Intro

Teresa Brown 0:03

I still remember placing so much pressure on myself that this is who I am. I am a math teacher. I am a curriculum specialist. But I had to catch myself. I was like, "No, that's not I am. That's what I do." Who I am as a teacher is a temporary identity, and realizing that in that moment I didn't know if I was gonna get it back. When I was in the hospital, I had no idea of whether I would be able to do my job again. But there's a sort of peace in that, because at the root of it, I am still me. It's about this identity shift, right? And it was in that moment of having my stroke and realizing that I didn't know if I would get my career back that I was able to come to this peace with this is where I am right now, and if I wanna be anywhere else, I just have to work for it.

Vanessa Vakharia 0:52

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Math Therapy. Today we are dissecting two of the most loaded words in math education: math person. Because when someone says, "I'm not a math person and we immediately fire back with, "Yes, you are", are we actually empowering them, or are we invalidating the very lived experience that brought them to that belief? Look I know this sounds backwards. We say it for, like, the best reason, right? Like, we want people to feel included and capable, but I've noticed that when I go full cheerleader and yell, "You're a math person" at someone, the response I get isn't always what I hoped for. Instead of my expected, "Wow, you're right. I now feel amazing. Thank you for believing in me", it's more like, "Whoa. Like, why the are you coming at me? You don't even know me." And I've had this growing feeling that my words are falling flat, or worse, they're contradicting the identity someone has built from real evidence. Well, today's guest, Teresa Brown, wrote the LinkedIn post that finally made me ask, could telling someone they're a math person actually be damaging? Teresa is a veteran STEM educator, doctoral candidate in curriculum and instruction, and a powerlifter That's right, a powerlifter, who makes a convincing case that math has more in common with lifting a giant barbell than we think. You don't need to love the gym to go lift weights, so maybe you don't have to be a math person to be good at it. The conversation also went somewhere I didn't expect. Last December, Teresa had a stroke that left her with acalculia, the inability to recall basic math facts. And what happened next forced her to confront everything she thought she knew about learning, and ask whether our need to identify as the expert is actually stopping us from being the learners we keep asking our students to be. I know you're already thinking of that teacher who tells every student they're a math person, or that friend who recoils every time you try to cheerlead them into a new identity. So send them this episode right now, and let's get to it.

What powerlifting has to do with learning math

Vanessa Vakharia 2:47

Theresa, welcome to the podcast.

Teresa Brown 2:49

Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Vanessa Vakharia 2:52

Well, it- we've started on a wild goose chase trying to find my lip gloss. You've actually been very supportive. I can see why you're a great teacher. You never made me feel like, there was something, like, wrong with me for coming to the episode unprepared. I appreciate it.

Teresa Brown 3:05

No, and I wouldn't even consider it unprepared. We're all fully human. So I mean, we're just living every day one moment at a time.

Vanessa Vakharia 3:11

Oh my God. Okay, what a beautiful fall equinox reminder. Now, usually I know a little more about the guests I'm interviewing, or I know them, But I, this is like a rare moment where I saw a LinkedIn post you wrote, and I read the LinkedIn post and was like, "I need to have a conversation with you, and we need to record it." So thank you for being down. And I feel like we should just start there. Like, what was this LinkedIn post about?

Teresa Brown 3:38

I gave a bit of a controversial Ignite presentation at the Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of Mathematics annual conference in 2026 that everybody thought was titled I Am Totally a Math Person. It was actually called I Am Totally Not a Math

Vanessa Vakharia 3:53

What? Wait, hold on. Why did everybody think it was titled that if it wasn't?

Teresa Brown 3:57

I might have misled them to think that with the first slide, which did in fact start by saying that I'm totally a math person. it was kind of a bait and switch once I got going

Vanessa Vakharia 4:06

and maybe like it's also a like we are seeing what we wanna see. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, they're just kind of like she must be saying she's totally a math person. Okay, so you're up there, you're doing your Ignite. It's called I'm Totally Not a Math Person, and we're starting with I totally am a math person, and what happens?

Teresa Brown 4:23

So I like to remind folks of the position that we put our students in every day. I, I launched this Ignite, which at this point has been built out to a keynote, to say that every person has what it takes to be a nationally ranked powerlifter. Whether that means bench pressing one and a half times your body weight, squatting two and a half times your body weight, or deadlifting three, three and a half times your body weight. You just have to be willing to put in the work, you have to be willing to sit with the discomfort, and you have to be willing to make it a priority above everything else. A- and as you might imagine, when I tell people

Vanessa Vakharia 4:54

Wait, I know. Hold on.

Teresa Brown 4:56

What?"

Vanessa Vakharia 4:56

I am, I am. I'm like, I wanna hear this through, but I am feeling some resistance. But go- okay, keep going 'cause I don't wanna interrupt you this early on.

Teresa Brown 5:06

In

Vanessa Vakharia 5:07

But I am like, I am like, is that true?

Teresa Brown 5:10

It, well, so here's the thing.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:12

Yeah, keep going

Teresa Brown 5:13

people, everybody starts sitting there and they're like, "Okay, wait. I weigh, and so if I were to deadlift 3.5 times my body weight," and I can see the gears turning, and right away I kind of start seeing some folks kind of pumping the brakes. Because it's very easy for us to look at something like becoming a nationally ranked strength athlete and feel like, well, that's not the thing for me. That is so hard and that is so lofty a goal. That's somebody else. Somebody else has what it takes from the earliest of their upbringing to be that elite in their field. And instead, I like to pause and I, I remind everyone that that is the same sense of disbelief that our students feel when they're in our math classes. And, and I strongly believe this is true because I have been there. I have worked for years and then failed to set a national deadlifting record in my weight class, and I have failed math tests. And I am confident from my own lived experiences that there's a lot of similarities between those two things

