Kristopher Childs live @ NCTM

Kristopher Childs 0:03

We have a methodology at our, team, it's called Paint Your Wall. Everybody on my team, I say, That's your wall. I just need you to paint your wall." Well, what about the doors?" "Don't worry about the doors. Don't worry about the windows. Don't worry about anything else. If you focus on painting your wall, and in shared community, if your colleague paints their wall, your other one paints their wall, does their part, that's how we build an amazing math experience." But oftentimes we get focused on everything and really accomplish nothing.

Vanessa Vakharia 0:34

Okay, guys. Welcome back to Math Therapy. As promised, today I'm bringing you my conversation with the one and only Dr. Kristopher Childs, recorded live at NCTM in Denver last month. Kris is a teacher, consultant, author, and chief academics officer at Open Up Resources, and if that wasn't enough, he was also the program chair of this year's National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. Kris has a bit of a reputation as a fearless disruptor in math ed, and somehow he found time to sit down with me in front of an actual audience for our first ever live Math Therapy interview. Just so you know, that was also before his VIP party that night, where none other than Petey Pablo showed up to entertain hundreds of educators. This interview is deep. We get into AI. We get into the merits and perils of grading. We get into what it takes to reach students who have completely checked out of math. But the question I keep coming back to is this: when you have a million ideas for making things better, where do you actually start? It turns out Kris has an answer, and it involves simply starting with painting a wall.

Welcome

Vanessa Vakharia 1:42

All right. We are here. We are here for a live taping of the Math Therapy podcast. I don't know how many of you know Dr. Kristopher Childs. He is a legend, okay? Yeah. He is the program director of this NCTM. That's right. He created the entire schedule. He's, he's on top of the Wi-Fi. Like, he's doing all of the things. And I'm really, really thankful that you said yes, because I've been wanting to interview you for years, and I feel like, really, like you're so all over the place, it's hard to grasp you, that I had to get you at your own conference. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for making time for me.

AI: Where should teachers draw the line?

Vanessa Vakharia 2:17

I actually wanna start with that. Being program chair of NCTM, obviously you have so many ses- sessions that you're looking through, you're kinda seeing what the discourse is. People must be... Like, how many submissions do you get?

Kristopher Childs 2:28

A lot. We get a whole lot of submissions. I think I know where you're going with this question, but go ahead and go.

Vanessa Vakharia 2:32

Where am I going with it?

Kristopher Childs 2:33

Go with it.

Vanessa Vakharia 2:35

And we have a psychic connection. So I'm, I'm so curious to know, what are the hot topics? Like, what are the things that you're like, "Oh my God, we're getting so many submissions about, like, this thing and..." Right? Like, what, what are the people wanting to talk about?

Kristopher Childs 2:48

What do y'all think? AI. AI.

Vanessa Vakharia 2:50

Oh my God.

Kristopher Childs 2:52

That's gonna be the hottest topic for a while, but we also get our submissions about looking at the progressions, looking at what are the pathways in high school. One of the big things and pushes that we always look for more of is the elementary piece at pre-K and kindergarten. You'll be surprised, we get very few submissions at that level. Really? But across the spectrum, AI is, is gonna be, continue being the hot topic. But for the committee, we're always looking at, who is missing from the conversation? Mm. So going beyond what do we always see, but what are we doing in terms of sessions for multilingual learners? What are we doing for, in terms of sessions for students with disabilities? Because again, we, while we keep focused on the centering, we think we miss so many other things. So our goal with the committee, and you look at mathematics for change in rural, I don't wanna say we predicted what was gonna be happening right now a year ago, but we kinda predicted this is gonna be a change in rural, and what are we doing mathematically to prepare teachers, you all, through these sessions? But most importantly, what are we doing when we leave this conference so children get a better mathematics experience? Mm. W- That is, has to be our non-negotiable for this, all about children. They gotta be able to get a good math experience. They can learn math. Every child can learn math, but are we speaking the language for them to engage in it and make sense of it?

Vanessa Vakharia 4:09

Okay. We're gonna... There's a bunch of things I wanna ask you. Yeah. But I wanna, I wanna go back to the AI thing for a second. Okay. Okay? So everyone was like, "AI, we all know that it's AI." I'm actually very curious, because I've... It's not that I'm, like, avoidant, but I'm, I'm not, like, in the AI convo, right? Yeah. Like, I'm like, "Okay," like, "whatever." I'm curious, what about AI is everyone wanting to talk about that we have that's new, that we have not been talking about, that you think is actually we're maybe missing the piece on AI that we should be talking about?

Kristopher Childs 4:35

So you, do you know what AI is?

Vanessa Vakharia 4:37

Okay. Like- Wow, Kris.

Kristopher Childs 4:38

No, no.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:38

I'm a woman in STEM.

Kristopher Childs 4:39

You're like, like, no, no. You gotta, you gotta hear me.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:42

I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Kristopher Childs 4:43

You, you messed up my whole bit.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:45

Okay, do it again. Do it again.

Kristopher Childs 4:45

No. Do- 'Cause we're gonna re-edit it and do it again.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:47

Okay.

Kristopher Childs 4:48

Do you know what AI is?

Vanessa Vakharia 4:49

What?

Kristopher Childs 4:50

All right. Do you like the Seve- do you like the 76ers?

Vanessa Vakharia 4:53

What's that?

Kristopher Childs 4:53

The basketball team.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:54

Is that football?

Kristopher Childs 4:55

No, it's basketball.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:56

Oh, it's basket-

Kristopher Childs 4:56

It's basketball.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:56

It's basket- the basketball team.

Kristopher Childs 4:57

Yeah. So you don't, why wouldn't you like Allen Iverson? He's the greatest player of all time. That's AI. See, see they laugh. You don't worry about it. All right. Anyways, back to you all.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:07

Something we should know.

Kristopher Childs 5:10

Here, here's the thing with AI. Here's the thing. One, it is not going anywhere, and I do a lot of work in the field of AI. So I can tell you, even though I'm invested in it, it's not going anywhere. Is the water crisis an issue as it relates to these data centers and what these data centers are doing to impact communities negatively? It is a huge issue that must be addressed. But I guarantee you, these billionaires that are funding this, they're not gonna magically wake up and say, "Oh, we're gonna do the right thing."

room noise 5:37

Hmm.

Kristopher Childs 5:38

So it's gonna take us harnessing the power of AI to use it to do the right thing.

room noise 5:43

Hmm.

