David Kochberg: 0:00

Record.

Vanessa Vakharia: 0:00

Okay. We are here. This is actually insane. I don't think I ever thought I would say these words, but we are about to record our hundredth episode of this fucking podcast. I don't know why I had to swear. It just felt on brand. How are you feeling? Let's start again. Fine. Let's keep it in. We don't have time for this. Okay, everyone. I did not ever think I would say these words ever, and here we are, I'm about to say them. We are here recording our hundredth episode of the Math Therapy Podcast. And as a little treaty treat, I'm gonna be having a conversation. Well, David's gonna be having a conversation with me. Our producer David will be talking to me about this podcast. What we've learned, how we've grown, why we started it, the juicy tea you've never heard before, the behind the scenes stuff, why we're still here, why we're still going, and, Dave, you there?

David Kochberg: 0:59

Keep going.

Vanessa Vakharia: 1:00

Okay. To kick things off, we've already had an argument, so longtime listeners and fans of the podcast will know that this happens basically every episode. You just don't get to hear the arguments. I'm gonna tell you what we argued about this time, which was that I decided to make things, to expedite things, I would put into ChatGPT, hey, gimme some questions that we can ask for a hundredth episode. Now ChatGPT did me one better and it wrote this entire introduction for me. Normally I don't like an AI written introduction. David fucking hates AI, anything. But when I saw this script, I read one sentence and I was like, this is hilarious. Does it know us? We're not sure. And David was like, fine, I'll read the script, as long as we tell listeners that I do not want to read the script, and we are only reading the script to see if ChatGPT is actually a longtime listener and fan. Does it know us? Does it know what we wanna say?

David Kochberg: 1:50

That's not the reason we're doing it.

Vanessa Vakharia: 1:51

Why are we doing,

David Kochberg: 1:52

I was just doing it just in case it might be funny.

Vanessa Vakharia: 1:54

Okay, well, whatever. Tomato, potato, tomato, tomato,

David Kochberg: 1:57

This isn't like an exercise to prove the value of AI.

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:01

Okay. Are we ready? So we're gonna read it. We have not looked at, I've only looked at one sentence. David, pull it up.

David Kochberg: 2:05

It's up?

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:05

And we just have to read it as is. Okay. We have to read the introduction to the podcast as is. Are you ready?

David Kochberg: 2:10

Yes. Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:11

Okay, here we go. This is what ChatGPT thinks we would say. Okay, David, I need you to confirm something for the record. Did we seriously just make 100 episodes of Math Therapy? Is that real or am I dreaming inside a fever dream inside a math word problem. Hmm. Okay.

David Kochberg: 2:30

Off to a great start. Oh, it's real. It's so real. What, what, what's, did it give you any instruction on how I'm supposed to like read it?

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:39

I told you to take out instructions'cause we can come up with, just keep going, David.

David Kochberg: 2:42

Should I be reading it like you, the way I think I would read it? Yes. Or should I should just

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:47

like you would say it.

David Kochberg: 2:48

Okay. Back on script. Oh, it's real. It's so real. I mean, this isn't how I would talk,

Vanessa Vakharia: 2:53

David.

David Kochberg: 2:53

Oh, it's real. It's so real. We made it to 100 episodes without getting canceled, sued, or accidentally starting a math cult. Honestly, I'm impressed. Mostly with us, but also with the listeners for sticking around.

Vanessa Vakharia: 3:07

Right? Like you all willingly keep tuning in to hear two grown adults talk about fractions, feelings, and the occasional existential crisis. And honestly, that's love, that's community, that's math healing.

David Kochberg: 3:19

And for this very special episode, we figured let's just, ellipses, talk, period. Let's look back. Spill the tea. Share the chaos. Unpack the learning. And celebrate the fact that we are somehow still here and still nerdy.

Vanessa Vakharia: 3:40

Yeah. Today is part anniversary, part anniversary party, part therapy session, part teacher lounge gossip, part wait did we actually say that on the mic? And you, yes, you listening right now, you're invited to all of it.

David Kochberg: 3:53

Before we jump in, V, do we give them the sharing nudge? You know, the classic?

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:02

Oh, absolutely. Friends, if you are already smiling or thinking, omg, my teacher bestie slash coworker slash cousin who hates math would love this, pause for literally one second and text this episode to them. We'll wait. We're not going anywhere. We're almost done. Keep going.

David Kochberg: 4:20

Awful. Alright, let's do this. Episode 100. Let's get messy. Let's get reflective. Let's get another,

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:31

David. You don't have to tell them the punctuation.

David Kochberg: 4:33

Let's get pedagogical.

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:36

David, no one has ever gotten hyped by the word pedagogical.

David Kochberg: 4:40

Challenge accepted.

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:42

You should put a little like musical flourish in now

David Kochberg: 4:44

I'll, I'll think about it. Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:49

I think, whatever, that was the intro. I think it got some parts like kind of right, but it was like 10%. Okay. Doesn't matter.

David Kochberg: 4:55

It was like a,

Vanessa Vakharia: 4:56

you're. Also not very good at reading a script. I'm a lot better.

David Kochberg: 4:59

I'm not?

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:00

I was really good. I was like, I,

David Kochberg: 5:01

Excuse me, I won a theater award in OAC. I'll have you know.

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:05

Oh my God. OAC.

David Kochberg: 5:06

Yes, I know.

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:07

Americans don't know what that is. Canadians do though, maybe. Okay, let's go. Let's get into the episode. Yeah, please. Questions. Hit me.

David Kochberg: 5:15

Vanessa. A hundred episodes in after starting, when did we, when did you first start it, in 2019?

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:20

We started, 2020 was actually our first season.

David Kochberg: 5:24

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:24

We did our first interviews. Okay. In 2020. Actually, we might've done them in 2019 and the second season in 2020. Hold on, let me pull this up.

David Kochberg: 5:32

This is great already.

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:33

Let me pull it up. I'm gonna checking the very, very back of the thing. We started our first episode, October 10th, 2019.

David Kochberg: 5:39

See, that's why you have to trust a producer. Second guessing.

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:43

Okay, 2019.

David Kochberg: 5:43

My knowledge

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:44

first episode came out October 10th.

