:23):
So I just tell teachers, startsmall, pick one thing.
Because that's the other thing,it could be overwhelming, is
like when you have to make abig, like, I gotta change
everything.
No, you don't.
It's like, how about you justchange your warmup routine?
Like instead of just doing a donow, maybe do something that's
got students talking andreasoning for the first five
minutes.
Like, don't worry about your donow.
Right now.
Just try that.
That's a nice light lift.
(38:43):
And you can see over time howthat changes students.
Or maybe try it for a, anupcoming unit or for a three
lessons.
Three lessons.
What if you were to, allowstudents to think about it
flexibly versus this one way?
What happens?
Then as you try that, the thingthat I found,'cause I make it
sound like, oh, I had this oneprofessional learning experience
(39:05):
and I was a changed teacher.
I fell off the wagon a lot.
So I would, like, it took methree to five years to fully be
confident and like not rammingthe algorithm down kids'
throats.
Because every, like the firsttime I started to make that
shift, I would sneak it in just'cause I'm like, I was doing the
field test so I wasn't allowedto, but I would still sneak it
in, hope they're not listening,just because it's like the third
(39:27):
grade teachers would come at meaft, like the next year if the
kids weren't ready.
And so after a couple years Igot confident enough.
But what I'd like to let peopleknow is that it's a, it's a
journey, don't feel like youneed perfection.
Try things out.
And the more I found when Iwould do that meaningful work,
anytime I slid back and just tryto show them something, I could
(39:50):
just feel all the air come outtathe room.
Like it just felt different.
And I could tell, I could justsee mimicking.
I didn't have a name for it atthe time, but I could just tell
that's what was happening.
And by like the second or thirdyear of doing that, I'm like,
oh, this is such fake teachingthat I was doing that I, I just
abandoned it and realized like.
Teaching for sensemaking is theonly way that we can really do
(40:12):
this if we want kids tounderstand what we're teaching.
Vanessa Vakharia (40:15):
Okay let's, let's give everyone a challenge
right now though.
'cause I like this.
I like this idea of what shouldwe all try to do.
I like what you almost said oflike, try to teach a lesson
while allowing kids to haveflexible thinking.
That's what you said,
Mike Flynn (40:26):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (40:27):
What does that mean?
Like, let's do a little, like,let's all try this this week.
Mike Flynn (40:30):
Yeah.
I'm gonna call out RobertKaplinsky right now and Open
Middle, you can go to openmiddle.com.
Like Robert's got a whole likesystem there of, of challenging
tasks that have these openmiddles.
But you can also think of openmiddle, broadly, as defined as a
problem or a task that has thesame initial setup for
everybody.
And it has some kind ofconclusion, either a single
(40:51):
answer or a set of answers orsomething.
The middle, how studentsapproach it is wide open, they
can approach it any way theywant.
So a challenge would be to lookat one task that you could give
to your students that doesn'trequire them, if the curricular
resource or something says, givethem this problem and have them
use a table and graph to get theanswer, cross that out.
Don't have that.
(41:12):
Give them the problem.
Give them the problem withoutany specific rules for solving
it.
Say solve it in a way that makessense to you, and solve it maybe
two different ways.
And then, give them time andspace to work through it and
look at all the differentcreative solutions that come up.
Now, before you do that, uh, I'mgonna call out.
One other thing is the fivepractices with Peg Smith and
(41:33):
Mary Kay Stein.
If you're not familiar withthat, look up five practices.
But one thing they tell you todo if you want to teach in this
way is to do the math ahead oftime yourself and anticipate
what are the things that arelikely to come up from your
students if you were to do this.
What kinds of strategies aremost likely to come up and which
of those do you really wannahighlight in the conversation
(41:53):
when you pull all the ideastogether?
But if you do that, just givethis open middle approach.
And it could be just one problemand that you can go back to
whatever your lesson is, butjust see what happens with this
shift when you flip it.
Vanessa Vakharia (42:07):
Okay, I love this.
We're all gonna do this thisweek.
And then guess what?
Because there's some weird shit,new feature on our podcast, you
can text us and let us know whathappens.
Link to the text is in thedescription of this episode.
You can also email me or justsend me a DM on Instagram.
Me and Mike wanna know whathappens when you try this, this
week, that's your challenge.
I mean, I wanna take all of yourcourses.
(42:29):
Where can people take these?
Where do, where do I sendeveryone to when they're like I
want to learn math in this way,I'm a teacher and I would like
to get a deeper knowledge ofwhat I'm teaching because you
have this for K to 12, right?
Mike Flynn (42:41):
We do.
So we have courses for allstrands of mathematics, K
through eight.
We're building the secondaryones now.
The first one will be availablein January of 26.
Vanessa Vakharia (42:50):
Get in on the ground floor.
Mike Flynn (42:52):
Yeah, yeah, we're excited.
We're building it for geometry,algebra, pre-calc, all these
things.
So keep an eye out for that.
But you go to flynneducation.comand you'll see lots of free
resources for teachers.
You'll see our courses.
We also have a membership wherewe have a it's, uh, the Friends
of Flynn Education, and it's a,basically collaborative of
educators, then we offer tonsand tons of professional
(43:12):
learning, every month.
In fact, Vanessa, you're gonnabe our featured guest for our
voices from the field comingyeah.
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (43:21):
It is, just so you guys know, Friends of Flynn
is giving Sesame Street meetsCheers.
Like if you understand thatreference, you know, like, I
get,
Mike Flynn (43:30):
That's deep
Vanessa Vakharia (43:31):
I know.
I really get that vibe though.
Like, it's like, it really, Ithink it's gonna become
something.
Mike Flynn (43:36):
Yeah, we're, we're pretty excited about it.
Vanessa Vakharia (43:38):
Sick.
Okay.
Final two questions I askeveryone.
Number one, if there's one thingyou could change about way the
way math is taught in schools,like you're allowed to change
one thing, what would it be?
Mike Flynn (43:48):
Uh, the time constraints.
Time constraints, get rid of alltime constraints so that
teachers are not, uh, bound onthis 42 minute block or 47
minute block, and that allowingpeople to really spend the time
to teach it well.
Vanessa Vakharia (44:01):
Well, how would you do that though?
You just have math all day long,like as long as you want?
Mike Flynn (44:05):
No, no, no.
Just that you, we open up the,we get rid of this, the block
scheduling kind of things.
There's a lot of ways things aredone.
So the idea, so, 10 seconds, Ididn't know you needed the how
to actually achieve making thishappen.
I thought you just wave.
I thought magic wand, it'sHogwarts, right?
Vanessa Vakharia (44:20):
I didn't.
I just got curious suddenly Iwas like, but how?
But
Mike Flynn (44:23):
I can say that.
I will say this.
So this is another thing peoplemight not know about me.
I did, I was an elected schoolboard member for eight years,
and so I have worked on thatside of things.
It's is possible.
The thing with a lot of these,the structures, the schedules
and all these things are, theybecome institutionalized and it
feels impossible to change'causethis is the way it's always
(44:44):
been, and if we do this well,then this will happen.
All you have to do is dedicatetime and say, we are going to
figure this out, and you can dothat.
So that's the, there's manyschool districts that have
figured out ways to build in 70,90 minute math blocks and
things.
And anytime, I work in schoolsall around the world, any places
where I go, where math is taughtfor 60 to 90 minutes, I see a
(45:05):
significant difference in thosestudents than in places where
math is taught for 40 to 45minutes, et cetera.
Um, you need more time on it,and,
Vanessa Vakharia (45:14):
was way more than 10 seconds.
That was my fault.
Of course.
Also, your response is very likegiving Tim Ferris like it is
possible.
Like we can do these things.
You gotta think outside of theschedule, outside of the box.
Mike Flynn (45:25):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (45:25):
Next question.
If someone listened to this andthey were like, that's so
awesome.
Yeah.
Like I guess I could think aboutmath more deeply, whatever the
thing is though, like I justcan't because I'm not a math
person.
What would you say?