Kristopher Childs 5:44

Because they're not gonna stop doing the wrong thing, tearing up our environment with them, but there's so much goodness within AI that can truly transform a mathematics experience. So we have to think about how we harnessing the power of it, and think about where you are on the spectrum. Some folks are literally like, "What is AI?" And that is fine. Let's introduce them to it. Some, you're middle users, "I use it every day. I'm toying with it." Great. And some are way out there creating cool apps, et cetera. But what are we doing to work together to make sure it's improving our lives and not just doing it for the sake of doing it, or making more AI graphics and flyers over and over again?

Vanessa Vakharia 6:19

Oh my God, the reaction you just got from that. It, it's really... 'Cause I'm like, I know... Okay, so- Yeah, no for the teacher who's like, for the teacher who's like, "Oh, like, where on the spectrum am I and what..." 'Cause I actually think about this a lot. I'm like, "I love it, but I hate it." It's like our phone, right? Right. I'm like, "I love it, but it's making me feel like gross about myself." Like, you know what I mean? These things. What are... Give us your top, like, do and don't with AI, things you should use it for and things you really should not, like, according to you.

Kristopher Childs 6:45

You should use it for everything.

Vanessa Vakharia 6:47

What?

Kristopher Childs 6:47

Every- everything. It, there's so much power within it because as an educator, one thing we all lack is a four-letter word, a four-letter word. T- say it again. Time. Time. You, and I've noticed with leaders, and I'm one of them, so I've been in that boat, leaders give us more, add to our plates, add to our plates, add to our plates. Very few leaders come in and say, "Let me take something off your plate first."

room noise 7:11

Mm.

Kristopher Childs 7:12

But what does AI do? Save us time and buys us back that energy. So with my team, a full disclosure, I'm the chief academic officer at Open Up Resources. Last year I told my team, "You have to explore AI. Just explore it, and I'm paying for it. Explore it." Last year some folks jumped on, were in it. Some were like, "Ah, I don't know." Some like, "I'm not doing it yet." So this year I made a mandate. Everybody has to use AI, and we made it a part of their goals.

Vanessa Vakharia 7:38

What?

Kristopher Childs 7:39

Check me out, though. You know, ChatGPT is just $20 a month, and I have a team, so we got a lot of $20 accounts. The people that were over here, "I hate I- AI. I'm not using it," last year, within 30 days they were saying, "Hey, I need a $200 account. It saved me- a six-month project. I'm doing it in one week." Game cha- And I have so many $200 accounts now, I can't even keep up with the receipts. But it's saving them time, and I'm, my team knows this. I said publicly, "I don't care where you're at and what you do during the day," 'cause we work remote. "As long as your project's complete, do your thing." And they're finding, "I can do my project," and I know, I know what's AI or not. We do ver- we do human verification. But they're finding time, and they're getting to chill with their families, go to the beach and do all the things. So that's the biggest use, was to save us time with. But the key is you just gotta try it out.

room noise 8:31

Mm.

Kristopher Childs 8:31

It's like riding a bicycle. And what I love about AI, today is the worst it's gonna be. If it cannot do it today, try it tomorrow. It's probably gonna be able to do it, and that could be printing a grocery list. That's crazy. It could be making a schedule. It could be... I'm not saying you made an AI flyer, but- I did not it could be making an AI flyer. It could be some lesson planning. And then some are gonna say, "Why would I do all those things?" It saves you time. We can differentiate more for children, and now I can focus on what is the most important, teaching, differentiation, and engaging children in my classroom, less with all those formula- formula al- formu- for- you know what I mean, that formulae stuff- Yeah you gotta do in class.

Vanessa Vakharia 9:07

You must have one thing that you're like, "Okay, try it for everything, but watch out for..." Because everyone's, when you said AI flyers, everyone just groaned. Yeah. But yet you're also like, "But use it for AI flyers."

Kristopher Childs 9:19

Yeah. I'm joking with the flyer, but, uh, keep going.

Vanessa Vakharia 9:21

No, but, like, I'm like, uh, there has to be a line, right, 'cause I'm, I'm... You don't, you use it for everything. You just, who cares? What about the AI art, Kris?

Kristopher Childs 9:30

Use it for everything. If it buys back time, why not try it out?

Vanessa Vakharia 9:35

Sure, okay, fine.

Kristopher Childs 9:36

And we gotta bring-

Vanessa Vakharia 9:37

Try anything once

Kristopher Childs 9:37

but also bring it back to our lives as math educators. We can't get more time, and when it comes to differentiated experiences, I come from the day of, we used to have to, like, hand translite- translate stuff for children. Like, now with the click of a button, what language do you speak? What language do you speak? I get a button, I'm gonna verify it. Everybody can get something. I also come from a background, this half of the room likes pizza, this half likes coloring, this p- half likes Roblox, and I'm sitting there manually writing out different examples and contexts. I can click a button and give every child a context they like, and still keep it standards aligned, and still keep it rigorous. So why would I not use that in my classroom? A child is getting something wrong, I can check it, give it feedback, et cetera. So again, that's why I keep pushing to use it. It buys me time.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:23

Yeah. Yeah, I guess, I guess we're gonna, like, rest at try it. I'm down with, like, try it, see what works- Okay see what doesn't, see what you like, see how you can personalize, but use it as.

Kristopher Childs 10:33

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:34

and we're gonna wrap it. We're gonna- Look agree to disagree, uh, about some things, and we're all gonna- Don't. No- You know, whatever yeah.

Whose voices are missing?

Vanessa Vakharia 10:38

Sure, sure, sure. But one thing you mentioned is you said when you're getting all your proposals, you notice that there are a lot of voices left out and a lot of topics left out. And you said something about elementary that caught my mind, because I think there are a ton of elementary teachers here, right? There are a ton of them here. Right. And you're saying those sessions are lacking. Tell me a bit more about who you feel is being lost from the conversation. And since, I mean, you put together the program, is there anything here this year that you're like, "You know, this was really missing, and we found a way to put it in," or like, "There's this incredible thing that no one's really been talking about before"? Right. Like, And I love it. I actually think we all need to hear this, different people say the same things, right? You need to- Right. It's like self-help books. They all are saying the same thing in a different package, and sometimes you just need the right voice to get that in your head. But sometimes I'm like, "Oh, man," like, "are we just all talking about the same thing?" What is like, what are the new things that are being forgotten about that you are making it a point to bring into this year's conference, aside from AI, that you think we need to be talking about?

Kristopher Childs 11:30

All right. First, I'm gonna ask a question to the room. Raise your hand if you are not speaking this year. Raise your hand if you're not a speaker this year.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:39

Whoo.

