Sean Nank: 0:02

Mathematics classrooms can sometimes be extremely comforting, but they can be borderline abusive at times, hence, know, why we would need, math therapy. Fact of the matter is that math doesn't give people trauma, people give people trauma. And I think about that a lot in the classroom.

Vanessa Vakharia: 0:18

Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it. 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. Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast. Okay, I've been wanting to interview today's guest ever since I saw him give a heartfelt and moving speech almost two years ago about how math literally saved his life. I know that sounds like hyperbole and I very much overused the word literally, but this time I mean it. Sean Nank is a math educator who believes that the power of our students stories is the most valuable tool that we can harness in our math classrooms, and he draws from his own very personal experience. We chat about how to truly cultivate trust in a classroom setting, how labeling folks as not math people can be traumatizing, and for real, how a fascination with mathematics gave him a reason to live. On that note, a heads up that this episode contains a lot of laughs, but also of some serious discussion of abuse and suicide. Sean, thank you so much for coming to the pod. I, I normally don't do this to start, but you're such a unique individual. I was wondering if you could explain to the guests what props you brought with you for our interview.

Sean Nank: 1:43

Props. Oh, I just brought sound props, and uh, the stuff in case I get hungry. Like, like you say something and I disagree, I'm just gonna do this.

Vanessa Vakharia: 1:55

Okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I've never actually had a guest who's brought props before. And you know, this reminds me of actually one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast. I think in 2022, I saw you at ShadowCon, I'm going to get you to explain what that is cause I never even had heard of it. And I was so taken with your talk because I couldn't, like, decide if I liked you or, like, really didn't. I couldn't place, like, my feelings, my reaction, my very visceral reaction to what was going on with you. And I thought, I was like, you know, I really want to talk to that guy more because I'm very intrigued, but I'm also intrigued by my own reaction. And I don't mean it in a bad way, but when I have a reaction with me that sticks, I always wondered what it was that made it so. And like, you showing up with props is not in the least surprising me, but it again reminds me of the reason that I wanted to have you on is because I genuinely want to know more about you. I have some questions about what you said on that fortuitous day in 2022. So should we start with that moment?

Sean Nank: 2:56

Sure. I get it. You, uh,

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:58

Well, and also

Sean Nank: 2:58

invited me on this to see if you'd like me or not.

Vanessa Vakharia: 3:02

Yes.

Sean Nank: 3:02

Ok, it's a test.

Vanessa Vakharia: 3:03

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So there's no rubric for this. Like this is neither formative nor summative assessment. I just generally, I'm curious. What do I notice? What do I wonder about Sean Nank?

Sean Nank: 3:13

Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 3:14

So 2022, bring us back. What is ShadowCon?

Sean Nank: 3:17

Uh, ShadowCon is dead, actually, they retired it. 2022 was the last time it ever happened. The best way I can describe ShadowCon, when I went to it in the past, I always viewed it as, like, the TED Talk of the math education world. It was just so enigmatic, there was so much energy. The people had around about ten minutes to, uh, talk about something that they're passionate about. The thing that I like the most about it in recent years though, they used to pick people, but, uh, the last couple of years they had people apply. Which I think is really nice because it kind of evens the playing field because then it turns less into who you know and more into what you want to say that you haven't ever been able to say before.

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:00

Wasn't the whole point of ShadowCon though, like from what I heard, wasn't the point almost to give voices to those that wouldn't be selected by like the mainstream conferences as a whole?

Sean Nank: 4:13

Um, well, there's, I think there's some people who are heavy hitters who have been a part of ShadowCon. I also think there's some people who weren't as well known. I mean, to be honest with you, I have no idea why they, accepted my invitation. I'm just happy that they did. So, for me, I was like one of those, I'm not worthy, thank you for the platform, I never thought I would be able to do anything like that in my life. And then, that runs the gamut from that to people who have been keynotes nationally. So, they do a good mix of, of people we might not have heard of. And people who we're going to know the name.

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:51

So tell us, tell me again what your talk was about. I mean, I remember it very clearly, but no one else has necessarily heard it. Would you be comfortable like sharing?

