Rethinking Math: A Conversation with Dr. Jo Boaler

In which Dan discusses crucial issues facing math education with Stanford University professor Dr. Jo Boaler, author of 'Limitless Mind'. They talk growth mindset, math's obsession with testing, the overabundance of content in most school courses, and the role of colleges and universities in addressing these problems. As always, we welcome comments and questions on Twitter @BigIdeaEd

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Today's episode of What's the Big Idea is brought to you by Flexibility. Yeah, flexibility. When students can think flexibly about content, skills, and concepts, they develop deeper understandings and work well in problem-solving environments. We are well past the point of the single right answer or the single way of doing things in schools. Developing a flexible mind for students and teachers alike is a trait of successful 21st century schools. Flexibility. Check it out. Now on to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

And one of the things I've been urging my other writing team members to communicate with me is we have to we have to lose some of the content. There's just too much in there. So teachers feel they have to kind of rush through a lot of content. I understand that pressure as a teacher. And one of the things we teach maths teachers is think about the subject as a set of big ideas, not these tiny methods. Don't think I have 200 methods to teach, but I have these big ideas to teach.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Welcome to What's the Big Idea? I'm your host, Dan Carney. And that voice you just heard is Dr. Joe Bowler, professor of education at Stanford University and author of 14 books. In a few minutes, you'll hear my full interview with her, in which we discuss mindsets, slow learning, and the need for schools across the spectrum to rethink assessment. Last episode I talked about writing with John Warner. Before that interview, I made a comment about how writing is one of those most hotly debated topics in education. But I think you'll agree that it pales when compared to the debate surrounding math. The quote unquote math wars is what one of my favorite podcasters might call the apex mountain of education debates. There is perhaps no greater gateway to perceived success, no greater source of student and parental angst, and no bigger issue in legislative and administrative policy thinking than math. And the questions about math run the gamut. What content should be taught? How should it be assessed? What pedagogical approach best suits the subject, etc., etc. If you've listened to this podcast before, you'll know that I'm not a math teacher. I'm a history and social studies teacher. But I'm also an educator with an intense interest in learning across the school, how we make learning meaningful and relevant, and how we ensure that the students are ready for the rapidly changing world we live in. I'm an educator who has spent my career observing the math environments of our students, and in my eyes, it's a world of tests and exams and summative assessments mostly disconnected from real-world application. I recognize that many students love math. They love the challenge and they love the accomplishment of sitting down and working out problems. But I've also witnessed many students working very hard to manage their expectations and emotions during their math journey. I've watched them walk out of an exam room or an especially taxing math lesson with a look in their eye that might best be summed up by that seminal strokes hit. Is this it? Is this all there is to mathematics? Is math about working through problem sets and taking tests and reaching for the gold standard of calculus? Because calculus will unlock the door to the best colleges? And what do students think of math anyway? Well, I asked a few students around my school what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word math?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I don't know, I think of like hard, like everything's like hard. I feel like kinda useless. Why? Because I feel like at one point in life I'm not gonna be able to I'm not gonna use it. I feel like uh it's not like I'm not gonna come upon it. Like things like radicals and exponents and stuff like that, I'm not gonna come upon it.

SPEAKER_05 4:43

Like hands-on approaches. It's like you can really like then then then when you do it on a paper, you can think about that and you can think about like what you're doing, and like really know like, hey, that's what's actually happening. And if you actually know what's happening, then you can feel like you can you feel like you know what you're doing more, and that way you can apply it to like real life more.

SPEAKER_06 5:00

I think of how it's complicated, but it's fun and can be entertaining to try to like solve a problem. Homework.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

What else?

SPEAKER_07 5:12

Um like I mean, I don't have the best association with math. Like, um, boring. Work in general.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

What what pops into your mind? What do you associate with the word math?

SPEAKER_08 5:27

It's funny because I enjoy certain kinds of math, but not all kinds.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

What what kinds do you like?

SPEAKER_08 5:34

I like geometry a lot because it's more like visual shapes, but I have a really hard time in algebra.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

And why?

