What the Blue Jays taught us about math education

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vanessa Vakharia (00:00):
All right guys.
Hi.
Welcome to Math Therapy.
Here we are, a bonus episodethat came out of nowhere that I
would never have predicted,quite frankly, because we had a
whole other plan for this week.
But suddenly the Blue Jays werein the World Series, and I
became.
I, I, I jumped on the bandwagonand I could not have predicted

(00:20):
what would have happened next.
And in fact, I mean, I guessall I have to say is it was so
extreme that David suggested,because I wouldn't shut up about
the Blue Jays that we record anepisode about this, right?
So I just wanna set the stageof what's going on.
We are gonna talk in thisepisode about what the Blue Jays
have taught me and us as acommunity about math education,

(00:42):
really about math anxiety, aboutmath community, about
belonging, about studentmotivation.
You might be like, that'sridiculous.
What are you talking about?
But I promise you all of thisis true.
I've been in the US for thepast 35 days.
And here's the crazy thing,I've not watched a Blue Jays
game since I was like 12 minusthe game I think I went to with
David eight years ago.
That was really, really boringand all of a sudden the Jays are

(01:04):
in the series.
I'm watching all of thisfootage of Toronto getting so
excited.
All of these people posting,people across Canada, coming
together, and I'm in the Statesand I'm like, oh my God, like I
need to get on this bandwagon.
So I'm collecting people at allof these conferences I'm
presenting at, in the US, towatch the game with me.
Now, let me, let me just beclear here.
The Blue Jays were playing theDodgers, which is an American

(01:26):
team.
Little did I know that.
It turns out, if you're not inCalifornia, most people aren't
actually into the Dodgers.
And somehow at, at the pastthree conferences I went to, I
managed to find theseincredible, wonderful teacher
friends to watch the game withme now.
One thing led to another.
And the next thing you know,I'm on this group thread with

(01:46):
these four incredible women thatI have collected along the way
that are now as invested in thegame as me.
And it turned into something Inever could have predicted.
Like we all got into this thingtogether and none of us cared
about baseball.
They certainly didn't careabout the Blue Jays.
I actually didn't really eitherand.

(02:07):
I just started realizing as Iwas watching these games and
connecting with these women thatit was all about math.
Like, no, I'm not just talkingabout like the physics of like,
and the stats and the whatever,like stuff that happens in
baseball.
That's actual math.
I'm talking about all I couldsee on the field and in our
group thread and interactionswhere the math skills and
standards we are constantlytalking about in math class,

(02:28):
resilience.
Grit, perseverance, redefiningfailure and success, productive
struggle.
All of these things were justlike popping off.
And I was like, I have to makethis episode.
Like I need to talk about howsomehow the World Series and our
team, the Blue Jays, has taughtus all so much more about math
education than I ever couldimagine.
And these, I always say toteachers, what you're teaching

(02:51):
goes far beyond the classroom.
It happens on the literalfield, guys.
Right?
That's what they call it.
Like the, the field.
So today I'm gonna be sharingsome thoughts.
I have David here for qualitycontrol really, because even
though I've learned a lot, Idon't know much really about
baseball and I don't wanna likebe spreading fake news.
And I've also collected somevoice notes and messages from my

(03:13):
four amazing friends that youwill hear throughout this
episode.

David Kochberg (03:17):
Okay, so you watched with a bunch of your
teacher friends, and then youguys were suddenly experts on
every aspect of the game ofbaseball.
And then you have a groupthread because maybe, uh, A lot
of people listening probablyhave no idea what you're talking
about maybe, like, I don't knowif everyone is a baseball fan
or a World Series fan or knowswhat, what happened

Okay.

last few

Okay, so fine.
This is,

we are from

Okay, Okay,

Blue Jays And the World

Good point.

in Toronto and the Jays made it to game seven
out of a seven game series.
It was a very dramatic series,a lot of ups and downs, and they
persevered, but then at thevery final moment lost to the LA
Dodgers.
And it was extremelyheartbreaking for all Canadians

(04:13):
and a lot of Americans who alsohate the Dodgers and who are

But wait,

Yeah,

you should tell them too that part of the
reason it's such a big deal iswe have not won since 93.

We won back to back World Series 92 and 93.
I actually was at the W gamewhen they won the World Series,
when Joe Carter hit his famoushome run, the walk off home run
that won The World Series in 93.
And it is, it was a historicmoment for Toronto and for
Canada and so yeah, for them tobe back there and it, and

(04:48):
they're extreme underdogs thiswhole season.

the thing.

underdog last they were last in their league
and they have gone like completependulum swing.
they were one of the top twoteams in the entire game.
So it was, it was

The underdog thing.

us as Canadians.
And so then it was extremelyheartbreaking because all these
guys were just really sweet boystoo.
They was just very, very niceguys talking in interviews about
how much they love each other.
and then yes, because Vanessais such a bandwagon jumper, she
became so invested and went fromnot carrying it, and I mean, I
was also, I talk like I'm abaseball expert, but I also

(05:33):
jumped on, like, I wasn'tfollowing closely through the
season, but I easily jumped onthe bandwagon as well because
it's just exciting to be sweptup in, in the promise of, of
potential glory.

yeah, I feel like that's another reason, like
this is the crazy thing, is allthese facts you're saying
actually add to the story.
And as I knew actually most ofthese facts, because I learned
them along the way and sharingthat with my friends out here in
the US actually, got is whathelped get them on the bandwagon
with each piece of informationthey learned.
They were like, oh my God,they're underdogs.

(06:06):
Like, oh my God, nine three, ohmy God, they're the only
Canadian team.
Like, oh my God, all these guysare so nice and love each other
and are such class acts.
Like each piece of informationgot them more and more invested.
Like that was part of thestoryline of what got them into
watching this game with me thatthey could not give a fuck
about.
You know what I mean?
Like, and getting so into it.

(06:27):
So I think that all ties intothe idea of the bandwagon,
right?
Like what is the bandwagon?
It's like you get on with otherpeople, but then all these
pieces of information coalescedto create this like movement
that's far bigger than like abaseball game, would you say?

you see another fan, uh, someone else walking
down the street with a Blue Jaysparaphernalia and you're like,
oh, they're a Blue Jays fan.
I'm a Blue Jays fan.
We're not that farro from eachother as people.

So let's, I wanna play some of the voice
notes I got from Shelby andJenna about this idea of
community and excitement andlike the bandwagon nature of it
and how it kind of really tiesin to the way we could be
approaching education.
So let's play Shelby's tostart.

Shelby Strong (07:20):
I don't care about baseball.
I, I don't, I have never caredabout baseball.
Baseball has never been my jam.
But you were so excited,Vanessa, about this game, about
this series, about this team,and that excitement was
infectious.
And even though I was notexcited about the game, I was
excited for you.
And so I decided, okay, welllet me see what this thing is

(07:41):
about, because if she's soexcited, maybe, like I, if
nothing else, I will enjoywatching her be excited.
And before I knew it, I wasthere on the phone Googling
what's a wild pitch?
And Trey Yesavage's life story.
And I'm invested now in thisthing that I still can't really

(08:02):
say I care about.
Like I'm not committing tositting down and watching every
game next season, but I, nowhave something personal
invested, I had people who werealso caring about this thing and
who were in it, just the sameway I was in it.
And it reminded me of when Iwas in college taking some of

(08:23):
these, you know, three and 4,000level math courses that I
didn't particularly care about.
I do not spend my weekendsdoing abstract algebra, but I
remember these courses so wellbecause of the people, because
we would spend nights in thethird floor of the math building
of our college campus, studyingtogether and working problems
together, and commiserating andbeing joyful together when we

(08:47):
made a discovery and it had, itevoked that same feeling in me
doing this with you all where wewere, we were just kind of in
this moment together and ourexcitement was feeding each
other's excitement.