Sean Nank: 5:00

Yeah, my talk was mainly about, uh, getting visceral reactions to see if they liked me or hated me. And apparently you haven't decided yet, so I'll tell you it again. So, as briefly as possible, I outed myself on the stage, uh, and I told the whole world, I just told my daughter about an hour or two before, nobody in my life knew that I had OCD. I was hiding it my entire life. I did a really good job at it. There's been a couple of people since ShadowCon who were like, oh, I totally saw but they didn't see, they had no idea. Part of it though was also I went into the aspect that the OCD, the mathematics of OCD, it just saved my life. Because I was, I grew up in a very abusive environment. And the story that I told in ShadowCon was about one night in particular when I was in middle school, and my mother had at it with the belt, and then my father did as well. And, uh, on this particular evening he let, because everybody doubles up the belt when they start hitting you with it, he accidentally let the buckle go and it wrapped around, hit me in the groin, and I was down for the count. I couldn't get up. And he wouldn't stop. And he was honest. He told me that he wasn't going to stop until I got back up. So, I believed him. I don't know how, but I got back up. As soon as I was on my feet again, he stopped. He left the room. I fell to the ground. Passed out. And the next morning, I decided that I was done. I decided that there was only a finite amount of pain that you could take in this life, so I was going to take everything I was going to have to go through over the next few years in my family, package it into one moment, and I decided to jump in front of a school bus while I was on the way to school. The thing about the OCD, though, was it was, a, fall, and it was in the Chicagoland area, so there were a bunch of branches on this one tree, and I started OCDing the crap out of this tree. I started counting the branches, and then I started thinking, well, I can't count the branches before the next bus comes, So I started thinking about fractals without even realizing what fractals were, and I got so distracted, so like my dysfunctionality of OCD distracted me from committing suicide that day, because I had, I had fully planned on doing it. And when the bus went by, I was okay with it because I was just engulfed in the mathematics of a tree through my OCD. So that's pretty much the gist of it. And then the, the overarching consideration was letting people know that that wasn't the mathematics that I had ever experienced in math classrooms. K through 12 plus math classrooms. I had some really bad math teachers and I had some amazingly wonderful math teachers, but none of them really taught the things that I was thinking about mathematically outside of the classroom. And

Vanessa Vakharia: 7:55

Mm hmm.

Sean Nank: 7:56

also the aspect that mathematics classrooms can sometimes be extremely comforting, but they can be borderline if not abusive at times, uh, hence, you know, why we would need, uh, math therapy. But, I mean, overarchingly thinking about it, the simply complex fact of the matter is that math doesn't give people trauma, people give people trauma. And I think about that a lot in the classroom.

Vanessa Vakharia: 8:19

Wow, yeah.

Sean Nank: 8:21

But you were there. What did you think? Do you like me now? Hate me? Podcast over?

Vanessa Vakharia: 8:26

Well hold on, ok. So I do love making jokes all the time, but I want to just, for a minute, acknowledge the severity of your story and just like your vulnerability in sharing it and just say thank you. And also, I'm beyond sorry that ever happened to you and, um, I yeah, that's horrible, but let's, let's, I want, I also have like a ton of questions about this. The first question actually being, did you know you had OCD?

Sean Nank: 8:55

Yeah, the first time I knew I

Vanessa Vakharia: 8:56

At the, in that moment it.

Sean Nank: 8:57

Uh, yes, I knew actually, I think around about, I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was different. Around about second grade, and it was counting, counting the colored tiles on the floor in my elementary school. So it was a way, OCD for me was a way to distract my mind, so I didn't think about what could potentially happen when I went home that evening. It was an escape for me. It was a way to occupy your mind so that you didn't worry about other things.