Vanessa Vakharia 6:13

okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. So first, let's pause because am I getting... You are a powerlifter, so you're coming at this, this isn't just like a hypothetical thing really. Like, as you said, you've lived both. You are a nationally ranked powerlifter. Is that what you said? I don't even know what this means. I'm just repeating your words. Okay, so that means, okay, I can, I can logic my way through what that means. But okay, you, you have ranked in some way nationally with regards to powerlifting. Okay, so this is really interesting because as soon as you started saying like, "Everybody w- has what it takes, la, la, la," I did the thing, and this is so funny 'cause I know exactly what you're saying. Math teachers will do this. They'll be like, "Well, anyone can do math," but then they have their own limitations with regards to, like, what they can do, right? And it's funny 'cause I'm in a band, so with me, I will often hear educators be like, "Well, no, I can't sing." Like, it'll be like the thing they say. Like, "Oh, I'm not a singer," like I don't... "i'm tone deaf," like, "I can't hold a tune," and I'm always like, well, just like you said, we all can. We're all... But I think, and tell me, I don't know. I feel like I'm getting my back up when you're saying that because I'm like, wait a second, we all have what it takes to be a powerlifter? Like, doesn't some of this have to do with, like, our physical bodies? Like, physical limitations? In my mind, I'm like, well, hold on. That's not the same as math because, like, anyone can do math because that's like a mental thing, but not anyone can be a powerlifter 'cause that's a physical thing, and what if you're born like, I don't know, the wrong si- I don't, I don't know what powerlifting entails, actually

Teresa Brown 7:39

Yeah. Okay, so a little bit of background. Powerlifting is a strength sport. A lot of people liken it to weightlifting. It has a similar attribute of lifting as much weight in a single repetition at each of three movements: a squat, a bench press, and a deadlift.

Vanessa Vakharia 7:53

Oh

Teresa Brown 7:54

putting a barbell on your back, squatting down so that your hip joint goes a little bit below the top of your knee, and standing back up, but you're doing that with the heaviest possible bar on your back it deals a lot with leverages. In fact, there's tons of math that we could play around with there. I, and I don't know that my idea and that analogy is so much to say that quite literally anyone could become a power, an, an, a nationally ranked powerlifter. Could you put in the work over years and decades to build the muscle fiber necessary to be able to do it? Sure, absolutely. M- my position is more in helping us to sit with the discomfort of, that our students are experiencing every day. it's so easy for us as teachers to say, I know how to do math. I know how to engage my students." And so we lose sense of what it is that our exper- our students are experiencing in their day-to-day of coming into our classes. And so what I want teachers to take away from that presentation that I give is not to say I can be a nationally ranked powerlifter, but that's a really lofty goal, and there shouldn't be anything stopping me from working toward it

Vanessa Vakharia 8:58

Tell me if I'm getting this right. You're basically saying to the teacher in the room or whoever is listening, you're like, "Yes, maybe you can't powerlift now," but if I were to say to you, "Well, everyone can be a powerlifter," that wouldn't make you feel any better about the fact that you can't currently powerlift because it doesn't change the fact that you have not t- up to this point been powerlifting, and now you are currently not as capable as me of powerlifting. Am I right? Like, just like we're saying, it's like if a student's like, "Well, I don't feel like a math person," us being like, "You are a math person, you can do it," is not making them feel any better about the fact that they currently do not feel that way.

Teresa Brown 9:34

Right. And in essence, that was what my LinkedIn post that we had connected over was, getting to, is this idea that students who are coming to us with these apprehensions, with their sense of disbelief, and quite literally with lived experiences that have shown them that they weren't previously successful in math classes for a myriad of reasons, we tell them, "You are a math person," what we're saying in our language is a conflict of their identity. It's not to say that they aren't capable of it. It's not to say they couldn't work toward it, and it's certainly not to say that we don't think that they are capable, because we believe that they are capable. But the words that we are saying and the intent behind them do not actually match what is the outcome of telling students that statement.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:20

Obviously we're not malintentioned, right? We're doing it because we want them to feel included. We wanna be like, "Yes, you can." We wanna be the cheerleader. But in a sense, what you're saying is, when we say those words, we're almost invalidating their lived experience so often, and I don't think many of us think of it that way. And I'm curious,

Why telling someone they’re a math person can backfire

Vanessa Vakharia 10:39

let's talk through a little more why saying, "You're a math person," or, or even, "Everybody's a math person," any of those statements, in what ways that might actually be damaging. I'm pretty big on what you just said, which was this idea of evidence, right? Like, you're saying their evidence to this point in time has shown them that the statement you are yelling at them is not true. I almost feel it's a bit gaslighty

Teresa Brown 11:08

Yeah, and, and actually that's a, a term that I put directly into my presentation. so, as several of my friends work in the social work field, as you might imagine, education and social work are quite adjacent. So we commonly utilize a structure in helping people work through previous experiences called cognitive behavioral therapy. And, cognitive behavioral therapy, right, is not about taking a traumatic incident or a, a triggering situation and saying, "Oh, no, no, no. Oh, you're in a math class? No, you can do math. You will be successful. You are a math person," right? In any given circumstance, we would apply CBT by utilizing a neutral thought to slowly retrain the brain, to respond differently in the moment. And so I, I do think about that analogy quite commonly in the sense that it's essential that we help integrate our teaching practices to be more reflective of what we know to be true and how students learn, not just academically, but socially and emotionally as well.

Vanessa Vakharia 12:05

Do you, can you give us an example? It's funny, like CBT is all of Math Therapy, so that is my framework for everything I do because exactly what you said, I feel like I, I talk often about the term believe, behave, become, which, like, is from Joe Dispenza's work, and how he talks about how the belief, like just yelling a belief at someone or being like, "I want you to believe this thing," doesn't make it true, right? Like, something that makes a belief true is behavior. It's something physical. It's something material. It's having evidence, right? Even if we think about faith and spirituality, when people have faith, it's usually because they have... I mean, maybe this is a whole other thing. I mean, there, there's the concept of blind faith, yes, but faith is strengthened when we, like, have an apparition or we feel like we've been spoken to by the creator or, like, we see a sign, right? Like, we like to look for actual evidence that this belief is true.

Why learning something new is hard

Vanessa Vakharia 12:58

So back to what you were saying, this idea of being like, well, you're a math person, without anything substantial behind it, doesn't really do anything. It kind of feels hollow. So I'm curious if you can, help us with that cognitive behavioral therapy. What would it look like to pick a neutral thought in this circumstance?

Teresa Brown 13:14

Oh, that is such a great question, and I don't think I've ever been asked anything like

Vanessa Vakharia 13:17

Ooh. Let's come up with it together 'cause I actually don't know the answer

Teresa Brown 13:20

So, I mean, part of it, I think, is situational, right? So I think the first thing we need to do is establish a context

Vanessa Vakharia 13:25

Yes

Teresa Brown 13:26

we would be faced with this decision to make and how we can help either from I, the teacher, supporting my students in retraining their experience, or I, the mathematics learner. So which, which angle do we wanna dive into, I the learner or I, the teacher?