I mean there's so many things in there I think
are so cool the, that made mereally think like the idea of
being excited just becausesomeone else is conci excited
because it's contagious and theidea of community, and it makes
me think of a classroom of whenlike we all have heard, or I bet
we can all remember thisteacher that we were like.
Honestly, we didn't even careabout the subject, but my
teacher was so into it.
Like it's often like thehistory teacher.

(09:23):
I feel like, like you're likethe history teacher was just so
into it that I started caring.
And I think about Eva, like mymath teacher.
She was just so excited aboutmath that I was like, I don't, I
don't like it kind and it justmade me so excited with her.
I think that's part of thebandwagon.
Like, it's like you are justgetting lost in someone else's
excitement and it's contagious.
So because of that literalenergy of excitement, you get

(09:46):
into the subject like, do youknow what I mean?

about math because of Eva.
Like I agree with you.
I, I agree with you inprinciple, but the idea of
comparing like, obviously a, aprofessional sport, there's like
physical acts of, prowess andjumps and, and people like
diving for, for balls and a ball500, like it's a lot of

(10:12):
exciting things.
So it's not hard for likesomebody like you to be excited
about that and get other peopleexcited.
So that was what I was curiousis how does a teacher excited
about math to get their studentsexcited like Eva did with you?

I actually disagree.
Like I think it's like, well, Iagree and disagree.
'cause I think the thing iswith baseball, if you don't
actually know the rules as Idid, not until several days ago,
you're just watching shit.
Right?
Like you're like not evenunderstanding what's going on.
Like, I don't know, all of asudden someone's walking, all of
a sudden someone's not on thebasement.
You're just like, what is this?
But the fact that.
Like, like Shelby said, thefact that I'm so excited about

(10:51):
it and I'm like, no, like let meexplain how this thing works or
like, what just happened?
Let's look it up.
Like there's so much riding onthis.
It gets you invested in goingfurther into it.
And like, yeah, math, you couldbe in math class and a
teacher's like so excited andyou're like, I don't even know
what they're excited about, butthey're popping off right now.
They're so pumped, they're sohappy.
And if that energy passes on.

(11:11):
You might be like, alright,like tell me why this is so
exciting.
Like, what are you talkingabout?
And as you start learning moreabout anything, it actually can
be really interesting andexciting, but you have to be
invested enough to get past thefact that you don't know
anything.
'cause I could have justwatched the baseball game by
myself staring at a screen.
It's not the World Series, andI would've just turned it off.

(11:32):
I'd have been like, I don'tknow, I see a bunch of people
hitting and catching thingslike, and there are parts of
baseball that are really slow.
Like you're just like, okay.
But so I actually think theyare comparable.
It's like there are lots ofcool things in math, but often
the excitement of the personteaching it to you or of the
classroom culture is what getsyou invested enough to like push
through the fact that you don'tknow what's going on.

if It's like, why does a walk matter?
Like yeah, he is just walkingto the base, but it's because.
the context of what the scoreis and how many outs there are
like that, that defines thestakes.
And so if like a lot more is onthe line of whether or not this
guy walks here, that does makeit more exciting as opposed to

(12:15):
if you don't know any of thatstuff, it's just like, yeah,
whatever.
He's gonna walk, like he'sliterally walking to a place.
Big deal.
Which I guess is the same withmath.
If you're like, oh, it's justthese numbers that are up on the
blackboard and I've gotta likefollow these formula to do
something, but why am I doingit?
The classic like kids, studentsbeing like,

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

do I have if you do have a teacher that's
excited about the implicationsof what they're teaching and are
like, no, the reason you getexcited about learning this
thing is because it actuallyapplies to this really cool real
world scenario.

kim Montague sent us a a text and she said,
"I can't stop thinking about howI went from not knowing about
the game and that Canada has ateam in MLB to you encouraging
me to watch, and I was all in.
Then when I knew others werewatching, I could not stop
talking to them about myfeelings.
Shelby is right.
This was community building andI felt such stress worrying

(13:14):
about you." So it's funny, likewe go from someone who's like, I
really didn't care, but thenyou invited me into this thing
with these other people, andthen you were so invested in it
that I became invested in it.
And because I was invested init and I knew a community was
invested in it, I startedtalking about it more.
And as I started talking aboutit more, right, it's like this
whole cycle that happens and Iwanna play, let's play Jenna's

(13:35):
voice note about sharedcuriosity, because I think
that's actually what ties it alltogether

Jenna Laib (13:41):
Shared curiosity is really, really powerful.
Not to brag, but after mysession at AT Mini the other
day, I had several people comeup to me to compliment my
facilitation of a task.
They told me how they felt likeit was so warm and inviting
while also being really deeplymath and rigorous.
I know, I know.
I remember telling one of themthat I was acting excited about

(14:03):
what they were saying during themath task because I was
genuinely curious about whatthey were thinking about that
math task.
Now we can't be curious abouteverything.
That would be exhausting, butwhen we do bring that
excitement, we can get otherpeople invested.
And I see that time and timeagain in the classroom too.
Like I'm really curious aboutwhat kids have to say, even

(14:24):
though I truly alreadyunderstand third grade math.
I get it, but I love watchingthem think and getting them
excited, and it spreads likewildfire.
Really and truly, I neverthought that would happen to me
about baseball.
So this has been a reallyilluminating week, the power of
curiosity is so, so strong.

We talk so much about curiosity in math
class, and I almost feel likewe're missing this whole idea of
shared curiosity, curiosityisn't just like, oh, I wonder
what's going on.
But when you have community andexcitement, in addition to
curiosity, it's like you're,you're gonna hit a home run.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, yeah.
But it's like you are.

(15:09):
Because what was happening withus when we were all watching
together is none of us knew whatwas going on, right?
And we were all feeding off ofeach other's excitement and the
fact that we were all in ittogether.
And so when somebody had aquestion, somebody else would be
like, hold on, what is a wildpitch?
Let me look that up.
And then the rest of us weregenuinely like, okay, wait,
wait, wait.
So why does a wild pitchmatter?
Going back, David, to what yousaid about context, all of a

(15:30):
sudden it's important, there's ascore on the line.
Why does this thing matter?
We FaceTimed you.
remember we FaceTimed you toask you, 'cause you were like,
yeah, you were like, you werelike, do you know the story of
this picture?
And we were all like, who isYesavage?
Like, who is this guy?
And then we were locked in asyou explained his life story.
And then as you explained hislife story, you got off the
thing.
By the way, you don't even knowthis.
Jenna started looking, sheknows his parents' name.

