February 18, 2025 • 20 mins
It's Thumb Appreciation Day! So we begin with an amusing discussion about thumbs (are they fingers?).
Then, since it is the week of the 2025 CPM Teacher Conference, we are taking a bit of a break from new content and giving you a reprise of our first conversation with Dr. Peter Liljedahl from 2022. After you listen to this part, you'll want to also go listen to
Part 2
and
Part 3
of the conversation.
We'll be back with new content in March!
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Boom, Okay, it's February 18th 2025.
Ooh, it's a big week, Joel.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Big week.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Big week Teacher conference coming up this
weekend?
Yes, and I'm excited.
Before that, though, we have aday to celebrate.
We have a day to celebrate,which is today, right, and what
day is it?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, it could become one of my favorites, I don't
know.
Oh, I don't know that I'veactually celebrated the day
officially before, but today isThumb Appreciation Day, that
sounds like a good day.
Thumb appreciation day I canappreciate my thumbs.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It does seem like you , yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like
one of those sort of obvious ohdo you appreciate your thumb?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Of course I would be sad without my thumb or any of
the thumbs.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
In fact, we ridicule other beasts because they don't
have opposable thumbs, sothey're not as capable of what
we do.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We're not taking over the world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Not without thumbs.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, apparently I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So it's thumb appreciation day.
That's interesting, I know,yes't know what to think about
that what do you think?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
do you think a thumb is a finger?
Yes, although it works withother fingers, it's not
considered a finger, but a digitaccording to whom?
According to my facts, well,all right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I I think that that's just.
I think it's like square andrectangle.
Thumb is a special figure.
That's fine, whatever.
Whatever, all right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
All right, I think that's one of the reasons I
don't really care for raccoonsis because it feels like they
have thumbs.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I mean, you kind of have little thumb-ish you can
grab things right.
Yeah, they're not opposablethumbs.
Yeah, is that the part of it?
Like all animals have somefifth not all many animals have
a fifth digit right, and so evendogs have like a dewclaw right.
That's true, but it's not anopposable thumb, I think it's
(02:55):
not just so maybe it'sincomplete to say thumb
appreciation day.
Maybe it's opposable thumb,because that's the whole thing
is that we can like grab,because our thumb moves in the
opposite direction of ourfingers yeah our other fingers
just think if you had to dopull-ups without a thumb.
That'd be hard some new peopledo pull-ups with their hand over
the bar, which I think is weirdthey just like cupping the bar.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I bet there would be some adaptation, like if we
didn't have the thumb, we wouldadapt in different ways.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm just saying I'm just not an outlier.
I mean, we would have to createdifferent.
We couldn't hold mugs in thesame way.
We'd have to do a lot ofdifferent things.
We couldn't write in the sameway.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
There's not a lot to say about thumb appreciation
today.
It's not like okay, yes.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So the earliest known use of the thumbs up is from a
book in 1917 called Over the Topby Arthur Gray Empey.
Now, sometimes I think peoplethink thumbs up is a positive,
like a positive reinforcement.
(04:05):
In fact, on your Applecomputers, I believe, if you
give a thumbs up on your camera,it even highlights the things I
think thumbs down too.
But some people I think thinkthumbs up mean something
different, negative.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, in Shakespeare, if could what bite your thumb
or something you'd do somethinglike with your thumb, and that
was definitely a negative thing.
Interesting, the same as likeflipping someone the bird kind
of an idea gotcha.
So I would agree that there'sprobably not universality with
that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was watching an episode of the Real Housewives
of Salt Lake City and they got.
They were fighting, they wereangry with each other because
somebody responded to a textwith a thumbs up and they
thought that meant more like amiddle finger, which we just
discussed.
A thumb is not a finger, so Idon't know what to be upset, but
they thought that was very rude.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't think that there are very many gestures
that are universally received.
Probably true.
What are you going to do forthumb appreciation day?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Well, I think I could investigate the thumb a little
bit, just kind of like see whatit can or cannot do, maybe in my
own place.
I guess I could play, maybewith Wendell I'll try some thumb
wrestling, which is anadvantage for me, because
Wendell doesn't have thumbs, soI think I could probably win
that game.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But that's one thing, that's suggested, you have to
basically forfeit.
Yes, you just basically forfeit.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, how about you?
How would?