Vanessa Vakharia 13:40

Let's do I, the learner, because I actually feel like we focus a lot on educators helping their students, but I know we have so many listeners who then themselves feel like, "I'm not a math person." Right? Like, do you know what I mean? Let's do, let's do I, the learner. So like, I, the learner, I come in, I don't think I'm a math person. I'm teaching grade five math. I'm doing it every day, but I still don't feel like a math person. I still feel, like, so nervous every time I get in front of the classroom. I feel like it's just a fluke that I'm getting through this, and like, I don't know what the fuck's going on.

Teresa Brown 14:09

So I think my first step is to give myself some sort of mantra. In my case, I always remind myself that everything new is hard at first.

Vanessa Vakharia 14:15

Uah

Teresa Brown 14:16

So I, I, actually I had that plastered up on my classroom, and I haven't been in my own classroom now for five years, and I recently went back and I saw that it is still there. The teacher in the room has left it, so I'm thrilled. But I think a step back and saying, "What is something else that I'm learning to do in this moment?" So for me personally, I actually have it right next to me. I recently just got into doodling. Oh i've alwa- I- not at all ironically, you know, I'm not a math person. I've always said I'm not an artsy person either. and I recently have found that as a part of my recovery process So for anyone listening to this for the first time who's never met me before, I did have a stroke back in December of 2025, and it has reframed, much of my identity, much of my cognitive learning processes, and I've had to take a pause on my academic studies and continuing my dissertation. And instead, I've been finding new ways to kind of train my brain, and one of those for me has been doodling. And so getting back to where I was heading with this is that I can even snag one

Vanessa Vakharia 15:13

We're gonna go back to that though. I do wanna talk about it, but I want, I don't wanna interrupt mid-sentence because knowing us, we're then gonna go on a tangent and never come back. So show us some doodles and tell us what's up. Also, remember it's a podcast, so you have to describe what you're holding up to the screen.

Teresa Brown 15:27

So, and I can't take credit for these as being original designs. I've been taking inspiration from, like, tutorials and things online. So I've got a style that I would consider kind of like hand sketch clip art-y.

Vanessa Vakharia 15:38

I was gonna say, I was gonna say it looks like Canva clip art.

Teresa Brown 15:41

Yeah. Yeah,

Vanessa Vakharia 15:42

That's cute. Okay, so what we're looking at is, like, an envelope with a little heart, like a love note. We've got a bumblebee. We've got a notepad. We've got some daisies, and we've got another little flower with some buds. The- you could be a tattoo artist. These are actually very cute. Oh! Oh my God. Okay, now...

Teresa Brown 15:56

I do love tattoos. So,

Vanessa Vakharia 15:58

now, yes, go on

Teresa Brown 15:59

so this is something that's brand new for me. And so coming into something

Vanessa Vakharia 16:04

I love this

Teresa Brown 16:05

it's so easy for me to say, "Why would I expect myself to be good at this?" I've never taken an art class in my life. I don't know any of the mediums. I don't know the textures that I'm working with with the papers. I have no idea what it has to do with the specific markers that I'm using. So why would I expect myself to be an expert at something that I've never taken the time to be formally trained in? And so if I take that attitude of, almost like radical acceptance into this newness of this is where I am in this moment, why couldn't or shouldn't I translate that into my academic work? Why would I expect myself to be an expert math teacher if I've never had the opportunity to develop my pedagogical content knowledge? Why would I expect myself to be a master at implementing low-floor, high-ceiling tasks, or at curiosity-building tasks if I've never had the opportunity to learn from experts, to learn from them as a learner myself, as a math student?

Vanessa Vakharia 16:59

Okay, there's so many thoughts going around my head. First of all, I think it is so TANC and synchronistic that you just pulled out a sketchbook because I started The Artist's Way a few months ago, and my- I've been like, "I need to get more into, like, a visual creative medium," 'cause it's something I used to love. And I'm looking over my shoulder, like, at what I bought myself a month ago, which was, like, a set of watercolors and watercolor paper. And I still have not dipped a brush in water. Like, so you- you're moti- This is like, I'm glad you're here reminding me because I actually think tapping into our creativity of learning something new is exactly that. It's beginner's mind. Raj Sa- Shah talks about this all the time, of like, getting back into the seat of being a learner at something new and how that can help you relate to how your students feel about math. So I love all of this, but it's making me think. Like,

Why teachers don’t need to know everything

Vanessa Vakharia 17:45

I love what you just said there. It's like, why would I expect myself to be an expert? Like, I just started this thing. And I wonder if there's, like this misconception that, like, well, I went to teachers college, and I'm an adult, so I should be able to do grade five math. Like, we- remember that show, like, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Like, I guess a teacher isn't thinking, "I've received no training." Like, in their minds, they're like, "Well, I'm a grown-up. I should be able to do this thing that little kids are doing." I don't know. What do you think?

Teresa Brown 18:14

my brain's kind of going right to the difference between content knowledge and co- and pedagogical

Vanessa Vakharia 18:18

Yeah. Okay

Teresa Brown 18:19

right? We do have a distinct distance or difference between being able to solve a problem and get the answer versus richly understanding the concept, how it relates to, similar or different strategies, how it can be modeled in different ways, and how it progresses along a continuum of reasoning as opposed to just approaching a problem procedurally or algorithmically

Vanessa Vakharia 18:41

I actually think you just, I just had such an aha moment thanks to you. I think that's exactly it. I think I want teachers listening to know that there is that difference, and the truth is that most of us adults in the field right now really never did get the training that you're talking about. We, we did not learn math in the way that we are expected to teach our students. We learned it procedurally or algorithmically. We did not learn the deep thinking. So, we probably had a PD here or there with it. We certainly did not learn it in teacher's college, right? So it's like, actually, you have probably not received the training, and I, I, but I, I actually think that's really important for everyone to hear, is that just because you are a teacher and you're a grown-up, you know what I mean? Like, you're an adult and you're teaching, like, a grade five math, there's a very distinct difference between, like, knowing how to add and knowing how to teach adding in this deep layer-y, onion-y way. And like, you have likely not received the training, so why the fuck should you be good at it? You shouldn't. You should be treating it how Theresa is treating her doodling. And remember what the first thing you said was? You're like, "Oh, I can't take credit. I'm doing tutorials. I'm copying other people's designs." Fuck yes, right? That's how we can be approaching math. Like, you don't have to invent the wheel. You don't need to be good at it at first. You just need to start messing around, talking to other... Right? Like, what do you think? Are we working on a theory here? I feel like we're building something.

