Show intro: Hi, I’m Vanessa Vakharia aka The Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy - a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas, one problem at a time. When I was in grade 11, I failed math not once, but twice because I was told that I just wasn't a math person. Thanks to a math intervention in the form of an amazing teacher, I ended up scoring 99% in grade 12 math, and now I run The Math Guru, my very own math tutoring studio in Toronto. I started Math Therapy to take this conversation global and I like to think of it as not just a podcast but a movement. Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist, but the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. Oh, and don't worry - no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.

Episode intro: Guys okay, hi. Welcome back! Great to be here. I just want you to all know that I'm already laughing just thinking about how fucking hysterical this episode is and I don't want to hype it up too much but Miguel might legit be the funniest person I know. From a past of failing grade 12 math twice and flipping burgers to a soaring future and present of analyzing stats and spreadsheets for the government, Miguel's math journey is a wild one. I cannot wait for you to hear all about how this math anxious motormouth turned his fear of failure into his greatest motivator. Get ready to laugh, cry and… Well that’s it. Laugh and cry, that’s what we're going to be doing here but mostly laughing. Also, please note that this was pre-covid, so excuse my ignorance - you’ll know what I mean. Here he is friends, Miguel Escobar.

Vanessa Vakharia: Miguel! Hello, hi! Welcome to the podcast.

Miguel Escobar: Hi! Thanks for having me.

V: I honestly want to start this with you giving us a little synopsis of your relationship with math. We’re recording this on Valentine’s day so it kind of makes sense that we’re talking about relationships, right!? Oh my god!

M: It’s been a tragic relationship with math, up to now though. We’ll get there. So when I was younger, math was never my strong suit - I was good in biology, science, all those things. My sister was the mathematician, I was just sort of there. I did good in everything else but math was never a focus for me, I never really wanted to be good at it, I just sort of had to do it. So I went through school fine, didn’t do terribly. I went through high school, had to take math, kind of coasted along - 70s, 60s, 70s, like not a big deal. Get to grade 12, had to take calculus, right?

V: So why do you have to take it? 

M: Back then I was told that in order for me to get into university you needed English, calculus, and a science, and you had to have all 3. I never wanted to take calculus but I had to take it, so I go into this calculus class and I’ve got this teacher. I’m not going to say his name because I don’t want to give him that validation, but he was a terrible person and I failed my first time in calculus. I don’t even think I got more than like 3, literally just wasn't present for any of it. 

Then I had to take it again because in my head I’m like, “If I don’t get calculus, I’m not going to get into university, and that’s the end of that.”. So going to another round of calculus with the exact same horrifying teacher, and basically couldn’t figure out any of it, because he would speak through the classes. So you have this textbook open in front of you, and he's like, “Okay let's read it all together.”.

V: Like read the book!?

M: Like it’s story time... and then he's like, “Okay, great, figure it out now. So a plus b equals c, I'm not going to tell you why, but you need to know that, memorize it, go, here’s a test with 6000 questions that you’re never going to get the answers to.”. I would sit there and I would just look around at everyone like why does everyone else seem to be getting this? It's literally just me like huh? He was speaking Klingon, it didn't make sense to me at all. So eventually I was getting like 9 in the class and then my mom comes and my mom’s like, “Why are you failing?”, and I'm like, “I can't figure this out it doesn't make sense in my head.”, so then the teacher comes to the house.

V: What?

M: Right? He gets invited to the house.

V: Is that even legal?

M: I have no clue. One day I didn't even know he was coming, the doorbell rings, there he is at the door and I'm like, “How did you find me? Why am I dreaming? This is a nightmare.”. Sits down with parents, basically tells them your son is not good enough, he's not going to do well, he doesn't try hard enough, so the best for him is to get a 50. I'll pass him and then he can try and get into university.

V: This sounds like it’s literally 1932. When does this happen? A teacher shows up at your door. Was he wearing a trench coat, was he smoking a cigar? A pipe?

M: No but he had trouble matching. His suit pants didn’t match his jacket and that’s what I was most concerned about. Like who let him out of the house like that? Basically my mom said, “You’ve got to try harder.”. But then she said to him, “Well what are you doing to try and make it easier for him? How are you helping him?”. He literally was like, “It’s up to the student to do as well as they think they can and they can reach out. It’s not up to me, I just teach the curriculum, that’s it.”. 