Kristopher Childs 11:40

All of those voices are missing from the program.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:42

Mm.

Kristopher Childs 11:44

Each of you have something special that you can bring in to NCTM or bring into your state conference or your local conference. Do not be afraid. A lot of people get, "I don't wanna speak in these rooms. I don't know what to speak about." It's like speaking in front of those children you get every day who have a li- different level of energy And just talk about what you normally do. So oftentimes when I get the question, "What is missing?" It's literally you are missing from the conversation.

room noise 12:09

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Childs 12:10

You all are amazing educators in this space. You do amazing work every day with all of these children. Bring that conversation. And some are gonna say, "Well, what if I apply and I don't get accepted?" Guess what? I apply still and don't get accepted places.

Vanessa Vakharia 12:22

Literally same.

Kristopher Childs 12:23

And what do I do? I apply again. But your voices are missing. I encourage you all to just try it once. But that's the missing thing. It's not a specific topic, it's just hearing from more voices from around the country-of having this shared community of a true passion about mathematics education.

Vanessa Vakharia 12:41

How many of the sessions at this conference are led by teachers who are active in the classroom right now?

room noise 12:47

Do you know, do you know that?

Kristopher Childs 12:48

I would say majority are. Yeah. I would say majority are.

Vanessa Vakharia 12:50

And you know, it's interesting even, like I love, I love going to all the sessions, I love learning, but there's something so special about a teacher who's doing their work in the, in the classroom. And I know there's a few of you here that do present often. So maybe that's a bit of something to think about after this. And for those who are listening to the podcast, who don't get to be in the room with us, if you're listening being like, "Oh man, like I don't think I, I have something worthwhile", I always think the work you're doing every day is so incredible. And often we actually don't know what the special thing is we're doing. We're just going in there and teaching. We're door doing. Right? But think about the thing that people compliment you about. What is that thing that your colleagues are like, "Man, you're so good at this. Like, how are you doing that?" That's your thing. That's your superpower. That, that is something that people want to learn from. So I love how you put that, that it's like, you know, these are the voices missing. Like we just saw visually, we're, we're not hearing from you. Right. What are ways to, if, if you're not presenting maybe, I always think this too, a lot of people can't be at this conference. They're not getting this type of professional development. What is a way for us to get those voices heard in general, even if it's not at a session? How can those... Are, are there communities that you love? Are there platforms that you love? Are there ways for teachers to collaborate and be able to share with other teachers to, A, learn from each other, but to feel recognized for the work they're doing?

Kristopher Childs 14:04

I think thinking about the NCTM, we're at NCTM so I gotta plug this Yeah, sure. The NCTM community is a great place to start, going through the NCTM website. LaTrenda knocked it out the park last night with the new link that they have. So starting with the NCTM community. But then just using technology. You meet so many people, good people on literally Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups. Back in the day, X groups, which were Twitter. They used to be, but they're crazy now.

Vanessa Vakharia 14:29

Yeah, it's over.

Kristopher Childs 14:29

But that's literally how you meet people. Then at this conference, challenge yourself to meet one or two new people. Change contact information, and gone are the days you have to wait to see them the following year. Gone are the days you gotta mail them a letter to communicate. You can jump on a Zoom and say, "Hey, what are you doing? What am I doing?" And we have to harness the power of technology now to make us closer, even if you're in Alaska and I'm in Miami, Florida. Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 14:53

Yeah, I absolutely love that.

Paint your wall: Start with one change

Vanessa Vakharia 14:55

There was something else you said a bit early on. You said, you know, we-- what this is really about is coming here and learning ideas, but it's not, it-- You know, I always think about manifesting. Are you into manifesting?

Kristopher Childs 15:05

I'm into it now, but go. Go.

Vanessa Vakharia 15:06

Okay, great. So my favorite My favorite manife- Yeah, that's what you do. You have to do that when you're manifesting specifically. Okay. My favorite quote about manifesting is, "Intention energizes, but attention transforms." You can have the intention, you can have all the ideas, you can be learning, but unless you put some attention to bringing that into the material world and making it happen, like you said, every kid deserves the best math education. How do we, how does everyone in this room, everyone listening to the pod go from, "This was so inspiring. I loved all these ideas," to implementation?

Kristopher Childs 15:43

You're gonna leave with a lot of ideas from this conference. A lot. Some of you have full notebooks, you have full computers of notes, and your head's gonna ex- explode- when you get on the plane. There's a great book out by Gary Keller called The One Thing.

room noise 15:56

Mm.

Kristopher Childs 15:56

The One Thing.

room noise 15:57

Okay.

Kristopher Childs 15:58

And I teach my team this all the time. Like, we can have a gr- a lot of great ideas and end up with nothing. But what is the one, Monday rolls around, what is the one thing you're gonna work on and do? Just one thing. And as that one thing, you get good at it, then go back to your notes. All right, I'm gonna try something else. That becomes your thing, too. But oftentimes we skip the one thing and try a bunch. Just focus on that one thing and become good at it. We have a method- methodology at our, at my team, it's called Paint Your Wall. Everybody on my team, I say, "We're in a room like this." I say, "That's your wall. I just need you to paint your wall." "Well, what about the doors?" "Don't worry about the doors. Don't worry about the windows. Don't worry about anything else. If you focus on painting your wall, and in shared community, if your colleague paints their wall, your other one paints their wall, does their part, that's how we build an amazing math experience." But oftentimes we get focused on everything and really accomplish nothing.

Vanessa Vakharia 16:55

Hm. I feel like I really need this particular piece of the math therapy- because I'm very into this. Mm-hmm. Peter Liljedahl's wife said to me the other day, she was like, "Stop trying to eat the entire pie." Okay. "Stop it. Like, cut one slice of the pie and eat that." And I was like, "Oh my God, what?" And so it, it, like, we have a, such a wide range here- Mm-hmm and I'm sure we have some leaders in the room that, you know, are learning stuff to bring back to their districts. Right. What if no one else is painting their walls?

Kristopher Childs 17:22

I love this podcast, by the way.

Vanessa Vakharia 17:24

Oh my God.

Kristopher Childs 17:24

Here's the thing. You have to worry about staying in your lane and doing your part. 'Cause it could be while you're looking at everybody else, they're not painting their wall. What if your job was to paint the wall and then the person that comes behind you, they're gonna do the next thing to the wall? Like, they may add accents to the wall. They may put a window on the wall, but if you never painted the wall to start with, the person that's coming behind you, guess what? They gotta do what you didn't do. And in this work, when I focus on painting my wall and doing my part, I get mad at, I get mad at a lot of your leader friends in the ecosystem all the time. They're not doing the thing. But I'm like, "I gotta keep painting this wall because somebody behind me needs this wall painted to do their thing." We may not finish what we need to do in our tenure in our respective careers, but if we do our part now and knowing somebody's gonna come behind us, pick it up and keep going, that's how we gotta do it.