(15:52):
I think they're David andCheryl.
I think, I think I remember shekeeps saying Son of David and
Cheryl, like, she like literallyknew all these facts about him,
but all of it was this idea ofwe were all wondering, we were
all asking questions, we werehelping each other learn.
We were like explaining why itmattered.
Anyways, okay, I'm gonna stopnow, but it's just, I'm just
getting so worked up being like,I think curiosity is more than

(16:13):
just like, Ooh, let's createsome suspense.
It's like curiosity alsohappens when there's community
and other people to wonder with.
Another thing that came up thatwe were all talking about, like
me, Shelby, Jenna, Allison, andKim was like, how did we, in
the span of a week and a half,suddenly learn all the rules to

(16:34):
base.
Okay, not all the rules, butsuddenly we are a wealth of
knowledge.
We understand.
All of these things about howto play the game.
We know facts about theseplayers' history and their lives
and their stories.
We understand we can now watch,like by the end of it, we
started the entire thingwatching the game being like, I
have no idea what's going on tothe last game.
We were messaging each otherbeing like, did you see that

(16:54):
wild pitch?
Oh, there's like a bench brawl.
Like, oh, okay.
I actually just learned whatthat meant, but do you know what
I mean?
We knew what was going on.
How did that happen?
Reason is this thing calledmeaningfulness.
What does it mean for somethingto be meaningful?
Now, we talk about this in mathclass all the time.
We wanna make math meaningful,relevant in real life.
And I've said this on so manypodcasts.

(17:16):
I said it with Raj, I said itin another interview.
I said it in another interview,that being something being
relevant doesn't mean, oh, wetalk about apples or trains or
something a kid has seen.
It has to be something that isrelevant to them right now.
And relevance actually perhapsmeans meaningfulness.
So here's what Shelby had tosay.

Shelby Strong (17:38):
I think a lot of times we actually take
meaningfulness and make it,well, when am I ever gonna use
this?
And I don't actually thinkthat's what meaningfulness is.
I think that meaningfulness is,why should I care about this
thing?
And I didn't care about thisthing at first 'cause I don't
care about baseball, but I docare about Vanessa.

(17:58):
I do care about my friends andmy community.
I do care about other peoplebeing excited about something
and being curious about, okay,well they're excited, so let me
go and experience this thing.
Perfectly with them and findout why they're excited.
And I was not watching the gameuntil Vanessa texted me.

(18:19):
I was like, did you see whathappened?
You need to go turn the game onright now.
And once I did it, brought backall those feelings we had.
At the bar watching the TVtogether.
And so we were able to recreatecommunity, even being apart
from each other, throughtexting, through social media
posts, through these differentways of like, it brought us back

(18:39):
to that initial feeling and wewere able to recreate it sort of
on our own, but sort oftogether.
And I think that that canhappen with math too, where.
Once we have established thiscan be a thing that is
enjoyable, this can be a thingthat is fun.
This can be a thing that I amnot as bad at as I thought or
not as uninterested in as Ithought.

(19:01):
Then we can re-trigger thatexperience further down the
line, either by reconnectingwith those people who helped us
have that initial experience orjust recalling that experience
through a new experience.
I think that meaningfulness isit can't be something that's
externally defined.

(19:21):
I can't tell you what'smeaningful to you, but I can
tell you what's meaningful to meand what's meaningful to me is
having an enjoyable experience.
What's meaningful to me isfinding out player backstories.
What's meaningful to me isfinding something that sparks
joy in someone else and that joybecoming infectious and
contagious, and I think thatthat's a really cool thing.

Meaningfulness actually comes from Atlanta
Horn's book on motivatedclassrooms.
Which is why Shelby startedtalking about it, because Jenna
brought up that book.
And this is the whole thing ofwhy should I care?
Why should I care?
And in this situation with meand these four incredible math
educators, we cared because wehad joined community.

(20:06):
We cared because the stakeswere high to one of us.
And one of us was super excitedand that was contagious.
We cared because we knew theunderdog story.
We cared because we knew thestories of those players.
Meaningfulness is individual toeach person, which is why
motivation is different forevery single person.
There's something differentthat motivates every single one
of us.
And Jenna kind of saidsomething really interesting

(20:27):
about this of like, what does iteven mean for content to be
meaningful enough to remember?
So I want to us to hear whatshe had to say.

Jenna Laib (20:35):
Also, I think it can't be stated enough that I
was someone that was deeplyskeptical about the idea of
spending the night watchingbaseball, given that some of my
previous experiences were lesspositive and just like it wasn't
fun for me, but that because ofall of these factors, I was
fully drawn into the point whereI was willing to do some of it
on my own.
And I would love for kids toexperience that with math too,

(20:59):
that it's okay if you hadnegative experiences in the
past, that we can draw you inand show you how exciting it is
genuinely as content.
It's not just that we had funas friends, but like all of a
sudden we were gettinginterested in the content of
baseball and the strategy ofbaseball and the statistics of
baseball in ways that werepreviously not interesting to
us.

(21:19):
That's really cool.

I love that so much because it's true.
Right?
By the third game we hadwatched together, we were
starting to do like, I was like,oh, are they gonna put in a
pinch runner?
Like I, I now knew what thatwas and what it was for.
I now knew this rule that like,if you put in a pinch hitter, I
actually thought you could putin any pinch hitter.
Like, you could be like, oh,like we're just gonna put Ohtani
out.
the point is that we were all,you know, starting to come up

(21:44):
with our own strategies andbeing like, should they do this?
Should they do that?
Listen, all of us have watchedbaseball previously in our lives
at some point, none of usremembered or retained a single
rule because it didn't meananything to us.
And now within literally aweek, some of us, just a couple
of days, we had learned a ton ofthe rules and we're probably
going to remember them.

(22:05):
You know, like Shelby said, I'mgonna remember this World
Series probably forever.
I'm probably gonna rememberthese random facts about
Yesavage for the rest of mylife.
It's gonna be like living rentfree in my brain, and it's all
because whole host of reasonsfor why that content was
meaningful.
And Jenna is right.
It's not just, oh, it wasmeaningful.
We were having fun withfriends.
Yes, that was part of it, butit translated into genuine

(22:27):
interest around the content.
And I wonder how we can bringthose principles into math class
so that kids aren't just havingfun because it's fun, but that
translates into a genuineinterest in the content to the
point where they wanna do thatwork and look that stuff up on
their own.

All right.
Taking a little pause here tointerrupt this recap session.
As you might be able to tell,we threw this together pretty
hastily in last minute, and soforgot to introduce the next
guest that is popping on as avery special remote analyst to
share his expertise.
So because we're talking aboutboth professional sports and

(23:07):
professional math education,Vanessa wanted to hear from a
former guest of the pod, aformer Olympian and a current
rock star in the math ed world,Mr Building Thinking Classrooms
himself, Peter Liljedahl.

Peter, as you may or may not know, I have now,
uh, joined the Blue Jaysbandwagon.
I'm deep, I'm in deep.
I've been collecting Americansto jump on the bandwagon with me
and I collected a whole bunch,like so much, the reason we're
recording this episode isbecause we all got so invested,
they were up till 1230 in themorning and their respective
states watching this game thatthey could not care less about,

(23:45):
quite frankly.
Like, so part of what I was

Peter Liljedahl (23:49):
but they cared about you.