Vanessa Vakharia: 9:30

So, I guess I'm thinking about this in so many different ways, because yeah, this is a podcast about math trauma and about math therapy. And I, I love what you said, like, that math doesn't cause trauma, people cause trauma. And I'm, I'm actually just letting that settle in right now. Because whenever, I talk about math trauma, I talk about things that could be traumatic for someone, and I'm kind of going through my mind being like, wait, is he right? And yeah, you're right. It's always about people. It's like, you know, there's a lack of representation out there, or someone tells you you suck at math or you're being compared to other, it is actually always being enacted by a person, the experience that you're about to have. But one of the things I always talk about is how, um, being diagnosed or undiagnosed with like a learning difference or a mental health issue can actually be really traumatic mathematically. Like, for example, let's say you are never diagnosed with ADHD. You never get an access to those resources and you just think like there's something wrong with you. And that kind of, that can be a math trauma as opposed to being like, you know, you actually get diagnosed, you get the resources, you've got the accommodations, like you take some Ritalin if you need it, I don't know, whatever. So I'm thinking about OCD in that way. And like wondering if, you're speaking about it in this very like positive way as, you know, it saved your life in this way that you could use it to distract from this really horrible thing going on in your life. How did that affect you in class? Did your teachers know you had OCD? Did it ever like affect your performance in a way that they perceived negatively or positively? Like, how did it affect you in math?

Sean Nank: 10:56

Hmm. Actually, in math classes, it lent itself to more success than anything else. Because I was always, so there's, there's different types of OCD. And one of the things that I do is, I do a lot of, counting, for distraction. So it's like counting on top of counting on top of counting. So there's different layers and I'm always doing it. So in a way, my whole life I had been doing math in my head. Um, so in that manner, it was, uh, it was a good thing. The point in time where it wasn't, was when people would misconstrue things. So there's times, well even to this day, where I'll be in conversations, or when I was in the classroom, when I would start hyper focusing on, uh, different, uh, events, thinking about bad things that would happen. Because the thing about me with my OCD is, I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about the people I love. So it's kind of a matter of, if I don't check the stove 17 times, then something bad is going to happen to my daughter that day. So, if I'm counting in the classroom, to try to get that cyclical reference of something bad that's going to happen that I have no control over, then it looks like I'm disengaged when actually I'm just, I'm trying to get through those thoughts. And a lot of people will actually, honestly, I'm looking forward to me not having to lie to people anymore, by omission. Because there's times, I was just out to dinner a little while ago with a friend, before they knew I had OCD, and I was looking in the distance and there was something I had to count. And they're like, what are you looking at? Oh, I'm looking at this cool thing over here. So I, and I felt really bad because I was hiding it. So I had to, I had to lie and not tell them what I was really looking at or what I was really thinking or what I was really doing in that moment, which kinda sucks for the people who are around me because they don't know, they don't know that part of me. They don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing. And they don't know that it's not a, it's not a reflection of the conversation or of them or how much I do or don't care about them.

Vanessa Vakharia: 13:07

This reminds me of when we talk about students and when we're talking about students as like, oh, they're so distracted or they're so unmotivated or they're lazy, but really there's like something completely entirely else going on with them. And I mean, one thing I've noticed about you just in our conversations is that you're a really good listener and you're really observant and you're curious and you actually care about the why of why someone is saying something or I mean, even here, you're being so kind with me, saying you wondered why I potentially had a visceral reaction to you, which I'm realizing was a really bad choice of words and is not a good look for me. I didn't, I don't think, I don't think I use that word correctly.

Sean Nank: 13:42

I mean, I'm going to look all your other podcasts and see if you attacked people saying I'm either love you or hate you, go.

Vanessa Vakharia: 13:49

Um, but my point is, though, so I'm wondering if actually you have any advice for teachers. I know you do a lot of work with other educators and you, one of the things you pride yourself on is really like allowing students to share their voices and in creating space for them to show up in their authentic versions of themselves. How do you have dinner with a friend and not look at them looking in the distance and just think they're disengaged? How do you watch a student who seems like they're completely not listening and see past that and get to the root of what's going on?

Sean Nank: 14:19

Um, as succinctly as possible, I never use these two words, but I'm going to use it right now. Shut up and ask. The thing about it is when people have disabilities and there's exponential confounding of, it's like in education and especially in math we judge people all the time and there are certain people who feel like they belong and certain people who don't. So if you are not white, if you are not a male, if you have a disability, those are three things that could severely affect you in a math classroom and it's exacerbated if you have all three then we really need to fix the system because you almost have no hope, the system is designed against you. I, I think, if I had to say anything to teachers, it's understand. Cause like, so here's what a student like me would tell you if you cared to ask. Or, no, strike that, not if you cared to ask, if you had the time to ask. Um,

Vanessa Vakharia: 15:15

Well, but cared too.