Vanessa Vakharia 18:19

Oh my God. I have goosebumps. That was really, really... Did you just come up with that metaphor? There's no way you just came up with that.

Kristopher Childs 18:26

I'm not, oh, not sure.

Vanessa Vakharia 18:26

Yeah, don't tell me. Okay.

Kristopher Childs 18:28

I've manifested that one. I can't give it to you.

Vanessa Vakharia 18:32

It is, it's really beautiful, and it reminds me a lot about what we've been hearing about slow productivity, and we've kind of moved from this hustle culture where it's like, "Do all this stuff," and like, "Do a million things," to what is it? Uh, you know how there's always, like, a word of the year? Mm-hmm. You know, like on Instagram or I don't know, someone, like, creates this word of the year. I remember last year the word was consistency.

Kristopher Childs 18:51

Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia 18:51

And the idea was, don't try 40 things half-ass. Do pick one thing and do it for 30 days. Right? Like, do it over... it's like working out, right? Like, it's like it's all about consistency when you work out. You can't go to the gym and be like, "Oh, you know what? I'm just gonna do like five workouts in one- You're right and then not work out the rest of the month. Like, you've gotta consistently do your thing. Yeah.

Reaching the student who hates math

Vanessa Vakharia 19:11

What could painting a wall look like? Because here's another thing I find when I, I work with educators, and I'm sure a lot of you guys feel this way. People will shut down because they'll be like, "The w- you know, the one thing I have the capacity to do is so menial and minimal, there's no point." They don't feel like they're doing anything. I was just working with a district, and we met up. I- we had done this full-day PD. They had a couple months to implement it. We come back to our session. There's 70 of them, and all of them are like, "Fuck, we haven't done anything. We haven't done anything." And so I said, "Have you given a student a direct and specific compliment at some point in the last two months?" They were like, "Well, yeah." And I was like, "Did you make a student smile?" "Well, yeah." "Did you ask a student about their thinking?" "Well, okay." "Did you sit down with a student and say, 'Why do you feel bad at this?'" And then they were like, "Well, yeah, fine." And I was like, I, I... There was like 20 things, and all of them said yes. And I was like, "You've done 20 things." But they felt they hadn't done anything 'cause they hadn't, like, implemented the fra- you know, whatever. So what are some things that could, that painting a wall could look like that we should all feel proud of?

Kristopher Childs 20:07

First, we gotta make sure, are the children under our purview learning math? Right. Sometimes we get to... I love fun stuff, but they leave our environments and don't know how to do math, I'm gonna be honest, none of the other stuff matters.

Vanessa Vakharia 20:19

Right.

Kristopher Childs 20:19

So we have to keep that as the main thing.

Vanessa Vakharia 20:21

Mm.

Kristopher Childs 20:22

So painting the wall can look at... I, I use a thing at looking at, uh, historically excluded populations of children, that's my focus. So I always design at the margins of my classroom. So I think about what does that one child need that never gets involved that's gonna involve everybody else? So for me, that's how I look at it when I'm thinking about a mathematics experience, of what does that one child need that may or may not engage, and then how I bring them into the fold. I'll give you a s- I got a story.

Vanessa Vakharia 20:47

Can you, I would like, yeah, I want a story. I want a specific example about this.

Kristopher Childs 20:51

You gotta be... Do you know what wait time is?

Vanessa Vakharia 20:53

Oh my God, do not say that when David is in the room- Well, he- because the answer is no.

Kristopher Childs 20:55

Okay.

Vanessa Vakharia 20:57

He's gonna be like, "I love Kris." He-

Kristopher Childs 20:59

There's, there's a thing called wait time. You gotta give me wait time. Okay. All right? Give me wait time.

Vanessa Vakharia 21:04

Always learning.

Kristopher Childs 21:05

Always learning. When I, when I, one story that comes to mind, I was working with some schools in Atlanta, Georgia. I was working with an elementary school. And on this particular day I was doing a classroom walkthrough. No I wasn't. I was doing classroom teaching demonstrations, kindergarten through fifth grade. And started in kindergarten, did a demonstration, all the teachers saw it, went throughout the day. We were in fifth grade, we finished the day. It went amazing. And the principal was like, "We gotta get you to come back." I'm like, "For sure. I love it up here. It was a great day." As we were walking back, there was a classroom for eme- emotionally behaviorally disturbed students. And as we're walking ba- we didn't do, this wasn't on our route. As we were, and I had planned the entire day. As we were walking back she said, "Hey, what would you do with that class?" It's the end of the day. I'm feeling myself. I know I'm coming back. I said, "Oh, we can teach math." She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah." She opened the door. As soon as she opened the door I heard screaming, yelling, somebody literally bouncing off the walls. I say, "Oh, I think I messed up," in my head. But why I, why do I tell this story? If you've never been in a room, I, I'ma paint a picture for this room. Literally children were running around. One child was being restrained so the child would not hurt themselves. The lights were dim because lights were a trigger. Math never happens in this environment. Never. And the goal was just literally to make it through the day. And as I walked to the room cold, because this was not on my itinerary, I had not thought about it, she was like, "We gotta teach them math." And I'm thinking, "All right, cool. How are we gonna do this?" In the real time I said, "Just have everybody come up to the front." Mind you, there's a child in the back of the room, I'm just gonna call him John for the sake of the story. Soon as I walked in the room John said, "F this class. I hate this effing place." I said, "Okay, cool, John." And I just tuned it out. Everybody else comes to the front. John takes a blanket, pulls it over hisself, head down, done. The class comes to the front, even the child being restrained, and we're, they're lined across the front. And the principal's standing there, her team, like, "We're gonna see if he can really teach math today." And I said, "All right." We got this group of kids. John is in the back still dropping F bombs. But I give John credit, they were in context, so I was kind of like, John- you're doing your thing. But this was not the time period for it. And they range in grade levels from third through f- uh, fifth grade, but obviously we're not on grade level for this one. So as we're standing there, I have a group lined in front of me. I said, "What do y'all like?" I heard pizza. I was like, "Bet. I like pizza, too, even though I'm lactose, but let's go with it." And then I said, "All right, what we're gonna do is..." And throughout the day we're doing, um, breaking things into parts and division, fractions, et cetera, so I wanna keep it along those lines. I said, "All right, what we're gonna do is talk about pizza, and you get to label the pizzas cheese, pepperoni, et cetera. And then how many people in your family, and just how much pizza can you share?" So as we're doing this, they start to work and just have a conversation in their language and their world. John lifts his head up and s- and I see John peeking up. John takes the blanket off, slowly comes to the front. I said, "What's up, John?" John said, "Hey." And then I said, "John, you like pizza?" John was like, "I hate effing pizza." I said, "Me too, John. I'm lactose, so I get it." So I said, "All right, John." They're over there, they're over there working. Principal's amazed. I, I'm just sitting there like, all right, we got it. I said, "So what do you like?" John says, "I like ice cream." I said, "Cool." So we did something along the lines of you have 10 buckets of ice, ice cream. I said, "John, tell me about your family. How many people?" "We got five people." I said, "You got 10 buckets of ice cream. You got five people. How do you wanna divide them up?" He said, "I gotta label them first." I said, "All right, do your thing." So we're sitting in this classroom who literally five minutes earlier you would've considered chaos, but we took the moment to say something I believe in: every child can do math. I have to speak in their language. This group wanted pizza. We did pizza, and they started explaining it. The teacher's mind was blown. The principal's mind was blown, like, 'cause they were literally coloring and doing nothing. Then John sat there, broke up his problem, explained it, and we're out of, literally out of time. And as I'm leaving the room, the first thing John, he grabbed me, "Hey, I wanna do some more math." Ooh. F-bomb John, that was literally like-