V: Okay, I mean…

M: Valid point, but at the end of a lesson he would be like, “Does anyone have any questions?”. And if the smart kids had a question, he’d answer all of them, for the rest of us who had no clue, you could put both your arms up, your foot, your left rib cage, and he’d be like, “Nobody? Nobody? That’s it.”, and then would move on. And I was like I have no clue what you just said. You know in Charlie Brown and the teacher is like, “Blah blah blah”, that’s literally how he sounded in my head the whole time. I would stare at the textbook, nothing would make sense, the numbers would move along the page, I’d be like forget it. I’m just going to fail. 

Then, towards the end of it, I’m just barely getting 50, and he’s like, “You really need to get this, you really need to try harder, because at the end of the day you’re just going to flip burgers and in the future you’re not going to have a career.”.

V: Oh my god he said that?

M: Yeah. He said, “You’re not going to have a career, so you really just need to figure this out or realize you’re not really going to go far. It’s up to you, you have to make the decision.”

V: How did you feel?

M: Literally at that moment, keep in mind I was in highschool - puberty, trying to figure yourself out, here I am a closeted homosexual.

V: Oh my god, a lot happening. 

M: There were like 3 gay peope in my whole school. You’re trying to figure out all these things, and then you have this teacher that’s literally like, “You're going to be a failure anyway because you can't figure this out.”. I'm doing well in everything else but I'm going to fail math and that's the end of that. I ended up getting a 51.

V: How did you get the extra 1%?

M: He gave me extra credit to do, because I failed the exam.

V: Wow, okay so he has his soft spots.

M: No, he just didn’t want to see me again. 

V: Okay, right (Laughing).

M: Literally words out of his mouth. He was like, “I’d prefer not to have you back in summer school. So here’s a 51, here’s some extra work to do, I'll give you the extra percentage. Get out.”. So I did it, and then tried to go to university, I wanted to be a microbiologist - I had big aspirations. My sister did biology in school, I wanted to follow in her footsteps, I wanted to work for the CDC, Centre for Disease Control, I was going to cure Ebola or something like that. 

V: Oh my god, Ebola. Remember when that was a thing? 

M: It still kind of is.

V: Is it? Oh shit, okay.

M: You’re so pretty (Both laughing).

So I get to university, we sit down in the first class, I have to take math, you do first year math in university. I sit down, it’s me and what felt like 600,000 students in this small room that was like the size of a Tim Hortons. You sit down in this class, it's like elevated so I’m all the way at the top because I was worried he would pick me and I didn't want anyone to even know I’m there, because I’m horrified that I'm in a math class.

V: And it’s calculus, isn’t it?

M: It’s everything. I have no clue because I didn’t go past the first class.

V: It’s not everything, there’s no math class that’s just everything. 

M: I didn’t go back. We did the first one, and then the teacher was like, “We’re just going to do a quick review”, and he started to put things up on the board and I was just sitting there almost in tears just like here we go again, I can't figure this out, my math teacher was right, I'm just going to fail. 

V: I want to take the quickest pause just so it's clear in my head, when you were in calculus in high school, going back to high school, it wasn’t that you worked so hard and tried so hard and couldn't do it, it was that the teacher just like fucked and you didn’t know what the fuck was going on and you were totally unmotivated, right? It's not like you were spending hours doing homework every night.

M: Right. It had a lot to do with that I was trying my best, I just couldn’t get the concepts of certain things. I needed someone to sit down with me and break it down to a level beneath where everyone was supposed to be. 

V: Sure, I just wanted to clarify that one point. Move on, back to your balcony seat in your calculus class.

M: Yes, so I'm on my terrace at university, I went to Western, and I sit down and I’m looking at the stuff on the board and I’m like absolutely not. I get up within the first 5 minutes and walk out of class, I was just like I'm not doing this. The textbook was 27,000 pages and I didn’t even want to get through the first page which is the introduction and why they wrote the book. I was like, no, I don’t even want to know any of this.

V: (Laughing) Who reads that!? 

M: Me because I don’t want to get to the math part! But at that point the fear, anxiety, that stuff, set in deep-rooted inside of me and I could not... I didn't go to bio class, I didn't go to psych class, I didn’t go to English…

V: What did you do?