David Kochberg: 5:47

Yeah. So, okay. Okay. So to, if anyone's new to the podcast, Vanessa and her friend Sabina Wex, you two started the podcast. Yeah. So what was your kernel of, of, uh, spark of uh,

Vanessa Vakharia: 5:59

It was all Sabina. This is what happened is I was doing a TV interview with like a reporter, and I, I do this a lot and normally when I'm doing interviews with reporters or I go on the news to talk about something math related. The reporter or the host is always like super scared when I get there. Like they're like, oh my God. Like their math trauma just comes out. They're like, they start shuffling their notes.'Cause you know, they read their notes last minute, like two minutes before the episode airs, so

David Kochberg: 6:21

Just like I did before we started recording this.

Vanessa Vakharia: 6:23

Exactly. So I'll sit on the couch and they'd be like, all right, Vanessa, The Math, and then they'd all of a sudden be like, oh God. Oh my God, I'm so scared of math. And I would be like, oh my God. So I left yet another interview and Sabina was like, oh my God, these people need Math Therapy. And suddenly we were just like, let's start a podcast.

David Kochberg: 6:38

Hmm. The reason I'm not reacting better to that story is because I've heard it a hundred times before, like most stories on here, but I am certain that the listeners will have found that story interesting.

Vanessa Vakharia: 6:50

Yeah. We started it because we were like, people need Math Therapy. And actually, if you look back at the podcast the first season, there were a couple of educators on there, but that's it. Like eight of the 10 guests were not educators. They were people like who had their own math trauma or who I like found on Twitter or met at a bar that said they like hated math, or people who had story, like your friend Miguel, who had a story about how he was told he would flip burgers for the rest of his life. And like adults that like, were trying to do math again and you know, for the hundredth time when they're 40. Like we didn't start with educators, we started with Math Therapy.

David Kochberg: 7:28

Mm-hmm. Well, we can skip ahead before I forget, because I, that is something I have been curious about. How do you feel about how it has changed over the years in recent years, like recent seasons especially, but now that we've gone to a, uh, a weekly podcast, it's still kind of this way except for the last couple episodes where we had, some moms and we had a, a student, which was kind of a break from the, the recent pattern. How do you feel about it having moved more towards you interviewing people in the math education community and more getting into the weeds and the podcast becoming kind of more of a teacher-focused audience.

Vanessa Vakharia: 8:08

I look at it as like another chapter. Like that was like, you know, a season, like it kind of started a couple of years ago, I would say, where I went to my first NCTM ever, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference. It was my first one, I was so inspired by all these educators and I was like, wow, like I wanna talk, you know, every, all these educators are doing such amazing things. They're not specifically all talking about math anxiety, but they're talking about instructional practices and pedagogy and grading. And I was like, I wanna talk about how those things play into math anxiety, and vice versa. But the reason I really wanted to go to a weekly podcast is, it was cool to interview just educators for two seasons, but I think it's so important to the conversation to talk to so many other people. Like I think about like our previous seasons when we interviewed like Science Sam, about, uh, stem and science and stereotypes in science. Or when we had an astrologer on the podcast talking about the myth that you can either be spiritual or you can be intellectual mathematically. Or we talked to, uh, Katie Hafner about the Lost Women of Science and that whole thing of like how stereotypes about gender have impacted women forever. Like there are all these like broader issues that really impact our kids in school, and I think it's really important to talk about the stuff going on in schools, but it's also really important to look at the world around them that is shaping kids, shaping parents, shaping our mentality of what math learning means and who belongs to the world of math. So I actually feel like it's like I did a hard swing to being like, okay, now we're just gonna talk to educators. And now I'm really excited to have time to explore both like the world of the intricate world of education, but also all these other pieces and perspectives that shape math trauma and anxiety and the experiences we have with math. So I think now I'm feeling really excited about, like we've got a bunch of really cool episodes coming up with like a neuroscientist that studies gender and brains, you know, with like the Dean of Science at a university who talks about stereotypes around math learning and who's allowed to learn it like, I'm excited to go back to our roots, you know what I mean? And just be able to have a lot of a broader lens with which to view math trauma.

David Kochberg: 10:18

Yeah. And going weekly gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of covering different topics. Because when we were doing it as a season, then there was this kind of self-imposed pressure to have it all put together as a theme or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia: 10:33

I think too, like. I think we get really siloed, like all of us, like not just education, but like when you're in a specific field or like, you know, in a specific community, we are very siloed and you start kind of like thinking everyone thinks like you. And I think it's really important for us to be like, Hey, like yeah, we're all in education and we're kind of like in this bubble where we all talk about the same things and like, but our students, the people we serve, do not live in an education bubble. Education is one piece of their lives. So like, it's actually really, really important to see how every other piece, like all the pieces, like the kaleidoscope of lenses that impacts their math identity, it doesn't just happen in school.

David Kochberg: 11:16

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that was ex very well illustrated by the last two episodes with Cat and Nat and with Taylor. Yeah. Uh, okay. So going, returning to the where we started. So, so you and Sabina started the podcast by getting a couple snowball mics and inviting some people over to The Math Guru tutoring center in Toronto, Ontario, Midtown Yonge and Eg. Uh,

Vanessa Vakharia: 11:42

Yeah, it was cool. We did the whole first season in person.

David Kochberg: 11:44

So my question is, did you have an overall plan, or were you like, we'll just record these and like, who was gonna edit it? Because,'cause I was not there. I mean, you've told this story,

Vanessa Vakharia: 11:55

but you must have been who edited the first season.

David Kochberg: 11:57

Well you've told this story before and then I've corrected like many stories happen. Uh, where, uh, you had already recorded a season, And asked me if I wanted to edit them, and I've never done

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:11

That's not possible. How did we set up the mics without you?

David Kochberg: 12:13

Exactly. I don't know.

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:14

Let's call Sabina.

David Kochberg: 12:16

We don't have time for, you just started this

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:17

She's not gonna up the phone

David Kochberg: 12:18

by saying, let's keep this under 25 minutes. Let's, so now you,

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:20

Let's just see if we can call her.

David Kochberg: 12:22

Do you wanna phone a friend?

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:22

We kind of need to, because we need to, she's not gonna pick up. She never, she's actually very disciplined with her phone. Like let's just see because I don't know what we're doing. Oh, please pick up.

David Kochberg: 12:32

Please pick up. Call has been forwarded to voicemail. Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:36

Okay. I'm gonna just message her and say. Call us if you can, we need you,

David Kochberg: 12:44

Highly urgent

Vanessa Vakharia: 12:44

on the podcast to fact check how we started this podcast. Okay, let's just see.

David Kochberg: 12:54

Okay. While Sabina did not pick up the phone during our recording, she did send us a voice memo afterwards, so I'm gonna play that here because it has some very valuable insights into these mysteries of the very early days of the podcast.