He knows.
He knows.
Did, they cared about me andthe excitement, and that's a
whole thing that we noticed islike the excitement was
contagious of like they wantedme to be excited, they got
excited, but because they gotexcited, they got super invested
and because we got so invested,we started researching every
single player because it's abunch of math teachers, you

(24:13):
know, so they're just likelooking up all these stats and
all these facts, and one, thereason why you're here, aside
from the fact that you're, youknow, an ex Olympic athlete, but
always an athlete forever.
That's actually the reasonyou're here, to be honest.
That is the reason you're here

Okay.
Okay.

we were watching and we kept being like,
you know how they show closeupsof the player, like the pitcher
and like the look in their eyesand like just sitting there
being like, oh my God.
Like how are they not out oftheir minds?
Like, you know what I mean?
Like a pitcher would give awaya home run and then like have to
get back on the mound and pitchagain without focusing, and we

(24:50):
were like, how are they doingit?
What are they thinking?
Now, I know you're not psychic,but we want to know what was
going on.
Like what happens, how do theydo it?
This is ties in, by the way, incase you think that we've
turned into a sports podcast.
We have not.
This ties directly into mathanxiety where I'm like, how do
we help kids get out of theirheads and get into the game

(25:10):
despite their previous mistakesand failures?
Okay, over to you, Bob.
Peter.

well, okay, I am, I can't read their minds,
but I can tell you a little bitabout potentially what's going
on here.
So first of all, I think thepart that you are is that you
were a baseball fan with exactlythree days of experience and
they were baseball players withlike 20 years of experience,
right?
So this is not the first timethat pitcher has given up a home

(25:37):
run, and it is not the firsttime.
an error has occurred.
But even in the absence oferrors, it's not the first time
that an opponent has beaten youin a way.
Right?
Like, so they, they're, they'renot this for the first time.
Right?
So, part of it is that, and wehave to, we have to understand

(25:58):
that, right?
Like there is a certainpsychology to this.
sort of, the sort of classic.
Sports psychology, and I'mtalking 30, 40 years ago, sports
psychology was this idea of we,we train to train, we train to
compete, we train to win, right?
So a novice athlete is trainingto training to train.

(26:20):
They're just, they're just inthe, in, in the practice,
Eventually they're training tocompete.
And now that brings a, that's adifferent type of psychology,
right?
Because competition brings withit a certain, uh.
Anxiety that isn't, doesn'texist in practice.
Right.
then when you get to a certainlevel, now you're training to

(26:42):
win.
The way we have to positionthis is that there is a process
and there is a product.
Okay?
And actually, a better way tosay it is that there's a process
and there is a byproduct,right?
So the process is what anathlete or a math student or
anybody has to go through, tohave a good.

(27:04):
right?
Like there's a process that youhave to follow.
Uh, for a student, they have tostudy, they have to understand,
they have to be able to thinkcritically, creatively,
innovatively, flexibly, right?
Like, these are all processthings.
There's, they're the verbs ofmath, right?
Like these are the verbs.
And that's the same thing foran athlete.

(27:24):
An athlete has to focus on theprocess.
Right now, part of process ispractice, but when it comes to
competition, the process is, andyou've heard.
talk about this, and you'veheard coaches talk about this is
like, we gotta play our game,right?
We gotta stop playing theirgame.
We gotta play our game.
And this is process talk,right?
This is what is your game plan?
What is your race strategy?

(27:44):
What is your, what is it thatyou are gonna bring to the day
that's gonna allow you toexecute your process?
The thing that you have trainedto do over and over and over
again.
So what do you have to do tofocus in on that process, the
product?
Is, is, is, is really just abyproduct of that process,

(28:06):
right?
So think about that picture,that pitcher is training to
throw an amazing set of pitches,right?
And they're in there throwingan amazing set of pitches.
That's what they can control.
What they can't control iswhether or not that batter is
going to hit one of thosepitches.
Right, and you have no controlover that.

(28:28):
You have no control of whatyour opponent brings to the
table.
You have no control what theweather brings, what the, what
the judges bring or the umpiresbring you.
You have no control over thosethings.
All you can control is reallywhat you can bring to the table.
And if you bring your absolutebest to the table, you will end
up with the best possible resultthat your process can deliver,

(28:51):
you can control, and, and thatmay be a win.
It may, may not be, but, but ifyou bring the absolute best
process to it, you will get thebest result that you can
possibly get.

Do you think this boils down to not focusing
on the outcome.
At the end of the day, it'slike, just don't think about
what the result is.
Focus on practice and theprocess, and that's all you do.
And that's what they're doingup there.
So,

It's all you can do.
Right?

yeah.

Much easier said than done.
because.
We still wanna win, right?
Like, so how, so at the sametime as you're trying to force
your focus on your process,you're trying to suppress that
desire to focus on the outcomeof the product, right?
Like so it's there is that it'salways knocking at the door.
And that is, I think, somethingthat's really, really hard to

(29:44):
learn.
And and it comes with it withthat anxiety.
Everybody wants to win.
Now I do want to talk a littlebit about your psychology in
watching these games

Oh my

because you are not thinking about process.
you are thinking about isproduct,

Right, right.

right?
So a fan, a fan, they'resitting there and they, and
they, they just, they just wantthe outcome so bad.

Right.
Oh my God.

can empathize and sympathize with the athlete
and so on and so forth.
And a more sophisticated, uh,fan will understand whether an
athlete is beyond theirexpectation, like are they
having the game of their life,

Hmm.

right?
So like they're the ones whoare sitting there going, this is
amazing.
Regardless of what the outcomeis, they're able to revel in
peak performance that they'rewatching from this athlete
because they understand thenuances of this.
And those are the people whoare like, have been fans for a
very long time, will understandthose nuances.

(30:52):
And as opposed to the personwho is just a, sort of, hopped
on the bandwagon the last week,right?
They are, they're not, they'renot, seeing what that, this
athlete is maybe like, likeperforming well beyond norm.
All they're seeing is thatthey're losing.

Right, and that's like kind of like the way
fans are seeing the Jays,right?
They're like, we can all see,like when you look at all the
comments.
No one's like, oh my God, theylost.
Everyone's like, we are soproud of them.
Like they started from thebottom and they're here.
Like, so like people can seethat.
I'm actually wondering, I'mlike, so who is this?
When we think about matheducation, is this the parent
sometimes?
Is this the teacher sometimeswho are like seeing just like

(31:37):
they didn't get the grade.
That we wanted instead of beingable to be like, yeah, but hold
on a second.
Like, I know like I wanted themto get into the college of
their choice, but also let'scelebrate how far they came
along the way.
Right?
Like being able to have thatbird's eye view.

Right, like, like I think you can imagine
that teacher's sitting there.
A parent-teacher conferencegoing, listen, let me just tell
you what an amazing improvementyour child has demonstrated this
last term.
They have just done suchamazing growth.
They've, they've come tounderstand this.
They've put in so much effort,and the parent is going like,
yeah, but why are they stillgetting a B?

Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

And the teacher's going, are you kidding
me?
This B is unbelievable, right?
Like, yeah, we're stillshooting for an A, but like you
gotta celebrate this B, but.
Because that teacher is therefor every step of the way,
right?
Like that teacher is the coach.

I think it says so much like watching the
Jays part of my big thing is I'mlike, even though they lost the
way we're reacting to their,not getting the outcome they
want, I think culturally teachesus all how to redefine success.
Like I think everyone's doing areally good job on Instagram
and every article is like, we'reproud of them.
They exceeded expectations,they defied the odds.
I think it's helping to reshapethe way we see winning.

(32:55):
Honestly.
Like I know that's pretty likeromantic, but I actually think
it kind of is.

There's actually been research done on
this, on Olympic athletes.
It turns out that athletes whowin a bronze medal are
significantly more satisfiedthan athletes who win a silver
medal.

Hmm.

and there's an interesting, there's, there's
two theories behind this.
Theory number one is, and itdepends on the sport, but theory
number one is that an athletewho wins a bronze medal won a
bronze medal.
The athlete who gets a silvermedal lost the gold medal.
In order to get a bronze medal,you have to win your last

(33:34):
match, your last game.
To get a silver medal, you haveto lose your last game, right?