Vanessa Vakharia 25:26

Did he say, "I wanna do more effing math?"

Kristopher Childs 25:28

No, he didn't say effing. Okay. He never said effing. But why do I tell that in your story of what can we do? Are we willing to take a moment and talk about the context they like and then bring in the math with it? I still get to learn them. I get to still see who they are, but importantly, they have to learn math at our grade level, and we have to engage them in math. We can still do the fun stuff. That's practically what we wanna do, get to know them, and then just bring context that they like. And they can do the math. That wasn't in the textbook page. That wasn't something I found in a trash site, Teachers Pay Teachers. It wasn't something I just found on Google. Yeah, y'all know that by now if you know me. But the key is they were engaging in math, and at the end of the day, that's the experience we gotta have. And we can build upon that. So our one thing for that, what's the context and bring it in. And with any group I can... You're gonna engage in math. You're gonna engage in math, and it may not be in that thing called a book, but it's gonna be in a thing called life, which is what we're truly preparing them for. Because when they get in life, they don't have a math textbook. We have to make sure they have the skills that they need to be prepared for.

Vanessa Vakharia 26:34

I mean, hard to follow that.

Kristopher Childs 26:36

Keep going. Let's go. I'm man- manifesting another question.

Vanessa Vakharia 26:39

Let's go. Oh my God, I love how into manifesting you are right now.

Feeling capable when math gets hard

Vanessa Vakharia 26:42

Here's the really interesting thing. I wanna do a little impact, unpack- Go for a second.

Kristopher Childs 26:45

Go.

Vanessa Vakharia 26:46

Because there's a few things in your story that I think it's really important for us as educators to take away. You know, my work is in math therapy. It's in math trauma. It's in how students feel about math. And I think what's really important about your story is that you're illustrating two things. Number one, we don't just want students feeling good and not doing math, right? Like, the idea isn't, like, we just never want you to be stressed. We just always want you to feel good. If math is stressing you out, we're not gonna use the M-word. Like, that actually doesn't benefit them, and I actually just interviewed a therapist for my podcast, and what she said was, "We don't want students to feel good all the time. We want them to feel capable all the time. We want them to know that if they are feeling uncomfortable and they're not feeling good, that's okay. That's normal. But they're still capable. They're still able to push through it." And what your story illustrates there is, yeah, that math wasn't in the book. Maybe it wasn't, like, at the full scale of what they were supposed to be learning, but John left feeling capable. And as soon as somebody moves from, "I effing ha-" Oh my God, I normally swear, and now you're making me un-swear. Oh. "I fucking hate this." Okay, yes.

Kristopher Childs 27:49

A part of my manifestation was that you do not swear anymore on this podcast for this episode. So it's working, so keep going.

Vanessa Vakharia 27:57

You're such an influencer. Okay. As soon, as soon as somebody has that little taste of, "I'm doing math," 'cause part of the concern is, okay, but we have so much more to get through. Yeah, but guess what? Now Little John is doing a little bit of math, and it's movement. And as soon as there's movement, as soon as someone goes from, "I effing hate this" to, "And I can't do this" to, "I don't know. Whatever, I guess I, like, did a thing"- Yeah there's so much more buy-in. There's hope. There's a chance that they will do more. And I think I really do wanna hit this point home because- Yeah I never want people thinking that I'm like, you know, just because I don't talk about content, that I'm not about the math. Mm-hmm. The whole point is in that, in that classroom you mentioned, there was dysregulation. You can't do math when you're being restrained, right? Like, that can't happen. You've gotta bring them to a place where they're able to engage mathematically, and you were teaching content while using those strategies.

Kristopher Childs 28:49

But I don't, I don't think I wanna as reframe the classroom-

Vanessa Vakharia 28:53

Yeah

Kristopher Childs 28:54

It really was we have to just bring everybody to a place that every child can do the math.

Vanessa Vakharia 28:58

Oh,

Kristopher Childs 28:59

yeah. I think oftentimes it's just a perception, but everybody can do math. Even your family member that hates math, they can do math. When you're trying to figure out right now these rising gas prices, you can do math. Right. When you're trying to figure out now it's time of the year where you put on the heater and the bill keeps going up, and you're trying to figure out how to cut costs, you can do math. The problem is, and where people get frustrated, is because of this thing called school math, and we focus so much on formulas, so focused on timed tests, et cetera, as opposed to what is practical math that you're doing every day, bring that in, and then I can bring layer on the school math with it. So with that environment, and that's what my push is always, every person can do math. I just gotta put it in a language that makes sense to you, and then I'm gonna reel you into what we need to talk about.

Why some grading systems leave kids behind

Vanessa Vakharia 29:43

And you Something else you said there is you were t- or well, you started by talking about how you design for the margins, right? In that case, like you're, you're going into that classroom, and you're trying to bring it down to the... not bring it... I don't even wanna say bring it down. I'm sorry. You can bring it down. Yeah.

Kristopher Childs 29:55

Absolutely not. It's still grade level. It's still grade level.

