Why today’s kids really are struggling with math

Vanessa Vakharia 0:03

Math feels more irrelevant than ever, cause there actually is math that kids wanna know. My students constantly ask me, why am I not learning how to budget? Why am I not learning how to like buy a house? Why am I not learning about like how to invest my money? They want to learn mathematical things, but things that matter to them. We don't need louder arguments about teaching methods. We need smarter responses to the reality that kids are living in. And that starts with a few simple, powerful shifts Hey guys, it's Vanessa, and welcome to another episode of Math Therapy. Okay, hear me out. Every single time kids struggle in math. We do the exact same thing. We panic and then we argue about how math should be taught. Like explicit instruction versus discovery, algorithms versus thinking, old school versus new school. Rinse and repeat. The same thing has been happening for years and years and years. And I'm bringing this up now because in Ontario, our EQAO scores just came out. That's like our standardized test that we have once a year for grades three, six, and nine. And every single time it's the exact same conversation. And here's what I would like to suggest today. We are having the wrong conversation. Because kids are not struggling in math right now because we suddenly forgot how to teach. They're struggling because the world they're growing up in is fundamentally different than the one our school systems were built for. More anxiety, more distraction, less trust in grades, less patience for things that don't feel meaningful. And by the way, I'm not here to say that we shouldn't be talking about how we actually teach math, but I will not be talking about that today. Because I think we're so zoomed in on that, that we have forgotten to zoom out and look at the big, huge picture of all of the other factors that are affecting the way our kids learn math. So on this episode, I wanna do just that. I want to zoom out, not to blame teachers, not to defend a method, but to ask a more honest question. What if the problem isn't how we teach math? But the context that kids are learning it in. So while I don't have time to go through like the very long list of potential reasons kids are struggling with math, I'm going to go through nine reasons. That's right. Like nine reasons that have nothing to do with the way we're teaching kids to do the math in front of them. Are you ready? Here we go.

1) kids are raised differently now

Vanessa Vakharia 2:20

Reason number one, kids are raised differently now. That is the thing guys. Kids are raised differently now. For all of the people who are like so focused on how we should go back to teaching math the old way, I would like to actually say this. I mean, this is not a conversation about how we should teach math, but I would like you to consider this. The way we raise kids is different than we have raised them in previous generations. Now this is, this is always true, right? Generation to generation, it's true. But there is a marked difference between the way kids are raised now. They are raised to think more critically for themselves, to advocate for themselves. Like I honestly, I have the cutest little niece. She's three years old. And the other day I went, can I give you a hug? And she said to me, I need some space. And I was like, oh my God. Like we were never taught to say stuff like that. We were taught like if an adult, like, you know, if a family member wants to give you a hug, you just do it. We are teaching kids now to advocate for themselves. To say, no, I don't want a hug right now. No, I need some space. Like, no, I need some time. No, I'm feeling frustrated. Like this was not stuff that our generation was taught, right? Like it is, it's not us as adults now, we're not raised to be able to be that like to, to be self advocating like that. we have been consistently raised to like respect our elders and kind of like do what we're told to do or there are consequences. And this generational shift is really, really huge because most kids are not being parented that way. I'm not saying all, but like I definitely have noticed this with my own students is that there is such, such a shift now between the way they have been raised, versus the way my students 10 years ago ha were raised. So for example, like parents now will ask me to monitor whether or not their kids are doing homework. Like they'll say things like, Hey, can you make sure that you impart the importance of doing homework to my child? You know, when they're in there for their tutoring session. 10 years ago? Honestly, that wouldn't have happened. It was kind of like, assumed that kids were going to do their homework or there would be consequences. So I just have to say like, again, not every parent is the same, but generationally I think we can see that our kids are more self advocating. They are more, likely to stand up for themselves. And that's a good thing, right? Like we want to raise kids to advocate for themselves, to stand up for what they believe in, to think critically and say, hold on, why am I doing this thing? But the problem is to us, that looks like defiance instead of compliance. Right? Like we're like, what do you mean? Why? Like, just do it because I said you should do it. But we can't assume that attitude as educators in front of a classroom when that attitude is not being imparted at home. And also, I know it sucks for us, and I know it's hard, like it would be a lot easier if kids just like complied and did what we said, but I think if we zoom out, we don't really want to raise kids that way, right? If we think about our world and change taking place and like fighting systems and like doing, you know, challenging problems that haven't been challenged or solved yet, like we need kids to be able to really step up and step into their own, in order for those big changes to take place on a collective level. And that unfortunately and fortunately, starts on the individual level at home and in our classrooms. So kids aren't motivated by fear or punishment anymore. They're just not. And that's not a teaching failure. It's a cultural shift and a cultural shift we should be excited about on the whole. But it does mean we have to reexamine how we are motivating kids in the classroom. Okay.