Teresa Brown 20:05

No, wholeheartedly. I- in fact, it's something that I've been developing a, a, a sort of side interest or passion in for some time, is this idea of teacher humility, um, where because our field and our profession feels so exposed, we feel as though everything that we're doing is being seen by our community, by our students. We really have a hard time giving ourselves permission to say, "I don't know," because we associate our identity as a teacher to say, "Well, I am a teacher. Therefore if there's something that I need to develop, it means that I have, like, a broken or a, a- or an issue with my identity," when really we know that isn't the truth. A- and a second thing that I kind of think about is how that changes over time. I- in my role, I get to work with teachers of all experience levels. Uh, I get to work with folks who are in their last years right before retirement, people who have been teaching for 15 years and transitioning to math maybe for the first time, or even new graduates who are in their very first math classroom. And amongst all these experience levels, I can see a distinct correlation. Of course, we know that, the aggregate of anecdote is not data. So just because I have a, a plethora of experiences with my own teaching staff, that does not necessarily translate to a legitimate statistical analysis. However, see that

Vanessa Vakharia 21:21

That's good

Teresa Brown 21:21

my teachers who are newly out of college have no problem stepping back and saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I did not learn insert topic in undergrad." And we all s- tend to do that in retrospect. We can look back and while we did learn a lot, we have no problem looking back to say, "Ah, but in my insert topic methods course, in my math methods, in my science methods, I didn't learn structured literacy," if I'm teaching reading. "I didn't learn progressions of mathematical reasoning. I didn't learn specific modeling strategies." And it's interesting that I hear that so much from my, my new grads when they will say things like, "Oh, my math topics courses in undergrad were basically algebra one. I never had somebody show me or work with me to understand that an area model and a partial products notation and a standard algorithm are really showing the same mathematical concepts of decomposition, multiplying, and then putting the together." But as we get older, because of the, the external judgment, the internal pressure on ourselves, it gets harder to look at ourselves as a very highly accomplished professional in our field and say, I still have something to learn." Because that just

Vanessa Vakharia 22:33

Oh, yeah.

Teresa Brown 22:34

right? It

Vanessa Vakharia 22:34

Oh my God.

Teresa Brown 22:36

your soul

Vanessa Vakharia 22:36

Yeah. You're so right. I'm even thinking about this, like, as a musician. I'm thinking about this in, like, all walks of my life. You're right. I feel like we think there's, like, this, like, grace period or this honeymoon period where you're allowed to be, like, the new teacher or the new band member or the new ultimate Frisbee player. Like, you're allowed, and you're, during that period, whatever, I feel like everyone's idea of when that period is is different, but whatever that period is, that's when you're allowed to ask questions and say, "I don't know." It's like being a new employee when you're training, right? Like, during wh- while you're training, you're allowed to ask questions, but once you're, like, fully on the job, it's like you're expected to know everything, and I think you're so right. I think that's probably one of the biggest, barriers to teachers embodying beginner's mind every day, if you ask a teacher, they would say a student is never too experienced to have a question, right? Like, they're never supposed to know it all. They're never, like, you know, we would never expect that of anyone. But for ourselves, I think we do have that bar of, like, once X amount of time is over, then fuck, we better know every single thing, and you're right. How do we break out of that? Like, let's do, how do we do it right now? Like, how do we let go of that? Because that is a barrier to learning anything new.

Teresa Brown 23:50

I, I wish, I wish that I knew. I, I, I find that when I work with teachers in, like, professional development settings, right, it makes it a little bit easier to have those little micro moments of vulnerability. So I strongly believe in the power of facilitating, like, professional learning circles, of having some type of consciously self-reflective, learning experience. So whether it's something like recording our lessons or using an AI instructional coaching tool, having something that allows us to feel vulnerability with ourselves, but really that's where it starts is self-awareness. And that is truly, like, as much as I love math teaching, I really have dove into my academic work and my professional work cente- centered around developing cultures for learning. So developing a classroom culture where students feel safe or they feel accepted, where they're willing to take risks because risk-taking is a key component to academic learning. And I recognize that that idea of emotional intelligence is important to foster in our classrooms, but it's also important for us as teachers. I know that it's a lot easier to step back and be introspective or be reflective upon myself and my abilities when I can be aware of my strong suits and recognize that I'm not gonna judge myself and I'm not worth less in any aspect just because I'm actively trying to develop some part of me to be better.

Vanessa Vakharia 25:11

Well, yeah, and it's, like, almost the opposite, right? Like, how could that not be such a noble, incredible thing to do for somebody to be like, "Oh, like, I could work on this, and I'm going to," as opposed to being like, "I am going to, to make sure I do not see any of the areas that I have to work on because I don't wanna feel a sense of la-" Right? Like, it's like, so

Making it okay to say “I don’t know”

Vanessa Vakharia 25:30

y- I mean, you were talking about creating cultures of belonging in the classroom and risk-taking, and I think it's pr- it's the exact same, right? Like, I think what we are trying to do with our students is often what leaders wanna do with teachers. Is there anything that you've come across that really works in terms of creating an atmosphere where it's okay for somebody in the class, whether it's an adult or a young person, to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I actually don't know. I don't get it"?

Teresa Brown 25:53

I think it's just a matter of, of modeling it and help

Vanessa Vakharia 25:55

Yeah

Teresa Brown 25:56

that they are a part of it, too. I, I actually just had a teacher tell me, a, a couple of days ago, I was working in a, PLC that we were facilitating at our, at, at our central office, while we were doing a sort of thinking task where the I ask the teachers to tell me, "Well, how did you, how did you add that, and how did you subtract that?" One of the teachers gave a, a really out-of-the-box strategy that she had just kinda said, "Oh, I don't know. The numbers just seemed to say that this was the right way to solve this problem." And another teacher responded from across the room, "I never would've seen it that way. My brain just went right to the standard algorithm, and that's what I did." And the other teacher had remarked that, "I have to be honest, I never did until I was working with Theresa and I started to feel comfortable playing with numbers." And it was a cool little compliment, but for me, it just, the testament was that I, I had tried to create a circumstance where my teachers felt like they too could be vulnerable learners. But it's hard, right? Like, we know it takes ongoing conversation. It takes, sustained vulnerability on the part of everyone, and I strongly believe in modeling that as an instructional leader myself. I, I always tell teachers one of the first things they learn about me, of course, is that I didn't wanna be a math teacher in the first place. I made it there by accident, my whole area of expertise in curriculum and instruction blossomed from one of my students basically calling out my poor instruction. I'm just gonna put That's the best way that I

Vanessa Vakharia 27:11

What did they say?