Vanessa Vakharia 29:56

Yeah. It's, it has nothing to do with bringing it down. Yeah. You're trying to bring it to a place- Yeah right, where everyone in the room can relate. I wanna hear a little more about the designing for the margin strategy because you, you know one thing you hear a lot, right? We talk a lot about how, um, if we give every student extra time for a test, like it's not fair. Like only the students with, with IEP should get it. If we like do... What would you say to that idea of designing for the margins is actually designing for equity?

Kristopher Childs 30:23

I love that segue into it. Um-

Vanessa Vakharia 30:25

Thank

Kristopher Childs 30:25

you because when it comes to, uh, let's say extended time, we have to think about what is our ultimate goal? Our ultimate goal is for children in our time period that we have them to learn math and be successful. We have to get beyond, I'm speaking to leaders, this compliance mentality.

room noise 30:41

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Childs 30:41

It's not working. The data is showing what we're doing is not working. When we think-- I'm gonna give you an example of desi- why we need to. We just celebrated or, or acknowledged Hispanic Heritage Month. We just had that. All right? Now, this is what I want you all to do. We're gonna do a-- Can we do a standup activity? We're gonna do it.

Vanessa Vakharia 31:02

Oh my God, yeah. We can do it. I mean, let's manifest it, yeah.

Kristopher Childs 31:04

A minute. All right. We just had Hispanic Heritage Month. A lot of people did cultural celebrations, had conversations, et cetera. But I want you all to do something really quick. Think in your head about the demographic populations in your school community. Think about the demographic populations in your stu- school community. Think about what achievement data you have. Pick whatever achievement data that you want. I want you to stand up if Hispanic, Latino, or Latina, that population is the highest achieving amongst the demographics that you all serve. Stand up if Hispanic students, Latino or Latina, are the highest demographic for student achievement in your population. Go. One, two, three. All right, thank y'all three. Why do I do the example? If our goal is for every child to get a high quality education experience, if we care so much about Hispanic Heritage Month, why aren't more people standing up? And we had a national conference. This is not like a community building conference with three school... this is a national con- And I just did this earlier this week at NCSM, and we had two, two people stand up. When we think about design at the margins, we have to consider who are we leaving out? That's why you hear me, uh, often talk about intentionally historically excluded. Intentionally. I don't say marginalized, I don't say other, because we know exactly who is being left behind in our environments and what are we doing proactively to make sure they get what they need. If that's extended time, every child can extend time. How is it gonna hurt me? If it's, hey, I have translated materials, how is that gonna hurt me that I'm translating materials using AI? Gotcha. If I need to do other modification, I need to do visuals, that helps everybody in my environment engage in and learn math. I believe in mastery grading. M- With mastery grading, you can turn it in my classroom environments and many times as you would like, and I'm not gonna average the score, and I got in a big deal with my child's former school. They were averaging the score. I'm like... And I told... I love story time. So my daughter's former school, then I come back to it. They were averaging the two scores of her test grades. Oh, jeez. And we had a big meeting with the administrator. She had like a 50, and then she got 100. And my children are like me. When we wanna do it, we're gonna do it. When we don't, we don't. She got a 50 and 100, they took the average and put it in the grade book. So I was like, "What does this grade mean?" "Oh, hey, Dr. Childs, this is the average of the two grades." What? And she took a 50 on the first one and got 100 on the second one. So I said, "What does it mean?" She says, "It's the average of two." So I said, "What is... How is she doing with this topic?" She said, "This is percentage." I'm like, "Your grades are trash. I don't believe them." She... And-

Vanessa Vakharia 33:48

Wait, did she, did she change?

Kristopher Childs 33:49

No, they wouldn't change.

Vanessa Vakharia 33:50

Like, did she see your point, though?

Kristopher Childs 33:50

No. No, they, they did not see my point. It's a s- I, you want me to call it... I won't call it a district. It's on recording. But the school in Texas, in Lubbock, Texas. A school district. But I, I literally told the administrator, I said, "Your, your grading system is trash. It does nothing to inform parents of what is happening. She'll still show up, but your grades are trash." They were mad, and I said, "I'm mad, too, because your grades are trash, so you need to figure it out."

Vanessa Vakharia 34:12

But- Can you, can you do me a favor? I know this might seem like overexplaining. I want you to explain why that is a trash way to measure grades. What, what, what, what would you have done?

Kristopher Childs 34:21

The goal of this is not to... I know mathematicians love to compute something. Anything.

Vanessa Vakharia 34:27

Anything. We'll take anything.

Kristopher Childs 34:28

We'll do anything. But our goal is to show how a child is pr- progressing along, uh, the standards. Exactly. A child on Monday may not be getting it, but they're getting it on Friday, give them credit for what they're doing on a Friday. And that's the highest grade that should go in the grade book. We're... these are children. I don't care if they're in kindergarten, high school, they're children. Why are we penalizing them for trying to do better? And w- if our grades have meaning, it should showcase to parents how the child is progressing. As a math educator, I have the ability, I know exactly how my daughters are doing in school. I understand the standards. My youngest, who I'll be on a FaceTime call with later as we work on math, I understand, hey, we need to work on this skill. Families don't know that. They quote un- they try to trust our grades of how their child's performing. But with that one school district the grade was inaccurate.

Vanessa Vakharia 35:20

Yeah.

Kristopher Childs 35:20

And it was hurting an innocent child who was truly trying their best just to learn mathematics.

Changing what you can control

Kristopher Childs 35:27

And we have to think about what are some systems in play that we can control, that we can change. The goal, I c- I'm gonna say it a lot of time, the goal is for them to learn math. It's not to be punitive to them. They're showing up, they're trying. Give them the highest grade, we move on. Some are like, "Well, they may have missed an assignment. They should get a zero because they should've turned it in on time." What happens when we miss turning something in? We don't get fired. Some people should be fired for not turning in stuff. But with children, why don't we give them that grace? Why don't we provide those opportunities for them to learn math? Otherwise, they get to hate it, and it's partially on some of the systems that we have put in place and the things that we're doing.

Vanessa Vakharia 36:08

So why don't we?