Sean Nank: 15:17

Yeah, that's true.

Vanessa Vakharia: 15:18

Sorry, I'm like, I don't want to talk over you, but I think it's fair to be like, care to ask, have the time to ask, have the courage to ask.

Sean Nank: 15:26

Have the comfort to ask. One of the things I tell teachers is, uh, every single teacher needs to go through psychological therapy. Not because we're crazy for teaching, but because we had to deal with our crap so that we can be there and be ready and not be triggered by whatever anybody else is going through. Because like, if they, if they cared to ask me, I would tell them something like, it's like, it's like I'm enveloped in a darkness. Like, kind of grasping, gasping for air, drowning in like, just this sea of actions and intent that I have really no control over at all, until I remember to just breathe. And it takes time for certain people to be able to do that. So it's a matter of understanding and giving people time. I mean, I've had more than one administrator come into my classroom and not like the way my classroom is

Vanessa Vakharia: 16:15

Hmm.

Sean Nank: 16:15

because there's time in the classroom and I am totally okay with a little bit of silence. I'm totally okay with somebody taking a little break. We need that from time to time. So I guess the best way I can say it is how often do we really stop, look at somebody, and ask them, How are you? And then sit in that moment and do nothing other than listen to what they have to say. Instead of asking it so we can tell them how we are, asking it for a particular end result.

Vanessa Vakharia: 16:44

It's so interesting you say that because on a personal note, since we're having therapy together here, on a personal note, I've been like noticing over the past few years, you know, there are some friends I like don't see in person, you know, I just like we, because I just don't socialize at all. Um, but, but like, text, we text all the time. But if were ever to go through all of our texts, I could go through texts for like, from six months worth of conversations and not see a single question from them to me. I can't even remember the last time, like, certain people have been like, how are you? Like, no, really, how are you? Not just like,"oh my God, how's it going? I have the craziest story to tell you". And, and sorry I'm gonna back up and say that when I talk about math therapy and I'm sharing it with teachers, and in the book that I have coming out, it's all about like how to do these steps of math therapy and one of those steps is helping students map out their trauma, not by being like hey who hurt you, you know, but by looking for signs and by actively listening and by asking these questions. And like a neighbor once said to me, kids will tell you what's going on with them if you just observe. If you just actually actively listen and observe, it's actually not that hard. It's not like you have to be a therapist. It's not like you have to pry information out of them. Like actually listening, actually asking those questions, those spaces and breaks for time, like you need those for people to process and actually be able to tell you things in the classroom.

Sean Nank: 18:06

Yeah, well there's, I don't know, there's always a give and take in every relationship, right? If we're teaching to the best of our ability, then we're learning just as much as our students are learning.

Vanessa Vakharia: 18:16

Yes. I love that.

Sean Nank: 18:18

You're reminding me too, like, when I got ready for ShadowCon, they approved me, and they did a really good job of trying to get us ready, but then there came a point in time where I thought they were gonna drop me. Um, because my story could have been triggering for people and part of it too was the aspect of, I didn't have a lot of math in my story. And I actually put, if you watch the video, I say halfway through, I go through some of the math and I say that's all the math we're going to get. Because we have too much math in math classrooms. We fill it with what we think sometimes instead of just stopping and listening to what students think and asking them questions. And so the key is, I get a lot of pushback of there's not enough time. We feel, as human beings, like we've gotten really good at protecting ourselves, but in all honesty, we're just trying to fall into each other, to try to feel like we belong, and just be accepted for who we are. So if you ask simple questions, you can learn more about somebody in one minute than like, a year of therapy. And if you have that relationship, if you have that trust. And it takes a solid two, three weeks for students to trust me because they've been burned before. And they've gone through the first week of class where, Yay! We're gonna have fun! Let's do these icebreakers! I love you! You love me! Now sit down, shut up, and listen to math. So they know that it's gonna eventually change, it's just a matter of making sure that it doesn't and providing that space.