Teresa Brown 27:13

So it, it wasn't anything direct, but it was my second year of teaching. I was teaching seventh grade proportions, and I still remember I could beat my students in experience. I knew all of the rules, right? I had the classroom engagement. Like, we were ready to go. They would fill in the blanks when I would do, like, a choral response. We would have chants to remember things. And so I went through a proportion. My students knew to draw the X, cross-multiply, divide both sides, and you're left with the, the missing component. And one of the students looks at me, he's like, "Mrs. Brown"

Vanessa Vakharia 27:43

Oh my God

Teresa Brown 27:44

That seems like a lot of work when can't I just multiply, whatever the circumstance was?

Vanessa Vakharia 27:49

All right. Yeah, yeah

Teresa Brown 27:50

factor of two and a half. He's like, "Well, couldn't I just multiply the denominators by two and a half since that was the relationship at the top?" And remember looking at him and thinking I have no idea Genuinely, I didn't know, right? I didn't wanna be a math teacher, I developed my competency in math through rote memorization, and it served me well, right? I had no problem passing my practice certification exams, anything like that. But knowing content and facilitating meaningful discourse around develop mathematical reasoning are two vastly

Vanessa Vakharia 28:23

Two different things, yeah

Teresa Brown 28:25

is So coming back to where this started, is that in that moment, actually told him, "I don't know. I have no idea. Do me a favor. Solve every problem like that, and then we're gonna compare." So here I am. I've got two examples at the board. One is cross multiplication, and the other was showing my students either multiplication, if he could see the relationship between the two equivalent ratios, or working backwards through division and then multiplying. And I remember projecting them at the board, and we looked at it, and I stood side by side with my kids, and I was like, "All right, guys. What's the same here, and what's different?" And I remember I was just looking back and forth trying to figure it out. And of course, years later, I came across the same but different instructional routine, and that was when I started to have the realization of, huh, so it was actually that, that humility and vulnerability with my students that helped me to become more proficient as a math teacher, and it helped me to see the significance of it.

Vanessa Vakharia 29:17

Well, and you know, it's funny 'cause it's also that you took the time to be like, "Okay, you do this, and then we'll look together." Whereas I imagine many of us would be like, "Fuck, I don't, I don't know. Like, we need to get through this lesson. We just need to move on. Just do it this way." And I just wanna say to anyone listening, like, I get why you're doing that. Like, we get it, right? Like, I assume, I imagine that many of the folks listening are like, I'm down to model mistakes. Like, I don't have an ego. Like, I'm okay with it." But there is this whole other part of, like, I think this comes from our own schooling of, like, getting in trouble when you have the wrong answer, right? And feeling like you're supposed to know because, you know, everyone else knows it. So, like, I just wanna give us grace to be like, those are very real feelings, and we need to unlearn that response in order to now adopt the response that you're very generously sharing with us. But it's really hard to adopt a new response when you're still hanging on to the learned response you have from your own education. So, like, we're trying to do two things here. And you

Teresa’s stroke and losing her math abilities

Vanessa Vakharia 30:13

know, you said something a bit earlier that has really kind of stuck with me. You said something, I can't remember exactly what it was, but you talked about, teachers having an identity of being a teacher and how that might conflict with the reality of not knowing something.

Teresa Brown 30:28

Yeah

Vanessa Vakharia 30:29

I thought that was really, really powerful because you were like, you know, "Teachers identify, with being like, 'I'm a teacher, and if I'm a teacher, I'm supposed to teach.'" Like, it's almost like we've taken the learn out of the teacher, right? A teacher is supposed to teach. They can't possibly be supposed to also learn, right? And I wonder how we reshape that identity, and I'm wondering Sorry, that's a very long-winded way of saying I'm wondering if you can talk us through how your identity around being a math learner and teacher changed after your stroke, because you had a lot of rebuilding to do, I imagine.

Teresa Brown 30:59

Absolutely. A- and I think that I can kind of answer almost both of those questions in tandem. The,

Vanessa Vakharia 31:04

Love that.

Teresa Brown 31:05

As well as my personal lived experience, because they kind of hinge on an important lesson that I learned in a conversation with one of my good friends, Evelyn. she had shared this idea of identity and how often we associate our identity as what we do. Think about it, like, even when you were thinking about how to introduce me, the conversation became, "Well, what are you degree credentialed in? What is your past experience in, in your line of work, and what do you do now?" All of those things hinge upon what I do. I am a teacher. I am a curriculum specialist. I am a powerlifter. I am a strongman athlete. Those things are all fleeting, and they are all temporary. There's no given that when I wake up tomorrow, I will be in my position as a curriculum specialist. There, when I was in the classroom, it was never an assumption that I would wake up the next morning and have the capacity to teach, that never became more apparent than when I suffered a stroke back in December of 2025. Because when they administered the, essentially a cognitive reasoning test with a speech therapist, it was very apparent that I was struggling with short-term memory. So both in the sense of basic recall, they would say, you know, "I want you to remember three words," and it would be something like, I don't know, house, monkey, and mailbox. And we would just go into conversation, talk about some other things, and she would say, "Hey, do you remember those three things from the beginning?" No, I did not. Moving forward into this assessment, whenever we got to our first math problem, it was a word problem. I don't remember the context about it other than it was something like you were buying an item and you had this much money, how much was left over? It was a very small problem, and by the end of the question, I couldn't remember what was being asked, and when given the numbers, could not solve the problems anymore. I had the realization that I had acalculia. my ability to recall basic multiplication facts was literally gone. I,

Vanessa Vakharia 33:00

Wait, is that, is that the definition? What did you say it was called? Acalculia? What is that?

Teresa Brown 33:05

so it is a, and I'm gonna give a terrible clinical definition, so

Vanessa Vakharia 33:09

Okay.

Teresa Brown 33:09

along the lines someone's gonna hear this and say, "Well, not quite."

Vanessa Vakharia 33:12

No, that's

Teresa Brown 33:13

it's essentially your ability to recall basic math facts and apply them in a problem-solving context. So multi-digit operations, and, and word problems as

Vanessa Vakharia 33:23

Okay

Teresa Brown 33:24

So for me, I kind of had a twofold issue. Well, threefold. Short-term memory, problem-solving, and then rote recall of facts. To this day, I still cannot just tell you my multiplication facts that I had memorized, aside from, what I now know to be foundational fact relationships, so doubles, squares, 10s, 5s, and then working relationally from those. I no longer can just pull them from memory. I have to work to it in about five or six seconds

Vanessa Vakharia 33:50

Okay, one second. You're saying so many really important things, and I wanna br- I wanna break them down a bit because I feel like there's a lot of depth to them. What you just said right there, you said you cannot recall basic facts from memory, but then what did you just say after? Aside from foundational working... w-

Teresa Brown 34:08

right? And, and

Vanessa Vakharia 34:09

what's the difference there? What does that mean?