You celebrate thumb day.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think it's interesting that if, like a
thumb, just by itself is notnecessarily useful, if you
didn't have the fingers also andother fingers, then you would
like like you can't pick upthings just with your thumb,
unless they have loops, or yeah,I I have no idea how I'm going
to celebrate this.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm probably just going to, after we get off this
podcast, forget that we had theconversation.
Well, I hope that we don'tForget to celebrate.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
And I hope that our listeners will write in to
cpmpodcastcpmorg and tell us howthat you celebrate your thumb
day, because I know you're outthere celebrating right now.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, we'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
We'd love your ideas.
So, as you may know or justheard, this is the big week of
(06:44):
the CPM Teacher Conference and Iam the program chair there.
So I am very, very busy thisweek and Joel is a presenter and
a moderator and a generalhelper, along with all of the
rest of the PL team at theconference as well.
So we are busy having meetings,getting things ready, prepping,
(07:05):
presenting all of the lovelythings to make the CPM
conference work.
And we sure hope that you'regoing to be at the CPM teacher
conference this weekend orperhaps you were so busy you
didn't listen to this podcastand you're listening to it the
week afterwards and it was allvery great to it the week
afterwards and it was all verygreat and we hope that it all
went really well.
We hope that it no, let me sayand we hope that it all goes
(07:29):
really well.
That being said, we did notrecord a new conversation for
you this week.
We are going to give you asnippet of a conversation that
we recorded a few years ago withDr Peter Lillodal, who is the
author of Building ThinkingClassrooms.
We've had Peter on here acouple times now, but we're
(07:51):
going to do a reprise of partone of our conversation that we
had with Peter back in 2022.
We're going to give you partone and then we'll leave it up
to you to listen to part two andpart three at your leisure and
pleasure.
We'll put links to those in thepodcast description.
So here you go, peter Lillidahlfrom 2022.
(08:14):
We are here today.
We're very excited todaybecause we have Peter Lillidahl
here with us today on thepodcast.
Peter Lilley-Dahl here with ustoday on the podcast.
I'm sure many, many people know, but Peter is a professor of
mathematics education at SimonFraser University in Vancouver,
canada.
He is a former high schoolmathematics teacher.
(08:35):
He's done a lot of research inthe classroom and has a book
that many people know calledBuilding Thinking Classrooms Out
with 14 instructional practicesto help build a thinking
classroom, which we at theprofessional learning team have
read recently as part of a bookstudy and very excited about it.
So we're really excited to haveyou here on the podcast today.
Peter, welcome to More Mathsfor More People.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah welcome.
Peter.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Well, thanks for having me.
I always welcome theseopportunities to engage in rich
conversation with like-mindedcolleagues.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Nice, I hope so.
Well, we're going to bust outof the gate with a non-math
topic, because I really want toknow.
I have some burning questions.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I want to know too.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
When I did a search on you, peter, the first thing
that came up is a Wikipediaarticle that does not identify
you first off as a mathprofessor.
It tells about how you were asprint canoeist in the 1992
Olympics, which I think ispretty fabulous.
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Wow.
So this is.
You know, it's funny, it's sucha part of my life and for so
long it was at the time it feltlike for so long it was all that
my life was about.
But you know, that was 30 yearsago, so I was in that for eight
, eight years and which, youknow, when you're 25, feels like
(09:55):
a significant portion of yourlife.
It is, and now I'm looking backon that and it's and it's just
a blink now.
It's just so.
How did it?
How did it come about?
So when I was young, in school,in high school, elementary
school I dabbled in a lot ofsports.
I sucked at almost all of them.
It took me a long time before Irealized that any sport that
(10:17):
involved a ball or a puck was asport that was going to elude me
, and I was more proficient atsports that were more individual
, like swimming and running.
But even then there was timeswhere I was good at it.
And then my transformationphysically sort of changed that,
(10:39):
because when I was in gradenine I grew a foot and a half.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
I went from being the shortestperson in the school to being
over six feet tall, wow.
And I didn't gain a singlepound.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It's like one of those like similarity problems
where you only stretched in onedirection.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And so when I graduated high school, a friend
of mine actually said it wasliterally a week after I
graduated high school, I was 18at the time said hey, we need
some more people for the canoeclub.
Why don't you come down and tryout?
And so I went down and I triedout and it wasn't really a trial
.
They needed people, so I didn'treally have to try, but it was.
I immediately fell in love withthe sport.
(11:21):
I don't know what it was aboutit.