SPEAKER_08 5:43

I don't know. I don't know. Because maybe just because it's so complicated and so many things you have to remember so many different rules and numbers.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Today's guest is Dr. Joe Bowler, a professor at Stanford University, among other things. Dr. Bowler first caught my attention a number of years ago when I read a block quote of hers in an article. And in that quote, she made the case that school curriculums are overloaded with content, and that what schools actually need is less acceleration and more slowing down. I completely agreed with the sentiment then, and I agree with it now. Dr. Bowler is a professor of mathematics, and she's written extensively about math, but a lot of her lessons apply to all learning, and her latest book, called Limitless Mind, is a great read for any educator. Drawing on decades of neuroscience regarding human brain plasticity or its ability to adapt and grow, along with Carol Dweck's work on mindsets. Dr. Bowler takes on the well-trodden idea in this country that some people are math people and some just ain't. She makes a compelling case that society's expectations and messages, both in school and out, have a lot to do with that. And girls in particular receive the message that, well, just maybe math isn't for them. However, as you'll hear in our interview, Dr. Bowler is not simply suggesting that we wave the magic wand of growth mindset over schools and watch our kids transform into problem solvers. We taught curriculum and pedagogy and a pressing need for schools to change the way we approach assessment. Though this conversation is mostly steered towards math, I think any educator can take a lot from it. I hope you enjoy. Back in 10 seconds. Dr. Bowler is also found online at ucube.org a site she formed to give teachers, parents, and students the resources they need to excite students about mathematics. BBC named her as one of the eight educators changing the face of education. Dr. Bowler, thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

I've got some questions about Limitless Mind. I really enjoyed this book and it it brought up a lot of issues, not just about maths, but also about the way we approach education. But I wonder if we could start. Could you talk a bit about your own education journey from student to faculty? And at one point in Limitless Mind, you you say that you didn't do that much work in high school. And I wonder how your perspective on maths and learning in general has changed since you were a student.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So when I was a student, I grew up in England, and when I was in maths classes, I was pretty good at maths, and I would help my other friends, and often they were wanting my help in maths, and they came to me rather than the teacher. And um I often wondered myself why the teachers weren't more helpful in maths. Um, I can remember one time really clearly when I was in my maths classroom, and the teacher started the school year saying, if you have any questions, just ask me. And I remember asking a question, and the teacher said, You don't know that? And I remember at the time thinking, okay, I'm never asking another question. Um, so I my interest was piqued at the time about education, and I think I was thinking in high school, why is it so difficult to explain maths? Why don't the teachers explain it better? And uh I ended up helping my friends a lot. So I think that was a formative experience for me, and probably was part of why I went into education at a later time. Um, yeah, I wasn't that engaged in school because it was mainly memorization as it is still today, and I was waiting for a time when it would actually be deep and interesting. And I did okay in school, I just sort of got by, and then I did um I uh uh a bit later on I took a master's degree and eventually a PhD. And it wasn't until my master's degree that I first encountered the need to really think. Um even college, university level was just more things to memorize. So I was kind of disappointed it was just more memorization.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

There's a there's a quote you have in Limitless Mind, where you're talking about maths specifically. Can you say that more than any other subject, it has the potential to crush students' confidence? And and because of not just the way it's taught, but because society says that people who can do math are really smart and those who struggle with it are not smart. And that has definitely been my observation and my experience. How did how did we get to that point?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Hmm, that is a good question. How do we get to the point where people associate maths with smartness? I mean, it could be that um it's always been taught in a very inaccessible way. And so people think it's really difficult. And I think I say in the book, it doesn't seem any more difficult to me than say writing a poem. That seems really hard. But we don't think about poets. Oh, you're so smart, I could never be a poet. We think that about maths, and that causes it to be a bigger barrier for people, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Sure. And that smart, not smart sort of dichotomy seems to fall unfairly on girls.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

And that's one of your major themes, is that the math messaging girls receive is really toxic. Uh, can you talk a bit about that? What messages girls receive at home and school, and how how can we fix that?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, well, I I would rewind a bit and say I think all of these problems um come from the idea that you're born with a maths brain or you're not. And that's a really strong myth that's out there in society, that you're just born with this kind of brain or you're not. And so then people start to think that certain people have that brain and certain people don't. And that has been shown that the people that we don't think have the brain tend to be women and people of colour as well. And so when rat maths professors start classes by saying things like, only a few of you are going to make it in this class, or maths teachers sometimes start classes saying things like that. It tends to be girls and people of colour who think, Oh, it's not me. Um, and then girls get that message. I so often pe meet people who tell me that they were told really directly, don't worry about maths, you're a girl. Uh, you don't need to worry about it. Maths is really for boys. So um, and then uh if you look at TV shows and Disney and children's shows, you see a lot of messages that not just math, but all STEM subjects are really for boys. So we live in this society where we're giving these messages all the time, and unfortunately, they hit home for many people.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