Mike Flynn (45:37):
I would say let's, dispel this idea of a math
person and just that you're athinker and that, you just were
never given enough time to thinkabout the math and you weren't
given the right kinds ofexperiences to think about the
math.
And I can give you that to youand like, let's do some math
together and give you a chanceto think and realize that all
you have to do is like, ifyou're a thinker, you can do
(45:59):
math.
That's all it is.
You were given experiences whereyou weren't allowed to think,
we're gonna give you experienceswhere you can think and that'll
change everything for you.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:07):
That is so nice.
That was such a nice answer.
Like I felt reassured.
Mike Flynn (46:12):
I felt a little anxiety.
I was like, oh, that pressure, Igotta perform.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:15):
Well, I am being, I'm doing all doing all
the wrong things.
I'm like, time constraints, go.
You're public, you're beingrecorded.
Like, don't do any of this in amath classroom.
Okay.
It has been such a treat.
you're so inspiring.
You're so warm, you're sowelcoming.
What you're doing is so cool,
Mike Flynn (46:29):
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much, Vanessa.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:34):
Okay guys.
Oh my God, how good was that?
Mike just gave us the reminderthat knowing isn't weakness,
it's actually where the learningbegins, and that is strength.
And when we as teachers giveourselves permission to not have
all the answers, we modelcuriosity instead of fear, and
that can change everything.
So here's your Math Therapychallenge for this week.
(46:55):
The next time a student oranyone asks you a question you
don't know the answer to, I wantyou to pause before you panic.
Instead of faking it or shuttingdown, try saying"I don't know
yet.
Let's figure it out." Or thenext time a student solves a
problem in a way that you didn'tthink, to lean into that moment
and say, wait, can you explainyour thinking?
(47:17):
Because when you do that, youturn kids from mimics who just
copy your steps into empoweredlearners who own their
knowledge.
And the best part is they get toteach you something.
And that one shift makes themfeel confident, capable, and
important, and you get to growright alongside them.
So it's a win-win.
If you liked this episode, don'tkeep it to yourself, okay?
Send it to a friend, acolleague, or that person in
(47:40):
your life who holds themselvesback because they're scared of
not knowing enough.
This conversation could changetheir life.
It could be exactly what theyneed to hear.
And remember, I want to hearfrom you, and now you can text
the podcast.
So if something in this episodeinspired you, you can text us by
going to the link that's rightin your podcast app.
You can also DM me on Instagram@themathguru.
(48:02):
You can email me atvanessa@themathguru.ca.
I wanna hear your feedback andyour reactions.
And remember, Math Therapy isnow a weekly podcast, so make
sure you're subscribed so youdon't miss a single episode.
Math Therapy is hosted by me,Vanessa Vakharia.
It's produced and edited byDavid Kochberg, and our theme
music is by our band GoodnightSunrise.
(48:24):
And guys, if you know someonewho needs math therapy, please
share this podcast and rate orreview it on whatever podcast
app you use.
Those things actually make sucha difference because they help
Math Therapy reach more people.
I'm as determined to change theculture surrounding math as you
are, and I need your help, sospread the word.
Until next time, peace, love,and pi.
(48:48):
we have to not only beopen-minded, but like have a
level of openness tounderstanding that we don't
under, you know what I mean?
That we don't fully understand,I think.
Mike Flynn (48:58):
a hundred percent.
Vanessa Vakharia (48:59):
I
Mike Flynn (49:00):
You're making noises.
It's not, of course.
No, that's so profound.
if you're a thinker, you can do math.
That's all it is.
You were given experiences whereyou weren't allowed to think,
we're gonna give you experienceswhere you can think Every lesson
I teach, I'm learning alongsidethe kids because I know enough
of the math that I'm teachingthat I can back up and listen
and be present.
I'm not trying to hold ontowhat's the thing I'm supposed to
say?
What's the thing I'm supposed toshow?
What's the slide telling me todo here?
(00:23):
I can just be in the moment.
Vanessa Vakharia (00:26):
Hey guys.
It's me, Vanessa, AKA The MathGuru, and we are here for
another week of Math Therapy.
Okay.
Have you ever been in asituation where someone asks you
a question and you freezebecause you don't know the
answer, and then suddenly yourbrain is screaming, I should
know this, and if I don't, doesthat mean I'm stupid?
(00:47):
Maybe you felt that yourself, ormaybe you have a friend or
colleague who struggles withthat exact fear, the kind of
fear that keeps them from goingafter the promotion or speaking
up in meetings or tryingsomething new because they're
scared they won't have all theanswers.
And if that sounds familiar,you're gonna love this episode.
Honestly, I've been there.
I used to think that if I didn'tknow the answer to something, I
(01:08):
had to fake it or scramble tomake something up, or I'd get
really flustered trying to covermy tracks.
I thought that not knowing meantI wasn't qualified or that I'd
lose credibility.
But here's the truth.
Not knowing doesn't make usweak.
It makes us all learners, and italso can make us the best
teachers.
And that's exactly what today'sguest, Mike Flynn, is going to
(01:31):
help us with.
Mike is a math educator whoworks with teachers.
All over the world, and he'shere to show us how a deeper
understanding of math can healour own math trauma, and prevent
us from passing it onto the nextgeneration.
He'll help you reframe those"Idon't know" moments into
opportunities for growth, forus, but also for our students.
(01:51):
So if you've ever feltuncomfortable not knowing the
answer, or you know someone whoholds themselves back because of
that exact fear, this episode isgoing to give you exactly what
you need.
So let's get into it.
Mike, welcome to the podcast.
It has been a long time coming.
I'm so excited.
I'm really just having you hereso I can hang out with you for
(02:12):
an hour.
Mike Flynn (02:13):
Eh, good excuse.
I like it.
Vanessa Vakharia (02:15):
You are the first guest, I have to say,
whose birth chart I have.
Normally I'm just willy-nillyguessing people's astrological
signs.
Sometimes I'm right, sometimesI'm not.
I'm usually not, but sometimes Iam.
But I actually have your birthchart in my hot little hands
because you let me read it foryou one time.
Thank you for that.
How was the experience?
Mike Flynn (02:36):
That was great.
Yeah, I, it's not something Inormally followed or anything,
so I didn't even know what anyof that meant.
So I, I learned quite a bit withyou and it's interesting, what
things are coincidental, whatthings are, uh, you know what,
what was really neat is that youdidn't know a lot of things
about my profession or thethings I do, and you were naming
things that were like, Ooh,that's kind of aligned to what,
(02:56):
where we're going or what we'rehoping will happen.
So
Vanessa Vakharia (02:58):
my god.
Thank you, and now it's itsounds like I've brought you on
the pod to validate my skills anastrologer, which I, I have not,
but thank you for saying allthat.
Let's actually talk about whatyou do in that realm.
Like how did you start, youknow, because there are so many
instructional coaches and likeadmin that listen to the
podcast, so many people who helpother teachers help their
students and help other teachersbuild their own relationships
(03:21):
with math.
How did you get into this, andmaybe just tell us like
specifically what it is you do.
Mike Flynn (03:26):
Well, what I do is I help and my, team at our
company, we help build teacherscontent and pedagogical
knowledge and as well as.
help them develop effectiveteaching practices and then we
build lots of great resourcesthat they can then use to
support this work to reallybetter math education for all
students.
Um, it's not really the path Ioriginally chose for myself,
(03:47):
even when I became a teacher,because I never liked math.
I didn't like math as a student,I hated it as a teacher.
And the thing that kind ofbrought me where I am now is I
actually had a really goodprofessional learning experience
for myself where it wasn't justsomeone showing me how to use a
curriculum or someone saying,here's how you teach.
Instead, it actually was allfocused on just relearning math,
(04:10):
like learning math deeply.
And it wasn't a, a course forsomeone who doesn't know the
math or like needs a boost up.
It was just that, the basicsense was that all of us have
students only got a fraction ofthe depth of math that we're
supposed to really understand.