I think there was this elementof individuality where I was,
but at the same time, a reallysafe team space because you're
just in sync with everybody elseand, of course, you can do a
good job or a bad job.
But I really fell in love withthe sport.
And keep in mind that this I'msix feet and I think I weighed
140 pounds.
(11:41):
So it's maybe even lighter.
So you know, not not the idealphysique for an upper body sport
, but I, for some reason, I justthought that this was the sport
I wanted to throw my energyinto, and so I got through the
summer in some team boats andthen I started training
individual, the C1 it's calledthe single person canoe.
(12:02):
And I still remember September6th 1985.
It was the same day that Istarted university and I started
training on my own and Ithought I was really good.
I was really bad, but I thoughtit was really good.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, you got really good.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yeah, yeah, and it just went off from there.
I had quite a meteoric rise.
Within a year, I was winningmedals at the Canadian
Championships because I wasliving in Canada.
Within three years, I was onthe national team, almost making
the Olympic team.
Within three years, I was onthe national team, almost making
the Olympic team.
Wow, eventually, in 1992, Iswitched from racing for Canada,
(12:37):
where I'd been on the nationalteam for five years, to racing
for Sweden, because when youenter a Games you have to race
for the country or a citizen.
Okay and off.
I went to Barcelona and I racedfor Sweden in the C1, 500 meter
and 1,000 meter and I raced foranother year after that c1, 500
meter and a thousand meter.
And I raced for another yearafter that and then I retired,
did some coaching and then I goton with life well, I, I watched
(12:59):
that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, both misty and I watched that youtube video of
the 92 event.
What a finish.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Oh my gosh, what a finish the one where you just
missed the semi-finals.
I think it was right.
Oh yeah, oh my gosh, so close.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well, you must have done some real sleuthing to find
that video.
I don't even know what it'slike.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
It's on.
Youtube yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Joel sent me the link and we'll probably put it in
the podcast description sopeople can find it.
Yeah, no, it was really superclose and it was quite a fight.
To come back to that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And it was.
You know they're used to.
Life was a little moremysterious before that wiki
entry was created.
I'm not sure who created it.
I remember my students used toGoogle me when I was teaching at
the university and they wouldGoogle and there were several
Peter Lilliodals on Google atthe time.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas an Olympic canoe traveler.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas an Olympic sailor.
(13:52):
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas a professional poker player
.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas a IT consultant and there
was a Peter Lilliodal that was aprofessor and the students
would come in and they wouldkind of you could always tell
when they've been Googling,because they started asking the
sort of questions trying tofigure out which of these was I
other than just the professor?
(14:12):
And they all they alwaysthought it was professional
poker player, but it wasn't thatway.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, it's kind of math related.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Are you still involved in canoeing?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
No, I coached for a few years.
I switched to a differentcanoes.
I raced dragon boat andoutrigger canoes that you see in
Hawaii.
I raced at several differentworld championships in Dragon
Boat and Outrigger and did quitewell in some of those years.
But then did some solo stuff,raced down in the gorge, nice,
(14:41):
okay, yeah, and I think that wasactually my last solo race when
Outrigger Canoe was ademonstration sport in the X
Games.
So I've actually yeah, I'veactually also raced in an X
Games as a demonstration sportin the X Games.
So I've actually yeah, I'veactually also raced in the X
Games as a demonstration sport.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Update your Wikipedia entry.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I throw around so, and then I, and then, if there's
anybody young out therelistening, you need to know that
when you do these sorts ofintense sports, you will pay the
price later on.
And so I don't do canoeinganymore.
I'm also not supposed to skianymore, but I do that.
That's where I throw my energy,gotcha.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Nice.
How did you kind of transition,then, from being that athlete
to into math, being a mathprofessor, math teacher?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Actually it wasn't a transition at all.
The eight years that I was inmy sport corresponded perfectly
with the eight years that I wasan undergraduate student at
university.
Yes, it took me eight years toget my undergraduate degree,
largely because I was an athleteat the time, but I graduated
with a degree in mathematics anda minor in active tutoring.
The senior year I retired frommy sport and then I went
straight into teacher education,initially as a good backup plan
(15:54):
for whatever my real career wasgoing to be.
But then I absolutely fell inlove with teaching, and so that
sort of has set the path for mefor the rest of my career.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And how long were you in the classroom before you
started transitioning to workingas a professor?
Like doing?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
research and all the other things.