In the book, you talk a lot about the neuroscience that disproves all of these notions and the brain's plasticity. And a workshop leader once said to me uh that brain science is a decade in front of policy, and policy is a decade in front of classroom practice. But based on your experience, your observations, why are the findings of neuroscience not getting down into the classroom level more quickly?

SPEAKER_00 13:56

That's another good question. Um, I mean, we're now a few decades in to knowing about neuroplasticity, and yet still many teachers believe that some kids can learn things and others can't. I find that such a pervasive idea in education and when I work with teachers. Um, why doesn't that change more quickly? I mean, one reason is we don't have good outlets for teachers learning about research. And in um universities, the greatest uh achievement is getting things into journals that are paid. And they're not even communicating to teachers, they're really communicating to other academics. So there it once you become a teacher, you don't really have a good way of learning about research, which is one of the reasons we formed UCUBET, our website, was to get research out to teachers in really accessible forms. So um, but I mean I've met with neuroscientists who will say we don't know enough about neuroscience yet for it to impact education. I sat down with a Stanford neuroscientist who said that to me. We have this neuroscience, but it's not it's not definite enough yet to impact education. We should hold off on communicating anything to educators. And I said to him, but what about brain plasticity? Surely we know enough about that to get rid of the myths about learning. And he said, Oh yeah, I did I never really thought about it like that. Um yes, we definitely do know that brains are plastic and that everybody can learn. Um and I hadn't thought about that being an important message for education, but I know as a somebody who's been a teacher and is with teachers all the time that that's a really important message.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Sure. And what when when you go around the country, you go around uh the world and you and you are you're in classrooms and you see teachers uh working with students and emphasizing the idea of a growth mindset. What do good teachers do to make that emphasis and what effect does that have on students?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Well, I really believe that it's not enough to get to just give those messages to kids. I do think the messages are really important, but I think they have to pervade your actual teaching as well. So if I I could give an example in maths, although we could think about any subject, and I think if we teach maths as a fixed subject, so uh questions with one answer, one method to get there, then kid and then you say that everybody can grow and learn. Kids can't see how they can grow, they just see this very narrow subject that some kids can quickly answer and get. So that message is kind of inconsistent for them. And what we have to do is open up subjects, whether they're maths or any others, where there are many different ways to answer, there are many different ideas and interpretations you can have, and we can teach in a much more open way that's more welcoming for all different types of students, and then kids can see how they can learn. So I really think that we have to combine the mindset messages with a more open approach to teaching.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Yeah, I like this idea you just said about it's not just about emphasizing growth mindset. I I once taught at a school that literally their growth mindset policy was they handed out a copy of Carol Dweck's book to every teacher. And that and that was it. And I think they just kind of thought it would like osmosis would kind of set in.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

What and you say in and you talk in the book about curriculum, I think it's specifically math, but I I I've seen this with my own subject history and others that it's a it's a mile wide and an inch deep. Right, right. So, what how how can we go about making that shift? Because there's got to be a balance there between our mindset and the curriculum and our pedagogical approach. What's what's the balance there?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Well, I do think that teachers have too much in their curriculum. Um, I'm on the writing team, writing a new maths framework for California at the moment. And one of the things I've been urging my other writing team members to uh communicate with me is we have to we have to lose some of the content. There's just too much in there. So teachers feel they have to kind of rush through a lot of content. I understand that pressure as a teacher, and one of the things we teach maths teachers is think about the subject as a set of big ideas, not these tiny methods. Don't think I have 200 methods to teach, but I have these big ideas to teach. And for each of these big ideas, think come up with really rich, deep problems. And as you teach these rich, deep problems, a lot of the smaller ideas will just come up as you go. So I think we've done um teachers and students a big disservice by setting up these curriculum standards that look like lots and lots of itemized pieces of content.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