Vanessa Vakharia: 19:50

I hear this narrative all the time of like, we need to get to know our students so that we can then build math lessons around their interests. Like, what are they watching? Oh, we'll put like five characters from Euphoria in this math problem. And it's like, okay, that's one way. But also when you find out what they care about, you realize what their stakes are in your class. Like, how do you raise the stakes of your content and of your pedagogy to be like, this student here who doesn't give a shit about math, doesn't want to go into a STEM career and wants to be a rock star, is still going to care because they are getting some sort of value from my classroom.

Sean Nank: 20:20

Right. Never underestimate the profoundness of one human being letting another human being know that you care, that you're willing to listen. Yeah. And it's, it doesn't have to be, you need to have the conversation before you have the conversation. You need to have the conversation that's math agnostic before you can have the conversation, you don't have to. But it's a lot better, and it's, I mean,

Vanessa Vakharia: 20:47

Why? Tell me why you think it's a lot better because I say it all the time but I don't even know why.

Sean Nank: 20:51

Because you don't have to like somebody to be able to learn from them, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Vanessa Vakharia: 20:57

Hmm.

Sean Nank: 20:58

It's a, it's a matter of building the relationships because it's all about relationships. And we tend to think that mathematics is, well, it is logical, but we think it's nature's language and it's not. It's a human being's best guess at nature's language. It is not nature's language. Okay. So here's the deal, there's a huge push to rehumanizing mathematics right now. And I think every time

Vanessa Vakharia: 21:20

But what that mean? Oh Sorry. Oh god, Sean. Okay, go.

Sean Nank: 21:25

Well,

Vanessa Vakharia: 21:25

I'm the worst interviewer right now.

Sean Nank: 21:27

The biggest thing I can tell people is there's, um, we don't need to rehumanize math. We need to just stop dehumanizing it. If mathematics is our language as human beings, our way of making sense of the world, and that's the world we live in, if we use it on nature, if we use it with people, it's still our language. And it should be everybody's language, that's part of the problem, but it's inherent. So when people look at mathematics and say, we need to rehumanize it, I said, what the hell did you do to it in the first place to dehumanize it? Just go back to the way it was before. It's kind of like a Deweyan aspect. Um, John Dewey. As soon as we started segregating the, the subject matters, we also started segregating the point behind the subject matter. So we didn't just make the Pythagorean theorem because we had nothing better to do on a sunny afternoon. There was a reason why we invented math, why we discovered it, why we, whatever way you want to phrase it. So it's partially going back to those reasons so that we can connect them. And it's, it's also part of the storytelling aspect too, but I'd like to say I love storytelling, but I don't like it when, when people just tell the stories of mathematicians. There needs to be some gateway so that we can bring it into what it means for us in the present moment. And by the way, it's okay to say that certain subsets of math mean nothing to me. There's so many branches of mathematics that we force people. So I just told my geometry classes yesterday that most people don't like geometry when they

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:54

Oh my God, I don't like geometry. That's me.

Sean Nank: 22:57

Thank you.

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:58

No, thank you!

Sean Nank: 22:59

It's, not the math that we've ever seen before. Like K through ninth grade or eighth grade, we get this algebra. We get this certain subset of mathematics, and we skip the stats, we skip the number theory, we skip the geometry, and then all of a sudden there's something that we've never seen before. And I wonder how many people, if they were exposed to different branches of mathematics early on, kindergarten, first, second, third grade, would find the type of mathematics they love. Because let's be honest, there's some math, so you just said you didn't like geometry as much. I'm sure there's some math that you love doing, and some that you don't.

Vanessa Vakharia: 23:30

Yeah. Like give me some algebra, you know, that's like some juicy shit, but like, ugh, shapes, like I just don't want to.

Sean Nank: 23:37

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia: 23:38

This is the other thing. We haven't even talked about this yet, but you talked about how you love storytelling. But I have to say, as soon as you said humanizing mathematics, I am not kidding, I, I for real, no joke, had a visceral reaction. I'm just going to say it sounds pretentious because no one ever defines it and so I really appreciate us talking about this, but I actually need you to go back for a second What do you mean when you say, let's go back to the way it was when we invented it?

Sean Nank: 24:07

Okay, so, I'll not talk about math, so we can talk about math. Have you ever heard a song that really resonates with you?

Vanessa Vakharia: 24:15

Yes.