Well, that was not a smoothtransition.
So I worked for him for fiveyears full time and then, you
know, we were starting a familyat the time.
I actually became astay-at-home dad for a number of
years while I was working on mymaster's and we had two
children at the time.
And then, toward the end of mymaster's degree, I was recruited
(16:34):
into a PhD program which wasnot planned, so that extended my
graduate work and my absencefrom the classroom.
And then, just as I wasfinishing up the PhD and I don't
know exactly when within my PhDmy goals shifted from going
back into the classroom tobecoming a professor, but
(16:55):
somewhere in there it shifted.
And then, just as I wasfinishing up my thesis I
remember actually on the sameday I submitted the first draft
and my completed PhD thesis.
I also submitted a jobapplication for a professorship
at SFU and, yeah, so I think Idescended in.
I remember that was December15th 2003, that I submitted my
(17:16):
first draft and my jobapplication.
I descended in February, Ithink I interviewed, and I can't
remember if I interviewedbefore or after I descended, but
I got the position.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nice, yes, so that's where I've been ever since Very
cool, that's great, so we'regoing to transition a little bit
to talking about buildingthings in classrooms.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Oh, really, you don't want to talk about my career as
a I?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
mean we could talk about it.
This is very enjoyable, forsure.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
We can talk about my career as a carpenter, where I
spent 10 years.
My work as a firefighter alsothat I spent some time doing.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Really.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah, yeah, I've lived many lives.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Wow, you have.
Well, you know, if we had beenable to research that with the
Wikipedia article, we might beable to go into those things
more deeply and, as we said, youknow we have read the book.
We love the things that you'vesaid.
A lot of them connect.
So that's your sneak peek ofour conversation with Peter
(18:19):
Lilliodal.
To hear the rest of ourconversation, you'll need to
find episodes 2.18 and 2.19 from2023, or you can click on the
links in this podcastdescription.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
(18:40):
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
It'll be March 18th, Awkward Moments Day, and I know
just by me saying AwkwardMoments Day, you're probably
already thinking of awkwardmoments that have happened in
your life.
Please feel free to share, butwe'll be sure to include a few
good awkward moments that wehave gone through and touch base
(19:19):
on what those might be.
I'm excited to hear whatMisty's gone through and all
sorts of stuff.
There's some suggestions hereas well for others and we hope
to hear from you.
We hope that you listen andwe'll see you on the next show.
Thank you.
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Boom, Okay, it's February 18th 2025.
Ooh, it's a big week, Joel.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Big week.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Big week Teacher conference coming up this
weekend?
Yes, and I'm excited.
Before that, though, we have aday to celebrate.
We have a day to celebrate,which is today, right, and what
day is it?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, it could become one of my favorites, I don't
know.
Oh, I don't know that I'veactually celebrated the day
officially before, but today isThumb Appreciation Day, that
sounds like a good day.
Thumb appreciation day I canappreciate my thumbs.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It does seem like you , yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like
one of those sort of obvious ohdo you appreciate your thumb?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Of course I would be sad without my thumb or any of
the thumbs.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
In fact, we ridicule other beasts because they don't
have opposable thumbs, sothey're not as capable of what
we do.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We're not taking over the world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Not without thumbs.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, apparently I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So it's thumb appreciation day.
That's interesting, I know,yes't know what to think about
that what do you think?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
do you think a thumb is a finger?
Yes, although it works withother fingers, it's not
considered a finger, but a digitaccording to whom?
According to my facts, well,all right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I I think that that's just.
I think it's like square andrectangle.
Thumb is a special figure.
That's fine, whatever.
Whatever, all right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
All right, I think that's one of the reasons I
don't really care for raccoonsis because it feels like they
have thumbs.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I mean, you kind of have little thumb-ish you can
grab things right.
Yeah, they're not opposablethumbs.
Yeah, is that the part of it?
Like all animals have somefifth not all many animals have
a fifth digit right, and so evendogs have like a dewclaw right.
That's true, but it's not anopposable thumb, I think it's
(02:55):
not just so maybe it'sincomplete to say thumb
appreciation day.
Maybe it's opposable thumb,because that's the whole thing
is that we can like grab,because our thumb moves in the
opposite direction of ourfingers yeah our other fingers
just think if you had to dopull-ups without a thumb.