Teresa Brown 34:11

So, that's pulling from the work of Jennifer Bay-Williams and, apologies that I can't recall h- the other person who I know is associated with the texts and the books.

Vanessa Vakharia 34:21

No worries

Teresa Brown 34:21

but basically this idea that when we're solving multiplication facts, if we can master foundational facts, we can use those relationally to identify others. So for example, I know 5 times 5 is 25, so if I need to multiply 5 times 6, I really just have one more 5, so therefore it's 30. So I use that relational idea when I'm solving any of my facts that I'm now working with in 6s, 7s, 8s. I've started to get my 3s back, though. We can all celebrate on that one.

Vanessa Vakharia 34:49

Yay. So wait, is a, is a foundational fact any fact, or are there certain ones that are called foundational facts? Or are you just saying a foundational fact is, like, a fact that you build a foundation on? So right now it's fives because we're now building around the fact that you know your fives, or is there, like, are there certain facts that are called foundational facts?

Teresa Brown 35:07

I- in my language, I have mine that are foundational,

Vanessa Vakharia 35:09

Oh

Teresa Brown 35:10

the literature, there are clearly identified foundational facts.

Vanessa Vakharia 35:13

Oh.

Teresa Brown 35:14

and, and I, I know somebody

Vanessa Vakharia 35:16

We'll look it up.

Teresa Brown 35:16

the

Vanessa Vakharia 35:17

Dave,

Teresa Brown 35:17

if

Vanessa Vakharia 35:18

go look it up. Producer.

Teresa Brown 35:20

it should be one to

Vanessa Vakharia 35:22

Five and 10

Teresa Brown 35:23

I think it's one, two, and 10 because five is half of

Vanessa Vakharia 35:26

As half of 10. Okay, cool. So we're gonna fact-check this. You're saying you knew some foundational facts, and then you would build on those. Like your example with you knew five times five was twenty-five, so five times six would just be an additional five, and you would add on to there. But after your stroke, you lost access to the memorization of the entire, all of the facts.

Teresa Brown 35:47

Now, I did still retain my doubles. So doubles for me are very visual and tens are a place value shift. So I was able to effectively operationalize everything from there. So that was a nice little saving grace. but again, it was all because I was highly visual. I- if I'm being totally transparent with you, when I was teaching seventh grade math, I had developed the pedagogical content knowledge to think in terms of visualizing those skills, right, that I was teaching to my students. I had not developed quite a wide arsenal of understanding as I have now as a curriculum specialist since I work with grades K to 12. So I am curious to know how I would've been impacted had this happened while I was still in the classroom, because I don't know that I would've been equipped with the tools to regain my multiplication fluency as I have

Relearning math after a stroke

Vanessa Vakharia 36:35

Oh my God, this is so crazy. So okay, so when's this happen? I'm curious, I'm like, I'm tr- like, where did we start this? We were talking about identity. So I'm curious, like, what were you like, like, I mean, it's actually kinda interesting because you didn't identify as a math person in the first place, so,

Teresa Brown 36:50

Yep,

Vanessa Vakharia 36:50

so what happened?

Teresa Brown 36:51

Especially not now. Well, so I sat in occupational therapy. I still remember this day like it was yesterday because I had a worksheet that I was trying to solve, a long division problem with decimals, and I just started sobbing. I was alone at this table. I still remember seeing the snow falling outside because it was right before Christmas.

Vanessa Vakharia 37:08

Oh my God

Teresa Brown 37:08

one of the occupational therapists, so sweet, came over and was like, "Honey, it's okay. Like, you can just use a calculator if you need to in life." And, like, I just

Vanessa Vakharia 37:16

True

Teresa Brown 37:17

like You don't understand what I do for a living! I was like, "I am a math teacher educator." And it was in that moment that it kind of spurred this realization that, well, why would I try to regain my understanding and work through this in any way other than the way that I support my students and the way that I support my teachers in supporting their students?

Vanessa Vakharia 37:37

Which means what?

Teresa Brown 37:39

Well, it became a part of my, speech therapy sessions where we would sit down and work on solving multiplication problems by progressing through a continuum of abstraction from concrete to pictorial representative into abstract, and then eventually progressing through different, strategies as well. And it was a long process and a sticky process. But this ultimately brings us back to kind of where this story started, was this idea of identity lesson learned. I still remember placing so much pressure on myself that this is, this is, this is who I am. I am a math teacher. I am a curriculum specialist. But I had to catch myself. I was like, "No, that's not I am. That's what I do." I am as a person, I, I am a service-oriented person. I love supporting others. Um, I, I am a wife. I am a sister. I am an aunt. I am an avid dog lover. I am someone who loves being outside in the outdoors and feeling my, my toes dig into the soft grass on a warm summer day and feeling grounded to nature. Those things are who I am in all situations, all circumstances. Who I am as a teacher is a temporary identity, and realizing that in that moment I didn't know if I was gonna get it back. Truly, when I was in the hospital, I had no idea of whether I would be able to do my job again. I didn't know if I would ever be able to finish my research, if I'd be able to write up my findings, or if the data that I collected would just become lost to the world. And but there's a sort of peace in that, right? Because the pressure doesn't to me mean that I have to accomplish any of those things. It's, it's a matter of working toward it, and I get to. Because at the root of it, I am still me. I am still the type of person that I believe in being at least somewhat vulnerable. I, I'm the type of person that I believe in owning my mistakes and my shortcomings and continuously working through them. And so I hope that that's making sense outside of my own head, but it's, it's about this identity shift, right? And it was in that moment of having my stroke and realizing that I didn't know if I would get my career back that I was able to come to this peace with this is where I am right now, and if I wanna be anywhere else, I just have to work for it.

Vanessa Vakharia 39:53

Yeah. Wow, that's so powerful.

Is “teacher” who you are or what you do?