We, like the way I look at, it'slike if you imagine there's a
book of math that has all themath knowledge that ever was and
(04:31):
will ever be is in this book,and when we were kids growing
up, our teachers skimmed thechapters.
Like they skimmed fractions,they skimm multiplication.
So we got just the gist of it.
And then when we becameteachers, what we were expected
to teach was a lot more of thosechapters, but we didn't learn it
ourselves.
And so a lot of us, I, me inparticular is I would just force
(04:52):
all my lessons to be the littlebit that I remembered.
Like, oh, just line the numbersup and just do this.
So as much as I hated math whenI became a teacher, I taught
math the same way that I wastaught.
'cause I didn't know any better.
And when I took that course, itwas like getting a chance to
read the chapter deeper, like toactually go through the whole
thing.
And I was like, I had no idea.
(05:13):
I remember turning to someonewhile I was learning this
saying, if I had learned maththis way, it would've made it
the biggest difference in mylife.
And so from that, I started tochange my teaching practices to
basically make those kinds ofexperiences for my students,
which then transformed the waymy kids learn math, the way I
taught, and then I becameaddicted to it.
So I kept going back and gettingmore and more of this kind of
(05:36):
professional learning, that mademe a confident teacher, made me
love math.
And then as I developed myskills and my comfort, I started
to share what I knew with otherpeople.
And that started around 2003 andI've been doing it ever since,
is is just helping teachers andleaders basically create these
kinds of experiences for theirstaff or for their students.
Vanessa Vakharia (06:00):
Okay.
I have about 10 questions, solet's just, first of all, this
is sounds really cool and I'mobviously wanting an example Let
me, let me say why, becauseyou're saying this idea of
saying, you know, imaginethere's this book of math and
it's, I mean, it'd probably beinfinite.
I mean, I can't even imagine allthe math knowledge in the world,
but when you're learning math atschool, your teachers were
skimming those chapters, right?
(06:21):
So they were just giving youlike the kind of like icing
layer of fractions, the icinglayer of multiplication.
Then you said that when youbecame a teacher, you know,
let's say all of us, thecollective we, when we become
teachers, we're expected to domore than that.
Is that correct, we're expected?
My first question is, why are weexpected to do more than that,
(06:42):
but those teachers who taught uswe're not?
Mike Flynn (06:44):
I think because for a long time that, that there
wasn't this need for deeperthinking in math.
I mean, if you go back to likevery early education, the
beginnings of education, mathwas, it's just arithmetic.
You're basically, you, learningto do computation,'cause all
computation had to be done byhand, with a quill and a ledger
or whatever it is.
(07:05):
Right.
Like parchment and stuff, youknow what I mean?
Vanessa Vakharia (07:06):
so cool.
Mike Flynn (07:07):
It's like Hogwarts time.
Right.
You know, but that's, by theway, that's just such a weird
thing to me that you have allthat magic and you still have to
write with a quill, like I I,that, you know what I mean?
There's like a, just things thatI just wonder, like there's, it
doesn't make.
Vanessa Vakharia (07:20):
of the magic though, is like there are
certain experiences that arelike tangible.
Like it's almost like the magicis in these little things.
Mike Flynn (07:28):
Yeah, yeah,
Vanessa Vakharia (07:29):
it's like, it's like writing with a quill,
doesn't that make you feel sopowerful, as opposed to like
snapping your fingers and thewriting appears you're not
getting the, I don't know.
I also have never watched HarryPotter.
Is that where Hogwarts is from?
Mike Flynn (07:41):
Yeah.
That's it.
I'm just making randomreferences for you.
So,
Vanessa Vakharia (07:45):
That's fine.
Go ahead.
Back to what you
Mike Flynn (07:48):
but, but here's the idea is like, that's like for a
long time, just being able to dofast rote.
Vanessa Vakharia (07:54):
Yeah.
Mike Flynn (07:54):
Calculations by hand.
That was, that was all youneeded.
And what, what we're seeingtoday is like people need to
know how to think, how toreason, how to problem solve,
how to be creative.
There aren't companies that arehiring people that are like, how
good are you at long division?
I've never had that interviewquestion.
I've never seen that interviewquestion.
Right?
It's they, but they wanna know,how do you solve?
(08:15):
how do you creatively solvethese problems?
I mean, I remember Google usedto have, sometimes they would
put out these really interestingproblems, like really complex
problems.
And the answer to the problemwas like the phone number that
you would call to get a jobinterview.
Like that's the kind of thingthat where these companies are
looking for people that arethoughtful, creative problem
solvers.
And because of that, the needsshift.
(08:36):
And so there's a recognitionthat.
Just skimming the surface ofmath and just having math just
beyond getting quick answersaccurately is it's not enough,
and that we wanna have thatdeeper understanding because we
also saw that at least at theelementary level, that you can
teach all these rope proceduresand kids can perform well on
(08:57):
tests and things for a littlewhile.
But as soon as you get intoalgebra, as soon as you get into
any of this higher math, well,you have to actually understand
like what it means to multiplyand, and you have to understand,
the properties of operations,how they work.
If all you have is memorizedfacts and procedures, that all
that starts to fall apart.
And so a lot of us kind of wentthrough life with this like
(09:19):
vague understanding of math,like just enough to like get by.
But.
If you talk to any, I mean,you're, this is all your work.
How many adults do you talk tothat talk about math, trauma,
that talk about, just the, theicky feelings they have when
they think about math?
There are so many people that wehear that from, that are older
than us, that are our age, thatare younger than us, that we see
(09:41):
that this is actually a problem.
If you just are taught the waywe were taught, that doesn't
work.
We have way too many people whoare underserved with that kind
of teaching.
And there's a reason why mathhas such a bad reputation is
because, you know, imagine if wetaught reading the same way we
teach math, where it's just,just focus on saying these words
really fast and don't worryabout what it means.
(10:03):
Right?
If that's how we taught reading,people would say, I hate
reading.
I, I, I can read, but I don'tget it.
I don't, I never liked reading.
But with reading, we alsoembrace the comprehension.
In fact, the comprehension's themost important thing, and the
speed and accuracy help us toget to that meaning faster.
But in math, we just disregardedthe meaning.
It's like, oh, don't worry aboutit, just.
Just do this thing I show youand do it fast.
(10:26):
And if you do it right, you'regonna get all the right answers.
But don't worry about what itmeans like I was taught.
Yours is not to reason why, justinvert and multiply like the
teacher was actually saying,don't even worry about why.
Yeah.
that's,
Vanessa Vakharia (10:37):
Yours is not to reason why?
That's actually fucked.
Mike Flynn (10:41):
It is.
But I remembered it.
Vanessa Vakharia (10:42):
What an insane thing to say! Oh, yeah, say, oh
Yeah, you know how to, you know,how to divide fractions,
Mike Flynn (10:47):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (10:47):
Like, you're literally told like, your job is
not to think.
Like, do not.
Okay this is so interestingbecause I'm of two minds here.
I'm like, Absolutely, like wewant to have deep knowledge.
We wanna understand the why.
So your job here is to helpteachers understand the why
behind what they're teaching.
(11:07):
Is that like a, a simple way to,am I correct?
Mike Flynn (11:10):
Yeah.
And some of the what too, yeah.
But understand why it all works,it's the one of the best things
we can do for teachers.
Vanessa Vakharia (11:16):
And also you can imagine just talking about
magic and Hogwarts and the quilland everything, unlocking
knowledge and meaning is magic,right?
Like when someone can see whywe're actually flipping and
multiplying, like actually thewhy behind it.
All of a sudden, as we know,many teachers and students
remember that aha moment whereyou're like, holy shit, it's all
coming together.
You know?
Like now I completely get it.
(11:36):
I mean, I remember seriouslywhen Deborah Peart like two
years ago, I'm a high schoolmath teacher, right?
I understand fractions.
But when she showed me why weflip and multiply, like she
showed me visually, it did feellike magic.
It really felt like magic.
So I get that feeling.
Now, you're saying, you know,we're now in this time where we,
(11:56):
kids need to know how to think,they don't just need to know
arithmetic.