M: I failed university.

V: What did you do at all? Like did you…

M: I sat, I drank, I did things I'm not supposed to do but I was awake, right? 

V: When did you drop out?

M: I didn’t really drop out, the university asked me not to come back.

V: (Laughing) This is a theme.

M: I got this cute little letter from the university that’s like, “Thanks so much for your money, unfortunately you probably want to go to school, but since you’re not really into that, don’t come back next year. Reevaluate your life and don't come back.”. Now, the thing was I told my mom that I had to drop out, she was like, “Great. You need to find a job. I’m not supporting you if you’re not going to do anything.”. The only job available was down the street at a restaurant that opened up near my house, what's the only job that I can do? Flip burgers.

V: Oh my god, full circle.

M: So I go and I work, I didn't even think about it until one day I'm standing there, I’m flipping burgers, I literally stop. My boss is like, “You good?”, and I'm like, ‘Fuck. He was right.’. I’m hearing him tell me I’m going to flip burgers. Not that flipping burgers is bad by any means, I’ve worked in the industry for a long time, people have wonderful careers out of it. However, when you're told that this is your inevitability...

V: And he said that negatively, right? He wasn’t like, “Here’s what you can do. You can go flip burgers!”, he was like, “All you’ll ever be is a burger flipper.”.

M: As if it were something terrible, right? There I am flipping burgers being like, fuck, that’s it, this is my life now.

V: I’m getting goosebumps.

M: I’m so disappointed in myself, I’m completely beating myself up.

V: How old are you at this point?

M: Maybe 21. So technically I’m supposed to be figuring out what to do with my life, I’m standing there being like this is it. This is as far as I go.

V: What was the feeling? Do you remember?

M: Part of it was regret but part of it was shame, in terms of why didn't I fix something? Why didn't I fix myself? Why didn't I try harder to avoid this destiny sort of that was given to me? What could I have done that would have prevented me from having this as my existence? 

V: It’s so funny because 21 is so young, I totally understand when you are 21 you’re like, ‘Fuck. I’m already 21, this is all I'm doing.”. But not to give a sneak peak, but that is the perfect time for an epiphany and a moment to be like, ‘I actually can change this.’. So you’re there, you’re flipping burgers...

M: I did that for probably a couple years and then finally something clicked in me. I realized I liked this, not flipping burgers but I liked the restaurant scene and hospitality. I was like, you know what? I'm going to give it a shot again, go to George Brown, do the hospitality management.

V: You went back to school!

M: I did!

V: Good for you.

M: I did hospitality management, and first class I have to take - math. So I sit down in this math class again just trembling, terrified, sweats, sitting in this class with all these other kids all over again. I’m like, “This is it. I’m going to try again and fail again and then go back to flipping burgers, I should just accept that as my reality.”. Then I get this really nice teacher.

V: Oh my god! It’s always the teacher. It always is the fucking teacher.

M: Math is everywhere. So here I am thinking I'm going to work in a restaurant, I'm not going to need math in a restaurant. Meanwhile, if you want to own a restaurant, you need to figure out your profit margins and all these things, so there’s math. Sit down, look at this teacher, the teacher comes up to me, she can see it on my face, like she literally sees it on my face and she's like, “Are you good?”, and I was like, “I am terrified to be here. I can’t even open this book.”, and she says, “When this is over, when the first class is over, come sit with me and we'll go through this together.”.

V: Oh my god I love her! Do we know her name? Should we say her name?

M: I forget, I could find it. 

V: We should find her.

M: But she sat down with me, she basically says, “Let’s chat”, and didn't even really go through the math in the very beginning, she was like, “Why are you so scared? What's the deal?”.

V: (Gasps) She was giving you math therapy! The OG form!

M: I give her a little bit of it and she's like, “Well it’s new. This is a new class, it’s fine, it’s not calculus so don’t worry about it.”. Okay, here’s the thing, the expectations that were always put on me when I was growing up not just by my parents but in general, were that I had to get perfect on everything. This is where even you talk about making mistakes and it’s okay to not get perfect. In my head I was like if I don’t get 100 in this class I’m screwed, that’s it. I ended up getting like an 85 and was so disappointed in myself.