Vanessa Vakharia 39:57

This identity of, "I am a teacher," perhaps the whole secret is that w- we separate the word teacher from the career of being a teacher, right? Because, like, I'm thinking about you and being like, you know, I love acts of service and I love this and that, and it's like you are... Like, a core part of your identity is serving others and learning and imparting wisdom, and, like, you are through and through a teacher whether or not you are working in the classroom. And if we look at it like that way, and I'm thinking for, like, those listening, it's like, you know how they say, like, whatever that Instagram meme is, that it's like teach- being a teacher is a calling, not a profession? Like, have you seen that sticker? Right, right? Like, so many of us are teachers because we genuinely love to help others, and, like, teachers are healers, and we like all this. So it's like if we take out the, like, fear around being like, "But if I'm a teacher at the front of the room getting paid, I need to know the answer," to, "But what do teachers do?" Great teachers learn. Great teachers admit they don't know. Then it's almost like there is no identity sacrifice to admit you don't know. I want everyone listening to actually think, I want you guys to text us. Okay? Text the podcast. There's a link in your show notes. I wanna know what your, your id- like, what your definition of being a teacher means. What does it mean to be a teacher? What characteristics go along with that? What words would you use to describe it? What physical, mental, emotional, spiritual attributes, like anything, like anything you can send us, 'cause I kind of, this is such a fascinating question because actually, oh my God, Theresa, are you ready for me to full circle this in, like, the best... Okay, are you ready?

Teresa Brown 41:39

it back

Vanessa Vakharia 41:39

Okay, because I, I'm like, we're way... Like, I mean, I, I just wanna talk to you for another hour, but I do have to somehow close this, and I still have 40 things to ask, but watch this move I'm gonna do.

Teresa Brown 41:48

I'm so ready.

You don’t have to love math to do it

Vanessa Vakharia 41:49

Okay, so I'm like, I want everyone to text us about what it means to be a teacher because this almost circles us back to how we started, which was the question: What does it even mean to be a math person, right? Like,

Teresa Brown 42:01

there it is.

Vanessa Vakharia 42:02

did you like it?

Teresa Brown 42:03

I love it I always think about, 'cause, like, this is something that I've sat with s- for so many hours and in so many informal and formal conversational spaces, that our definition of what it means to be a math person within the math education space, or within just education in general, often feels so different from the way society interprets Like, we often say in math ed, and I hear people say it all the time, that there's no other field that people have no problem saying, "I'm not a person." Like, we always say, "Nobody says I'm not a reader." actually disagree. I hear people say all the,

Vanessa Vakharia 42:35

That's not true.

Teresa Brown 42:36

the

Vanessa Vakharia 42:37

All

Teresa Brown 42:37

to read

Vanessa Vakharia 42:38

the time

Teresa Brown 42:38

people say, "I'm not an artsy person." And then of course my claim to fame is people always say, "I'm not a gym person." But you don't have to be a gym person to lift weights, and you don't have to be a math person to math.

Vanessa Vakharia 42:50

Okay, so I wanna r- I wanna close on this, because it's so funny. I was like, that's, that's actually what I wanted to talk to you about, but our conversation went in so many directions, but it all ties together because it is this idea of identity, actually. I actually think that's what we're kinda hitting on, and I actually think by yelling you're a math person, you're disrespecting somebody's identity that they've created and honed, right? You're kind of trying to put something else on them, and it's funny, like, I was actually on the Debate Math Podcast debating this exact thing with Chris Noe. Chris Luzniak's and Rob Bayer's Debate Math Podcast, talking about this, and I argued for the fact that we should stop using the term math person. I was like, "I'm over it. I'm gonna stop saying it." It's, I actually think it's really the same thing as you. I think it's really invalidating. Okay, by the way, though, if you're listening and you're telling people you're a math person, like, go ahead. I don't think you're a bad person or anything. It's just a personal stance I'm taking. Okay, but back to what you were saying, this i- you, you just said you don't have to be a math person to do math. You also said, I think in la- that LinkedIn post, you were like, "It doesn't need to be fun, and it doesn't need to be easy. It can be difficult, and you can still do it." Can you, can you give us a little bit of that? Because I actually think we've gotten really, like, caught up in math ed of being like, "We have to make it fun for everyone, and the joy, and everyone needs to..." Like, it needs to be, like, you know, like, everyone needs to feel so good. As a powerlifter, sorry, this is a term I'm now just using. I j- I am just learning what it is. Like, you are making me think. It's not like I go to the gym and I'm like, "This is gonna be really fun." I do not think that, but I do it anyways, and I am proud of myself after. It must be the same thing, no?

Teresa Brown 44:25

I would think it is pretty much the same. and so let's go back to that first part of your

Vanessa Vakharia 44:29

Okay, yeah

Teresa Brown 44:31

kind of unpacking this idea that you don't have to be a, a math person to math. So when I think about this idea of doing math while not identifying as a math person, the first thing that kind of comes to mind is this idea that we have, like you said, so many people, and, and I appreciate it, who are so entranced by the beauty of mathematics. love that for them,

Vanessa Vakharia 44:52

Great

Teresa Brown 44:52

and I always love to wonder, do you feel that same way about my love of picking up a heavy barbell that takes so much strain on my body that I quite literally fry my nervous system? Or

Vanessa Vakharia 45:03

Damn, what?

Teresa Brown 45:04

Feel... Oh, I love it. do you feel the peace and grounded-ness of the earth whenever you are walking barefoot and meditating, listening only to the sounds of the cicadas and the birds and the sway of the corn in the cornfield next to you? Right? Across every discipline, we have folks who are so deeply passionate about their field that all they want and long for is for everyone to see and understand the significance of that field, right? If I'm talking about historians who are exploring the, similarities and differences between how history once was and to the characteristics of today, if I'm looking at someone who's studying, like, the semantics of the English language or, somebody who's a linguist who understands, like, the shifting in terminology that we use.

Vanessa Vakharia 45:47

Or like those history buffs. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, those history buffs that are like, "The Civil War," and I'm always like, "Ugh, I don't care." Like, you know what I mean?

Teresa Brown 45:55

and there is so much beauty and validity to all of those

Vanessa Vakharia 45:58

Sure, yeah

Teresa Brown 45:59

you imagine a world where you feel personally responsible for having such a liberal perspective on the world, like, like a, like a liberal, education in terms of curriculum development, right? You wanna see and understand so much that you feel pressured to be a master in all of it.