Sean Nank: 24:16

Okay, so you don't need to know the meaning behind the lyrics from the person who wrote them in order to be able to let that, like, really touch your soul and be one of your favorite songs ever. But if you know the origin, and if you know their meaning, then it'll help you to interpret your reaction, and it'll help you to make meaning of that song. It just brings more richness. So I would say the way that we humanize math is to just put it out there and ask people what they think about it. What does this mean to you, what do these data mean to you? What, you know, just give them the numbers, give them the concepts, start talking mathematically and logically, because when you do that, you open up the door for them to be able to interpret what it means to them. So you, you can go back and you can go to the origin of it, but it's only if it makes their meaning richer, because it's not about the people who created the math in the first place, and it's not about us. It's about them.

Vanessa Vakharia: 25:14

So, what do other people mean when they say humanizing mathematics? Do they mean this?

Sean Nank: 25:21

In all honesty, and I'm trying to over generalize here, I think what people say about humanizing mathematics is creating mathematical problems that are culturally proficient and applicable to every aspect of our society. But I'm going to push back on that and say, none of us will ever be able to do that unless we listen to our students. So there's the best minds in the world, in my opinion, who talk about humanizing mathematics, and then they push out problems, That are low key sexist, and they don't even see it because that's not on their radar, or they're into feminism And I am like 100 percent totally into feminism But then if you have that lens you're gonna miss different aspects of different people who have been oppressed So like where I teach right now, it's the highest population of Samoas in the entire nation. I don't think anybody's gonna create a curriculum based on the Samoan culture But what I can do in the classroom is never assume what math means to them, what their culture is, but what I can do as a teacher is I can listen. So here's the deal. I don't care if somebody can solve an advanced calculus problem. I care if a K 12 teacher can understand the mathematics enough to listen to a student and be able to bring that mathematics into their life. Which is one of the reasons why one of the favorite things, I'm going to start it up next week in, uh, in my high school classes, and I'm going to do it with my university students too is a passion project, where the project is all about shooting a two minute video where they group together in groups of three over a common passion and try to find the mathematics inherent in their passion. And that's pretty much what we need to do with mathematics, um, in our classroom. What does this mean to you? And it is not looking at somebody thinking, Oh, so you are this type of person who presents as this type of way. So you're not going to like this subject. Or I mean, even if we make it agnostic, people think we make it agnostic and there's still judgment. What do we do the first time we do stats? We bring out the playing cards. About a quarter of my students have never seen a playing card in their entire life and they have no idea what

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:27

Playing cards are over, they're like 1999, like no one uses cards, we have phones.

Sean Nank: 27:32

Yeah, but it's still in the math curricula everywhere.

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:35

Yeah, but like this is a huge problem even with our data management and finite curriculum, like as soon as there's questions about cards like and it's like and how many suits are there and kids are like what the fuck are you talking about?

Sean Nank: 27:46

Exactly.

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:47

Okay, so you have mentioned storytelling a few times and I want to like we have to talk about your book that you have coming out, called Empathetic Storytelling. Am I correct?

Sean Nank: 27:57

Empathetic Storytelling, Igniting Change in Education. Yes.

Vanessa Vakharia: 28:01

And so we're going to talk about the book in a sec, but you've brought up storytelling a few times during this conversation and I kind of feel like it's really a thread that's woven through because you've told me a lot about your math story in a way, right? Like the way that OCD has played into your relationship with math and that has played into your relationship with yourself and how important it is for us to listen to our students' stories. And even when we're talking about building trust, how storytelling and being vulnerable is such a way for us at the classroom to tell our stories and be vulnerable, build trust in our students. There's just so much there. But one thing I love that you said is that we can't just be telling stories, telling stories doesn't mean like, let me tell you a story about Archimedes and like what he invented, you know, so, tell me more about that. Like, you're about to release an entire book on storytelling, what are the stories and how are they important to helping people form better relationships with math?