2) kids are more distracted now

Vanessa Vakharia 5:54

Reason number two is the distraction is unprecedented. Like guys, kids have infinite dopamine inside their pockets. Yes, school and math was always competing with things like TV shows or even like more recently video games or like the internet. But now it's like wild, like TikTok, YouTube, Discord Ai. Like the competition is fierce. So like not only is the competition fierce, like there's so much more to do, so much more to do, that's literally in their pockets that they can access it, but their attention is fragmented. They're carrying so much information in their minds because they are so aware of everything. Information is at their fingertips. How many times a day do you think they're getting a piece of new news? Uh, seeing a new meme, a new piece of you know, celebrity intel. Even like politics, like there's so much new information being fired at them that they are distracted. So kids are not not choosing math per se, but they are choosing stimulation above all else. So this is not about rigor, it's about relevance and engagement in a noisy world and how we compete.

3) math anxiety has never been stronger

Vanessa Vakharia 7:01

Reason number three, guys, math anxiety is louder than ever, like. I want you guys to think about how, I don't know how many years ago this was, but I remember there were all these articles in the news that were like, if your kids don't know how to code, like they're gonna be out of jobs, like it's over for, Remember, there was that whole like coding scare and it was like this whole thing? That has happened on different levels consistently, so the coding thing is over now. I think we're over that now, but now it's like if kids don't know how to program or if they don't know how ai, if they don't know math, like they're never gonna have a job. I remember like a decade ago, there was all of this fear mongering being like if you don't know math, you're screwed. Like I remember it was predicted that like 70% of jobs were going to require math. Okay, cool. Except what happens is that fear trickles down. The parents are freaked out 'cause they're like, oh my God, my kid needs to do really, really, really well at math. Instead of being like, yeah, cool, like I want my kid to feel good about math, but they don't need to go into like a STEM career, they'll be okay. It's shifted from parents being like, oh my God, kids have to do so well at math, not just for the math component, but because they need high marks. Which by the way, we'll talk about in a second, I'm not even on that reason. I'm on the reason of math anxiety. My point is parents are more scared than ever. There's all this news being like test scores are lower than ever. Universities are, universities are saying that students are showing up unprepared, not even knowing how to add like one plus one. So like that trickles down to the parents and then that fear trickles down to the students. What happens when we are anxious and in fear, our amygdalas literally get hijacked. We cannot access the prefrontal cortex. We can't perform or disseminate information, even though we are capable of doing so as human beings, stress shuts down working memory. So like now math anxiety is more rampant, which means that kids perform at a lower level, like they, they don't perform at the level in which they're actually capable of because they can't access their working memory because their brains are shutting down. So that's another reason why test scores literally are lower. That's another reason you can think about. By the way, I'm not even talking about during this episode the flaw in using test scores as a measure of anything. I'm not even gonna be talking about that. So don't hate on me for even mentioning test scores. I'm mentioning it because it's such a hot topic and I would like to provide other reasons other than like the whole algorithm versus thinking thing, why kids are quote unquote performing worse than they were before. Okay. And like, yeah, I really would like to actually start getting into the flawed system of test scores and how they are not an adequate measure of knowledge, but I will not be addressing that during this episode, it doesn't mean I don't have thoughts on it. Okay. But I just wanna stay focused. Okay. Anyways, back to reason number three, which was that math anxiety is louder than ever before. We just have to remember that kids cannot perform cognitively when their nervous systems are in fight or flight. And we are seeing more of that than ever.