V: What!? What are you talking about?

M: At the end of it, she’s like, “What are you doing? This is really good.”.

V: Like you came from a 3% to an 85! And you’re still disappointed...

M: Exactly, but I was still disappointed at that point because I felt like I should’ve got better.

V: Ew, you know I hate the word should.

M: That’s the thing, right? I failed to recognize where I had come from. That was part of the journey which is fine. Anyways, I finished college with honours, worked in the restaurant industry for another few years and then all of a sudden this government job ended up in my lap, I was pushing papers. It wasn’t really what I wanted to do but it just sort of happened, did that for a few years and then all of a sudden I'm now the executive assistant to a director. Part of that is stats so I moved away from math just pushing paper, now I have to do stats all over again. The annual reports, these are things that go out to the public, to the prime minister, to the premier, all this stuff. 

V: How did this happen? Sorry did I miss something?

M: Somebody was like, “Have you ever thought of working in an office, getting out of the restaurant industry?”. I thought, why don’t I give it a shot.  Went in to go meet a director and he didn't even tell me it was an interview - I went in flip-flops and shorts. I was just like, “Hey what's up?” and he was like, “So tell me about you.”

V: And that’s Canadian government for all the Americans listening, that’s what it’s like here. Flip-flops and shorts and maple syrup and shit. 

M: Honestly I had no clue, I didn’t even do my hair, didn’t put my face on, nothing. Just walked in and was like, “Hey what's up?”, and he’s like, “Tell me about you.”. I’m like, “It’s so hot outside! I hate summertime, don’t mind my shine. I worked in a restaurant, did that, did school, failed a lot, but no problem - it's not a big deal. Why am I here?”. He was like, “Oh, so I’ve got this opening”, and I’m  like, “Oh wow, thanks for the opportunity because that’s crap.”. They called me the next week and were like, “Can you start on the 17th?”.

V: They probably were like wow, this guy has dealt with failure. People want a hard worker, you don’t find that a lot these days .

M: I definitely did not take this straight narrow path, it was windy and jagged. Anyways, I'm there now and then his executive assistant leaves, and he’s like I need someone to fill the spot, do you want it? I had been there for like 2,3 years and I was like I guess I can try. I start doing that.

V: Did you know that there were any stats involved in the job?

M: No, I had no clue.

V: This is interesting. Do you think you wouldn’t have taken it if you had known?

M: Probably. 

V: Really!? I feel like this is a pivotal moment because I just want to throw in as an example of thank god you didn't know because it is very possible that the math trauma you have experienced would have prevented you from taking this risk. It really can close these major doors for you.

M: Honest to god I wouldn’t have done it if I had known.

V: That’s so important.

M: He didn’t present it that way. He just presented it as a lot of documentations and writing things on his behalf, and talking to stakeholders and clients and stuff like that. There was no mention of I also need you to do math. I honestly would've been like, “No, I’m not good at math, don’t give it to me.”. I ended up doing it, started doing all these numbers then they say you're really good at this, can you also do numbers for other offices? So then I started to do it for other offices now.

V: So what numbers are you doing?

M: Sometimes it's basic stuff, it’s a lot of projections. 

V: When you saw the first set of numbers you had to do, did you feel that anxiety?

M: Yeah, I was terrified all over again. But it was different because I had someone who said,
“You're more than capable of doing this.”. I had really great bosses, I had two directors over the course of my life so far; phenomenal, supportive people who were very much of the mindset that you are capable and if it takes you a little bit of extra time to figure it out, no problem we'll make it work.

V: Oh my god! Imagine if that were the attitude in school, and it never is. Okay, sorry go on.

M: A lot of times they would say to me, “How long do you think you would need to do this?”, and I would say “3 weeks”, “Let’s give you 4, just in case.”. And then we would sit down and they would set these meetings to check where you were at with this. The funny part though was that neither of my directors thought they were good at math either so they sort of passed it off like, “We can’t do it so would you mind giving it a shot?”.

V: So you’re there, your bosses don’t like math, they pass it on to you but they believe in you.