You you write a lot about the having the ability to be flexible, if math, number fluency, the flexibility. Can you talk a bit more about that? Why is math flexibility so important for students?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yes, it's really interesting because most people think that to be good at maths you just have to remember lots of methods. Um turns out the most successful people are people who are more flexible. So, for example, if I was to ask you or listeners to work out 18 times five, some people would, even if they didn't have a pen and paper, they'd line up those numbers in their mind and start doing cross multiplication and carrying numbers, which um, you know, is one method, but people who have number flexibility might say, well, 18 times five is the same as nine times ten, so I'll do nine times ten instead. Or they might say eighteen times five, that could be twenty times five and take off two fives. So they're flexible with numbers, they can move them around, turn them into other numbers, and those are the people with that number of flexibility and number sense who are more successful. But we don't, that's not a very well-known piece of information, and it's not how we teach. And of course, flexibility is good in all content areas. Yes, it is. Not just thinking, you know, there's one way I can do this, but uh thinking about different approaches turns out to be a really good life skill.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

I t I totally agree. That's uh one of the attributes I look for the most and try to nurture the most in my own classroom that would when students have different ways of approaching things, they generally come to uh better answers, richer answers, diverse answers.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

What what is the role though of rote memorization in math? I'm thinking of something like the times table, something really basic. You know, I grew up memorizing. Is there is there a value in having that speed, that automaticity that students at some point do need?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Well, um, this is my take on this, that it's fine to have memorized some things. Like, for example, we've all memorized some maths facts. We don't stop and think about three times two, we just know that it's six. So it's good to memorize some things in that way. But what's not good is to make that path of memorization one that is about speed and high pressure situations like a time test. Those are actually the beginning of math's anxiety for millions of people. You're going to reproduce math facts, you're going to do it at speed under these testing conditions, and you're going to reproduce 30 of them. That is a terrible experience for many, many people. So we have a paper on our website actually, it's probably the most Successful thing we've ever put on the website, and it's called Fluency Without Fear. And it talks about why we shouldn't have these time tests, but it also sets out lots of engaging ways to learn maths facts because we might agree that memorizing them is good, but there are very different ways of memorizing them. And the least effective way is what's known as blind memorization with no meaning, with no association, you're just going to sit down and memorize them. That's what most people do, but it's nowhere near as effective as engaging conceptually and developing memories as you go.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

So on that notion of assessment and testing or other forms, that assessment to me is it's it's it. It's where you start with everything, right? What is it students be able to do? And the the richer the assessment, the better the learning is going to be. But yet we all know this the ubiquity of the math test.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

The math test, the semester exam, etc. How can math departments, math teachers shift away from that mindset of the test that ends the unit of study?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah, those tests of narrow procedural knowledge, they have no um good benefits really. They're not a very they're not a valid assessment of the mathematics that's in the world and the way we need to work in the 21st century. So um they're a big part of the problem, as I think you're alluding to there. And we're seeing now a lot of people becoming more aware of that. So universities across the country, including Stanford, have dropped the GRE, which is a standardized procedure speed test, because they see it as having zero predictability for who actually does well in a graduate program. Um, and I think we see the same kind of trend with colleges dropping the SAT.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Right. Yeah, that you write in the book about some uh mathematicians that you've worked with, and that they're the opposite of sort of fast time workers. And and that's I used to teach in the IB diploma program, and I always had the same idea that they were giving these kids these compressed times, but no professional in that discipline works that way. You never sit down and say two hours is all I get. Right. Right. And and I and I yeah, I wonder how we can sort of move away. What what advice would do you give to teachers when you're meeting with them about designing assessments that will unlock those understandings?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Well, I think it's really important that when we're assessing students, um, we're showing them that growth and learning is what we really value. So um, and I really believe strongly in giving students a really clear record of what they're meant to be learning. So, like a rubric, for example, where they actually see, oh, uh, this is what I'm learning, and this is what it looks like to be good at this. And they're involved in the process of assessment themselves. So they're looking at this rubric, they can self-assess, uh, thinking about what they know and don't know. Teachers can show them, look, you're here at the moment, but they also see that path ahead, like, oh, I can move along and get to this other place. So I think assessing people against statements of what you're looking for is really important. Not a not a mark, not a percentage, not a grade, but this is a record of what you're learning, and I'm going to show you where you are in that record. And then other important things are letting kids uh redo something so that they can do better on it. That's a really strong growth mindset message. Okay, you've given in this work, maybe it looks kind of here on this rubric. We'd like you to get further ahead, take it away, and come back um after a period of time, and I'll assess it again. So that's a very strong growth message for kids.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