Sabina Wex: 13:08

I don't think that David was involved initially. We were like, David's gonna come in after, he's gonna edit all the podcast episodes. So no, David was not involved in the initial production, but we always knew we were gonna send him the episodes to edit for later. But then we were talking to David, and he kind of threw a bit of a fit, totally fair, to be honest, that he wasn't there to do the audio part of it. You know, David, if people don't know, is an incredible audio producer and really cares about small audio things that I would've never known about and that we did not know about in the first season, and I think probably made David's job a lot harder when he was editing the season later. So David's like, I need to come in and set up all the audio stuff for you guys to make it sound good. And we're like, dude, what are you talking about? That's ridiculous. It's fine. Like, I don't even know how Vanessa and I did it. We just kind of were like, let's, uh, plug in some microphones. I think I had a snowball mic, you know, a, a podcast mic and Vanessa had one. We just plugged it into a computer. And people were still coming in in person at this point, we had all the guests come in in person and I remember rolling my eyes and being like, David, stop being ridiculous. You know, this isn't a Grateful Dead show or something, like, who cares? But David was a hundred percent right. The show sounded so much better once he was there. And also he was just so helpful to have around and to give us his input. You know, David contributes so much to the show in terms of guests and what he thinks we should cut and how we should edit and tell the stories that we tell. So it was actually really nice having David there, even though I initially was like, um, I don't think you need to be here. So, sorry David. You were 100% right and I'm so glad you were involved in the show. And our first guest ever who came to record with us was Jonah Babins from season one. He's a magician from Toronto, and a math major. And I remember he came in and he was like, what are you guys doing? He has a successful magic podcast, he was like, you know, you might wanna add some structure to the show. You might not just wanna ask random questions. And so he was the one who told us to ask two questions always at the end of the interview, the same two questions. So that's where we got those two questions, because Jonah Babins was like, you need to do this, it'll add consistency to the show. Just make some up and like do it on me right now and you can put it in the end. So thank God he was our first guest and that he actually knew what he was doing and could be like, you guys need to clean up your act. And then David came in in the second season and was like, you guys need to clean up your act. And we're like, okay. Fair. And I mean they were both really right and it was, you know, obviously fun doing all this stuff kind of on the fly and not knowing anything. But it was really nice to have other people tell us how to refine it. And obviously, you know, you guys have refined the show even more and more and more, it just sounds better and better every season. So congratulations on a hundred episodes. I'm so proud of you. I'm so honored to have been involved in the show and I still listen to the show. Anyways, David, sorry you asked for one to two minutes and here's five. Okay. Love you guys. Bye.

David Kochberg: 16:17

Okay, so, so from that initial idea that you and Sabina had to start a podcast to talk about this kind of stuff,

Vanessa Vakharia: 16:23

also remember Sabina actually found the first guest, like I had a couple of ideas. But Sabina was like constantly like, I mean, she was like finding the coolest people. She was like, oh my God, I heard about this woman, Merrit Moore, who's like a famous ballerina and like, a like physicist, like, you know what I mean? We had like her on the podcast. She was like, oh, I've heard of this guy Ben Zauzmer, who literally does Oscar predictions with statistics. Like she would find all the, introduce me to all these cool people and she would get them on the podcast. So I actually had not much to do with the guest selection in the beginning.

David Kochberg: 16:55

Yeah. Yeah. You were just talent.

Vanessa Vakharia: 16:57

I was just the talent. just up strolling in.

David Kochberg: 17:00

Yap, yap, yap.

Vanessa Vakharia: 17:01

And it was cool to make connections to like how these people felt about math and like a lot of, a lot of my guests had never really thought much about math anxiety, like it opened up these really cool conversations, you know? Yeah. Like, anyways, okay. What was your question?

David Kochberg: 17:14

I can't remember exactly, but, I, a different question that I had was, do you have a target audience in your mind of what the audience for the podcast would've been back in the day when you started it, what you would like it to be now or going forward. Because the way it's kind of gone the last year or two, especially as you've gotten more into going into conferences and talking with other educators and stuff, and especially with your book Math Therapy is targeted to teachers, it seems like the conversations are directed more towards teachers. how do you feel about that?

Vanessa Vakharia: 17:49

I am really the type of person that just kind of like goes with the flow of life. Sure. I really have never had much of a plan for anything. I follow my intuition and where things are organically leaning. So when we started the podcast, that was definitely not it. I, the podcast was really not, it was just for like anyone listening, like I think it was more targeted at like. The person who might have a complicated relationship with math. And it was really, really cool. You know, we got so much feedback because we tried to pitch this podcast to like Netflix and to like networks and every single person would be like, love the concept. No one's gonna listen to it. If it has the word math in it, people fucking hate math. Like, take the word math out of it. And we were like, no, that's the whole point. Um, might have missed out on a Netflix deal because of that, but whatever. Like, it's like

David Kochberg: 18:31

Still time.

Vanessa Vakharia: 18:32

But we've, it was really cool because. All these people were listening to it, not just educators. There was no target audience in mind. We were just talking about shit. Now, an interesting thing that happened that I did not anticipate is when I started doing talks for teachers, people would come up to me and be like, I listen to your podcast. And I was like, what? Like really? And as it turned out, all of these teachers were listening to, to the podcast, but I had not like, expected that or anticipated that. The whole point of the podcast is it's people I want to talk to who I find interesting, who I wanna like hear their perspective on something or I wanna ask them questions. Like a lot of people, I'm just like, I wanna ask them about this. I'll just ask them to come onto the podcast so I can ask them the question. So like, no, I know it's important from like a marketing perspective to have a target audience and like. Yeah, I think probably now our target audience is educators, right? Like anyone in education, like leaders, superintendents, like teachers, tutors, coaches. Like that is the audience. But I mean, that's another reason I kind of wanna go back to having a more diverse range of guests is like, I hope that the whole point of this podcast is healing, whether you're the listener who's going to heal from listening to it, or whether you're the listener who's going to heal from hearing the conversation we're having, I want there to be more content that someone who's not an educator can listen to, because I think it's really, really important. Like there's not many podcasts talking, I don't think there's any podcasts like ours that like has these conversations about math anxiety with like an astrologer, you know, like, so I hope that the audience broadens. My goal is to get it in the hands of more of those people'cause they need to hear it. But I'm also aware that that's like a slow build. It'll land in the hands of those who need it most. But I don't have a, plan because I feel like it's like important to like, not force something, but to be organic about it.