Sean Nank: 28:53

Yeah, so the book and the stories in there are, um, it started as a 10 minute talk that turned into a one hour conference presentation, that then turned into an article that when I went to submit it, uh, there was a call for a book, uh, about critical storytelling. And I thought, ooh, I can spend a few minutes writing a couple of pages and get rejected. So, I submitted it and they accepted the book. And the premise of it was, uh, that critical storytelling is, critical. You're not going to build relationships by being critical. We need to be critical so we can break down the substructures of the educational experience, especially in epistemologically privileged positions that we don't hold. But what we really need to do is have empathetic storytelling. What that means is, we don't want to tell stories just so that we're telling stories. We want to, and you've heard about the mirror and the window and the doors, and that's lovely, but in the book I say we need to go one step farther, and we need to make our stories empathetic gateways.

Vanessa Vakharia: 29:56

Tell people, like, some people might not know about the windows and the mirrors and the doors.

Sean Nank: 30:01

Oh, so the window's is when you tell a story, it provides a window as a reflection into when you tell the story, the way you tell the story, if you listen to how you're doing it, you'll learn a lot about yourself. The mirror is, you know, reflecting back on you, the window is letting somebody peer in. What's even better is letting somebody step through a door into the world of your mathematical story. What I say is even better than that is letting them step through that door, sitting at the table, and conversing in a way that it becomes both of your story, so that you're symbiotically sharing details about your life, getting to know each other, and connecting on an empathetic level. So the book, um, one of the things I told the publishers was if I'm going to start talking about empathetic storytelling, you don't want a book from some straight white guy. I need to open it up. So we open it up to the world to anybody in the educational community from, you just think of anybody who has any interactions with education at all from students to parents to teachers to, anybody, administration, higher ed, pre K, whatever. And then we pitched it based on four themes and the first theme is, uh, racism, sexism, any of the isms, ableism. The second one is, uh, belonging and identity. The third is caring and relationships. And the fourth one is bullying. And when I got the stories back from these people, I thought I would be able to edit two or three stories or approve or deny three or four stories a day, but they were extremely powerful. And I had to take time in between each one because we had stories of, oh, black elf on the shelf, being locked in a closet at school because you couldn't read, the first time somebody decided as a teacher to not chemically straighten their hair and the result of the students and the adults. And I'm going to tell you right now, the adults are meaner than the students in education. The reaction that they had. ADHD, adults bullying, dyslexia, um, being Palestinian on September 11th, and then now, what that means for people. And the thing that I liked the most about the book was they were able to tell their story, but then I required them to have a, uh, you have to choose, where they went into the reasons why they chose to do what they did in the moment and what they would do differently now. And also a reflection on implicit and explicit biases. And when I talked to to the contributors, it was helping them to lean more into their biases than others. Because if we tell stories, it's partially so people get to know us, but they're beautiful ways of getting to know ourselves. Because every time you tell a story, it's slightly different because the way the meaning we make of stories, especially from years ago, changes because we change. So I think there's a wonderful way that we can use stories outside of the classroom with adults, but inside the classroom as well, to create that bond. So anytime I talk about any story in the classroom, it's so I can get them talking about their story. It's a gateway, so that they can talk, and they can trust, and I can get to know them.

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:53

Well, that's amazing and it's, it's such a perfect tie in because the fourth step of math therapy, like I go through steps of what teachers need to do to heal like math trauma in their classroom, and the fourth one is all about having students write out their math stories and then rewrite them, rewrite them with a new perspective, like not changing the facts like you said, but like bringing new light to them. Because our words and our thoughts define our reality, you know, as much as like the objective events that happen. So I think that's really, really cool. And, I appreciate you sharing that. I want to talk so much more about it, but we are out of time. We got to go and I have to ask you the two final questions that I ask everyone. Before I do that, is there anything you haven't talked about that you want to talk about? Like, is there anything I didn't ask? Like, I asked you the weirdest shit. So like, is there anything that you're like, well, I really wanted to talk about this?

Sean Nank: 33:40

Oh, yeah, there was a ton of things I really wanted to talk about, but I'm gonna do that on the next podcast, the Therapy After Math Therapy podcast, to realize what the visceral reaction was. So, I'm just gonna save it for that person. Maybe when I come on, they'll ask me if I like them, something like that.

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:57

Good luck, good luck to that person. Okay, so the two things I have to ask you, the first is what, if there is one thing you could change about the way math is taught in schools, what would it be?