So here you are teaching theseteachers or showing them that
magic, the thinking, thecuriosity, them getting to the
deeper knowledge of why we'redoing certain things.
Now they're in the classroom toteach the kids, right?
They're gonna pass this on.
Do you think that the contentthat's in the curriculum hinders
(12:19):
that do you think it's like,yes, cool, we wanna teach
thinking everyone can agree, butthen we get to certain content
in the curriculum where it'slike, but this isn't teaching
thinking.
Mike Flynn (12:29):
Here's a way we can kind of look at it, all
curricular resources are tools,and the tools are designed by
people to achieve certain means,right?
Part of it is like, I think of,uh, Tina Cardone who wrote the
book Nix the Tricks.
Like one of the things that, ifpeople aren't familiar with Nix
the Tricks, it was, I loved itbecause it was a, it was
created, uh, she curated it withthe collaborate of the, the
(12:52):
greater math ed community thatwas at the time, blogging and on
Twitter, when that was like abig thing.
And what the book did is gaveteachers ways to take all these
things that were like magic,right?
These like the tricks, and, andlike foil and the butterfly
method and all this and it, andit was basically, uh, instead of
doing this, do this instead tobuild meaning.
(13:15):
So it's like getting that,what's the underlying math that
this trick is trying to get kidsto do?
Because the trick goes rightover the thinking because it's
like, how can I get a kid toremember, memorize this and do
it really quickly withoutthinking?
And, and so she and the otherpeople who contributed to that
basically found a way to helppeople bring in the meaning to
(13:35):
it.
Vanessa Vakharia (13:36):
Well, and I now I am saying this and I'm
like, I think what's happened isI've been very affected by an
interview I had yesterday withtwo moms who I interviewed for
the podcast.
And they were very much like,and so rightfully so, they were
like, we don't understand whatthe point is of half this shit
our kids are learning.
Like, what is the point of this?
Why do they need this?
Our kids are frustrated, we'refrustrated.
(13:57):
And I was like, you know what,like, you're right.
Like I don't even know what totell you.
Like I, I don't, I don't know,like a lot of it is like, I
don't know why they're learningit.
But you're kind of like, yeah,and tell me if I'm wrong, but I
hear you being like that aside,since I don't have, I don't have
control over that, that aside,there is an opportunity in
everything they're learning toteach a thinking skill.
Mike Flynn (14:17):
Yeah, that, that, that comes right down to it.
And I think part of it is like,if you as an educator, like once
you start to go down that pathfor yourself to understand the
math better, it's, like, I'mgonna use another metaphor.
'cause I just constantly thinkin analogies and metaphors, but
like, when I wrote my bookBeyond Answers, the very first
chapter is called Lost in Bostonbecause, um, I live in Western
(14:38):
Mass, but it's, uh, Boston, ifanyone's familiar with it.
Like cities are hard to drive inanyway, but many cities are a
grid.
Boston is the most, it's just,I, I, one time I got lost, I
went to a gas station, showedthem the directions I had, and
the guy laughed.
He's like, you're never gonnafind it.
'cause those two roads don'teven exist anymore.
Like, that's like the level ofcraziness that.
Vanessa Vakharia (14:57):
hands, like a physical map?
Mike Flynn (14:59):
It was a MapQuest, like I'm dating myself too.
It's like, like this is like preGPS, like this.
Is that?
Yeah.
All you young folks, this isbefore we actually had to print
out directions.
Vanessa Vakharia (15:08):
They had maps on paper, guys.
Okay.
Mike Flynn (15:10):
Yeah.
Charts and stuff.
Yeah.
It's uh.
I was, I was like, Magellan,basically.
Yeah.
But here's the thing is I had togo to Boston quite a bit for
meetings and I would leave anhour earlier than I should to
give myself getting lost time.
It was really frustratingbecause when you would get these
printed out directions, you alsocan't read while you're driving,
right.
You, technically, and so I wouldtry to memorize these
(15:33):
directions, right?
So I knew like everywhere to,Boston, I kind of had, but once
I got got into Boston, I wouldjust memorized, okay, take it
right on here, get off at thisexit, dah, dah, dah, whatever.
Then I, the whole time, eventhough I had those directions
memorized, I was panickingbecause if the way Boston
worked, there was too muchtraffic.
There was a detour.
Anything that got me off of whatthe predictable path that I
(15:54):
memorized was, I had no ideawhere I was.
Even when I was following thedirections, I didn't know where
in Boston I was.
I just knew, like I knew the,yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (16:04):
Right! This is me every day in my life.
Oh my God, dude, wow.
I could not relate more to this.
Mike Flynn (16:10):
And this is what math feels like for most people
when they're just taught thesememorized procedures.
'cause there's no thinkingreason, including when we become
teachers.
So I taught math like theMapQuest way.
I just would show and explainand tell and stuff.
But when you have a chance, andthis is what happened to me in
Boston,'cause my brother, heused to have a, his own limo
company and stuff is a wholeother story.
(16:30):
But, uh, he would want me todrive for him sometimes.
And as a teacher, I need to getany money I could, so all, all
these side hustles.
But I would always say I'm nevertaking anyone to Logan Airport,
the Boston Airport.
And that's like one of his best,like all these people wanted
trips to Boston.
And I refused to do it'cause Ididn't know how to navigate it.
And he actually took me, hesaid, we'll figure it out
(16:50):
together.
So he knew Boston, like the backof his hand.
So he would have me drive, wewould look at a map first just
to kinda get the layout, knowall the main arteries and
landmarks and stuff.
And then he said, so we wannaget to the science museum, how
are you gonna do it?
So I would sort of chart it outand then we just put that away
and then I'd have to likenavigate looking at the lay of
the land and stuff.
And then he would never help me.
(17:11):
So even when he knew I was aboutto make a wrong turn, he'd let
me make the wrong turn and thenhe would say, so now whatcha
gonna do?
And I, as frustrating as thatwas,
Vanessa Vakharia (17:20):
it's like Thinking Classrooms in a car.
Mike Flynn (17:22):
That's what it was.
And he, Scott's not he's, he's aEMT and all that, he is not a
teacher, but he was the bestteacher, because he let me
struggle productively, right?
I, it wasn't where I just gaveup and stuff when I was getting
frustrated, he would come in,but he made me own most of the
stuff.
I had to constantly think.
I couldn't just ask, I couldn'tjust follow the directions.
(17:42):
And in just a few hours, Bostonmade sense to me.
And, I can navigate the cityreally easily.
I'll still like, I'll put in theGPS directions and things now,
but there are times where I'mlooking at where GPS wants me to
go.
I'm like, I'm not doing that,like it's so much faster to go
around this way.
So that's what we're trying todo with in math is, when we as
teachers engage in professionallearning, it's the equivalent of
(18:04):
driving around, just kind ofmucking around Boston and
getting the lay of that land.
And once you have thatunderstanding, then you could
look at the curriculum orcurricular resource or anything
and you can decide how importantis this thing?
Or if you look at how it'swritten, if it says, oh, teach
this, like teach the butterflymethod or something, you could
say, Hmm, I, I see what theywant me to do here, I'm gonna
(18:28):
actually teach it this other waybecause my kids are gonna
understand it better and they'regonna remember it better
Vanessa Vakharia (18:33):
Or like that's gonna connect to this thing I'm
gonna teach in two weeks,'causeI know where I'm going.
Mike Flynn (18:37):
Exactly.
Vanessa Vakharia (18:38):
This is a wild metaphor.
First of all, you could not havepicked a metaphor that relates
more to me because I always sayI have horrible spatial
awareness, and now I say thiswith growth mindset as in like,
I've not ever tried to getbetter.
I've not done what your brotherdid, for example.
Like I'm just like fuck it, youknow what, I don't need to work
on this skill right now, like Ijust put on my GPS.
Like where I'm sitting rightnow, I have driven to this
place, it's two hours away frommy home.
(18:59):
I have driven here maybe ahundred times.
I could not get here without myGPS.
I turn on my GPS and I blindlyfollow it.