David Kochberg: 20:17

yeah. Do whatever you can to get it out there and then your audience will tell you who they are.

Vanessa Vakharia: 20:23

Exactly. Tell us who you are, by the way, if you're listening to

David Kochberg: 20:26

Yeah. Text the podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia: 20:27

Text the podcast. Text the podcast. You can sit it, you can actually find the link in the show notes I'd, I'd actually like to know, if you're listening to this right now, who are you? Are you an educator?

David Kochberg: 20:36

Hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia: 20:37

Tell us who are, who is listening to this fucking podcast.

David Kochberg: 20:39

Yeah, because I am very curious because I feel like so many of these conversations, a lot of the, the education based ones, like the pedagogy learning methodology stuff is very in the weeds for educators, but there's still in all these conversations you have, is a lot for someone who has a bad relationship with math, there's something for them, but how would they get it? Like how would they know to listen?

Vanessa Vakharia: 21:04

Well, but that's why I think it's really important to have guests that people wanna listen to. So for example, if I interviewed like Mel Robbins for the podcast. Right? All of a sudden people who like Mel Robbins or who like self-help would be like, oh, I'm gonna listen to my favorite self-help person on the podcast. Then they're in and they're introduced to Math Therapy and they're like, wow, this conversation's really good, maybe I'll listen. Like that's why the quality of the guests is so important and why it's important to get the diversity of guests, because like, you might not wanna listen to a podcast about math, but you wanna listen to what Mel Robbins has to say, for example, you know? There's so many interesting people out there who theoretically, like from a objective lens or like from a narrow lens or whatever fucking lens, don't have anything to do with math. And then once you get into the conversation, everything they're saying has something to do with math and their relationship with math. But like, like broadening the guests.

David Kochberg: 21:53

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia: 21:54

So if you're listening to this and you're not, actually if you're an educator or not, who should we have on the podcast is another question. I feel like I just wanna ask

David Kochberg: 22:00

a lot of calls to action.

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:02

Oh, well, because I'm really now curious, it's like we've made a hundred episodes. It's because of the people listening and I wanna know who the people listening too are because we actually have no access to those demographics. Go to the show notes of whatever app you're using and text us this information. Who are you? What is your occupation? Why are you listening to the podcast? Are you an educator?

David Kochberg: 22:20

Are you a student? Are you a parent?

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:22

Like who, who are you?

David Kochberg: 22:24

Who are you?

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:24

Who are you. Should put that song who are you in the background now?

David Kochberg: 22:27

I think that would require some licensing clearance.

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:29

Next question.

David Kochberg: 22:31

Okay. Let's reflect back on some of some of the highs and lows of the, of the podcast. For you,

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:39

low was our episode two weeks ago about the Toronto Blue Jays but the episode itself was amazing recording it was a low.

David Kochberg: 22:45

Let's start with that. Okay. Why, why was it so low?

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:50

That was a really tough one.

David Kochberg: 22:51

We still haven't had our debrief. I, I did suggest it's gonna be,

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:53

we're not doing a therapy session on the podcast.

David Kochberg: 22:55

I don't know. I think that's what the people

Vanessa Vakharia: 22:57

No, it was a lo, okay. First of all, that was an incredible episode. It was about what the Toronto Blue Jays can teach us about math anxiety, basically. And it was hard because I was recording it from a hotel room and I wanted to include all these voice notes from our friends and we were having all these technological issues. It was 11:00 PM, Mercury,

David Kochberg: 23:14

And we came up with the idea in like a couple days. We, we had like 48 hours, but we were,

Vanessa Vakharia: 23:19

and then I started eating a snack in the middle of it, the, David was super annoyed. You could hear me chewing. That was totally my fault.

David Kochberg: 23:24

I mean, by that point I was kind of numb to everything. Okay, stop. So I didn't even get that upset about the snack I was, it was everything leading up to it that we were both very upset with each other.

Vanessa Vakharia: 23:32

It was, it was tough and everything was fine, and the episode was amazing and I ended up creating an entire talk around it. That I've been doing for the past few weeks. But,

David Kochberg: 23:40

you know, uh, what's it, what do you guys, yeah, rupture and repair? That's our process

Vanessa Vakharia: 23:43

rupture and repair. Yeah. Okay. Some highs though. Some highs. I mean, one of the most memorable episodes ever will be when we interviewed Christopher Havens from jail. That was crazy. First of all, I'd heard about this guy, he had murdered someone, he was in jail and he was on the news because he had created this thing called the Prison Mathematics Project to help inmates rehabilitate with math. And he agreed to be on the podcast and we had to call him in jail. And it was like one of those movies, like

David Kochberg: 24:12

he had a maximum of like 15 minutes at a time. And so he had made this system where. Uh,'cause I think he had already, he had been in prison for like 15 years at that point or so.

Vanessa Vakharia: 24:22

Yeah, something.

David Kochberg: 24:23

I'll we'll link in in the show notes to that episode'cause you should check it out.'cause it was really fascinating.

Vanessa Vakharia: 24:27

Unbelievable.

David Kochberg: 24:28

Uh, but yeah, so at this point he had rehabilitated himself and was. Was like trying to spread the rehabilitation and, and spread math around and had started this project. And so he had done this a little bit, so he had a whole system where he had two other friends in prison that would like line up behind him because you had to take turns at the phone. somehow got a phone number because you had to call from, you couldn't zoom or Skype And then he would only have 15 minutes and then we would get interrupted with like an automated voice. Like

Vanessa Vakharia: 25:00

You could hear it on the podcast.

David Kochberg: 25:01

Your call always gonna be intra, and then so his friend would be in line after him so that he could just get back on, call us back or something. Yeah, he had to call a number. He had to call us, collect. Anyways, so that was a really interesting, just from my perspective, cool technical challenge of how do we record this conversation, and putting it together it was really cool.

Vanessa Vakharia: 25:21

Hold on, that episode led us to becoming friends with Christopher Havens. Being involved in the Prison Math Project. And then I think probably the second craziest episode is when we recorded an episode live after we visited jail to do math on Pi Day with a group of 30 inmates the next year. So we went, me Sabina, and David went, to Bellamy Correctional Institute in Michigan. We drove there. Trying to explain to the customs guy at the border why, by the way we were going over there was tough. He almost didn't let us in. Like we were like, we were like, it's pi day.

David Kochberg: 25:53

He's like, like we're, we're just going to like bring some pie day cheer to the inmates. And he is like, why? Why? He's like, why? And then yeah, it's like, are you getting paid for this? And. Is like, no, no, no. It's just volunteer. And he's like, why?