Huh?

So if you think about a soccer tournament at
the Olympics, right, like it'sthe gold medal match.
The winner gets the gold, theloser gets the silver, but then
the bronze medal match, thewinner gets the bronze and the
loser gets forth, So there is,there is something interesting
about this psychology, right?
And I, how that applies to mathis, I think, interesting

(34:09):
because what that says is, andwe can compare, for example,
standards based assessment or,or what I call gathering versus
events based assessment, which Icall point gathering, right?
Like in a point gatheringsystem, basically everybody
starts with a hundred percent,and then you just lose marks as
you make mistakes.

Yep.

like.
Whereas in a data gatheringparadigm, you, you, you gain
grades as you demonstratelearning.
So there is that sort of, I'mwinning my way into this grade
as opposed to I'm losing my wayinto this grade.

I think, I mean, that is huge.
I, I think what this ispointing to is that we should,
we are gonna have to do anentire episode on sports versus
math because there's actually somuch we could be talking about,
I really think everythingyou're saying to me is pointing
to like, we've kind of made upwhat it means to win.
We, we defined it right?
And sometimes the numbers arethe same, but the way we get
into it in our psychology aroundit is different.

(35:06):
Which kind of shows you like,like aside from being like, we
won the final thing, we won theseries, we won the gold.
Like obviously like that'spoints based thing, and there's
this one outcome, but this ideaabout bronze versus silver and
the whether it's good or bad,even though you're getting the
same outcome, the idea of apoints based system versus a
standards based system.
losing your way in or winningyour way in.

(35:28):
All of these things are sopsychological, which just goes
to show

Absolutely.

yeah, so like our definition of success really
is so psychologically driven,and if we define it in a
counterproductive way, we'regonna end up like stumbling
along the way.
Like it's gonna

Yeah.

in our way of the process, which actually
ultimately is what we need tolearn

Right.
And you know, like one of thethings that is hard, you know,
and I have children and I'vewatched them in sport, and it's,
and it's challenging as aparent, right?
Because I'm watching my son ormy daughter compete and it's, I
have zero control over what'shappening.
Right.
And I'm, and, and this is, thiswas you Vanessa, this week,

(36:11):
right?
Like you had, you were, youwere fully invested an outcome
that you had no control over theprocess, Whereas the athlete,
like I remember as an athleteflying home from competitions,
and I hadn't maybe medalled, butI had this really warm,
satisfied feeling as I'm sittingon the plane.

(36:33):
Because, because for me, I hadthe race of my life.
had, I had exceeded myexpectation or I had performed
beyond what I've ever performedat before.
so.
So the pro, the, the outcomedidn't matter because I had done

(36:54):
I possibly could.
I'd left it all out there, andI had this amazing satisfaction
that I couldn't have donebetter.
Right.
Which is a way better feelingthan sitting on that plane,
flying home feeling like if Ionly would have mm.
Right.

So let's, let's connect this back because
I actually think you just didthat beautifully of like the
idea of how do we deal withthese high anxiety situations,
right?
And you're, and what you'vejust said there is kind of so
poignant, right?
This idea of like, you arefocused, is it that you are
choosing where to focus, likeyou are choosing to focus on

(37:35):
that you have done somethingthat you're really proud of the
fact that you did not get somearbitrary outcome.
Is that it?
A part of it?

So let's talk about you when you're about to
go on stage, right?
You're about to go on stage.
How are you feeling, right?
Like, I don't mean like, 'causeI, I, because I have
co-presented with you, and, andwe're on, and we can talk about
being on stage together in frontof hundreds and hundreds of
people.
But we can also talk about yougetting on stage for performance

(38:07):
with your band, right?
Like, you nervous?
Yeah.
So you're nervous, but is thata bad thing?
Right?
So there is, it's really clearthis, that, that.
A little bit of nerves puts youin a heightened state, which
actually leads to betterperformance.

(38:28):
Okay, so no nerves like, likewhen you have no emotions about
it, you kind of flat.
A little bit of nerves, it putsyou in a heightened state,
better performance, too muchnerves.

Yeah.

And now you're losing, right?
Because it's a bell curve,right?
So it's like you've nowexceeded that peak stimulus
point, and now additionalstimulus is actually leading to
lower performance.
So what is it?
What is it that you have to doto control and focus this
anxiety on in the right spacesso that you don't get

(39:03):
overstimulated?
So going in for a student whois learning mathematics, you
know, we don't want them to haveany sort of heightened state of
anxiety, but testing is anunavoidable part, and they're
going to have some anxietyaround that, some around that,
isn't entirely a negative thing,and as long as it's controlled

(39:27):
and focused.

What are the, what are they whispering to one
another when the players or thecoaches can see that a player
has gotten into their heads?
What do they go over and saythat?
Because it's like, what?
What is, what are they say inthat moment?
I'm always like, what are theytalking about?

Part of this may be that that manager or
coach is walking out to themound, called a time out,
they're walking out to themound.
What they're saying to 'em maybe completely inconsequential.
What they're doing is buyingthis athlete time them to.
To back off from the edge ofthat over stimulus, regain

(40:01):
control and be able to do it.
So, so, you know, it's that Idon't think that pep talk is
necessarily, it's not like theyhave some magic words that they
just whisper in their ears and,and problem solved, right?
It's, that's not what it is.
It's about creating some timeand distance for that athlete to
regroup and, and then get backonto the process.

I was gonna say that to go back to like
Vanessa's initial question aboutwhat is going through the mind
of, let's say a pitcher outthere who's just given up a home
run and how, or is, so Peter,how familiar did you get with
some of these players?
Did you do as deep a dive on asVanessa did on some of the
actual players?
Like do you know about thatlike 22-year-old pitcher,

(40:47):
Yesavage.
Okay, so he twice in theseries, he was pitching
incredibly, and then there camea point, I, I think it was game
three or game four.
You can tell that he was likeall of a sudden getting a bit
too excited and he startedthrowing some bad pitches.

(41:07):
And then the Blue Jays catchercame out to the mound to give
him a pep talk.
So like what, yeah, exactly,like Vanessa, you're asking what
are they talking about?
And so it was clear what thecatcher just recognized in that
moment that what, and thisconnects to what Peter was
saying before about that idea ofprocess versus outcome.

(41:28):
So it's interesting just tohear you, you explain it that
way.
'cause that's what we witnessedwatching the catcher go up to
the pitcher and basically thecatcher could just see that this
young pitcher was like, all ofa sudden in that moment, all of
a sudden the, the stress of thesituation hit him and he was no
longer performing at his best.

(41:50):
So though the catcher just wentup, and this is what Yesavage
said, I think afterwards.
'cause they, they asked himwhat the catcher said and, and
he's just like, well, he justlike told me to calm down.
So it's, it makes sense.
And so, because you could,'cause yeah, the catcher
recognized like.
What you have to do in thissituation is just do your thing.

(42:15):
Like all those cliches of likejust, you'll play your best just
by like do being you and itmakes sense thinking of it in
this context or or putting itthis way, where if he's going to
try harder to be the best, thatcould actually like put him
over the edge of the like themental ability to actually

(42:39):
perform at his best.
So after that littleintervention, like you could
see, he, he kind of calmed downand, and he trusted himself.
So it is really interesting tothink about that and yeah, it's
just, it's interesting hearingyou guys talk about that in the
overlap or, or the, theparallels to education because
in, in sports it's truth.