I have no clue how to get here.
Mike Flynn (19:07):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:07):
No clue where it is in relation.
Like, you know, we're in a bandhere and every time we're
planning a tour, David's like,what the fuck are you talking?
I'm like, could we get from dah,dah, dah to blah, blah, blah?
And he's like, have you lookedat the map?
Like, no.
Like, what?
Why would you think?
And I'm like, I don't know.
It just like, and it's reallymaking me think of like, my poor
attitude of being like, well, Ican just use the GPS, so
Mike Flynn (19:30):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:30):
I can just use the GPS, just like teachers
Mike Flynn (19:33):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (19:33):
can theoretically just, follow the
book like you could.
But what I'm missing out on hereis, first of all, if the GPS
ever broke down, I'd actually befucked.
Like I would have no clue whatto do.
Mike Flynn (19:46):
Would you though?
Would you?
Let me, so you would feelfucked, right?
But you would not be fucked.
And there, let me clarify.
let's say it did break down.
Let's say the, all thesatellites went down.
There is no more GPS right nowand you have to go home from
this place.
What are you gonna do?
Vanessa Vakharia (20:01):
Okay Well, so actually this did happen to me,
and so I did, you're right, I,this happened to me.
A few months ago where my phonedied on halfway on my way here.
And I was like, shit.
So the first thing I did is Iwent to a gas station, so I
asked for help.
So I went to the gas station andI was like, I need to go, you
know, this way.
So I did that and then I waskind of like, okay, hold on a a
(20:22):
second.
Some things are lookingfamiliar.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, some, I was looking forlike, but that was a bit tricky
because it was like, I'm in farmcountry and all the farms looked
familiar because they all, youknow, like I hadn't been paying
attention to the signposts Icould have been paying attention
to The other thing is too,'causeI mean the gas station guy gave
me a plan, went towards it, butit was a different one than I
(20:46):
was used to with my GPS.
So I was still going in theright direction, but I wasn't
going in the direction I wasused to.
So the usual signs weren'tthere.
Anyways, then I charged my phoneat the next gas stations, but
okay.
Mike Flynn (20:56):
But imagine this though.
What if, what if this, you arein that scenario again, but you,
you, you just get on a computeror something, right?
Or you could basically look upthe direction.
Let's say you were planningahead, right?
Or that you found a way whereyou could actually.
get a map.
I mean, you can go to a gasstation.
I'm sure they still have maps orsomething, right?
That like, I don't know when'sthe last time.
(21:16):
Right.
But let's say you do that,right?
You could go through and likelook at the map, kind of map out
the path, look at where theroads are.
Now we could say like, if youhave the choice of GPS or
navigating planning out yourroute with a map, which one
takes more work?
Vanessa Vakharia (21:34):
Planning out the route.
Mike Flynn (21:35):
Right.
Which one results in morelearning?
Vanessa Vakharia (21:38):
Planning out the route.
Yeah.
I've learned
Mike Flynn (21:40):
That's the crux.
That's the crux, yep.
Vanessa Vakharia (21:42):
Like, and that's I guess why I'm like,
this is such a good analogy.
'Cause it's like A, you'd beokay, I guess you wouldn't be
fucked if the whole thing brokedown, but I have to, basically,
I've not learned a single thingin years.
Right.
Mike Flynn (21:53):
yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (21:54):
I could plan out the route and then maybe
also if I planned out the route,I'd be like, oh my God, there's
all these cute places to stopalong the way.
And oh, if there's traffic, orif I wanted to visit this person
or if I wanted to get a coffeeor groceries, I could take this
other thing.
And, oh, like there's so muchmore.
I, I get it.
I don't know.
Like, I'm like, I wanna be likeMike, that's it.
The way home next week I'mgonna, maybe I'll, maybe I'll
(22:15):
plan out my route home.
Mike Flynn (22:17):
Here's, here's the way you kind of think about it.
So when I talk like I loveBuilding Thinking Classrooms, I
know you, you do as well.
And one of the things that whenwe, we talk, when Peter talks
about like kids not thinking,like sometimes people like hear
that and think that he'sthinking like down on kids, that
kids can't think of stuff.
And that's not actually at allwhat he's saying.
But it's almost like what'shappening here is like, you can
(22:38):
navigate with a map.
You could plan out routes andthings.
You could take the time to getto know all the different areas
so that you could really, like,understand where you are at any
given point in time and know allthe different detours, but you
choose not to because you haveother things that can get you
where you need to go thatdoesn't require you to think as
much, and right now you don'thave that need.
(22:59):
Which is fine.
Right?
We as humans have to choose howmuch mental energy we wanna put
in anything.
Now, when we as teachers or whenstudents are given procedures
and formulas and all thesethings to memorize and stuff,
it's basically teachers givingkids GPS directions for all the
math that they're learning.
And it's really easy, theybecome dependent on it.
And the difference between youand students here is that you
(23:23):
don't have a, a great need foryou to really understand an
area.
Like you're not an Uber driver,you're not working, you're not
an EMT or something that youneed to know how to get around
things.
So it's not essential, but it isessential for our students to
learn the math deeply and tothink for it.
And so what we're having to dois, is basically get students
to, almost get detoxed from thereliance on the GPS and to see
(23:46):
the value in it.
But I'll tell you right now, assomeone who also didn't really
like mucking around in Boston,once I started to do it, I
realized how empowering it waswhere I could see those
connections.
So it can help you also as youstart to, break free from things
that reduce the amount ofthinking you had to do.
You'll find that it can bereally powerful, whether it's
(24:08):
directions or it's math, beingable to think and reason and
make sense, and you realize, Iown this idea now, like it can't
be taken from me.
It's powerful.
Vanessa Vakharia (24:19):
Well, and the other thing I'm thinking is,
there is so many reasons why,think justifiably kids don't
like math or math class.
Like it's boring, some of thecontent seems irrelevant, like,
you know what I mean?
Like, we're literally justtaught to copy things down.
Like, so I think if anythingtoo, it at least alleviates a
(24:39):
lot of that, is to be like,okay, we get it.
Like some of this content mightseem irrelevant and you know,
you don't wanna just sit thereand be like, uh, you know, doing
data entry, basically likecopying things into formulas and
spitting them out.
At least this I think adds tolike the, a bit of the
motivation or inspiration ofwhat, like what you can get out
of math class, even if contentitself seems irrelevant and
(25:00):
boring, you can, exactly, feelempowered.
You can a moment of feeling likebasically like a detective or
you're solving like a, who doneit.
But the other thing is like,we're talking about kids, but
really like, I wanna dial itback for a second.
We're talking about teachingteachers how to think this way,
right?
So I kind of wanna peel back andask you, or you mentioned
earlier on in the interview thata lot of teachers have carry
(25:22):
their own math trauma.
And you kind of alluded to thefact that it was because
potentially they were taught inthis way that was very rote.
Can you expand on, on that?
Because I argue this all thetime, right?
I say, you know, the way weteach math in this way of like
mimicking can lead to mathtrauma.
I'm curious why you think so andwhat you've seen.
Mike Flynn (25:40):
Part of it is, it just is that vague
understanding, kind of like withdirections, right?
If I, can follow directions, Ican get to where I'm supposed to
go, but it doesn't mean that Iknow anything about that area.
And so, anytime I've memorizeddirections, I never had
confidence in my ability to getwhere I'm going,'cause any
little thing could throw me off.
And that's what it feels like inmath when, when everything is
(26:02):
mimicking and memorization, isthat I have enough to get
answers, but I don't have enoughto feel confident in my math
ability, and if we don't usethings enough, we eventually
lose it.
So I may memorize something fora while and I'm okay in that
class.
I might pass that test orsomething, but a couple years
(26:23):
after, I'm not gonna rememberthese things.
And so there's a lot in maththat I have a vague notion of,
oh, I remember doing that, or Iremember going there, but I
don't actually, I can't callthat up.
And so, so much of our mathlearning when we're taught that
way is fragile.
It's like a very fragilefoundation.