Vanessa Vakharia: 26:06

He's like, why? Why? On the way back, by the way though, no one gave a fuck. We were like, the customs officer, we were like, so it's pie day because it's March 14th. He's like, please move, go. Just go back to Canada. Anyways, that was such a cool, we went to the prison, we had the most incredible time, I don't wanna give it away, you can listen to the episodes. Yeah.

David Kochberg: 26:25

trip to prison on Pi Day is one of the craziest things I've done in my life.

Vanessa Vakharia: 26:30

Same. Same. It was so cool. It was so, it was honestly, so hopeful, so heartwarming, so amazing. Yeah, I'm really thankful for that. That never would've happened without the podcast.

David Kochberg: 26:40

Yeah. So a high for sure. And although, I mean, I'll just say go, like going back to the blue Jay saying like, we aren't gonna do a full debrief therapy session'cause we're now over the time that you had allotted for us. But I knew that that was a pipe dream to actually get this under 25 minutes. Okay. But anyways, I think it is important for, it is important to say, and maybe, and you know, just be vulnerable here on the podcast with the listeners, that, I mean it is just the two of us, so like some, yes, so it is stressful making this thing and I think we should give ourselves grace, namely, you should give me some grace. For sometimes getting stressed out, like right now we're recording this in a room that looks like chaos. Like we've got,

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:17

We need our own studio. I think I wanna manifest that

David Kochberg: 27:18

Pointing this way in that flotsam and jetsom. I've got mics going into who knows what computer with what webcam pointed in which direction. Some of us are hydrated, some are not. You lit some, was it Palo Santo? Was it a,

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:31

it was frankincense

David Kochberg: 27:32

random tree outside. It's like we're just kind of making it up as we go along, which is how we have, have a band as well. The point is that and I mean, I was joking before, but about how, because you had referenced in some recent episode the rupture and repair and whatever, and like struggle and what is, it's a productive struggle, all this stuff. The point is,

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:51

I don't know that you're using that correctly.

David Kochberg: 27:53

I'm j, whatever, you know, say, uh, what's, what's, what's

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:56

low floor, high ceiling

David Kochberg: 27:56

Yeah, low floor, high ceiling,

Vanessa Vakharia: 27:57

open middle

David Kochberg: 27:58

is this is, yeah. The, the point is yeah, we, it sometimes we, we get in a fight and wanna throw it all up.

Vanessa Vakharia: 28:06

Know, does everyone need to hear this? Yeah. This is not interesting.

David Kochberg: 28:11

Okay. Um, what's another great episode that you remember?

Vanessa Vakharia: 28:14

Okay. Um, you know, one that always will stick with me whenever I think about the podcast. I think about Bex. I'm serious, I always think about her. She's this, uh, woman I found on Twitter. She had tweeted"the best part of being an adult is being able to opt out of math". I just saw the tweet and I messaged her and I was like, come on my podcast, thinking, fuck, this is gonna be wild. She showed up with a glass of wine. I dunno how many she'd had beforehand. She was such a good time and we had the coolest conversation, you know, which really it was like real hardcore Math Therapy.'Cause it really started with her just being like, no, I don't care about math. Like I can't do it. It does not matter. And by the end, like. It turned out she worked at a bank and I was like, babe, you're doing math all the time. And like she started sort of unpacking things that maybe had led to her having this view of math. And that was four years ago. And we still keep in touch. She messaged me literally the other day and she was like, me and my boyfriend are at the pub and we're having an argument about math. And like she messaged me and she was like, I think I'm right. And I was like, oh my God, you totally are. And that was like a random tweet on Twitter, and you normally see tweets like that and you're like, Ugh, this is some troll. Like, but it's like when someone's tweeting something like that, they have math trauma. That's the whole point. And we're still like, friends to this day. It was just, it was really cool.

David Kochberg: 29:25

Mm-hmm. She was hilarious.

Vanessa Vakharia: 29:27

She's so funny.

David Kochberg: 29:29

But also there were so many interesting things that she dropped, like so many revelations that would be so interesting for anyone listening. Just how she was talking about, especially because she was describing in detail her experience. She wasn't just like, math is hard or like I'm stressed about it. She was explaining,'cause she was talking about dyscalcula. Did she say? Yeah,

Vanessa Vakharia: 29:51

she brought up Dyscalcula

David Kochberg: 29:53

which I, she didn't even know that word for it, but she just knew, she was talking about how like dates would be mixed up right in her mind because just, she would just mix up the numbers

Vanessa Vakharia: 30:04

and how, how it's actually traumatic to not receive a diagnosis and just think there's something wrong with you and you can't do math. It was so empowering for her to learn that that's an actual term. It's a thing. There's, there are resources and solutions. It doesn't make you bad at math. It's just like a little thing.

David Kochberg: 30:19

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia: 30:20

Not a little thing. I don't wanna minimize it, but it's like, it's just like I'm colorblind or something.

David Kochberg: 30:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you,

Vanessa Vakharia: 30:25

is it the same kind of.

David Kochberg: 30:26

I am a little colorblind.

Vanessa Vakharia: 30:27

No, you are. That's why I say it. I'm like, it's like you're colorblind. That doesn't mean like

David Kochberg: 30:31

Yeah. I's if like you, it is a, another example where it's like something about you is different from the quote unquote norm. Where the majority of society would experience the world in a certain way and you don't, so then you could fit, like I could, there's sometimes where like I feel dumb because someone's like, oh, you can't see the difference between these two colors. And I'm like, no, that's just my rods and cones, okay, don't shame me.

Vanessa Vakharia: 30:55

But that's you accessible coloring, for example, now like okay, that's like a little thing that could be a bit of a limitation, but we can deal with it.

David Kochberg: 31:01

Yeah. Sometimes like on Trello for example. Yeah. Like when we're organizing things by labels, you can have it by colors, but then there is a colorblind assistance option, which will kind of, instead of color coding the labels, it'll pattern code it. So it'll have,

Vanessa Vakharia: 31:16

well see, and that's the thing, it's like, because you have to remember when we're talking about stuff like this. It's What are you trying to measure? You know? So it's like, if you think about Trello, it's not that you're bad at organizing something, you just can't see the color. So when you have an organized by pattern instead of color, all of a sudden that removes the limitation for you and allows you to do the actual task, which is organizing. Sorting by color is not the actual task. It's a mechanism by which to get the task done.