M: That's the whole thing! We start doing it, and then I ended up getting another job, I sort of got promoted. I moved up into another job where the majority of it was based on stats, it was based on not only running stats, but building reports that run stats for people. Then I have to now explain the stats to management, executive committees, all this stuff, and then also teach them how to run their own stats. Now, they have their own staff, like admin staff, that they want to run stats, so now I have to sit down and train those people on how to run the stats.

V: So you’re basically a math teacher!

M: It’s psychotic though because in the back of my mind, I thought if they knew my history, nobody should trust me

V: No one knew?

M: No I never told anybody about failing university, and everybody just sort of says to me, “You’re really good at this”, and I’m like, “Don't please don't say that”.

V: So you’re experiencing imposter syndrome so hard. This whole episode basically is imposter syndrome. You know what I mean, that idea that you are good at it, you are proving you are good at it, yet you are so scared you're going to be exposed as a fraud that you believe you are. This is literally the definition of it.

M: That’s the whole thing, it’s like self sabotage. Somebody tells me I’m good at this, and in the back of my mind I'm like, no you're not though. You're just winging it like you always do in school. 

V: That is literally the definition. Like the definition. There’s a quote that Lady Gaga has that I’m obsessed with, I can’t remember off the top of my head but she basically says something like, “There are so many days when I still feel like the loser kid in high school and I have to get up and look in the mirror and be like, ‘You're a fucking rock star, you’re Lady Gaga. Get out there and be what your fans need you to be.’”. And it always makes me feel better because if Lady Gaga feels that way, like fuck. 

M: I feel like Whitney felt the same way.

V: Oh fuck, RIP.

M: Oh yeah. For a second I was like she’s not dead, but then…

V: Whitney!? 

M: It’s okay I cried that time, I cried for 3 days. I asked my boss for a bereavement day when she passed away.

V: (Laughing)

M: He said no. So that’s sort of where I am now, where I am now in this position where math is a big focal point in my job and I am no longer petrified of it, I actually kind of look forward to it. 

V: I want to dig more into how this happened. Did you just have someone believe in you? Tell me about that time you stayed up until midnight and your boss was like, “Okay yo, what the fuck is going on?”.

M: We had some stats that had to go out and I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I was petrified that if I didn't finish it and didn't do it properly, I was basically going to get fired. So I stayed up all night, finished it, but then my boss the next day was like, “You look exhausted.”. I was like, “First of all, good morning. Thank you. Second, I am exhausted because I was up all night trying to figure this crap out.”. He was like, “What's wrong with you? Why would you do that?”, and I was like, “I was petrified you were going to fire me if I don’t do it.”, and he was like, “Honest to god, it’s not that serious. Next time, just talk to me.”. 

It was one of those moments where I realized I can actually talk to people and they're not going to judge me or berate me or tell me that I'm useless, they are probably trying to help me. It was this sort of weird moment where I thought why do I beat myself but nobody else does? 

V: This is so interesting because listening to your story, you do come from a history of basically being taught that if you ask for help it not only means you're stupid but you will not be heard. That idea of you putting your hand up in class and your teacher being like, “Yep, cool, no one has questions.”, but it's so ironic because that same teacher is like, “Well you should come to me if you need help.”, yet isn't really hearing or seeing you. You're basically being taught, and I think a lot of kids are taught, that math is a solo sport, this is what you said and I kind of like how you said that. 

If you look at the stereotype of the person who is smart at math, they are always figuring it out on their own. This genius that doesn’t need anyone else to help them, it’s not a social idea, it’s not a team sport. That doesn't work for very many people and that's why we see so many people push out of math or thinking, and I'm using quotations, that they’re not “math people”, because they don't operate that way. This experience you have, this eye opening experience of being like, “Oh my god. I can ask for help and in return I can receive help and I can get better.”, actually really changes things for you. 

M: Absolutely. It’s really funny too, you talk about “math people”, so I was valedictorian in high school in my last year and I was student council president the same year. The girl who got 98% in calculus, everybody thought she was going to get it no problem. Somehow I managed to win this thing, no clue, it must’ve been a popularity contest - I wasn’t even... I don’t know what happened, anyways I was valedictorian….

V: Based on your facial structure.

M: Right, because I was pretty (Laughing).

V: Still are Miguel.

M: Thank you! One of the other girls in the school who was also brilliant in math came up to me and said, “It's really unfortunate the person who deserved it didn’t win.”. 