And because of that, it can beunsettling because we just don't
(26:44):
have that level of confidence.
So I think that unsettledfeeling is what a lot of people
carry with them.
Now, if you take on top of that,you have any intense teachers,
that are hammering things down,or you're like the grades or
there's that high pressure, yougotta get up on the board and
you gotta perform thiscomputation in front of the
whole class and you're gonna bepublicly wrong.
You add all of that other stuffon top of it, and that's where
(27:07):
the anxiety comes in.
That's where the shame comes in,those things.
And I experienced all of that.
Because one thing about me isthat, I've learned later as a,
as I got older that I have,A-D-H-D.
I, you look at any of my reportcards, so you could see writing
was all over it, there, likeclearly, like talks too much,
too active, out of his seat, inthe principle all the time,
(27:27):
office all the time, all ofthat.
But, one, for those that aren'tfamiliar with ADHD, it's not
that I can't pay attention, likeI can't shut my brain off.
I pay attention to everything.
And so what would happen in mathsituations, even like fact
fluency tests, is that I wouldbe look like everything on
whatever was on the page, I'mtaking all that in.
(27:47):
I'm also taking the sound of theteacher walking up and down the
rows with her high heelsclicking, like that noise.
And the pencil noises, I'mlistening to the pencil noises.
All of that's happening.
Before I've even started thefirst problem.
And I'm just trying to quiet allthat down just to get that.
So by the time I start to getinto it, the time's up and I
couldn't get my stuff finished.
And then she, this, I'm thinkingone particular teacher had the
(28:09):
wall of fame where you had yournames.
It's a wall of shame, right?
So everyone's like all at thesevens tables eights tables of
stuff.
I'm still back on threes becauselike, I'm just stuck there and
for me it's like that shame theembarrassment of like everyone
seeing how far behind I am, andit made me feel like inadequate.
But the thing is, is one thetimer and stuff, when, when, if
(28:32):
I just had those, I could dothem all fine.
It wasn't that I didn't know it.
But when you get that, all thatinformation overload and then
when you start to panic, yourworking memory gets blocked.
You can't access facts that youknow, and so I would freeze and,
and then it just becomes thisexacerbated thing.
Now that's third grade.
Then imagine fourth grade, fifthgrade, and before you know it,
(28:52):
I've accumulated enoughembarrassment that I just, even
being in a math classroom, youcould just feel that like
tension.
And I, I hated it and I, a lotof people carry that with them.
Vanessa Vakharia (29:05):
How and why did you become a math teacher?
How did you end up at thisschool?
Like where was the, where's the
Mike Flynn (29:12):
Oh, just a Oh, second grade teacher.
So I, I was, um, I.
Vanessa Vakharia (29:15):
so you weren't, you were like, I'm
gonna become a teacher,
Mike Flynn (29:18):
gonna become a teacher.
And so, and I wasn't math, itwas, well it was generalist,
right?
So I just became a teacher andmath was one of the many
subjects I had to teach.
Yeah.
So it was low priority for me.
So, so anyway, I was more ELAand uh, science and stuff.
And there was this position openat our school to be a
coordinator for literacy.
Like I got to, there's this hugegrant and stuff, and I was all
(29:40):
about it.
Fairly young.
I think I was like 24, 25,something like that at the time.
And I wanted to be the literacycoordinator.
I wanted to do this and I didn'tget it.
I was told that I was too youngto be taken seriously, and it
devastated me, right?
And, and I was so bummed and mycolleague Anne-Marie came by and
(30:01):
she said, Hey, now that you'renot doing that, there's this
field test for the new versionof the investigations curriculum
and they need field testteachers and uh, you do some
professional learning and stuffand all that.
And I'm like, hard pass.
Like, no, that's the last thingI want.
Really, you're coming at me withmath.
Like, but she said there's likea$2,500 stipend to do it.
(30:22):
And yeah, I'm a brand newteacher broke, and like, I'm
like, yeah, I'm in, I'm in.
I, say no more.
And I agreed to it, notrealizing that part of agreeing
to be, field test teachers, youhad to commit to, monthly or
weekly professional learningwith the authors of the program
and stuff, which I, again, I wasso far removed from this.
I had no idea the big names thatwere involved in the creation of
(30:45):
this.
It's sort of all theseinfluential people.
So I ended up.
saying yes, and I had to agreeto use this curriculum and teach
it the way it was intended,which meant I had to, I couldn't
just fake it.
I had to like read the materialsand things.
I had to have ongoingprofessional learning with
people like Anne-Marie and hercolleagues and things.
And this is where I started torelearn math and to start seeing
(31:06):
like, this is how I should havebeen taught.
If I was taught math this way,it would've made the biggest
difference in my life.
Vanessa Vakharia (31:12):
Can you remember like one thing you
learned, like one moment, thatone thing you learned that
caused you to be like.
Oh my god.
Mike Flynn (31:18):
Yeah, I, so I had no idea what everyone, we were in
this session and we had to dothings with a arrays, and I, I
thought it was a raise, likegetting a raise.
What's a raise?
Like, I didn't even realize itwas R-A-A-R-Y, like I had no
idea what they're talking about.
Vanessa Vakharia (31:32):
array, so this is probably gonna blow my mind,
so intimidated by the word even.
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know what
Mike Flynn (31:36):
Yeah.
yeah, like rows and columns andthings like, and so we were.
So once I got some confidence toask like, what are our, what are
raises?
Or something like that.
Like, oh, you mean array?
Right.
And so my colleagues, we wereworking on this math problem and
we started to sketch out and Icould see basically the
distributive property.
like, how it made sense.
(31:57):
Like none of it made sense tome, and then it all made sense
to me.
And it was like, and that wasjust one thing.
And the more I uncovered, it waslike I couldn't stop going down
that rabbit hole because it'slike, what else don't I know?
What else don't I know?
And that was it.
Game over.
It just blew my mind.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:14):
So this is actually so cool because you are
literally like the least likelycandidate, right?
So this is like, good evidenceto be like you were the least
likely candidate.
You hated math.
You had a horrible experiencewith math.
You didn't want anything to dowith math.
You were literally just in itfor the money.
You were bribed and you came outa changed man.
Mike Flynn (32:33):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:33):
And to show what a difference that meant and
look at you now,
Mike Flynn (32:37):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (32:37):
You, you were so taken by it that you were
like, I must do this.
I must show other teacherswhat's happening here.
Because there, I mean, we knowthere are so many teachers that
carry their own math trauma, andin fact, these wonderful
teachers often become teachersbecause they have math trauma
and they wanna, they wanna havea, they wanna give a more
positive math experience tostudents.
And there are so many ways to dothat.
(32:58):
And one of them is through usgaining deeper understanding of
the math we're teaching,
Mike Flynn (33:02):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (33:02):
Like that is just a way to do it.
And you're here providing that,which is so incredible.
And it's, I, you know, it'sfunny, like we were talking
about the math trauma and youwere kind of explaining why
being taught in sort of a veryprocedural right way might lead
to having math trauma.
And I always, when I talk aboutmath trauma, I'm always like,
look, it's basically a negativeexperience with math that lasts
with you long after theexperience is gone.
(33:24):
And a negative experience couldbe exactly what you described,
that feeling that you're justslightly on edge all the time
'cause you don't quite have it.
You know, you're like, I've gotit in this scenario, in that
scenario.
But I mean, I don't know if Ihave it, if I'm timed, I don't
know if I have it if theychanged the words, like I don't
know that I really understandit.
Like, so that feeling of justbeing on edge for so long and
(33:45):
feeling not confident, you know,like that lack of confidence
carrying that with youthroughout your math experience,
that is just such an icky, heavyfeeling.
And I hear this from so manyteachers, and I'm sure you do
too, since you work with them ofbeing like, probably a lot of
the reason people want to takeyour professional development is
that they're like, they don'twanna feel like that, right?
They wanna feel like, like wewant to encourage kids to ask
(34:06):
any question they have and tothink whatever way they want.