That your description there of assessing, it reminds me a bit of there's a uh on YouTube, you have a video, I think it's a few years old now, but you're talking about the common core, uh about the longer tasks that have space inside them to learn.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Right.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Um and of course, the common core, I'm sure as any listener recognizes it, is a pretty um uh polarizing term in the United States.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Um if you could talk briefly about your feelings about the common core and generally why why is common core math in particular, you know, created a sort of a cottage industry of social media posts, people complaining or or or uh celebrating it.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I mean, for me, the common core didn't do enough, not nearly enough in changing what we do in maths classrooms. Um, it did change quite a lot of K8 maths, and the changes it made were to take out some of the content, which was great, so people could go deeper, and to value sort of different ways of solving problems, also really important. That um is often what trips up parents and others. Like this maths does not look like the maths I did in school, so I'm gonna rally against it. But actually, the high school maths really looks very much like the standards we had before the Common Core, and even I would say very much like the standards we had a hundred years ago.

unknown 27:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

And so I think we have to go further in like there's a huge disconnect really between the maths we're teaching in schools and the maths of the 21st century in the world. And kids see that disconnect. They sit, if you imagine in high school classrooms thinking, why am I learning synthetic division, this whole set of methods by hand, knowing they will never again in their life do that set of methods, they'll never need to do that. Because in an industry, a computer would always do that kind of complicated uh mathematical process. So um, I think this is really coming to a head. I mean, since I wrote Limitless Mind, I've been on a different pathway that started with a phone call from Steve Levitt, who is an economist who wrote Free Conomics, who had started to pay attention to his daughter's maths homework and was getting quite horrified by it. And uh he called me and said, Would you help me try and change high school maths and bring it into the 21st century? And I said, Yes, so definitely. And um, we've been doing a lot recently to get maths to be more about data science instead of these old procedures. So that's kind of fun. But it's interesting to me to notice that people like Steve Levitt now are not a mathematician, not an educator, but is that sort of fired up about his own child's experience that he's getting this involved in trying to change education?

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Yeah, it does feel like real-world relevance has gained so much momentum in the last five years, 10 years, where people want to see education. And and in sticking with math for a second, the the gold standard has been calculus for I don't know how long. Um what what what would a different high school math track look like or different tracks look like where students could have that real-world relevancy?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Yeah, I'm really involved with this at the moment, actually, and I'm working to get Stanford to change its the maths in its emissions statement. So um, yeah, all roads lead to calculus at the moment, and everybody thinks that that's what colleges value, and it is what colleges value, it turns out. But calculus um it sits on top of a very inequitable pathway. It's the only AP course out of 38 AP courses where you have to be advanced in middle school to get there, which sits on this whole system of tracking, so that in most districts across the country, in sixth grade, it is being decided whether kids will reach calculus or not, because that's when they decide which kind of maths track you go into. So that's crazy. We should not have a system where we're deciding what kids can do in sixth grade. Um, so data science is actually looking like a wholly different pathway. So disrupting this idea that everybody has to go to calculus. So instead, we could have data science as a high school course that's open to everybody, and you don't have to be advanced to get there, and any student can get there and can really enjoy the maths inside data science, and that colleges value as highly as calculus. So um I'm very excited about this. I think it will open up a lot more people going into this mathematical area, and it won't be the inequitable pathway that we have now.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Yeah, is the AP a block to that kind of progress, do you think? I I I just wonder to what extent these high-stake tests at college are in some ways an uh I was just sitting chatting with a parent whose son is in calculus, and she was telling me what a horrible experience was for him.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

And I do think the AP has a lot to answer for in that respect. The AP syllabus, not just calculus but lots of subjects, is so overpacked again with formalized content that's don't get that deep rich experience they need. I was fortunate. I took calculus in school in England, and it was very much a very visual and conceptual subject. I really enjoyed it. But here in the US, people have this really procedural, fast experience of calculus that is not engaging for students, and many of them are not successful with it. Yet, calculus, it turns out, is the main filter that is used in the particularly for elite colleges. I actually got an email from somebody today who wants me to go and speak to all the college admissions officers across the country, and he gives a great argument in his letter to me, which is that some 97% of students at places like Harvard and Stanford and other places have taken calculus because that's what they view as what's needed to get into college. Yet the vast majority of those people will never use calculus or need it. So why do we have this as the you know, the barrier to people?

