Math Therapy
Math Therapy explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it. Each week host Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, dives into what we get right and wrong about math education, and chats with some of today’s most inspiring and visionary minds working to make math more accessible, diverse, and fun for students of all ages. Whether you think you’re a "math person" or not, you’re about to find out that math people don’t actually exist – but the scars that math class left on many of us, definitely do. And don’t w...
What even is math trauma?
Each episode, Vanessa discusses the impacts that math trauma can have on our collective relationship with math. But she realized she's never explained what it is! In this episode she defines what math trauma actually is, unpacks why traumatic educational experiences happen more often in math than in other subjects, and lists 8 common causes of math trauma for educators to be aware of.The tweet that started it allFree webinar by Dr. Kasi Allen: Math Trauma: Healing Our Classrooms, Our …
Mathers gonna math w/ Deborah Peart
You know how readers read and writers write? Well one day Deborah Peart decided that math should also be a verb, so she created the Mather movement. She and Vanessa discuss the difference between a "mather" and a "mathematician", how numeracy and literacy are basically the same thing, and how bringing a mindfulness approach to her classrooms led to her being known by her students simply as "Peace Lady". Shake up your glitter jar (yep, that's a thing) and settle …
Teaching math as an act of protest w/ Dan Meyer
When Vanessa crossed paths with Dan Meyer at a math conference, she sensed some pushback on her concept of math therapy. So naturally, she invited him on the podcast to get into it! The ensuing rollercoaster interview blurred lines between clearing the air and settling the score, as they hilariously debated hot topics ranging from the need for student-centred educational reform ... to which of them holds the most impressive Guinness World Record. You be the judge!About Dan Meyer:Dan Meyer …
Season 5 trailer
We have some serious A-list math celebs coming at your podcast feeds over the next 10 weeks - here's a little sample until season 5 launches this Thursday!
Exciting update w/ Jill from Season 2!
Longtime listeners will remember Season 2's Jill Waddell who shared her inspiring decision to switch careers at age 40 and go back to school for power engineering - facing down her lifelong math anxiety along the way! Vanessa caught up with her after graduation to find out how things turned out (spoiler alert - she was class valedictorian!) and hear what advice she'd give her younger self. Jill's epic story can show everyone that it's never too late in life …
Pi Day in Prison (Seriously)
There's no other way to say this: we went to prison for Pi Day this year. Longtime listeners will remembers Vanessa's fascinating and inspiring interview with Christopher Havens, an inmate serving a 25-year sentence for murder who has rehabilitated himself with math and founded the Prison Mathematics Project (Season 3, Episode 10). Vanessa helped with the virtual Pi Day celebration last year, but this year was a first: PMP was able to host an in-person event at Bellamy Creek Correctional …
Math reform under attack w/ Jo Boaler
Math Therapy is (briefly) back! We've been hard at work on a new season which I can't wait for you to hear soon, but I had to share an excerpt of one of the interviews I just did - you'll see why. Stanford professor Jo Boaler is one of my math heroes, I referenced her all through my master's thesis, and her work in trying to make math education more equitable has been an inspiration to literally millions of people.But …
S4E10: Queering math w/ Dr. Anthony Bonato
In our final episode of the season, Vanessa chats with math professor Dr. Anthony Bonato about what it means to be queer in - let’s face it - the historically snobby and closed-minded field that is math. But as soon as you hear Anthony in today’s episode, you’ll understand there will be no silencing his advocacy for diversity & inclusion in math … or for that matter his insistence that Adele’s album titles actually form a unique prime-numbers based mathematical …
S4E09: Giving students the voice they deserve w/ Rosalind Wiseman
Did you know that the infamous math movie Mean Girls was actually inspired by Rosalind Wiseman’s non-fiction book called Queen Bees and Wannabes? Today Vanessa talks to Rosalind about why we need to change the media and messaging that girls get about how it’s not “cool” to be good at math. How can we teach students that they can be good at more than one thing? How can we help them embrace who they are individually in the face of …
S4E08: “Dude Walls” & the lost women of science w/ Katie Hafner
You’re probably thinking “what the F*CK is a dude wall?!”, and today Vanessa talks to the incredible Katie Hafner to find out. Katie is an author, journalist, and host of the podcast “Lost Women of Science,” whose mission is to tell the stories of female scientists who history has inconveniently forgotten. But how do we prevent this from happening in the future? How do we encourage more girls and women to go into STEM, and how do we ensure their …