(42:59):
From the fan perspective, yousee the athleticism.
And so you can assume, well,these guys must be training in
the gym all day long.
They're in peak physicalfitness, but you don't see any
mental training, but there mustbe so much mental training that

(43:19):
they go through.
And that's what the, that'swhat's interesting hearing you
with actual experience talkingabout the sports psychology.

And, and so often that's what differentiates
an athlete.
It's not the physical, it's amental right.
So one of the things that'salso important about this
pitcher that is I suspect isgoing on so of all, it's likely
that he's in a bit of adissociated state.
So he's just, he's out therejust thinking about the pitch

(43:47):
and like, and living it up and,and like loving this, like he
loves baseball and he's lovingthis, and all of a sudden he
goes, holy crap, I'm at theWorld Series, right?
And then it's like all of asudden he reconnects, he comes
back into his body and he's justlike, what is going on here?
There are 60,000 fans.
And then he has that momentwhere it's like he's present, in

(44:11):
not the game, but the entirespectacle of it.
And now he has thatoverwhelming moment, and then he
gets back and then he has toget focused back on the process
and get back into thatdissociative state.
Not dissociated from the game,but dissociated from the
spectacle of the game.
Right.
And, and this is, I think oneof the things that Vanessa is,

(44:32):
also alluding to is that thereis, there's actually two things
going on, right?
There's the game that theathletes are playing, and then
there's a game that everybody iswatching, and they're two
separate experiences, right?
They are from if, if you'veever been to a hockey game and
watched those players and theway they're talking to each

(44:53):
other and yelling to each otheron the ice, you think like they
are completely oblivious to thefact that the fans are all
around them, right?
They are in the game.
That's what they're seeing.
As opposed to, paying attentionto the fact that there's 30,000
eyes on 'em, pairs of eyes on'em, and that.
all this noise in the standsand so on and so forth.
So it's like when we talk aboutathletes and how they're able

(45:16):
to focus, part of that focuscomes from the fact that they're
in the game.
They're not in the spectacle.
And, athlete that can get tothat peak has to be able to, to
be able to be in thatdissociative state.
But every once in a while, youkind of slip back and it's like,
oh.
Right.
Like, so Vanessa, you and I canprobably relate to this when we

(45:38):
gave our talk at NCTM, right?
Like there's hundreds andhundreds and hundreds of people
in the audience, but what werewe thinking about?
What were we focused on when wewere up on stage together?
Right?
We were focused on what we weresaying.
We were focused on each other,right?
Like we were in, like for us,everything about that talk was
happening on the stage,

Mm-hmm.

right?

Yeah.

what was happening beyond the stage.

Yep.

if, but if we would've paused and gone and
looked out and gone, holy cow,there's someone sitting way up
in the balcony and there's like,and then it's like, right, like
we better not screw this up.
Right?

a student on a test, right?
It's like, why can they

Yeah.

and do their thing when they're just doing
their homework or they're withtheir friends and all of a
sudden they're on a test andthey freeze and it's because
they're all of a sudden not in

They're in the spectacle rather than in the
game.

love that.
The game versus the spectacle.
Okay, we have to end this.
This is now turning into itsown episode.
We can't actually have this,but the spectacle versus the
game, that's a good title.

Well, that

I just wanna make sure.

from, that was from our interlude with Peter,
the legend, Liljedahl,

Legend Liljedahl.
That's so good.

What are your thoughts or who are we

A million things I wanted to ask, but we
wanna No, I just, I, what Iwanna throw in here is something
that Kim said, just to wrapthis up,

Sure.

he, he said so many things that are really,
really interesting.
But one of the things that mademe think of, especially when he
was talking about how he'slike, we can't do anything.
Like you're a fan watching,you're not playing the sport,
you're anxious about theoutcome.
There's nothing you can do.
Right.
It reminds me of even beinglike the I, the idea of.
Focus on the outcome, and we'reso stressed that the J'S aren't

(47:20):
gonna get the outcome that theywanna get and that what we want
them to get, but there'snothing we can actually do
because we're watching.
It reminds me of what KimMontague said about how parents
often feel when they can't helptheir kids with math.
So just let's listen to that.

Kim Montague (47:34):
I really can't stop thinking about how I went
from never, ever watching abaseball game this season and
literally not even knowing thatthere was a Canadian team in
Major League baseball.
So sorry about that friend.
to sitting in my bed andwalking around my bedroom, like
pacing because I was stressedabout the game.

(47:57):
It's so funny to me how.
Like that complete 180 canhappen.
and 100% it was because I knewthat you were watching and I
knew that there were otherpeople kind of around the
country watching.
You had said, Hey, you shouldwatch.
Alison and I are watching.
You should watch.
And I kind of had to downloadan app and called in assistance

(48:23):
to make that happen.
And I think it's because,People I knew were doing it and
loving it.
And there's something aboutmotivation there that I think
completely relates to, uh, math.
I tried to get my son, who's asenior to do UIL math.
He did it in middle school and.
You know, kind of liked it, didwell at it, whatever.

(48:45):
But then for a couple of yearsI tried to get him to do it in
high school and he was like,man, no thanks.
But this year all of hisfriends are doing it.
And so of course he dove on it.
He's happy to do it.
They have the best time talkingabout it.
and so sometimes like justmotivation and so related to

(49:05):
people that you care about.
But the anxiety that happenedwatching this game was
overwhelming.
And like I said, pacing andlike watching intently at every
stinging pitch and likelistening to what the, you know,
the officials were saying.
And do I agree or disagree?

(49:26):
I didn't even know that I wasgoing to be watching that game
and I was super invested andobviously taking it to Blue Sky
and I didn't wanna bother youbecause I knew that you were
super stressed in it.
And I'm thinking today abouthow parents feel this stress
sometimes for their kids andthey maybe like, don't wanna say

(49:48):
anything to the kid becausethey don't wanna create
additional anxiety.
Like, I didn't wanna be textingyou and saying like, oh my
gosh, what's happening?
What do you, what do you think?
And are you worried?
And I'm, I'm, you know, Ididn't wanna pressure you about
it, but that didn't relieve anyof the anxiety that I was having
about it.
Like, I was picturing youwatching and I was like, oh my
gosh, is she like.

(50:08):
Pacing also, is she losing hermind?
And, but I couldn't do anythingabout it.
Obviously I'm not playingbaseball and I can't like make
your stress go away.
But I was stressed andthinking, okay, like take a deep
breath.
You're seriously up in it rightnow.
And I couldn't because therewas nothing I could do to take

(50:29):
away any of the things that werehappening.
And I know that's superextreme, but I really think that
that's how parents feel like.
Sometimes it's because theythink they're not good at math,
and sometimes it's because theyhad negative experiences, but
sometimes just that they care somuch about their kid and their
kid has a feeling about it andmaybe they don't know what to
say and they don't know how tohelp and they don't wanna talk

(50:52):
about it because they're afraidthey're gonna make it worse or
shed light and, and make theirkid more stressed than they need
to be.
and so then it just createsthis tension for the parent, and
then the tension goes back andforth to the kid.
I'm really sorry that it didn'thave the outcome that you were
hoping for, but I know thatyou'll be okay and mean, I don't
know, I felt a little bit likea parent who was kind of worried

(51:16):
for you.

This honestly really makes me think so much
about failure and success andthe way we're defining it.
I know Peter talked about that.
I know part of like what Kimwas saying is, you know,
parents' anxiety around theirkids is around whether or not
the kids are getting the outcomethey want, like whatever, blah,
blah, blah.
I feel like failure and successis such a big theme of this
series because when you'replaying baseball, from what I've

(51:40):
learned, you're looking to winthe game with the most amount of
score, the highest score.