Kristopher Childs 36:10

Oh, we're afraid. Most of the people are afraid. Most people worry about their good job, they worry about their good paycheck and all the things, as opposed to understanding your role in whatever you're doing is temporary. Your job is to control what you can control in your respective role. If you can control what you can control, there are a lot of changes and things that you could do and you can make. In my career, I am the... M- my actual boss boss is here at this conference, and he's new to me, but he knows already Kris is gonna do his thing, but I'ma do right by teachers, I'ma do right by children. I'ma stand on that, and if you don't like it, I'll leave. That's just what I, I believe in. I believe life is short. I believe there are other jobs out there, because I'm not gonna sacrifice doing right by teachers and children. And I know some people are like, "Whoa, that's a good thing to be able to do, but I got the light bill is due Friday." But in your role, what can you do? There's so many things under our control that we can change, that we can modify, that we don't do. But we focus on, we're not getting more paid. All right, that's not gonna change tomorrow. Yeah. But can you change your grading in your class? Can you not do tests on Fridays, maybe do 'em on a Monday? Can you may not do tests at all, and do something else in terms of assessment? One of the things I like with assessments that I've done in the past, I assess based upon what works for you. If you like to draw, we gonna do something with visuals where you can do an assessment. You like to use manipulatives? All right, show me how you do it with manipulatives. You wanna tell me about it? Tell me about it. Guess what? Nobody can control that part of my environment. Are we willing to control what we control, or are we just gonna complain? And think about it this way. Think about a child that you care about or love. But think about it for a moment. A child that you care about or truly love, you truly want the best for that child, don't you? And you'd go through anything to get th- for that to happen. Everybody's child wants the same thing in a mathematics environment, the same thing we want from ours. So in my day job, that's one of my non-negotiables with the team, I ask them every time we're doing something, we're putting out a product, and we have million-dollar products, so these are big deals. I'm like, "Would you let your child use it?" If they pause or hesitate, I say, "The answer's no, right?" They say, "Yeah, no." We're not gonna put it out. If it's not good enough for your child, it's not good enough for any child. And for my two daughters and all the work that I do, if it's not good enough for them, it's not good enough for anybody else's child. And we have to be willing to have those uncomfortable conversations. We have to be willing to push the envelope. We do not have the data to show that what we're doing is working. We have to be willing to do something different. The children are dependent on you all, and you all do amazing things every single day. And you can do even more if we continue to push the envelope and just be uncomfortable at times in the work that we're doing, because we have some world changers in our classroom environments, and we gotta keep pushing the envelope

Vanessa Vakharia 39:04

Don't worry about it.

Kristopher Childs 39:05

Okay. I was just

Vanessa Vakharia 39:06

You know, um, Brian Buckhalter-

David Kochberg 39:08

Okay

Vanessa Vakharia 39:09

president of NCSM, or ex-president, um, always says, "If you can't move a mountain, move a stone." Mm-hmm. And I always cling to that idea, and it kind of goes back to your wall metaphor, right? Mm-hmm. It's just like, pick a thing, paint your wall, do your thing, a- and just know that that is going to matter. And I love what you said w- there. What is it you can change? Can you change... Maybe you can't change your entire grade. You can. Maybe you have to give tests. Yeah. Can you allow them to redo the test? Yeah. Can you figure out, can you do something preemptively before the test? Like, what is in your control? And also, don't waste your energy on the things we can't control. I feel like we spend a lot of time bitching, right? Like, bitching about the system, bitching about this stuff, and it's like, that is just so negative. Like, cool, let's acknowledge it, but now what can you do within there? Right. Yeah.

Kristopher Childs 39:52

And think about it for this. There are three, three spheres. There's sphere of your control. Do that thing. I mean, unapologetically, when you close that door, do that thing. There's your sphere of influence, people you can talk to to influence them. Spend a little time with that. Then there's everything else. Why waste time on it? Life is short.

Are we measuring learning or compliance?

Vanessa Vakharia 40:10

Yeah, yeah. I also, there's two other things this is making me think. I was talking to Andrew from Stockton. he was talking about how admin will always say, "You need to do this." Like, for example, like, "We need students taking notes. Like, I need to be in your classroom seeing students taking notes." And he was saying the question actually shouldn't be that, right? We shouldn't be policing teachers and being like, "Hey, in your classrooms, I need to see this type of note-taking." The, what, what would you like to see? Yeah. You would like to see students retaining mathematics. Is that the goal? So worry about that. Your goal is I want students retaining math. Don't worry about how your teachers are going to get you that result. Make it clear that that's the result you want. You want students learning this skill or achieving this standard, and then give them the autonomy to get that done in the way they feel best. So with testing, it's just what you're saying, right? It's like, what goal do you wanna see? Do you wanna see test scores improving? Like, let's just be blatant about it. Is that what you wanna see? Well, allow the educators to figure out how to make that happen with their students.

Kristopher Childs 41:08

But you, you hit on something with that administrative example. As a leader in this space, don't ask others to do what you won't do.

Vanessa Vakharia 41:16

Totally. Yeah.

Kristopher Childs 41:18

And when I say others, not just your teachers, but even children. If you wouldn't have them doing blank, if you wouldn't do blank-

room noise 41:25

Yeah

Kristopher Childs 41:25

why would you have them do it? We have to put ourself in the mindset of who are we impacting with the decisions that we're making. With my team all the time, now I don't have as much time to do it all day with them, but we do get in the mud together. We have these difficult conversations. We work on project. I'm in the project with them, all the things, because I'm in it with you. And I'm also in it with you because sometimes when I'm in it with them, I'm like, "This sucks. We're not- we're not doing this anymore anyway", but we have to get in it with them in our classrooms with the children to see what is really happening and is it working.

Vanessa Vakharia 41:59

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Childs 42:00

And if you're not willing to do it, stop making somebody else do it.

Vanessa Vakharia 42:03

The, uh, one other thing is, uh, w- just to close the loop on assessment- Sure because I know we don't all feel the same way, um, the NCSM keynote, I can't remember his name, but I'll put it in the show notes. Anthony Muhammad. Anthony Muhammad said, "What do you guys call a, somebody who has written the bar exam three times and passed it the third time?" What do we call him?

Kristopher Childs 42:23

A lawyer.

Vanessa Vakharia 42:24

A lawyer. A lawyer. Right? Doesn't matter how many fucking times you write it, you're still a lawyer. So doesn't matt- matter how many times you write that test on fractions, if you ace it the fifth time, you understand fractions, right? So that idea, like we, I do really think we need to be thinking this way. We need to be thinking this way, and we need to be enacting whatever practices we can to allow us to embody that belief, but also to let our students know if we're always... Like, this idea of being like, "It's okay to make mistakes. People get things at different times. We don't care about speed." And then it's like you have one chance to write a test in 30 minutes, and that's what you're like, right? Like, that's gaslighting. So we can't be acting like that.