David Kochberg: 31:46

Whoa. Sounds like that was, did you rehearse that? That was No, I was just, that was a mic drop moment,

Vanessa Vakharia: 31:51

thinking it through. It's like the actual goal. This is what happens with so many learning differences in disabilities in math. It's like the obstacle has nothing to do with the actual task. So it's like people are like, oh, don't make accommodations. And it's like, by accommodating, we're just allowing the person to do the actual task and not be limited by like the mechanism by which to do the task. That has nothing to do with the thing we're trying to measure or teach.

David Kochberg: 32:12

Snapping. Snapping, so I don't clap.

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:16

Okay. Let's, we are doing great, but

David Kochberg: 32:19

we are doing great. I feel like we have a manic energy, but I think it's because.

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:24

I have to pee actually.

David Kochberg: 32:25

I knew it. I was gonna, I guess I've seen you like bouncing up and down this whole time. I was like, oh God, she's gotta pee. I'll share an embarrassing secret about Vanessa. That's completely absurd.

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:35

What?

David Kochberg: 32:36

Which is, here's some behi, the behind the scenes often during interviews, Vanessa will intentionally not go pee because, for some reason she's like having, the having to pee. Yeah. Gives her,

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:52

gives energy.

David Kochberg: 32:53

Energy to do the task ahead.

Vanessa Vakharia: 32:56

I do it when I record a vocal take too. When we're recording an album, I always wanna like,

David Kochberg: 32:59

oh, that I am aware of and that grinds me gears.

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:04

Why?

David Kochberg: 33:04

Because then you're like jumping up and down and you're always wearing something jingly too. So then that's not very good in a recording studio.

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:09

I think it's helping. It's helping this episode. It's like,

David Kochberg: 33:12

no, it's making me manic.'cause you're like hopping up and down. I can tell. You have to pee. And then it's like all of a sudden I have to pee, but I don't have to pee. I just feel like, okay,

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:19

let's, no one needs,

David Kochberg: 33:20

my soul has to pee.

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:21

Okay, let's go, I think we should move into the final chunk. What? What are you doing?

David Kochberg: 33:25

No, I just had an idea. I was gonna say,'cause yeah, we can move into. No, don't pee. You're, you're, you've got, let's just ride this manic energy until we we're finished. I was going to read a piece of fan mail

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:38

Oh.

David Kochberg: 33:38

That we did receive when someone in fact did text the podcast. So just in case you are constantly hearing us say, text the podcast, text the podcast, and you're like, nah, nah. Do it. We'll just, yeah. Just to let you know. Some people do and it really warms our hearts. Okay, so here's an example we received from Phoenix, Arizona. That's as much as we get. We, I don't have a name.

Vanessa Vakharia: 33:56

Yeah, we don't see your name, but that's also fine. Can tell us your name?

David Kochberg: 33:59

Whoa. Okay. Uh, Phoenix, Arizona. Miscellaneous person says, I just listened to the new newest episode. I'm excited you're moving to a weekly format. Also, I am immediately texted the episode link to a fifth grade teacher I'm working with.

Vanessa Vakharia: 34:16

Understand the assignment.

David Kochberg: 34:17

The main, I wanted to say this, read this out. Okay. This, this teacher back to Phoenix, Arizona. This teacher wants to change the mindset of her students, and I had already sent her some Jo Boaler videos. Shout out Jo Boaler

Vanessa Vakharia: 34:29

Love her.

David Kochberg: 34:29

Uh, however, this episode of your podcast hit home a very important part of mindset, and that is how we can reduce or increase our students' math anxiety without even realizing. Thank you for this episode. Isn't that lovely? Yeah. Vanessa, do other messages? Uh, they can be general off the top of your mind or if you happen to have written any down somewhere. Does anything come to mind of feedback you've gotten or maybe like when you've been at conferences, meeting teachers and listeners. Like what kind of feedback have you gotten that's really affected you?

Vanessa Vakharia: 34:59

I was stunned at first that teachers listened to it and then I've had so many teachers say, you know, this has really changed my practice. Like this has really made me see math anxiety in a new way. I didn't understand it before, or I've never experienced it, it really helped me like get the student perspective. Or like one of my favorites when teachers, and non-teachers are like, it's really made me feel seen, like, oh my God, I never realized that like, I had experienced math trauma and this just really validated the way I've been feeling and provided like solutions and strategies. I've had several adults text the podcast and be like, this has inspired me to try math again. So that type of feedback is so meaningful and so important. I also love when people like weigh into the conversations. Like they've actually listened to it and they're like, hold on, I've got something I wanna say about this. Or like, they leave me a voice note and they're like, wait a second, I wanna argue with this point. Or like, and to add on to this, like, I think it just adds to the fact that like, it really is, like, as a community, we're stronger, right? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's like. We have, when we put all the perspectives together, it's like that's when we come up with like the best solutions and understand the problem from all the perspectives. So all that to say, yeah, like the feedback I get of people feeling seen and validated and being able to put a name to something they're experiencing, feeling less alone, like feeling like they've gotten inspired and feel more hopeful about their ability to build a better relationship with math, like that means everything.

David Kochberg: 36:24

Yeah. And whenever you share, a piece of feedback that like someone's emailed you or sent you a text or something, talking about how much an episode or your work has meant for them, it's so cool to see and it makes the work that we do on this podcast or, or working on your other stuff, it makes it all feel so much more worthwhile. And also, yeah, there's the connection.'Cause it's just like with our band, like we make stuff and put it out there, you don't know what effect it's having. You don't know if anyone's listening, if they care about it. And then when you hear it's actually really connected someone then that makes you feel, even if I've never met some person who's sending you this feedback, it's so cool to know that the work that we've done has reached someone and has made their life a little bit better. And that makes us feel like we're more connected to kind of a, a community in the actual world.

Vanessa Vakharia: 37:20

Yeah. Like imagine this is like, I'm just thinking this is like, we always have this conversation with our music. It's like when you make art, you make it because it's like catharsis. know, we have this creative outlet and something needs to come out of us. But like, would you record an album, if, if, this is like a tree falls in the forest thing, right? Like would you record an album if you knew no one was gonna listen to it? Would we record a podcast if we knew for a fact it would be impossible for anyone to listen to it? No.