That'd be hard some new peopledo pull-ups with their hand over
the bar, which I think is weirdthey just like cupping the bar.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I bet there would be some adaptation, like if we
didn't have the thumb, we wouldadapt in different ways.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm just saying I'm just not an outlier.
I mean, we would have to createdifferent.
We couldn't hold mugs in thesame way.
We'd have to do a lot ofdifferent things.
We couldn't write in the sameway.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
There's not a lot to say about thumb appreciation
today.
It's not like okay, yes.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So the earliest known use of the thumbs up is from a
book in 1917 called Over the Topby Arthur Gray Empey.
Now, sometimes I think peoplethink thumbs up is a positive,
like a positive reinforcement.
(04:05):
In fact, on your Applecomputers, I believe, if you
give a thumbs up on your camera,it even highlights the things I
think thumbs down too.
But some people I think thinkthumbs up mean something
different, negative.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, in Shakespeare, if could what bite your thumb
or something you'd do somethinglike with your thumb, and that
was definitely a negative thing.
Interesting, the same as likeflipping someone the bird kind
of an idea gotcha.
So I would agree that there'sprobably not universality with
that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was watching an episode of the Real Housewives
of Salt Lake City and they got.
They were fighting, they wereangry with each other because
somebody responded to a textwith a thumbs up and they
thought that meant more like amiddle finger, which we just
discussed.
A thumb is not a finger, so Idon't know what to be upset, but
they thought that was very rude.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't think that there are very many gestures
that are universally received.
Probably true.
What are you going to do forthumb appreciation day?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Well, I think I could investigate the thumb a little
bit, just kind of like see whatit can or cannot do, maybe in my
own place.
I guess I could play, maybewith Wendell I'll try some thumb
wrestling, which is anadvantage for me, because
Wendell doesn't have thumbs, soI think I could probably win
that game.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But that's one thing, that's suggested, you have to
basically forfeit.
Yes, you just basically forfeit.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, how about you?
How would?
You celebrate thumb day.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think it's interesting that if, like a
thumb, just by itself is notnecessarily useful, if you
didn't have the fingers also andother fingers, then you would
like like you can't pick upthings just with your thumb,
unless they have loops, or yeah,I I have no idea how I'm going
to celebrate this.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm probably just going to, after we get off this
podcast, forget that we had theconversation.
Well, I hope that we don'tForget to celebrate.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
And I hope that our listeners will write in to
cpmpodcastcpmorg and tell us howthat you celebrate your thumb
day, because I know you're outthere celebrating right now.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, we'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
We'd love your ideas.
So, as you may know or justheard, this is the big week of
(06:44):
the CPM Teacher Conference and Iam the program chair there.
So I am very, very busy thisweek and Joel is a presenter and
a moderator and a generalhelper, along with all of the
rest of the PL team at theconference as well.
So we are busy having meetings,getting things ready, prepping,
(07:05):
presenting all of the lovelythings to make the CPM
conference work.
And we sure hope that you'regoing to be at the CPM teacher
conference this weekend orperhaps you were so busy you
didn't listen to this podcastand you're listening to it the
week afterwards and it was allvery great to it the week
afterwards and it was all verygreat and we hope that it all
went really well.
We hope that it no, let me sayand we hope that it all goes
(07:29):
really well.
That being said, we did notrecord a new conversation for
you this week.
We are going to give you asnippet of a conversation that
we recorded a few years ago withDr Peter Lillodal, who is the
author of Building ThinkingClassrooms.
We've had Peter on here acouple times now, but we're
(07:51):
going to do a reprise of partone of our conversation that we
had with Peter back in 2022.
We're going to give you partone and then we'll leave it up
to you to listen to part two andpart three at your leisure and
pleasure.
We'll put links to those in thepodcast description.
So here you go, peter Lillidahlfrom 2022.
(08:14):
We are here today.
We're very excited todaybecause we have Peter Lillidahl
here with us today on thepodcast.
Peter Lilley-Dahl here with ustoday on the podcast.
I'm sure many, many people know, but Peter is a professor of
mathematics education at SimonFraser University in Vancouver,
canada.
He is a former high schoolmathematics teacher.
(08:35):
He's done a lot of research inthe classroom and has a book
that many people know calledBuilding Thinking Classrooms Out
with 14 instructional practicesto help build a thinking
classroom, which we at theprofessional learning team have
read recently as part of a bookstudy and very excited about it.
So we're really excited to haveyou here on the podcast today.