But if we don't feel confident,that's actually really
threatening to us because I'mlike, well, if you ask any
question you want and you dothis math in a way that I don't
understand, now I'm on the hook.
Right?
So like this is, I think, such agreat way to be like, look we
wanna encourage kids to makemistakes and teachers to make
mistakes too.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout progress, it's about
(34:27):
process, this and that.
But in order to, I think, reallyfacilitate a student's learning
process, like we have to notonly be open-minded, but like
have a level of openness tounderstanding that we don't
fully understand.
Mike Flynn (34:40):
That's so profound because it's, but it, right, it,
it comes down to thatunderstanding.
It's that meaning piece, right?
That when we understand it, it'smuch easier for us to back up a
bit and allow the students toalso come to their own
understanding.
Because if, if we don't, if wedon't understand it and we're
afraid to open up and get alltheir ideas and flexible
strategies and these things thatif we're, if we don't have that
(35:03):
comfort, then we just force kidsinto the way we think about it.
And so and, and then there's,we're not giving them a chance
to understand because there'sjust, here's the way I'm gonna
show you how to do it.
I'm not getting a chance toexpand my understanding because
I'm not learning with thestudents.
One of the things that oftensurprises people is that a lot
of what I learned about earlyelementary math, I learned from
my seven and eight year olds, mysecond graders, when I first
(35:24):
started teaching, because once Ilistened to them and I could see
how they were approaching it, Icould understand the way kids'
minds worked around these mathideas.
And now, like the work I do nowis I teach preschool through
high school, so I get to seethat all the time at every
different grade level,everything we do is around
building understanding.
So I get to listen to studentsand hear how they build these
(35:47):
strong connections.
And when you just, when you'reat a spot where you understand
the math enough, where you canback up a bit, then everybody
learns, you and the students atthe same time.
You create this mutual learningspace.
And I, it's, it's nonstop.
I still, every lesson I teach,I'm learning alongside the kids
because I, I know enough of themath that I'm teaching that I
(36:08):
can back up and listen and bepresent.
I'm not trying to hold ontowhat's the thing I'm supposed to
say?
What's the thing I'm supposed toshow?
What's the slide telling me todo here?
I can just be in the moment.
Vanessa Vakharia (36:18):
Well, and I think this is an important
message, it's okay to beconstantly learning.
I always am like if I am donelearning, like if I am ever in a
position where I am teaching andI'm like, there's nothing left
for me to learn, like I knowevery possible answer a
student's gonna give.
I know every scenario thisquestion like, no thank you,
like I'm done.
(36:39):
It's time to move on tosomething else.
You know what, what, what is it?
There's some really profoundquote, lifelong teachers are
lifelong learners, or something?
What is it?
Something like that.
Right?
Mike Flynn (36:48):
Yeah.
And that, something like that,so, sounds good.
Sounds like a thing.
Vanessa Vakharia (36:52):
Sounds like a thing.
It's like the, the endlesslearning and you're modeling to
your students what learning is,you're modelling what knowledge
is.
Knowledge isn't, I knoweverything.
Mike Flynn (37:02):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (37:02):
Knowledge is being open to knowing more than
you know right now.
I just came up with that.
I liked that.
I thought that
Mike Flynn (37:09):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (37:09):
David, shut up.
Okay.
Alright.
He's really rolling his eyes.
I thought that was good.
Um, What would you say to ateacher though that's like,
yeah, it sounds fascinating, butlike, there's no way I have time
for that.
You know, it's just gonna takeso much more time.
It's easier to just teach whatI'm supposed to be teaching.
Mike Flynn (37:25):
Two things.
One is that, first of all, likewhen if we teach the way we, we
were taught if in that we'rejust like, I don't have time to
go and learn this and that I'mjust gonna show them.
I'm gonna ask that teacher, howoften do you have to reteach
content?
Vanessa Vakharia (37:41):
Mm-hmm
Mike Flynn (37:42):
Because it's like, that's one of the things,'cause
the time factor always comes up.
It's a real thing.
I don't want to invalidate that.
Right.
And I think about any timeteachers are like, yeah, I, I
constantly have to like reteachthis thing.
I have to keep going back andlike they don't get it.
And I'm doing afterschooltutoring, I'm doing all of these
things because my kids aren'tgetting it long term, right?
(38:03):
They, they learn it for thetest, but then they forget it.
And you realize like if you justtake a little bit of time first
for yourself and then to spend alittle bit of time with your
students to develop thatunderstanding deeply, you're not
going to have to reteach it.
So it's a, you give a little bitto get a bigger return on that
investment.
And it's scary at first.
(38:23):
So I just tell teachers, startsmall, pick one thing.
Because that's the other thing,it could be overwhelming, is
like when you have to make abig, like, I gotta change
everything.
No, you don't.
It's like, how about you justchange your warmup routine?
Like instead of just doing a donow, maybe do something that's
got students talking andreasoning for the first five
minutes.
Like, don't worry about your donow.
Right now.
Just try that.
That's a nice light lift.
(38:43):
And you can see over time howthat changes students.
Or maybe try it for a, anupcoming unit or for a three
lessons.
Three lessons.
What if you were to, allowstudents to think about it
flexibly versus this one way?
What happens?
Then as you try that, the thingthat I found,'cause I make it
sound like, oh, I had this oneprofessional learning experience
(39:05):
and I was a changed teacher.
I fell off the wagon a lot.
So I would, like, it took methree to five years to fully be
confident and like not rammingthe algorithm down kids'
throats.
Because every, like the firsttime I started to make that
shift, I would sneak it in just'cause I'm like, I was doing the
field test so I wasn't allowedto, but I would still sneak it
in, hope they're not listening,just because it's like the third
(39:27):
grade teachers would come at meaft, like the next year if the
kids weren't ready.
And so after a couple years Igot confident enough.
But what I'd like to let peopleknow is that it's a, it's a
journey, don't feel like youneed perfection.
Try things out.
And the more I found when Iwould do that meaningful work,
anytime I slid back and just tryto show them something, I could
(39:50):
just feel all the air come outtathe room.
Like it just felt different.
And I could tell, I could justsee mimicking.
I didn't have a name for it atthe time, but I could just tell
that's what was happening.
And by like the second or thirdyear of doing that, I'm like,
oh, this is such fake teachingthat I was doing that I, I just
abandoned it and realized like.
Teaching for sensemaking is theonly way that we can really do
(40:12):
this if we want kids tounderstand what we're teaching.
Vanessa Vakharia (40:15):
Okay let's, let's give everyone a challenge
right now though.
'cause I like this.
I like this idea of what shouldwe all try to do.
I like what you almost said oflike, try to teach a lesson
while allowing kids to haveflexible thinking.
That's what you said,
Mike Flynn (40:26):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (40:27):
What does that mean?
Like, let's do a little, like,let's all try this this week.
Mike Flynn (40:30):
Yeah.
I'm gonna call out RobertKaplinsky right now and Open
Middle, you can go to openmiddle.com.
Like Robert's got a whole likesystem there of, of challenging
tasks that have these openmiddles.
But you can also think of openmiddle, broadly, as defined as a
problem or a task that has thesame initial setup for
everybody.
And it has some kind ofconclusion, either a single
(40:51):
answer or a set of answers orsomething.
The middle, how studentsapproach it is wide open, they
can approach it any way theywant.
So a challenge would be to lookat one task that you could give
to your students that doesn'trequire them, if the curricular
resource or something says, givethem this problem and have them
use a table and graph to get theanswer, cross that out.
Don't have that.
(41:12):
Give them the problem.
Give them the problem withoutany specific rules for solving
it.
Say solve it in a way that makessense to you, and solve it maybe
two different ways.
And then, give them time andspace to work through it and
look at all the differentcreative solutions that come up.
Now, before you do that, uh, I'mgonna call out.
One other thing is the fivepractices with Peg Smith and
(41:33):
Mary Kay Stein.
If you're not familiar withthat, look up five practices.
But one thing they tell you todo if you want to teach in this
way is to do the math ahead oftime yourself and anticipate
what are the things that arelikely to come up from your
students if you were to do this.