4) mental health challenges are more common

Vanessa Vakharia 9:54

And that leads to reason number four, which is that mental health challenges are higher. We know this. We know this, right? Like anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma. They are real. They are widespread. They are so much more, um, frequent and common that they have ever been in the past. So you have that on the one hand, and then you have math and math class, which is this perfect storm. It's, It can be public because we're often having to answer questions, you know, raising our hands in front of people in class. It is evaluative. There is a right and wrong answer. It is timed. It is identity threatening because we know that math intelligence says so much about you because collectively we believe that mathematical intelligence is linked with intelligence in general, even though that is, ah, we've gotta stop with that. But it doesn't matter. We, we, you know, I always say this, when someone is good at math, we call them smart. We don't call Picasso smart. We don't call Mozart smart. We don't call Bad Bunny smart. We have different words reserved for them. But when someone can do math, when they can perform mathematically. We call them smart. What does that tell kids? It tells kids that their mathematical identity is hinged upon the premise of performance and their mathematical identity as being intelligent or non-intelligent, well, that says a lot about worth. So think about all of that weight, like all of that weight, couple that with the mental health issues already happening, and it's like, oh my God, these kids are in survival mode. They're not in learning mode. So a dysregulated nervous system cannot access problem solving. No matter how good our lesson is, no matter if we're using explicit instruction or discovery, which we don't call it that anymore, but that's not the point. Like, you know what I mean? We have to think about their nervous systems and what's going on with them. Okay. Reason number five, sorry, I feel like I'm talking really fast guys. Are you guys okay? I feel like I, I haven't even, I don't even drink caffeine anymore, and I feel like I sound like I've had 40 espressos. I'm gonna take it down a notch because I feel like I'm maybe making you anxious.

5) math feels irrelevant

Vanessa Vakharia 12:03

Okay. Reason number five, math feels more irrelevant than ever. How old is our fucking curriculum in Ontario? Like how old, sorry. By the way, for US listeners, in Canada curriculum, the word curriculum is used to refer to like the content of what we teach. I know that for you guys, curriculum means something different, for you guys it's like the standards. Okay. How old are the standards? How old is the curriculum? Yes. The content, the standards, the Canadian curriculum, whatever you wanna call it, the content of what we are teaching, sure, it goes through a few changes. They're constantly rehashing it, there's a new this or that. But I want you to be honest about this. How new is it really? How new is it really? Honestly, like, yes, we tweak things. We, I, I find we do a lot of shuffling, so it's not so much new content. We just shuffle when it is, we're gonna teach it. Like, oh, maybe we're gonna teach like systems of equations actually earlier, and then we're gonna actually move slope to here. And then we're actually gonna talk about slope, but we're gonna talk about it in terms of rate of exchange so we can introduce it earlier. Well fine, but we're not really addressing the core thing here and the core thing, okay, let's be honest about it, is should we be teaching half of this shit at all? Does any of it matter? Now, of course some of it matters, but I would argue that some of it does not matter. A lot of it does not matter. So what's happening is it maybe mattered at one point. You know, I love to rant about long division, so I'm just gonna do it again 'cause this is the perfect place to do it. Think about it. There once was a purpose to teaching long division, a very strong purpose. Number one, we didn't have calculators, so like you fucking needed to long division to divide big things. Now that that has waned, okay, that the whole purpose of that has waned. Now, when I ask teachers why we teach long division, there is some arguments here and there like, oh, it's nice to, I've heard teachers say some stuff like, oh, it's important for kids to learn how an algorithm works, or it's important for them to learn how to do multi-step things, or it's important for them to, or it teaches them like place value, like, okay. Fine, whatever. Like I'm not gonna get into the weeds of that. I'm just gonna say, if you wanna do all of those things mentioned above, there are better ways to do it than teaching them an algorithm that they don't really need to use and they know they don't need to use. Because if you wanted to divide 1,000,032 and like whatever, whatever, by 27, you would use a calculator, in real life. I am not, by the way, arguing that we do not need numeracy or conceptual understanding or to know our math facts. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that we don't need to know how to divide 1,352,000 divided by 27 by hand. More importantly, kids know that. So like I think we have to just, reason number five is that math feels more irrelevant than ever, and this is part of the reason why, right? Like it's like. First of all, we really should be reexamining for real, not just shuffling around our content. We should really be reexamining it. 'Cause there actually is math that kids wanna know. My students constantly ask me, why am I not learning how to budget? Why am I not learning how to like buy a house? Why am I not learning about like how to invest my money? They want to learn mathematical things, but things that matter to them. The thing is, guys, if students don't see meaning, no instructional method will save you because series and number one that I brought up before, which was that kids are raised differently now. They're not raised to just do what the teacher told them to do, do what the adult told them to do, and to not question it. They're not raised that way, so we do need to give them meaning.