Vanessa Vakharia 46:14

No, my god. And also be- I'm exhausted. No, I'm tired. I honestly need a nap. I don't like it. You're right

Teresa Brown 46:20

the way that I see some folks who just truly look at the world around them, and they're intrigued by, by a math problem, and they just start to wonder, like, "Oh, wait." understanding some sort of pattern. That joy and love is the same joy and love I feel when I'm pushing myself through a workout. My heart rate is through the roof. I am dripping in sweat, and I don't know if I can do one more rep. I think it's okay for math to feel that way because where math might be somebody's thing where they just don't love it, something else out there that they are equally or perhaps even more so in love with, that they're able to, um, envelop in all parts of their lives.

Vanessa Vakharia 46:54

I completely am with you. I think I would put in, not a caveat, but, like, an important piece, which is, like, I do feel that, w- there's power in saying not everyone needs to love it, but we also want everyone to feel like they have the opportunity to do it regardless. And I think that's maybe a bit of it, right? Like, it's like, I think with you too, like, you're like, "You don't need to love powerlifting," but, like, you kinda started it that way by being like, "You could do it if you want. I just want you to know you could do it if you want." And I think that almost is the heart of the entire discussion is, like, we just want people to know you can do it if you want to, but doing it or wanting to do it does not, have to equate to you being a person who loves it or identifies as a math person, or, like... You know what I mean? Like, it's like I, I'm not identifying as an athlete or a powerlifter. I go to the gym three times a week because I know it's good for me. I feel good about myself after. Like, you know what I mean? So and so, whatever. But, like, I'm not like, "Oh yeah, I'm a fucking athlete." I'm like, "No, I don't, honestly don't really like it, but, like, I feel better about myself when I do it." And maybe that's the invitation is, like, you don't have to love math. We would love our stu- I would love everyone to know, hey, if you wanna learn math, you can. That's kind of where I'm at. I'm like, you can if you want to. I just don't want anyone thinking, like, they are born without the capacity to do it.

Teresa Brown 48:17

Yes, I love that. A- and I think that that kind of ties the bow on it quite nicely is this idea that we can simultaneously believe that somebody doesn't have to love math to be successful in it while still actively taking the stance of, "But I'm gonna do everything in my power to still get you to love it, to make you feel comfortable in my class, and make you think that it's possible."

Vanessa Vakharia 48:35

Oh my God. That was fucking good. That was, I was, that, that was, there, done. We're done. We're, except, except, I mean, I, w-

Q1

Vanessa Vakharia 48:45

I have to ask you the two questions I ask everyone, but now one of them's gonna be kinda weird. the first question is, I normally ask, "So what would you say?" And I am actually curious, so what do we say? What is the appropriate response when someone says, "Cool story, I'm just, I don't, forget it, I'm just not a math person"? What's a response you would like us to consider saying?

Teresa Brown 49:04

my instinct says, and, and this is the teacher in me, I'm just curious why. Like, where does, where does your love fall? Like, what is the thing that you enjoy, and what experiences got you to feel that way?

Vanessa Vakharia 49:15

Girl, we are vibing because that, this is my new thing. Over the past few years, I've been like, I actually think there's no response from me. On my end, we don't, I don't respond, I ask. I'm just like, "Oh, how come?" Wow. We are syncing so hard for never having met before. Great. Okay,

Q2

Vanessa Vakharia 49:32

last question. If there's one thing you could change about the way math is taught in schools, what would it be?

Teresa Brown 49:36

okay, if I had to choose one answer, one thing that I wish we could change about education, it would be this idea of operating in isolation or in silos. I see so often our teacher prep programs, our continuing professional developments, and then the actual active instructional practice are so disjointed from one another, when really we have three systems working for the same goal, just the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing

Vanessa Vakharia 49:59

I love how you're like, "I don't know. I have nothing prepped," and then you just said the most perfect, like, well-articulated response. Are you, is this a hustle? Are you bluffing? Did you have that written down?

Teresa Brown 50:12

Oh no, I truly was just thinking that.

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 50:16

You are honestly incredible. You're so inspire- I'm so glad- Social media's, like, the worst until it's not. Like, I'm so glad I saw that post. Like, I'm so inspired by so much of what you said, and I, I'm really leaving thinking a lot about that concept of identity and how it can be, you know, our attachment to, to an identity can be such a, a barrier, you know? And when we, like, loosen that grasp, it, it really goes back to the stories we tell ourselves, and I'm, I'm excited for everyone to think about this. And guys, I want you to text us. We are looking at the texts. Hit the link in the show notes. Text us. What does it mean to be a teacher? Did this episode make you change your mind at all? Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Teresa Brown 50:55

This was great. I, I appreciate you. I, I truly am so thrilled to get to meet you.

Vanessa Vakharia 50:59

Me too

Teresa Brown 51:01

The myriad of times that I've come across your work on, in so many different avenues, I'm constantly looking, like, "I don't know what it is exactly, but I like her."

Vanessa Vakharia 51:09

Aww

Teresa Brown 51:10

I was super thrilled whenever you reached out to me, and I'm so glad I got to do this, so thank you.

Vanessa Vakharia 51:14

Thank you so much for coming on the pod. It was so inspiring. I'm so happy I found that LinkedIn post, and goodbye.

Teresa Brown 51:22

Vanessa, it has been such a joy to share all my experience with you. Thanks for having me on the show. Bye everyone.

Vanessa Vakharia 51:31

Okay, wow. I just want you guys to know that after the official recording part ended, Theresa made me feel so much better about my disdain for jump squats, and literally was like, "Who cares? Just do the workout stuff that you like." And I felt instantly relieved. Like, there are so many other gym things I like doing. Why do I feel like I need to do the things I hate in order to be, quote-unquote, "healthy"? And this, my friends, ties into our whole convo about math and identity, and feeling like we're never there until we can do it all, and that's just unrealistic and, quite frankly, unnecessary. I do also wanna say that I think there's a bit of a difference on how we approach the idea of choosing to do math or not, depending on whether we're talking about kids and adults. When you're a kid in school, there needs to be a healthy balance of, as Theresa said, not loving it, but doing it anyway 'cause it's good for you. And I think as teachers, we can facilitate that. But as adults, I think it's reasonable and appropriate to be like, "I tried it, I don't like it, and I'm not doing any more fucking jump squats". Or algebra. The two are interchangeable for the purposes of this conversation I'm dying to hear what you think, and Theresa and I really wanna hear from you, so text the podcast by hitting the link in your show notes that says, "Text us". Math Therapy's hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, produced by David Kochberg, and the theme music is by our band, Goodnight Sunrise. As always, thank you guys so much for listening, sharing, and being a part of the community. If you want more Math Therapy, join our Facebook group. We have over 500 amazing members. Just hit the link in the show notes to join, and see you next week. It's gonna be amazing.