V: Based on what? Her math score?

M: Based on her math score.

V: This actually leads me to a whole other thing, how is it that math is always the thing that validates people? Do you notice this? People will paint a beautiful painting or write an amazing essay and you very rarely think they're so brilliant. Someone gets a great math score and all of a sudden they're the smartest person in the room. Why does her 98 make her the one who should be valedictorian? What’s that reason?

M: I couldn’t even tell you. It was so weird too because it didn’t really matter what else she did in school.

V: I was going to say the criteria for valedictorian, how can it be based on your math score?

M: Yeah that was it. It was just because she did so good in math, and that was sort of the peak, that was the top of the mountain. If you could do well in calculus, algebra, geometry, finance, all those things, you were a genius, you were brilliant, you would be successful.

V: Why is that? What is the reason? Do you have any ideas why in your mind?

M: The funny part is though, I feel like a lot of people feel that if you're good at math that automatically means you're going to be successful. 

V: Why!?

M: I can’t tell you, honest to god.

V: You don’t have any theories? I'm obsessed with this.

M: I don’t have any theories. It’s something that’s ingrained in us, that if you're good in math, you're brilliant and you automatically are going to be CEO of Google one day and that's the end of that.

V: Which is so funny to me because I know so many people that are great at math that lack so many skills you would need to be in charge of anything. 

M: But you automatically give them a pass because they’re brilliant in math.

V: But why!?

M: Ask me again maybe I'll come up with an answer.

V: Okay fine if anyone’s listening to this and you have any idea why, let us know. 

M: Seriously, but it’s something that’s set in society. The other thing that’s set in society is the people that are good in math. I was raised, especially in high school, that a very specific culture, a certain group of people, I don't want to say it.

V: That’s okay…

M: Asian people. That's what I was told.

V: (Laughing) I didn’t even prompt you to say it.

M: But I’m going to say it. In school, that’s what we were told. That Asian students were brilliant in math, they wouldn’t help you but they were brilliant in math. They grouped together to help each other but never would help you, and the reason why is because the rest of the student population would shun them in everything else but when you needed math help, you ran to them.

V: What is so interesting is I’ve met a few Asian people who listen to the podcast and have such a different experience with it because for them, it’s isolating because they are supposed to be good at math, due to the stereotype, and if they’re not, it’s a whole other crazy math trauma for them to be letting down their people. It’s interesting to see how harmful that stereotype can be, whether you are in the group or outside of it. 

There is this idea, again we are talking about stereotypes around math, and one of the big ones is that it’s something that you’re supposed to be doing on your own. So now, let’s circle back, you’re in your job now, you’re in charge of summer students, and you are in charge of changing the narrative for them. What are you seeing?

M: We get a set of summer students often that come in, not just summer but co-op students in general. A lot of them will come in and are terrified of any type of math that you put in front of them. I’ve had a lot of summer students that have come in and I’ve said, “Look I need help on some stats if you don’t mind.”, and they sort of stare at me like don’t give me math just give me paper, I’ll push paper. They’re just afraid to get it wrong. My nephew is 10 years old now and when I help him with math now and he gets something wrong, he gets really upset and frustrated. I see the same thing in a lot of the students that come in, not only in math but just in general, when they get something wrong, they really beat themselves up on it. It’s as if there’s this insane amount of pressure to be perfect all the time.

V: Which you experienced yourself. 

M: Yeah, so a lot of the time we’ll take a break. We’ll completely remove ourselves from the office and get some coffee, sit down, relax, chill, take a break, it’s not that serious. If you don’t get it right the world’s not going to end, give it a minute, you’re not an idiot ,so let's go back and give it a shot. 

V: Do you find this works?

M: Yeah.

V: So you’re like a little math therapist yourself Miguel! Oh my god! You’re infiltrating the government for me before I can get to them!

M: (Laughing) It’s one of those things where I see a lot of myself in them.

V: Which is the most important characteristic of a teacher to be honest.

M: I’m 30 years old now but I don’t feel like a big adult. I feel like I’m still really young.

V: None of us do.

M: None of us do. I feel like when I was 18, 19, if an adult came at me with something it was in a very…

V: Condescending, yeah.