Intermission

Vanessa Vakharia 15:48

So I'm about to go to reason number six, but a law, let me just do a quick little recap. Okay. So we have gone through number one, kids are raised differently now. Reason number two, distraction is unprecedented and everywhere. Reason number three, math anxiety is louder than ever. Reason number four, mental health challenges are higher. And reason number five, math feels more irrelevant than ever. I want you to, I mean, I'm gonna keep going. I've got four more reasons, but if right now you're like, oh my God, this is what I have been saying, this is like what I really wanna say. When someone tells me that it's time to go back to basics, or when someone tells me how much we need to, I don't know, stop teaching algorithms forever more and like you're thinking to yourself. Yeah, they say that stuff and what I'm thinking is. No, there are other things we need to focus on, and if I have just listed some of those reasons, please text that person right now, send them this episode and be like, Hey, next time we're arguing about math instruction, can we talk about these things instead? Or maybe this is your common ground where you're like, look, I know we both think math needs to be taught differently, but maybe we can agree on some of these things and have a more productive conversation around these instead. Text it to them right now and remember. Text me if you want. You can text the podcast by hitting the link in your show notes. If you're like fired up right now and you wanna comment on something.

6) the value of grades has changed

Vanessa Vakharia 17:06

Let's go to reason number six. Grades do not mean what they used to. Okay, so reason number five, I was saying math is not that relevant because like, you know, our content isn't that relevant. But another reason it's not that relevant is it used to be this gateway, potentially to careers or university admission or college admission. And it isn't all that it's cracked up to be anymore because the devaluing and inflation simultaneously of grades. Right? Like we know that grade inflation is happening. An article just came out saying in Ontario alone, in the past two years, grades have been inflated by 7%. That is a lot. That means someone who is getting like a 63% is now getting a 70. Like we're going from a C to a B. That's like a, that's a huge jump. That's a letter jump. Also research is showing now that across North America, like high grades no longer guarantee university admission and that just didn't use to be the case. I mean, university admission requirements to some universities is cray cray now. Like there are universities in Canada where to get into a specific program, it's like you need a 98%. Like what are you talking about? And like even then, right? I think there was a report last year of four students who graduated high school with a hundred percent, sorry, I know I'm talking in like Canadian terms, but you guys do, you can do the conversion, a hundred percent. And they did not get into the universities of their choices. So kids see through this system, right? Like this is such a bigger global context conversation about like meritocracy. I think it's like effort doesn't really feel rewarded the same way it used to. So not only does it feel like the content of what they're learning is irrelevant, but they're like, and also where is this even getting me? Like what is the point? Like literally what is the point? So when the payoff disappears, so does buy-in from our students. Without like results or outcome and with without meaning, what is the point of math class? And that's why it's like we've gotta rethink, we've gotta give them new meaning. We've gotta give them a new reward. We've gotta be thinking big picture.