Peter, welcome to More Mathsfor More People.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah welcome.
Peter.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Well, thanks for having me.
I always welcome theseopportunities to engage in rich
conversation with like-mindedcolleagues.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Nice, I hope so.
Well, we're going to bust outof the gate with a non-math
topic, because I really want toknow.
I have some burning questions.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I want to know too.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
When I did a search on you, peter, the first thing
that came up is a Wikipediaarticle that does not identify
you first off as a mathprofessor.
It tells about how you were asprint canoeist in the 1992
Olympics, which I think ispretty fabulous.
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Wow.
So this is.
You know, it's funny, it's sucha part of my life and for so
long it was at the time it feltlike for so long it was all that
my life was about.
But you know, that was 30 yearsago, so I was in that for eight
, eight years and which, youknow, when you're 25, feels like
(09:55):
a significant portion of yourlife.
It is, and now I'm looking backon that and it's and it's just
a blink now.
It's just so.
How did it?
How did it come about?
So when I was young, in school,in high school, elementary
school I dabbled in a lot ofsports.
I sucked at almost all of them.
It took me a long time before Irealized that any sport that
(10:17):
involved a ball or a puck was asport that was going to elude me
, and I was more proficient atsports that were more individual
, like swimming and running.
But even then there was timeswhere I was good at it.
And then my transformationphysically sort of changed that,
(10:39):
because when I was in gradenine I grew a foot and a half.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
I went from being the shortestperson in the school to being
over six feet tall, wow.
And I didn't gain a singlepound.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It's like one of those like similarity problems
where you only stretched in onedirection.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And so when I graduated high school, a friend
of mine actually said it wasliterally a week after I
graduated high school, I was 18at the time said hey, we need
some more people for the canoeclub.
Why don't you come down and tryout?
And so I went down and I triedout and it wasn't really a trial
.
They needed people, so I didn'treally have to try, but it was.
I immediately fell in love withthe sport.
(11:21):
I don't know what it was aboutit.
I think there was this elementof individuality where I was,
but at the same time, a reallysafe team space because you're
just in sync with everybody elseand, of course, you can do a
good job or a bad job.
But I really fell in love withthe sport.
And keep in mind that this I'msix feet and I think I weighed
140 pounds.
(11:41):
So it's maybe even lighter.
So you know, not not the idealphysique for an upper body sport
, but I, for some reason, I justthought that this was the sport
I wanted to throw my energyinto, and so I got through the
summer in some team boats andthen I started training
individual, the C1 it's calledthe single person canoe.
(12:02):
And I still remember September6th 1985.
It was the same day that Istarted university and I started
training on my own and Ithought I was really good.
I was really bad, but I thoughtit was really good.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, you got really good.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yeah, yeah, and it just went off from there.
I had quite a meteoric rise.
Within a year, I was winningmedals at the Canadian
Championships because I wasliving in Canada.
Within three years, I was onthe national team, almost making
the Olympic team.
Within three years, I was onthe national team, almost making
the Olympic team.
Wow, eventually, in 1992, Iswitched from racing for Canada,
(12:37):
where I'd been on the nationalteam for five years, to racing
for Sweden, because when youenter a Games you have to race
for the country or a citizen.
Okay and off.
I went to Barcelona and I racedfor Sweden in the C1, 500 meter
and 1,000 meter and I raced foranother year after that c1, 500
meter and a thousand meter.
And I raced for another yearafter that and then I retired,
did some coaching and then I goton with life well, I, I watched
(12:59):
that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, both misty and I watched that youtube video of
the 92 event.
What a finish.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Oh my gosh, what a finish the one where you just
missed the semi-finals.
I think it was right.
Oh yeah, oh my gosh, so close.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well, you must have done some real sleuthing to find
that video.
I don't even know what it'slike.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
It's on.
Youtube yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Joel sent me the link and we'll probably put it in
the podcast description sopeople can find it.
Yeah, no, it was really superclose and it was quite a fight.
To come back to that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And it was.
You know they're used to.
Life was a little moremysterious before that wiki
entry was created.
I'm not sure who created it.
I remember my students used toGoogle me when I was teaching at
the university and they wouldGoogle and there were several
Peter Lilliodals on Google atthe time.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas an Olympic canoe traveler.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas an Olympic sailor.
(13:52):
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas a professional poker player
.