Sean Nank: 34:09

So I'm thinking of, since we just got done talking about the book, I'm thinking of like the last couple of sentences in the book as soon as you say that, which goes something like, the key to working together lies in listening to and learning from and finding the value in everybody's story.

Vanessa Vakharia: 34:26

Hmm.

Sean Nank: 34:27

And I think that maybe then we'll realize that we're all connected through one shared story that's intricately woven together in a diverse tapestry with the delicate thread of our humanity. So, I think if I had one thing, I would encourage adults to just stop and listen, so that students can be afforded the same thing. And it's, it's funny when my daughter graduated from high school, I told her to, uh, take risks, be yourself, and, uh, don't worry about what the wrong people think because then you're not giving the right people a chance to know who you really are. Uh, I think there's a lot of times that we don't let people be who they are. And honestly, there's times, like right now, I have an administrator who really doesn't want me to be who I am and doesn't want me to let my students be who they are. But I need to protect them and I need to let that happen in our classrooms. Because if we don't, then, I mean, what's it all for?

Vanessa Vakharia: 35:27

Wow. And finally, what would you say to someone who has heard all of this wonderful stuff and just says, but Sean, I am not a math person.

Sean Nank: 35:37

Thank God you're not a math person because we treat people like shit in math classrooms more often than not. If you were a math person, that would mean that you would have to endure the abuse that some people go through in math. You're not a math person not because of the math. You're not a math person because you had that one incident with that one person who probably should have stayed home that day because they were having a bad day and they let you know that you're not one. Um, as, viscerally succinctly as possible as I could put it, I think that's my answer, um, because I mean, yeah, we are all math people, but I, I mean, I, given certain teachers in certain classrooms, I really want to be a math person, but given the way math is portrayed in other classrooms, I don't want to have anything to do with it.

Vanessa Vakharia: 36:24

Well, fuck, this is great. Um, in case you're wondering what the verdict is, I like you, now. More than I did 46 minutes ago. But seriously, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you. Like, honestly, you've shared some really meaningful, important stuff, and I'm so excited that everyone can hear and learn from you. And I, I honestly do want to thank you because you've shared some stuff that I assume is, is probably likely difficult to share. And I know that people listening will really gain something from it, so.

Sean Nank: 36:54

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia: 36:54

Thank you so much!

Sean Nank: 36:55

And I want to stick around because now I have questions for you and for David as well.

Vanessa Vakharia: 36:58

Great. Okay. Yeah, so we'll do your podcast as soon as this one's over. All right. Thank you so much I have to say bye or David will kill me. So bye.

Sean Nank: 37:07

Bye.

David Kochberg: 37:07

But he still has so many snacks to to open up!

Vanessa Vakharia: 37:15

Okay, so how are we feeling after all of that? I honestly had to spend a lot of time in stillness in order to process so much of what Sean said, and I'm still thinking about it now. I think the most valuable takeaway for me is that connecting with our students isn't just about figuring out what they're interested in so that we can target curriculum and content at them, but instead it's about truly understanding who they are as entire people and how the stories they bring into our classrooms shape them as learners. True connection is where healing math trauma happens. True connection is how we can help our students really, truly build meaningful relationships with math, and I'm grateful to Sean for sharing his story with us all. If something in this episode inspired you, please tweet us@maththerapy, and you can also follow me personally@themathguru on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, it was created by me and Sabina Wex, and it's produced and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme music is by Goodnight Sunrise. And guys, if you know someone who needs math therapy or just needs to hear someone else getting math therapy, please, please, please share this podcast, and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use. Those things actually make such a big difference for us. I'm determined to change the culture surrounding math and I need your help, so spread the word. Until next time, peace, love, and pi. Fuck. You were being so noisy!

Sean Nank: 38:40

Was I?

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:40

You know, you might have OD OCD, but I have ADHD and it's so distracting

Sean Nank: 38:44

Oh I could kind of tell that yeah, I wasn't gonna assume but

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:48

This episode just be man with OCD a woman with ADHD walk into podcast.

Sean Nank: 38:55

I can't hear you.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:55

Stop! And I can't even see you. It's so annoying. I can't see you. All I can hear are these weird fucking noises.