7) learned helplessness

Vanessa Vakharia 19:09

Now. Number seven, learned helplessness. I know you're wanting to throw your phone across the room right now, or whatever device you're listening to this on because we know the learned helplessness is real. Right? Kids who just like the second you give them a question, they're like, I can't do it. Help me. Like they just don't even, it feels like they don't wanna try. We talk about them like they don't wanna try, right? We're like, oh my God, these kids, they don't wanna try, but they literally feel helpless. It's learned helplessness because they are so used to being rescued, not just by you, by fucking ai, right? It's like the second, and I can speak to this personally by the way, because I am telling you I am having a really hard time right now. And by that I mean ChatGPT is ruining my life. Yes, is it making my life better in some ways, but on the whole, I know it's ruining my life and I can't stop it. Me and David actually went to write an album last week. Okay. We were away writing our album. We're in the studio recording it this month. It was harder than ever. We've been in this band for 14 years. This is our fifth album, I believe. It has never been harder for me to write songs because every time I would get stuck, I'd be like, I'll just ask ChatGPT, and then I'd have to fight with myself to not do it because I was like, no, by the way, guys, I never, I will say right now, I never asked ChatGPT. I realize I'm lying. Oh my God. And David's gonna produce this. He's not here. I'm actually recording the solo. He's gonna hear this, right? Oh my God. I should stop. It's too late. I'm already talking. David, I'm sorry, but No, you'll be happy to hear this. For one song I did, I caved. I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna ask Chat GPT. I'm stuck, and I did, the answer was actually so bad that I didn't use any of it, and I felt so gross. I was like, oh my God, as if I was gonna put this into my art. But my point is, okay, so David, now cat's outta the bag. The point is none of the AI lyrics made it into a single song. Everything's fine. I learned my lesson. But my point is that like it was so hard because I had completely sunk into learn helplessness, which I never used to be like, especially with art, like with writing songs, like I've usually been able to tap in and let things just come out and flow. But because I've been using AI so much, it made me get stuck faster. So like this is the thing is like struggle feels unnecessary and like almost threatening to kids because they're so used to not having to struggle, that when they do, they're like, well, I should be able to just get rescued. And then lands the belief that when I get stuck, the only way to get out of it is to be rescued. So like these persistence muscles that we always talk about that we need in math class to like, when you get a test and you can't actually be rescued, you need to be able to persist on your own, they're underdeveloped. And this matters for math more than any other subject because the truth is you are gonna get problems on a test that you do not know the answer to. You're gonna have to persist and you're gonna have to fail and like make mistakes and try things and get things wrong despite the fact that, you know, there is one right answer and you might not be on the right track to finding it as you are persisting. That's why it's so hard in math. You know there is only one outcome you're supposed to be getting and you have to be okay with struggling on a path, following a path, knowing the path might not lead you to where you're gonna go but following it anyway, because you might get something out of it. You might get something out of it that you need.

8) adults are more anxious too

Vanessa Vakharia 22:31

Okay. Reason number eight. Guys, this is a hard one to hear, but it's so real. Adults are more anxious too. They are more anxious than they ever have been. Teachers are burnt out, parents are stressed. Anxiety is contagious in the sense that polyvagal theory tells us that we evolve to co-regulate. That means our energy is literally contagious. Like if someone walks into the room in a huff, you kind of get into a huff, like you tense up. Just think of it that way. And with that anxiety lingering around everywhere, kids feel that they absorb it. They feel your anxiety around learning, around math, around grades, around not getting through the curriculum on time, around your class being too big and being frustrated. It's not your fault. You have been put into an untenable situation. Like you are in a hard place, but just remember that kids feel adult panic and pressure. We all feel it. Your coworkers feel it. You feel it. You feel it from your students. You feel it from like the higher ups. We're all more stressed out. And guess why? We we're all more stressed out for the same reason students are. We have information at our fingertips all the time. We are stressed out by the weight of the world. We're stressed about what the future even means. Like all of, so give, give yourself some grace like we are more stressed out and that impacts things. It's not our fault. We are only individuals in a giant system, and we are human too.