David Kochberg: 37:49

Yeah. No, no,

Vanessa Vakharia: 37:50

No. Right. Even though it's like it is a creative outlet and like outer processing is so cathartic and like it's nice to get this stuff out, but it's like when we play a show at to an empty room, which we've done many times, versus a room with people in it, if there is an energy exchange. And like that's what happens when you are teaching a class or when you're in a student in a class. Like you cannot take away the aspect of co-creation. Like we are co-creating our experience on the planet together. We are co-creating mathematical experiences together. So,

David Kochberg: 38:19

So it's time to announce that Math Therapy, the podcast is going on tour hitting an arena near you.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:25

No. Okay. So let's, let's wrap up with talking with some future talk like, Ooh, who is our dream guest that we still haven't had?

David Kochberg: 38:33

Hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:33

Who would it be? Okay. Well, obviously we know the answer. Keanu Reeves.

David Kochberg: 38:40

Sure.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:41

Like obviously that would be number one. If I was gonna be like, what is my goal? It'd be Keanu Reeves.

David Kochberg: 38:46

he's like your, Obama of, if this was Marc Maron's, WTF.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:52

Does anyone know what that is?

David Kochberg: 38:53

This is a deep cut.

Vanessa Vakharia: 38:54

It's so deep.

David Kochberg: 38:55

He, well, me, Marc Maron just ended his podcast and Obama was his last

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:00

shut up,

David Kochberg: 39:01

his last interview.

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:02

That's unbelievable.

David Kochberg: 39:03

He had been on it before. Oh. This is even more unbelievable.

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:07

Okay. Well,

David Kochberg: 39:07

so basically you, so ke Keanu Reeves is your Obama.

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:11

Yeah. Said number one. Number two would be Taylor Swift. Oh wow. I actually wanna talk, I mean, she, she has said that she loves numerology and numbers. Mm-hmm. And that was like such a big like thing, I think a, I'd love to interview Taylor Swift to talk, what?

David Kochberg: 39:24

Well, so no, I do think before Taylor like, sure, Taylor would be great for publicity, but I feel like Paris Hilton is still,

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:32

oh my God. Oh my God. I'm sorry. Paris Hilton. Hundred percent number two.

David Kochberg: 39:36

Yeah.'cause she's like really was, was into the math

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:39

and that, she wasn't into math.

David Kochberg: 39:41

Didn't she get into, she

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:43

She was the to she was the title of my thesis.

David Kochberg: 39:45

No, I know. But then

Vanessa Vakharia: 39:46

Imagining a World Where Paris Hilton Loves Math. She, to me, the thing I wanna talk to her about is the idea of influence and media representation on. specifically girls' perception of whether or not math is something that's for them and her whole,"that's hot" thing. All this stuff around, like, people talk about like, she plays dumb, but she's actually really, really smart.

David Kochberg: 40:08

That's more what I'm thinking because I, I, because remember we watched that documentary a few years ago, she was well, but I think it was, maybe it's just more, I've gotta look this up at to remind myself, but I think it was, yeah, more just the fact that she was really dumbing herself down.

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:21

Yeah, that's what it was.

David Kochberg: 40:21

But actually is very intelligent, apparently, and like a really like now successful business person.

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:28

That's what I wanna talk to her about because it's like,

David Kochberg: 40:30

which requires math.

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:31

Exactly. I really wanna talk to her about that. Especially because she was the topic of my whole thesis.

David Kochberg: 40:35

Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:35

Like, okay, so a hundred percent. Keanu Reeves, Paris Hilton, Taylor Swift.

David Kochberg: 40:39

I always thought

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:40

Mel Robbins. I think Mel Robbins, we actually, I wanna be interviewed by Mel.

David Kochberg: 40:43

Yeah. You wanna be on Mel's podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:45

That's what I would like. I actually think that'd be incredible. But no, I think it's,

David Kochberg: 40:48

I always thought that it, I think we were talking about this with Sabina back in the day. But I've always thought it would be cool to interview David Suzuki because

Vanessa Vakharia: 40:58

we could probably interview him.

David Kochberg: 40:59

I think we tried and it didn't really work.

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:01

What? Lemme check my emails.

David Kochberg: 41:02

Check your email. Did David Suzuki, are you gonna find in your, in your inbox deep buried from a few years ago?

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:08

Suzuki, how do I spell that?

David Kochberg: 41:10

Uh, S-U-Z-U-K-I. Maybe this is not what we should be recording.

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:17

Okay. What do you wanna interview him about?

David Kochberg: 41:19

I was, I just always thought that he would be very interesting because his career was based around science communication and so

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:28

He's Canadian. Like I ran into him once.

David Kochberg: 41:30

He's a legend. The problem is that at this point in, in his career, he's like really pissed off at everyone for not having heeded all of his advice. So now he's just like, well, you guys are all like you guys fucked yourself.

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:42

That's like some good energy to have on the pod.

David Kochberg: 41:44

That would really match your

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:46

Should I email? I mean, we can put him on the list.

David Kochberg: 41:48

Yeah. I think it'd be cool for you to talk to him just about how do we, but he has gotten pretty cynical because he's like spent his entire life trying.

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:55

I could really jive with some cynical energy.

David Kochberg: 41:58

Let's do it. All right. Suzuki,

Vanessa Vakharia: 41:59

I feel like Steve Leinwand is the Su, the David Suzuki of math, and we're gonna have Steve Leinwand on the podcast and you're gonna be obsessed with him.

David Kochberg: 42:05

Oh, great.

Vanessa Vakharia: 42:06

Like it's already cynical, but he's like, I think he's also like, guys get it the fuck together. You know what I mean? Not to speak for you, Steve, I'd love to have you on the podcast, but like I've seen him talk and he's just like, says it as it is and he is kind of like, no bullshit. I feel like that's, I don't know Steve Leinwand's mad that no one's heated his advice. I don't think so.

David Kochberg: 42:27

I am tuning out and getting bored, so I can only imagine how our, our listeners feel.

Vanessa Vakharia: 42:34

Okay, fine. Fine.

David Kochberg: 42:34

How were you planning to wrap this up with another,

Vanessa Vakharia: 42:37

okay, so you stop at David Suzuki, take out the Steve Linewand stuff, and I'm gonna say

David Kochberg: 42:40

I'm the editor. Okay. Don't tell me you had to chop this up.

Vanessa Vakharia: 42:44

Um, I think, I think that's it. Oh, one question I have for you. Okay. If the podcast had an unlimited budget. This is us lowkey saying we are now gonna be looking for sponsors for the podcast. So if you're listening and you would like your company to sponsor the pod, this is your moment to fucking text the podcast. Actually email me. That's probably

David Kochberg: 43:04

You want an advertiser to propose a partnership, brand partnership by texting us,

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:09

vanessa at themathguru dot ca

David Kochberg: 43:10

There's a character limit in those texts.