This was going, doing a great job up until this
point.
Score the most amount of runs.

Runs.
Okay, there you go.
Runs.
That is technically thedefinition of success, but what
we saw after the game, honestlywas this incredible, I think,
outpouring of people saying, weare not disappointed in you Blue
Jays because you didn't scorethe most amount of runs.
We are proud of you.
Despite the fact that youdidn't get the outcome that was

(52:20):
like, you know, technically thegoal of the thing.
You can be disappointed thatyou didn't get the outcome you
want without calling the wholething awash and giving up and
being like, what was the fuckingpoint?
I think those are, that's howwe hold the difference is like,
of course you can grieve thefact that you didn't get the
outcome.
You didn't get into the collegeyou wanted.
You didn't get hired for thejob, you got dumped.

(52:43):
Like of course.
But you have to be able to holdthat along with being like, but
look at how much I've grown.
Look at all of the good stuffthat did happen.
Look at what I'm proud of.
Like I think.
That's the difference becauseif you're gonna just be like,
well, fuck it, they lost, fuckthat team.
Or if a, a player's gonna belike, I gave away that home run,
like, I'm just gonna quit now.
That's very different thanbeing like, I'm really

(53:06):
disappointed that happened.
But that doesn't mean I can'tsee all of the amazing things
that happen all the way and allthe amazing things that are
potentially to come.
It's like this hope versus a, adefeat.

Yeah, and that also happens within a game or it
happens within an inning.
Like there's, through any givengame, there's constantly
failure and success back andforth and back and

Yeah.

it also depends on which team you're talk about.
Like any time you're, you'vegot two teams playing and
depending on which one you're afan of, any given play
throughout an entire game isgoing to either be a failure or
a success depending on whichside you're on.
So there's constantly ups anddowns and, and failures.

(53:54):
Part of what makes sportscompelling to watch as well is
the human side of it.
And even if they don't In thisseries, everyone got into it
because they, was so muchcoverage about these guys'
actual personalities, and thatwas what make, that's something
that made it really special.
That's not always the case withsports.
Like you can develop theseparasocial relationships with

(54:18):
these athletes while notnecessarily actually getting to
know them.
Like you just know their onfield pers performance, With
this series, especially with theJays, people got so invested in
them because they seem likesuch great dudes and like really
nice people that care abouteach other.
So then that makes you evenwant to them to win more.

(54:38):
But then taking that to more,uh, to like a granular level,
just play by, play through agame or inning by inning.
look at one of those players,like, let's I say a pitcher,
especially 'cause thespotlight's right on them.
They are facing batter afterbow batter, inning after inning

(54:59):
over the course of this three orfour hour game, and getting a
bunch of strikeouts.
They're also giving up a homerun.
Then they get back out thereand they've gotta try to get
another strikeout.
And it's like, you're, you'rewinning, you're losing, you're
winning, you're losing you.
And ultimately you're, yeah,with in baseball for sure, but
in any sport really, you'rejust.

(55:20):
Your goal is ultimately to winmore than you lose or to win
when it counts, but you aregoing to lose.
So this definitely connects tothis whole mindset thing and
like the sport, the, thepsychology of performance in
high pressure situations that,that we were talking about with
Peter.
it really connects with beingable to overcome failure And

(55:46):
this, this applies to theseprofessional sports players, and
it applies to students who aretrying to master a skill or
learn something.
All right, if you've made itthis far, because I'm editing
this I get final cut and so Ican't help but interject one
last time and just note thatVanessa in this segment suddenly

(56:10):
decided to eat a snack.
You could imagine that mighttop the list of my producing pet
peeves, however, she's got herown, qualms about, uh, you know,
working with me.
And, this was about two hoursinto recording this debacle of,
uh, an episode.
However, just like our dearBlue Jays, we persisted in the

(56:34):
face of many mistakes on bothsides, successes, failures,
whatever.
That's why it sounds like she'seating something.
Because she is.

Did you see what one of our favorite Toronto
artists Shad posted?

I did.
Yes,

One of the things he said was, what matters
most is what you do after theL.
After the loss, I think is whatL stands for.

Correct.

And when you say overcoming failure, I wonder
what you mean.
Is that what you mean is whatyou do after you don't get the
outcome you want?
Like you throw a pitch, theother team hits a home run.
What matters is what you doafter that, right?
Like do you get back up thereand keep going?
Or do you like be like, I can'tdo this anymore and walk off

(57:22):
the field?
Do you give up?
Like, it's like, don't youthink that is what overcoming
failure really means?
It's like what do you do afteryou don't come get the outcome?
You.

Yeah, for sure.
And I think that that's whypeople become so invested in the
drama of watching a sportsteam, because it would not be
very compelling if these guysjust all gave up every time they
failed.
Like if they, if a batter goesup to the plate and strikes out,
and then he is like, well, nopoint really trying any more.

(57:52):
I'll just sit the neck, therest of the game out.
Then it's like, oh.
just gave up.
That's pretty boring.
So it's the fact that thebatter goes back up there the
next time and is, like, well,I'm gonna try again this time
and I'm gonna try to shake

Why doesn't that happen in math class?
Why doesn't that happen?
So many of these kids playsports and they act like
athletes, like

mm-hmm.

not giving up.
Just when they strike out,what?
Why doesn't it happen?
I'm so curious.
Like.

It could be part of just what we were talking
about with Peter about themindset training.
And I think that is what isinteresting about your
collective work is just likehe's saying professional
athletes trained mentally inaddition to training physically.
What, like the kinds ofstrategies that you talk about

(58:49):
for, for teachers to incorporateinto their classroom, like
mindfulness or other emotionalstrategies for students to build
confidence in themselves and tolike overcome their anxieties.
That kind of training I thinkis what is what is missing often

(59:13):
from the education system.
Like, but then I, I think alsothere is the teamwork aspect
like when you're playing sports,then you are part of a team.
And if you're, I mean, there'slots of teams that are not very
good and don't have goodleadership, and the teams

(59:33):
teammates are not supportive ofeach other.
So like maybe there's lots ofteams where if you fail, then
the other guys yell at you.
But in a good team, you've gotteammates who are supportive of
each other and are lifting eachother up when they fail.
You've got coaches helping youin an encouraging and supportive

(59:57):
way and not, not like yellingat you or shaming you.
And so I think that that's whythat is a big reason why people
got so excited about the Jays,especially because the way that
they were talking about eachother, the way they were, like,
they were being so much nicer toeach other and supportive of

(01:00:17):
each other.
Any of the guys who wereinvolved in some play close to
the end of the game, in whichthe Jays lost the World Series,
have been like loudly criticizedby ran various sports fans
being like, it's that pitcher'sfault, or it's that runner's
fault for not taking a bigenough lead.

(01:00:39):
And then someone else is like,no, it's the third base coach's
fault for not telling the runnerhow much of a lead.
And then so you do have thesepeople who are like nitpicking
any particular thing.
But that's

Vanessa Vakharia (01:00:50):
Wow.

David Kochberg (01:00:51):
before, is that.
the course of a game, there'smistakes.
And

Million.

yeah,

focus on something that happened in the
first inning, like that couldbeen the thing.

Well, exactly,

the end of the day, it's one point.
Doesn't matter when the.