9) school hasn't caught up to reality

Vanessa Vakharia 23:53

Finally, reason number nine, school has not caught up to reality. That's it. That's the fact. The world has changed faster than our classrooms have. We're still debating methods from decades ago. Kids are living in 2026 and schools simply are not. Think about the way our classrooms are structured. Think about the fact that research now has shown us a billion times over that an ideal learning time for kids is not eight in the morning. Like that's not how their bodies work. They shouldn't be sitting all day. But we haven't caught up to it. We have not changed the model. That's just one example. By the way, I'm not even talk, remember I said I'm not gonna talk about instructional methods for math. I'm not gonna talk about it, but I'm just saying like. Huh. The school system itself has not caught up to what we know and to where the world is. It just hasn't. So that's a real hard pill to swallow, but it is the fact. It is a fact. And, and you know, it, look around a classroom, look at what kids are doing. Look at what their interests are, look at what tools they have on them. Look at, um, what stressors they're coming into the classroom with. Our classrooms have not caught up to the reality of 2026. And the thing is, guys, it's only gonna get worse. Think about it, technology is moving so quickly, like at lightning speed, whereas schools are just like, sludging along, like this is like a turtle and the hare situation. I feel like, although in that story, the tortoise won, so it's not like that. It's not like that at all. Just the speeds are like that. Schools are just kind of archaic when it comes to where the world is now. And we have this very interesting, like I feel like there's a metaphor here that I can't think of, but we have this like archaic institution with these like new kids in it, right? These kids that are like of this time in a system and building that is not of this time with structures that are not of this time. And then we're expecting them to do just as well as they did before.

So how can we fix this?

Vanessa Vakharia 25:55

All right, so that, I know that was a lot and I know that maybe I stressed you out. I hope I didn't stress you out. I hope that now we're just able to think about this in like a broader sense than all we need to be talking about is explicit versus discovery or whatever. Again, I'm not saying instructional debates don't matter, but they're not the root cause. There are so many other factors. And the reason instructional debates grind my gears is that we ignore every, I've just named nine other factors and there are more. I just, I need, like, I'm at half an hour with this episode, I need to stop. But like we are treating instructional debates like they're cause and effect debates and they're not. And that's what really pisses me off is fine. Talk about that as one of the factors if you'd like. I've just listed nine others, so you better incorporate everything into your discussion of why you feel that kids are performing not as well as they used to. If universities, professors are really like kids are coming in here not knowing stuff they used to know before. Fine, we should do something about that. But it's not really cool to then be like, oh, well it must be because of this instructional practice, because that is bad math. That is bad data, that is bad stats. That is bad research. There are other factors. There are extraneous factors in that argument that are not being considered, and every good mathematician knows that is not how you make an argument. If we keep arguing about methods without addressing motivation, anxiety, relevance, mental health, meaning trust, we will keep coming up with the wrong solutions to the wrong problem. So if we are serious about helping kids do better in math, here's the part we can't skip. We don't need louder arguments about teaching methods. We need smarter responses to the reality that kids are living in. And that starts with a few simple, powerful shifts that I will just share right now. First, stop motivating with fear, start motivating with meaning. If consequences don't work anymore. Connection has to get to know your students. Get to know what matters to them. Start there. And this isn't about necessarily being like, oh, like my students, like hamburgers. Like I'll make problems about hamburgers. Like, that's great too. But research shows that simply connecting to a student, showing them that you're grateful that they're in the room like, they have something useful to contribute. That is a form of connection that matters. Next thing you can do, assume distraction and plan for it. Kids will be distracted. Engagement is not automatic. It has to be designed. How can you design for engagement? Number three, treat anxiety as a barrier, not a personality trait. Calm brains learn better. What can you do? Just you can, again, assume that most kids are feeling some level of anxiety. We just know that that's the reality. What can you do about it? Can you orchestrate a calm moment? Can you get some movement in? Can you have students walking around? Can you have stress balls or fidget toys for them to play with during the lesson? Number four, make progress visible. If grades don't feel rewarding anymore because they don't feel like they matter as much, growth has to feel rewarding. How can you show kids that they are gaining something from your classroom that they're learning and growing, not just in math class, but beyond. Number five, stop taking disengagement personally. I know it's so hard. This is one of the four agreements. If you've read that amazing book, don't take it personally. A lack of engagement is often a sign of unmet needs, not laziness. And just going through this list of reasons, hopefully you can see there are so many unmet needs that have nothing to do with. They have to do with the weight of the world, the distraction in their pockets, the things that kids today are dealing with that we didn't have to, like online bullying, like online everything. There's so much. So don't take disengagement personally. Just gently empathize and find a way to try to reel them back in. And also have some grace with yourself. Like we are disengaged. We have dopamine hits in our pockets that we're struggling to get away from. We are more anxious so. Just remember we're all humans. Like, yes, they might be like smaller humans, smaller versions of us, but we're all the same. We all have the same needs and wants and desires. So try to find that empathy and remember that you are doing your best. These are just factors and reasons that hopefully will help you realize that it's not you. You are not the problem. And it's not just the instructional method. There is so much going on and we have to stop having this one dimensional argument. None of this means instruction. Doesn't matter. It does, but instruction cannot do all the heavy lifting when kids are anxious, overwhelmed, distracted, and unconvinced that math matters to their lives. So maybe the most important question isn't what's the best way to teach math, but instead, are we teaching kids who live in a completely different world than the one our system was built for? And what do those kids need in order to be ready to learn anything at all in 2026?