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:12

Okay. If we had unlimited budget, what would we do?

David Kochberg: 43:17

Oh goodness. Um,

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:17

Well, I want a studio. I think this would save our relationship. If we just had a studio if someone builds us a studio, set it all up so we could just walk in and start recording without all this tech nonsense.

David Kochberg: 43:28

Yeah. And a video producer.

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:30

A video producer.

David Kochberg: 43:30

I don't wanna do this video stuff.

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:31

Okay. Fine. So video producer and also I think, yeah, video producer and someone to like make all the short form content and post it everywhere.

David Kochberg: 43:38

Yeah. Social media manager, content creator. Someone to do all of the marketing.

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:43

Just marketing. The marketing. That's the problem. We can make it marketing. Yeah, exactly. We can make it. We can make it.

David Kochberg: 43:48

What do you mean make it,

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:49

We can make this thing, but it's the marketing, the promotion.

David Kochberg: 43:52

Oh, we can make the podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:53

Yeah,

David Kochberg: 43:54

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the audio, the

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:56

And we need a studio.

David Kochberg: 43:57

Yeah, we need a

Vanessa Vakharia: 43:59

an aesthetic studio. I can plop down. Always look good. It always has good lighting. We just flick a switch and we're ready to record.

David Kochberg: 44:04

Yeah, that's pretty, we're not asking for much

Vanessa Vakharia: 44:07

we're not asking for that much.

David Kochberg: 44:08

Yeah. Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 44:09

I think we're done. We've shared a lot. this has been incredible. Now ChatGPT has written us a closing script.

David Kochberg: 44:18

Great.

Vanessa Vakharia: 44:18

Do we book end this or do we say something from the heart?

David Kochberg: 44:22

Why not both?

Vanessa Vakharia: 44:23

Okay. So let's start,

David Kochberg: 44:24

Start with the heart. And then end with okay, the AI slop.

Vanessa Vakharia: 44:27

What I wanna say, what I wanna say, I really have to pee now. What I wanna, what I wanna say is, I mean, we literally would not be here without you guys who are listening right now. As I said, if no one was listening, I wouldn't even record this podcast. And this podcast has hopefully been healing in some way for you, but I can tell you for sure, it has been so healing for me. I'm an outer processor, that's how I get out everything. I need to process it out loud, and this podcast has allowed me to do that. I've learned so much. I've changed and grown so much from when I initially started the podcast. There are so many things I've learned that have really changed my perspective about math education in general. I have met so many incredible people, and I'm really, really excited because I just feel like we're only just getting started here, and now that we're a weekly podcast, there's so much we can do. I can't wait to have so many more conversations, and I'm just feeling really, really grateful that there are so many people out there that care about this topic. That care about people building better relationships with math, that understand the impact it has on their entire lives, even if they're not in a math centered field, and who are doing this work, who are doing the self work, and who are just fucking listening. Thank you guys. Thank you guys so much. I'm so excited for what's to come. Like seriously. We are now gonna read this, this is what ChatGPT called it, inspiring, heart filled outro.

David Kochberg: 45:48

God. Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 45:49

Ready? Okay, so I'm gonna go first.

David Kochberg: 45:51

Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia: 45:53

I'm genuinely getting emotional. 100 episodes. That's 100 conversations about healing, unlearning, laughing, crying, and remembering that math and life don't have to be scary or shame filled. And you've been with us for all of it. Thank you for trusting us with your stories and your ears and your time.

David Kochberg: 46:10

Seriously,

Vanessa Vakharia: 46:11

Why are you doing it in such a sexy voice.

David Kochberg: 46:13

I'm just,

Vanessa Vakharia: 46:14

okay, go.

David Kochberg: 46:16

When we started this, we had no idea if anyone would care, and now we get messages from teachers, parents, leaders, students, adults going back to school, all saying the same thing,

Vanessa Vakharia: 46:27

Accurate.

David Kochberg: 46:29

I feel less alone. Well, that means everything to us.

Vanessa Vakharia: 46:33

And the wild thing, we're just getting started. We have so many ideas, so many guests we still wanna talk to. So many myths to challenge. So many healing moments ahead. Math Therapy is only going deeper, weirder, funnier, wiser from here.

David Kochberg: 46:46

And if you wanna support what we are building, honestly the best thing you can do is share this podcast with one person. Seriously.

Vanessa Vakharia: 46:54

It's true.

David Kochberg: 46:55

That's how shows like this grow. Text the link to a friend. Your math department group chat. Your sister who swears she quote unquote, doesn't do math. Why did ChatGPT have to gender this? Vanessa? Okay. It doesn't just have to be a sister,

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:10

Keep

David Kochberg: 47:10

reading! Whoever. One person. Right now

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:15

And leave us a review. Hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. It takes 10 seconds and it helps us more than you know. It really actually does. Guys, this is me just adlibbing.

David Kochberg: 47:24

Oh, now you're adlibbing.

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:25

I just, because this is, I really wanna drive this point home.

David Kochberg: 47:27

It's been driven into their skulls. There you, they're like, we get it.

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:32

DM me on Instagram at The Math Guru, or email me at vanessa@themathguru.ca and tell me what this episode brought up for you. I read every single message.

David Kochberg: 47:41

Thank you for being part of this community. For real. We love you.

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:48

I could not imagine you ever saying that.

David Kochberg: 47:50

Yeah, and I don't speak in two word sentences.

Vanessa Vakharia: 47:52

Cheers to the next a hundred episodes of healing, curiosity, chaos, and math magic. See you next week. Okay, so that's the end of the scripted. Yeah. And I still dunno how to say bye after a hundred episodes. So

David Kochberg: 48:04

True.

Vanessa Vakharia: 48:04

I would also like to do one more call out, which is to text the podcast and tell me how to end these episodes. That does not require me saying goodbye.

David Kochberg: 48:12

This is, that's, that's a waste of a call out. That is a waste of a call out.

Vanessa Vakharia: 48:18

Okay. That's it. It's a wrap.

David Kochberg: 48:20

That's a wrap. See you at 200.

Vanessa Vakharia: 48:23

No, we'll see you at 101. Don't wait a hundred more episodes to listen.

David Kochberg: 48:29

Uh, you're math. Uh, you're mathsplaining to me.

Vanessa Vakharia: 48:33

Goodbye. Okay. I've gotta pee.

David Kochberg: 48:37

Woo.