It's called a run, not a point.
Um, but, uh, but yeah, so Ithink that that's why everyone
was so enamored with this Jaysteam because they were so
supportive.
And even, even afterwards, likethey're interviewing these guys
in the, in the clubhouse afterand, and like these guys are all
bawling their eyes out and thenthey're, and they're, they'll

(01:01:27):
ask like one of the other guys,like, what do you think of the
pitcher Hoffman who gave up thatgame winning run.
And, and the guys are like, Iwould, he, I would support him
at any time.
Like I would always put him inthat situation.
He's the right guy to put it inthat situation.
Like that time he didn't getit, but most times he would get
it.
They're like saying the

Oh my God, I love them.

so I, I think so bringing it back to math class,
like, yeah, we don't have thatkind of an atmosphere.
Like usually you've got, Imean, hopefully you've got a
good teacher who, I mean by agood teacher, I mean, like,
hopefully your teacher isencouraging in some way and
isn't like doing the oppositeor, or like making a kid feel

(01:02:09):
bad for doing something bad.
Like that's obviously a majorproblem.
But the, in the typicalclassroom, let's say like
chances are the teacher's tryingto make the kid feel better and
help them, but, doesn't havethe same, like we are all a team
with a united goal of like,everyone in the class is all
gonna get this stuff.

(01:02:30):
Like on, on a sports team, likesome people are superstars and
some people are bench players,but the whole team is working on
all getting to the end goal andwinning together.
And so you don't exactly havethat in a classroom necessarily.

That's a really cool thought that.
Individualistic versuscollective nature, and again,
like this has so much to do.
Jenna was bringing up, youknow, the idea of, theory of
motivated classrooms and how oneof the biggest things about
motivation is, accountability.
Being accountable to otherpeople can be one of the most

(01:03:11):
motivating things, right?
It can help you when you fail,when you make a mistake to get
back on your feet and to tryagain, right?
That idea of like, community isanother one.
So like accountability andcommunity, are two of the most
powerful things when thingsaren't going our way that, that
we can use to reel us back in.
This even goes back to whatShelby was saying about
excitement being contacontagious, right?
When we're all in somethingtogether, or like being on the

(01:03:33):
bandwagon, like all of it, like,yes, the team itself, but also
us as fans.
Like we keep coming up with thesame thing, which is like the
idea of the collective, the ideaof being a part of something.
The idea of something, meaningsomething.
The idea of context beingimportant, the idea.
But like, you know, I, to wrapup, I really do wanna, I wanna
play you the voice note thatAllison sent me because she
watched the last game with me.

(01:03:54):
She watched the last two gameswith me.
We were in Newport.
We went to this bar called theRed Parrot, where no one else
was watching.
The first night we were theonly people there, and the
second night there were a fewother people there.
We got everyone to watch thegame with us and these people
could not give a fuck.
They were like, I don't know, Iguess like, sure, I'll cheer
for the J's 'cause they're notthe Dodgers.
But by the end they stayedalmost till the bitter end and

(01:04:16):
they were, I could just tellthey were all just there for me.
They were there 'cause theywere like, we just want this
girl to like get off off thefloor.
Like we're really rooting forher.
Like, do you know what I mean?
After I cried when they lost I,we both walked home to our
separate hotels and then sheleft me this voice note.

Alison Mello (01:04:36):
They have so much to be proud of.
They didn't maybe get an Aplus.
They didn't get a hundred, butthey still killed it, right?
Like they took it as close asyou could take it without
getting a perfect score.
Like if you think about it thatway, just because they didn't
get like the top grade in theclass or they didn't get like a
perfect score, their achievementwas still outstanding,

(01:04:59):
incredible.
No one else in the class evencame close to them, other than
that one team,

I love that.
Yeah.
Like, I don't, it just, I don'tknow, just hearing her say
that, and she's such like a warmperson and such a, like, you
just know she's the best teacherand just the way she talks,
she's so sincere.
That voice note like made mecry.
Like when she left it, I waslike, she's right.
Is the disappointment of notgetting the outcome you wanted.
But I just think all of herwords and the way she related it

(01:05:28):
to math class were so beautifuland so perfect.
You know?
And that idea of like, justthe, the fact that they didn't
get an A plus doesn't take awayfrom the, in what they achieved
and how incredible it was.
And seeing the fans' reactionsto that, yes, there are other
people being like, oh, like soand so lost the game, whatever.
But I'm seeing so many fansbeing like.
There's always next to youguys.

(01:05:50):
We're proud of you.
You know, like what youovercame.
We will never forget thisseries.
They, they made, they madelike, didn't they make a bunch
of world records?

They did break a number of records.
Yes.
Yeah.
They said, I can't rememberwhat they are at this point.
This feels like a year

But they broke all these records.
Like they, so they broke allthese records?
Yes.
They didn't get the a plus.
But look at all these amazingthings along the way.
And so many of the fans areproud of that.
And I think, I think we'redoing that as teachers.
We're trying to reallycelebrate like all of these
successes and like instead offocusing on the fact that our
students, you know, don't getthe outcome they want or their
grade they want, we're trying tofind ways to celebrate all the

(01:06:26):
successes along the way and toshow them their progress.
Like breaking a world record isa great way to show someone
their progress.
We can also be doing that inmath class by showing kids how
they're breaking their ownrecords, right?
Or like how they've.
Maybe didn't get the answer toa question, but they made a
mistake or they, they thoughtabout it in a way no one ever
has that this teacher has everseen before.
Like, I think there's all thiscool stuff we can be doing.

(01:06:46):
I think it really, really makesa difference the way we, I
always say, the way we react tofailure teaches our students how
to feel about success.
And I think we're seeing thatwith the Jays, the way we are
reacting to this quote unquotefailure teaches the collective
how to feel about success, howto redefine success, and all the
things that the word successcan mean.

(01:07:07):
It doesn't just mean winningthe World Series.
Yes, that's one meaning of it,but it also means all these
amazing things that havehappened along the way,

It's interesting cause this is just more of an
open ended conversation or you,you're just kind of thinking out
loud about all this stuff, butit's,

Yeah.

would be interesting just like what are
ways that you could actuallybring some of this stuff into
the classroom.
So maybe that's just a goodquestion to bring to, to put out
to the audience and to fellowteachers is like, these are
really interesting or oobservations to take from
baseball and try to apply it toeducation.

(01:07:51):
So how could teachers actuallydo that?
Like what, how could they makethe classroom more like a
clubhouse.

Oh, that's cool.

Thanks.

Really cool.
And I just wanna add on a morepersonal note.
Thank you so much to AlisonMello and Kim Montague and
Jenna Laib and Shelby Strong formaking this so special for me.
Honestly, I was all my lonesometraveling in the US while my
community back home wascelebrating what was going on.
And it was pretty amazing to beable to find and create that

(01:08:24):
community out here.
So thank you guys so much.
And to everyone listening rightnow, we wanna know how can we
turn our classrooms into aclubhouse vibe?
How can we make our classroomsmore like a clubhouse?
You can text the podcast byclicking the link in your show
notes.
You can email me atvanessa@themathguru.ca.
You can DM me on Instagram.

(01:08:46):
And guys, never would I ever,did I ever have I ever thought
that I would be recording anepisode about sports, but here
we are.
Just proof anything is possibleincluding a World Series win
next year.
So let's go Blue Jays.
See you in the spring.
Is that what they say?
Why spring training?

Yeah.
The spring training is whenthey start training for the,
yeah, the, the next season willstart in the springtime.

See you in the spring.
See you in the spring, boys.

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