What kinds of strategies aremost likely to come up and which
of those do you really wannahighlight in the conversation
(41:53):
when you pull all the ideastogether?
But if you do that, just givethis open middle approach.
And it could be just one problemand that you can go back to
whatever your lesson is, butjust see what happens with this
shift when you flip it.
Vanessa Vakharia (42:07):
Okay, I love this.
We're all gonna do this thisweek.
And then guess what?
Because there's some weird shit,new feature on our podcast, you
can text us and let us know whathappens.
Link to the text is in thedescription of this episode.
You can also email me or justsend me a DM on Instagram.
Me and Mike wanna know whathappens when you try this, this
week, that's your challenge.
I mean, I wanna take all of yourcourses.
(42:29):
Where can people take these?
Where do, where do I sendeveryone to when they're like I
want to learn math in this way,I'm a teacher and I would like
to get a deeper knowledge ofwhat I'm teaching because you
have this for K to 12, right?
Mike Flynn (42:41):
We do.
So we have courses for allstrands of mathematics, K
through eight.
We're building the secondaryones now.
The first one will be availablein January of 26.
Vanessa Vakharia (42:50):
Get in on the ground floor.
Mike Flynn (42:52):
Yeah, yeah, we're excited.
We're building it for geometry,algebra, pre-calc, all these
things.
So keep an eye out for that.
But you go to flynneducation.comand you'll see lots of free
resources for teachers.
You'll see our courses.
We also have a membership wherewe have a it's, uh, the Friends
of Flynn Education, and it's a,basically collaborative of
educators, then we offer tonsand tons of professional
(43:12):
learning, every month.
In fact, Vanessa, you're gonnabe our featured guest for our
voices from the field comingyeah.
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (43:21):
It is, just so you guys know, Friends of Flynn
is giving Sesame Street meetsCheers.
Like if you understand thatreference, you know, like, I
get,
Mike Flynn (43:30):
That's deep
Vanessa Vakharia (43:31):
I know.
I really get that vibe though.
Like, it's like, it really, Ithink it's gonna become
something.
Mike Flynn (43:36):
Yeah, we're, we're pretty excited about it.
Vanessa Vakharia (43:38):
Sick.
Okay.
Final two questions I askeveryone.
Number one, if there's one thingyou could change about way the
way math is taught in schools,like you're allowed to change
one thing, what would it be?
Mike Flynn (43:48):
Uh, the time constraints.
Time constraints, get rid of alltime constraints so that
teachers are not, uh, bound onthis 42 minute block or 47
minute block, and that allowingpeople to really spend the time
to teach it well.
Vanessa Vakharia (44:01):
Well, how would you do that though?
You just have math all day long,like as long as you want?
Mike Flynn (44:05):
No, no, no.
Just that you, we open up the,we get rid of this, the block
scheduling kind of things.
There's a lot of ways things aredone.
So the idea, so, 10 seconds, Ididn't know you needed the how
to actually achieve making thishappen.
I thought you just wave.
I thought magic wand, it'sHogwarts, right?
Vanessa Vakharia (44:20):
I didn't.
I just got curious suddenly Iwas like, but how?
But
Mike Flynn (44:23):
I can say that.
I will say this.
So this is another thing peoplemight not know about me.
I did, I was an elected schoolboard member for eight years,
and so I have worked on thatside of things.
It's is possible.
The thing with a lot of these,the structures, the schedules
and all these things are, theybecome institutionalized and it
feels impossible to change'causethis is the way it's always
(44:44):
been, and if we do this well,then this will happen.
All you have to do is dedicatetime and say, we are going to
figure this out, and you can dothat.
So that's the, there's manyschool districts that have
figured out ways to build in 70,90 minute math blocks and
things.
And anytime, I work in schoolsall around the world, any places
where I go, where math is taughtfor 60 to 90 minutes, I see a
(45:05):
significant difference in thosestudents than in places where
math is taught for 40 to 45minutes, et cetera.
Um, you need more time on it,and,
Vanessa Vakharia (45:14):
was way more than 10 seconds.
That was my fault.
Of course.
Also, your response is very likegiving Tim Ferris like it is
possible.
Like we can do these things.
You gotta think outside of theschedule, outside of the box.
Mike Flynn (45:25):
Yeah.
Vanessa Vakharia (45:25):
Next question.
If someone listened to this andthey were like, that's so
awesome.
Yeah.
Like I guess I could think aboutmath more deeply, whatever the
thing is though, like I justcan't because I'm not a math
person.
What would you say?
Mike Flynn (45:37):
I would say let's, dispel this idea of a math
person and just that you're athinker and that, you just were
never given enough time to thinkabout the math and you weren't
given the right kinds ofexperiences to think about the
math.
And I can give you that to youand like, let's do some math
together and give you a chanceto think and realize that all
you have to do is like, ifyou're a thinker, you can do
(45:59):
math.
That's all it is.
You were given experiences whereyou weren't allowed to think,
we're gonna give you experienceswhere you can think and that'll
change everything for you.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:07):
That is so nice.
That was such a nice answer.
Like I felt reassured.
Mike Flynn (46:12):
I felt a little anxiety.
I was like, oh, that pressure, Igotta perform.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:15):
Well, I am being, I'm doing all doing all
the wrong things.
I'm like, time constraints, go.
You're public, you're beingrecorded.
Like, don't do any of this in amath classroom.
Okay.
It has been such a treat.
you're so inspiring.
You're so warm, you're sowelcoming.
What you're doing is so cool,
Mike Flynn (46:29):
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much, Vanessa.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
Vanessa Vakharia (46:34):
Okay guys.
Oh my God, how good was that?
Mike just gave us the reminderthat knowing isn't weakness,
it's actually where the learningbegins, and that is strength.
And when we as teachers giveourselves permission to not have
all the answers, we modelcuriosity instead of fear, and
that can change everything.
So here's your Math Therapychallenge for this week.
(46:55):
The next time a student oranyone asks you a question you
don't know the answer to, I wantyou to pause before you panic.
Instead of faking it or shuttingdown, try saying"I don't know
yet.
Let's figure it out." Or thenext time a student solves a
problem in a way that you didn'tthink, to lean into that moment
and say, wait, can you explainyour thinking?
(47:17):
Because when you do that, youturn kids from mimics who just
copy your steps into empoweredlearners who own their
knowledge.
And the best part is they get toteach you something.
And that one shift makes themfeel confident, capable, and
important, and you get to growright alongside them.
So it's a win-win.
If you liked this episode, don'tkeep it to yourself, okay?
Send it to a friend, acolleague, or that person in
(47:40):
your life who holds themselvesback because they're scared of
not knowing enough.
This conversation could changetheir life.
It could be exactly what theyneed to hear.
And remember, I want to hearfrom you, and now you can text
the podcast.
So if something in this episodeinspired you, you can text us by
going to the link that's rightin your podcast app.
You can also DM me on Instagram@themathguru.
(48:02):
You can email me atvanessa@themathguru.ca.
I wanna hear your feedback andyour reactions.
And remember, Math Therapy isnow a weekly podcast, so make
sure you're subscribed so youdon't miss a single episode.
Math Therapy is hosted by me,Vanessa Vakharia.
It's produced and edited byDavid Kochberg, and our theme
music is by our band GoodnightSunrise.
(48:24):
And guys, if you know someonewho needs math therapy, please
share this podcast and rate orreview it on whatever podcast
app you use.
Those things actually make sucha difference because they help
Math Therapy reach more people.
I'm as determined to change theculture surrounding math as you
are, and I need your help, sospread the word.
Until next time, peace, love,and pi.
(48:48):
we have to not only beopen-minded, but like have a
level of openness tounderstanding that we don't
under, you know what I mean?
That we don't fully understand,I think.
Mike Flynn (48:58):
a hundred percent.
Vanessa Vakharia (48:59):
I
Mike Flynn (49:00):
You're making noises.
It's not, of course.
No, that's so profound.
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