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 30:43

Okay guys. Oh my God, I'm tired. I just tired myself out. I hope, I hope I fired you up instead of tired you out. Like I personally need a lot of water. I feel dehydrated right now. And I would love to know what you think, like I listed, I, I, I'm curious, like are you like, Nope, the only thing that matters is the way we teach math. Like, do you agree with any of these methods I listed? Do you wanna add more to the list? Because I am down, like, I think it's really important to list all of the factors affecting teachers and students right now that are leading to this like, ugh, feeling we all have around kids' relationships with math because we need to see the forest for the trees. We need to see the forest and we need to see the trees, actually. We need to see them all. So I would love to hear from you. You can text me by hitting the link in your show notes. DM me at the Math Guru on Instagram. Email me Vanessa at the math guru.ca. I would love to hear what you think, what other factors are influencing this whole vibe going on that kids are showing up to university less prepared than before. That kids, you know, don't know their facts as much as they used to before. That kids dislike math more than before. That I actually, by the way, do not feel is true. Like I feel like. Most of the population has always disliked math, so I actually don't think that's a vibe, like I think, I think there's more of a, the things that have been substantiated are like. A lot of university professors are like, kids are showing up not knowing what they used to know. And like high school teachers are like, kids are showing up to my class not knowing a lot of the stuff they used to know from elementary, like there's definitely something going on there. What do you think the reasons are? Do you agree with the ones I said? Do you think there are more add to my list? Let's get a list going. Let's make this a comprehensive like outlook into the state of things so we can stop focusing on this debate that has literally taken up way too much air time and I'm actually done talking about it. Okay. As usual, I do have to tell you that Math Therapy is hosted by me. Vanessa Vakharia, your lovely fired up Gemini host. It is produced by David Kochberg, who has not listened to this episode and is not here during the time of this recording, and I feel like he is going to pass out with how agro the energy of this episode is. But let's see. The music you're hearing is by our band, Goodnight Sunrise. We are currently releasing a song tomorrow, tomorrow, because this comes out on Thursday, February 12th, and a new song comes out tomorrow, Friday, February the 13th. And yeah, if you like this, share it. Honestly, that's the best thing you can do. Share it with a friend. Share it with a colleague. Oh my God. How was this episode? 38 minutes. David is going to kill me. Okay, bye.