M: Just my experience. Very condescending, judgmental, so I don’t want to come at these students like that. I don’t want to come at them with the attitude that they went to school so they should know this already. It’s almost to say to them, “Look, I didn’t figure out math until I was 26. So if you’re 20 and you don’t get it yet, give yourself a break. You’ve got time.”. There’s no timeline on how long it takes you to figure out math. It’s a lifelong journey. 

V: I LOVE this! Put that on a fucking bumper sticker, yes. I was going to say, every christmas at The Math Guru I do the 12 days of TMG, where I post a math riddle everyday and I will say, you are the most enthusiastic participant we have. 

M: Let me tell you a story about that real quick. So 2 years ago. I started to follow them and it was so interesting for myself, through my journey of figuring out who I am, just being able to do these little puzzles and then send them to you and have you write back and say, “you got it!”. I would get to sit there and be like, “I figured this out. Now I’m going to try the second one.”. Then I would do the second one and get it right, and the third one right, and then I would get to a place where I got it wrong. Instead of being upset and thinking I’m an idiot, I would say, “Can you walk me through this? Explain this.”.

V: Yes! It’s true! You’ve sent me videos, quite aggressive, you did videos of you and your friends discussing these riddles over the dinner table.

M: It’s at dinner, it’s at work, it’s in the lunchroom. I pull my phone out and say, “Guys there’s 7 rabbits and one rabbit has 12 rabbits and now there’s a leprechaun and he's wearing a green hat, what is x?”.

V: (Laughing) First of all they’re Christmas themed, so you’re going with Easter and St. Paddy’s day…

M: Santa Claus has 6 wives, how many…

V: Wow, Miguel! Actually being poly is super in right now so I can see that being next year’s riddle.

M: These little puzzles are phenomenal in terms of boosting my own confidence, in terms of math. It feels so trivial, it’s a riddle about elves and stockings…

V: There you go, that’s more on theme.

M: You sit there and you’re like anyone can figure this out, but there are actually people, grown adults who have no idea how to do it.

V: We tutor hundreds of students here all of who profess to hate word problems, that’s the thing they hate, word problems. Yet when these riddles come out, I am getting a hundred DMs a day from students who are so excited to solve these word problems and I love being able to point out when you don't have the pressure of perfection or getting it right on your test we all actually love math. We love being curious, we love looking at a problem having no clue how to solve it, and seeing what you can come up with.

 It is a social thing, people are discussing it with their friends and it makes me so happy but also so sad because that’s not what they’re learning in school. They’re learning that it is a solo sport and they have to do it in this very particular way. Instead of thinking, “Wow, okay Santa has 6 wives, how is this playing out, how am I going to figure out how many…”

M: How many children he knows the names of.

V: Exactly, took the words right out of my mouth. 

M: You know what’s funny though? There’s so many times in my office where I will gather people and we will sit down all together and try to figure out your puzzles.

V: Oh my god I love this!

M: It’s so funny because it’s not a competition, it's not anything aggressive. You sit there and are like, “I got 7”, “I got 9”, “Well how did you get 9?”. And then you talk about it and are like, “Oh my god I didn’t even think about that!”. It’s friendly, it’s social, it’s this beautiful atmosphere of learning together. I never got that at school.

V: And most kids don’t.

M: I felt like I was trapped, handcuffed, I was in a box unless I figured it out and I didn't. If I didn’t, I was in the box and if I could figure it out, I was outside the box and I could go further in life. If I was trapped in this box, what I was going to do in life was limited. 

V: That just sounds so isolating to be trapped in that box.

M: It’s terrible, it's really bad.

V: This literally is giving me goosebumps and is making me so happy because this is such a full circle moment for me. This is literally why I started The Math Guru, to show people that math can be social, that it can be community-based, it can be collaborative and that it's not just about competing with your peers, it’s not just about getting the right answer. It really is about rediscovering the joy of learning and I think about a little kid. People say this all the time, like mathematicians and math researchers, kids are born curious. You are born wanting to solve problems and at some point that is stripped away from you and it usually is through the education system. Not to be hating so hard on the education system but we unteach that - we teach kids that you shouldn’t be curious because that can be risky and dangerous and instead you should focus on doing the safe thing to get those marks. It's so sad because, like you said, look at you now as a grown adult loving inquisition, learning, curiosity, and collaborating with your peers. 