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah. As an advocate for slower math, deeper math, how how do you communicate with school administrators, and particularly I'm thinking of parents, especially those of high performers, that that that that is a better option than calculus because I think they that's what they did. They know that that's this gateway, that's this gold standard, that's that that's that can get you to that that better college. What do you communicate when you talk with parents and administrators?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Well, I've been giving a lot of uh presentations lately to leaders in the system, administrators and parents, and showing them how important data science is. Um, and they're very receptive to that actually. I mean, I communicate that we're living in a different time now. 90% of the world's data was created in the last two years. So this is a very special time in the history of the world, and their students will need to go out and analyze data. It's going to be really important to them. The fastest growing jobs across the country are data scientists. So it's not too hard to show parents that this is a really needed pathway that students are not getting at the moment. It actually, the rest of the world teaches data science. It's only the US that teaches algebra and geometry. And that sequence was created in the 1800s and has not changed since then. So we really, it's time for some changes, and I don't think it's too hard to show parents that. So please tell us if we should update what we're communicating. They're very clear about that. We we don't want to be stifling innovation.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Wow. So so your view is that it's this is the colleges are going to need to lead this change.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

I think um a few places are going to need to change. I also think we need to start training teachers to show them the value of data science. And so we're sort of working at all of these angles at the moment in our little data science initiative. We're um preparing new materials for teachers, lessons and uh online classes. We're um starting to get um develop some new training for teachers at Stanford. We're also trying to change Stanford's admission statement. So I think a lot of places need to update, and we're trying to communicate with all of them.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Excellent. Yeah. And before we wrap up here, could you talk a bit about uh to my listeners what uh what they'll find at uh you cubed, the website that we founded.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

So you cubed, y-o-u-cu-u-b-ed.org is the site that we founded a few years ago, and the idea was to get research out to parents, to teachers, uh, to students themselves, but in really accessible forms, so not research papers, but other ways. So we have online courses and videos and lessons. We've it we've designed hundreds of lessons. And um so it's mainly oriented towards math teachers, and we actually have about half of the schools in the country using the maths lessons we've designed that are on the site at the moment. Um, but more than that, really, the messages apply to students across the system, whether they're in maths classes or in other subject classes. So, really, everybody could come and uh maybe find somebody of interest there.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Excellent. Um, Dr. Joe Bowler is the professor of education, a professor of education at Stanford University, and her latest book is Limitless Mind Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers. Dr. Bowler, thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Oh, great. Thank you for having me. It's been fun to talk about these important issues.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

A huge thanks to Dr. Joe Bowler for joining me on the podcast. I recommend checking out Limitless Mind. Again, that's a book for all educators. Her previous works are really geared towards math teachers, but Limitless Mind is something that all teachers can get into. Uh, math teachers out there, youcube.org is her website with resources and videos and more about Bowler's philosophy. So I think about math a lot. I think about it in my own life, and I think about it in the context of my subject and in the context of the media that I read on a regular basis. I know that what is most important for me as a citizen of this country, one that wants to best understand the world to make the most responsible choices, for me, it's about statistics and the different representations of those statistics. I'm also keenly aware, because I've seen this up close, that growing up as somebody who received financial literacy made a world of difference in my life. And for those that did not, it can have devastating effects. And if nothing else from this podcast, I hope teachers, administrators, what you can take away from this is that less can be more. And I think this is one of the best uh pearls of wisdom that Dr. Bowler imparts on a regular basis, that we can reach deeper learning, we can reach higher levels of thinking when we become less obsessed with the content. And that applies to all subjects. Give our students this space to think, this space to explore, and they will gravitate towards the content where their interests are, and as they move into high school and college, they'll be ready to take on all that content that's needed to specialize. But in the meantime, let them explore, give them that space. Thanks for checking out what's the big idea. Music Today by Valencia Bay. Uh check us out next time. Check us out on uh Twitter. Thanks for listening.