There was a Peter Lilliodal whowas a IT consultant and there
was a Peter Lilliodal that was aprofessor and the students
would come in and they wouldkind of you could always tell
when they've been Googling,because they started asking the
sort of questions trying tofigure out which of these was I
other than just the professor?
(14:12):
And they all they alwaysthought it was professional
poker player, but it wasn't thatway.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, it's kind of math related.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Are you still involved in canoeing?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
No, I coached for a few years.
I switched to a differentcanoes.
I raced dragon boat andoutrigger canoes that you see in
Hawaii.
I raced at several differentworld championships in Dragon
Boat and Outrigger and did quitewell in some of those years.
But then did some solo stuff,raced down in the gorge, nice,
(14:41):
okay, yeah, and I think that wasactually my last solo race when
Outrigger Canoe was ademonstration sport in the X
Games.
So I've actually yeah, I'veactually also raced in an X
Games as a demonstration sportin the X Games.
So I've actually yeah, I'veactually also raced in the X
Games as a demonstration sport.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Update your Wikipedia entry.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I throw around so, and then I, and then, if there's
anybody young out therelistening, you need to know that
when you do these sorts ofintense sports, you will pay the
price later on.
And so I don't do canoeinganymore.
I'm also not supposed to skianymore, but I do that.
That's where I throw my energy,gotcha.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Nice.
How did you kind of transition,then, from being that athlete
to into math, being a mathprofessor, math teacher?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Actually it wasn't a transition at all.
The eight years that I was inmy sport corresponded perfectly
with the eight years that I wasan undergraduate student at
university.
Yes, it took me eight years toget my undergraduate degree,
largely because I was an athleteat the time, but I graduated
with a degree in mathematics anda minor in active tutoring.
The senior year I retired frommy sport and then I went
straight into teacher education,initially as a good backup plan
(15:54):
for whatever my real career wasgoing to be.
But then I absolutely fell inlove with teaching, and so that
sort of has set the path for mefor the rest of my career.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And how long were you in the classroom before you
started transitioning to workingas a professor?
Like doing?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
research and all the other things.
Well, that was not a smoothtransition.
So I worked for him for fiveyears full time and then, you
know, we were starting a familyat the time.
I actually became astay-at-home dad for a number of
years while I was working on mymaster's and we had two
children at the time.
And then, toward the end of mymaster's degree, I was recruited
(16:34):
into a PhD program which wasnot planned, so that extended my
graduate work and my absencefrom the classroom.
And then, just as I wasfinishing up the PhD and I don't
know exactly when within my PhDmy goals shifted from going
back into the classroom tobecoming a professor, but
(16:55):
somewhere in there it shifted.
And then, just as I wasfinishing up my thesis I
remember actually on the sameday I submitted the first draft
and my completed PhD thesis.
I also submitted a jobapplication for a professorship
at SFU and, yeah, so I think Idescended in.
I remember that was December15th 2003, that I submitted my
(17:16):
first draft and my jobapplication.
I descended in February, Ithink I interviewed, and I can't
remember if I interviewedbefore or after I descended, but
I got the position.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nice, yes, so that's where I've been ever since Very
cool, that's great, so we'regoing to transition a little bit
to talking about buildingthings in classrooms.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Oh, really, you don't want to talk about my career as
a I?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
mean we could talk about it.
This is very enjoyable, forsure.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
We can talk about my career as a carpenter, where I
spent 10 years.
My work as a firefighter alsothat I spent some time doing.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Really.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah, yeah, I've lived many lives.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Wow, you have.
Well, you know, if we had beenable to research that with the
Wikipedia article, we might beable to go into those things
more deeply and, as we said, youknow we have read the book.
We love the things that you'vesaid.
A lot of them connect.
So that's your sneak peek ofour conversation with Peter
(18:19):
Lilliodal.
To hear the rest of ourconversation, you'll need to
find episodes 2.18 and 2.19 from2023, or you can click on the
links in this podcastdescription.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
(18:40):
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
It'll be March 18th, Awkward Moments Day, and I know
just by me saying AwkwardMoments Day, you're probably
already thinking of awkwardmoments that have happened in
your life.
Please feel free to share, butwe'll be sure to include a few
good awkward moments that wehave gone through and touch base
(19:19):
on what those might be.
I'm excited to hear whatMisty's gone through and all
sorts of stuff.
There's some suggestions hereas well for others and we hope
to hear from you.
We hope that you listen andwe'll see you on the next show.
Thank you.
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