Kendall’s book: 1000 Dreams

Vanessa Vakharia 43:05

Is there anything you wanted to talk about that you're like, "I really need people to know this, and you have not asked me the right question, Vanessa, even though I've been sitting here manifesting it for 45 minutes"?

room noise 43:16

Is there-

Kristopher Childs 43:17

I'm gonna do another plug. I have a daughter who is amazing. She has a book out called 1000 Dreams.

Vanessa Vakharia 43:22

This is her book?

Kristopher Childs 43:23

This is her book. She wrote it when she was in fifth grade. It is 100% her book. I'm definitely promoting my baby girl. So that's something I, I'm, I to- I told her, "Everywhere I go, I'm taking your book, I'm talking about it." If you have-

Vanessa Vakharia 43:36

It smells so good.

Kristopher Childs 43:37

It, it's, it should. It's new. I'm like-

Vanessa Vakharia 43:38

Yeah, like really vinyly

Kristopher Childs 43:39

you trying to say my books stink or something? No, I didn't say that. Anyways, geez. But it's 1000 Dreams by Kendall. It's on my site. It's sold out at the moment. We're trying to get more. She sold out in three days. It was kind of crazy, so she's killing it.

Vanessa Vakharia 43:50

Oh my God.

Kristopher Childs 43:51

But we didn't talk about it, but who has a birthday today? Happy birthday

Vanessa Vakharia 43:57

first A Scorpio. We have a Scorpio in the house

Kristopher Childs 44:00

I'll make sure at the end I give you g- a copy of her book and my new book. But I gotta-

Vanessa Vakharia 44:04

Aw, cute.

Kristopher Childs 44:05

But that's the one thing, everywhere I go, 1000 Dreams, she did an ama- 100% her deal, and I- I'm extremely proud of her, so I wanna shout her out. And it's being recorded, so when you watch this video, Dad does talk about your stuff.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:18

Aw. And he does not swear. Yeah. Okay.

Q1

Vanessa Vakharia 44:22

Let's do the final two questions.

Kristopher Childs 44:23

Go.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:24

Question number one, if somebody was listening to all this and they're like, "No, this is cool. I know what you're saying. Like, I know about, you know, teaching kids on the margins. I get it, da, da, da. But, like, I don't know, I'm just... It wouldn't work for me. I'm not a math person." What do you say?

Kristopher Childs 44:38

Hey, you may wanna drive for Uber. I hope they have some job openings. You do not do, do this thing called education. But I'm serious also. I'm serious but joking. Because I am passionate about the work we do as educators I do not give anyone that's a colleague beside me a pass- because they're in front of somebody else's child. They may not be in front of my child. They're in front of somebody else's. So I don't give anyone that pass. We're gonna collectively work together to get this right, or just find another career field. We are busting our butts for a little bit of pay and a lot of crap right now, and letting somebody else just do that? No. I don't, I don't believe in that. Yeah. Go somewhere else. Drive for Uber, DoorDash, Uber Eats. And nothing wrong with those jobs if you do it, but get out of the classroom and away from children and do something else.

Vanessa Vakharia 45:23

Yeah. Final question. Yeah. And we actually will not have time for any other questions, so this actually is the final question. Yeah. Final, final. Okay. Final...

Kristopher Childs 45:32

Was that a snort?

Vanessa Vakharia 45:34

Yep, right into the mic. Okay, final...

Kristopher Childs 45:37

You manifested that snort?

Q2

Kristopher Childs 45:39

Go, go, go, go.

Vanessa Vakharia 45:39

Final question: if there is one thing, you have a... someone's like, "I'm gonna grant you a wish. You have manifested this. It's gonna happen." One thing, you are allowed to snap your fingers and changes about the way math is taught in class right now, what is it?

Kristopher Childs 45:54

That we Oh, I love that question, and I know where I'm going.

room noise 45:59

Okay.

Kristopher Childs 46:00

I'm taking this from Dr. Maisha Winn. She's out of-- She was out of California. I don't know where she's at at the moment. But she has a quote, and I'm paraphrasing it, "I want us to teach mathematics in a way that other humans stop hating other humans." Oh my God. How can we teach mathematics in that manner where we all understand we have a shared humanity? Everyone's life in va- is valuable, and everyone deserves just their basic needs met. So that's my one wish for- Oh my God all of the things that we do.

Vanessa Vakharia 46:34

Yeah.

Kristopher Childs 46:35

Because I believe mathematics has the power to transform lives. I truly believe it has the power to transform the world. So that would be my one wish.

Vanessa Vakharia 46:45

Oof. We should all clap. Yeah. Loud so the mics pick it up.

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 46:55

I mean, there's no better way to end this podcast. Thank you so, so much for everything you've shared today. Thank you guys so much for being here. This is really, really, really special. And thank you guys so much for the work you're doing. Thank you for caring. Thank you for painting that wall, even though maybe nobody else is picking up a paintbrush, and just thanks for being you. And Kris, thank you so much for being you. There truly is no one like you.

Kristopher Childs 47:20

And we truly, truly thank you for being here. And as the program chair, I sincerely thank every one of you for being a part of the conference. I truly hope you enjoy this experience, and keep doing the amazing work that you're doing.

Vanessa Vakharia 47:32

Okay, you guys rock.

Kristopher Childs 47:33

All right, cool. Thank y'all. Thank y'all.

Vanessa Vakharia 47:37

Okay, guys, I am still thinking about painting my wall because I'm absolutely that person who tries to paint, like, the entire building, replace the windows, and, like, probably start an entire renovation that nobody asked for. But I also loved that reminder that we want students to feel capable even when math feels hard. Sometimes one experience of, "Wait, I can actually do this," gives us enough of a foundation to build a bit of confidence on. Huge thanks to Kris, to everyone who joined us in Denver, and to all of you listening right now. If one of the many mic drop moments in this convo struck a chord with you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it, and you know I want you to text me, so hit the Text Us link in the show notes and Let me know what you thought. Let me know if you were there. Were you there when this was recorded? Were you in the audience? I wanna know. Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, and produced by David Kochberg, who was there at his very first NCTM, guys. He came just to record this interview with Kris, and he had a great time. Thanks to all of you who were so kind to him, who met him, who gave him a hug, and who rolled their eyes, when you saw us argue in real life instead of just on the podcast. Our theme music is by our band Goodnight Sunrise, and we cannot wait to see you next week, same time, same place, same channel.

Outtake

Vanessa Vakharia 48:52

​Uh, Kris says we've had a conversation before, but I said I don't think we've ever had a conversation, and then he said 10 seconds with me is a conversation. And that, that is the kind of energy we are bringing today.