M: Just to add on top of that, there’s no age limit for it. You can do this in your 30s, 40s, 50s - it doesn't make a difference. You had someone on your podcast last season, I forget her name…

V: Yvonne, yeah! She's decided on her bucket list of things to do before she dies, is to learn math all the way to calculus. I think she might’ve gotten worse than you, I think you guys should have a little talk.

Okay we need to wrap up even though I never want to wrap up. What would you say to someone who doesn't think they're a math person? 

M: So…

V: Oh my god, you changed your posture.

M: I straightened up. I feel like I would be talking to myself first of all. It’s so funny because when I listen to your podcast and you ask everyone these questions, it almost feels like everyone's talking to a younger version of themselves.

V: Yeah, oh my god it’s true.

M: I feel like I would be talking to myself at 17 so first things first always is relax. Take a breath, take a minute, chill out, because I feel like it can be very overwhelming when you start to tell yourself you're not good at something. Then it's a lot of reminding yourself that you're capable of things and that goes back to if you’re good in sports, if you're good in biology, if you do well in these things, remind yourself of those things. At one point we couldn't speak, at one point we couldn't walk - now we can do all these things.

V: PREACH! Oh my god, yes.

M: So if you are capable of doing these things, learning how to drive a car, figure out your cell phone, program your television, you’re more than capable of doing this. The third is resources. Find yourself resources, talk to your teachers, talk to your parents, find other students that are the same level as you and trying to figure it out as well. When I was growing up, especially in high school, your only resource was your guidance counsellor. It was, ‘Go talk to your guidance counsellor, they'll figure it out.’. You would go to your guidance counsellor and they would say, “Mm well maybe just read the textbook.”

V: Or you know what they would say, that you need calculus to get into university, which is false.

M: Those things, exactly. There are so many more resources like your book which I got for my nephew…

V: Oh! Thank you!

M: He lives for it.

V: We’ll put that on the show notes. 

M: Little things like that, there’s all these resources out there right now. You can Google it - that's kind of how I figure out a lot of things in my job where somebody would say, “I need you to do a projection of this number.”, and I'm like okay what’s a projection? So I’m like, “Dear Google, what’s a projection? How do I find a projection?”, but now I can sit there and read it and learn it and it makes complete sense to me. The last thing always, what I tell my nephew, what I like to tell a lot of people that are around me now, is be your own hype person. Hype yourself up.

V: Oh I love this!

M: Remind yourself on a daily basis that you're capable, you're worthy, you can do all these things. It might not be easy…

V: Do you do that?

M: All the time, I have to.

V: Do you have any set things that you say? Do you have sticky notes on your mirror?

M: Not so much on my mirror but I have a notebook that I keep next to my bed because I started journaling. On the very first page I have reminders and I write every day that I'm proud of something that I've done. I wake up in the morning and I read all the things that I'm proud of.

V: Do you!?

M: Yeah, absolutely. 

V: That’s a great routine. I have set reminders on my phone to pop up every hour saying those things, or saying my manifestations or affirmations.

M: And you have to because a lot of the times you’re not going to find somebody else that’s going to hype you up the way you can hype up yourself. Sometimes it's literally just taking a minute, going into a room, closing the door and just saying to yourself, ‘I'm good. I got this. I can do this. It's great, no problem, calm down, breathe deep, try again.”. 

V: I love it, I fucking love it. Okay last question - if there's one thing you could change about the way math is taught in schools what would it be? I love that you’re fixing your hair for this question.

M: I wrote down more than one…

V: Tell me all of them!

M: I think the biggest thing I would want right now is I noticed that the last time we went through changing the curriculum in the school, there were a lot of people that I saw on TV that were 35 years in teaching, and this and this and this, and professor of this and all these types of things, and I didn’t see any students.

V: RIGHT? OH MY… Okay sorry I’m backing away from the mic because I’m yelling this but this is one of my biggest fucking pet peeves. Has anyone talked to the actual students? As someone who actually works in stats in the government, why aren’t we using actual empirical evidence or actual research-based evidence to make changes? 

M: The funny thing is that we ask professionals in other fields and when we try to cure a virus or whatever you get a biologist, you go and get all these people. But mathematicians, you don’t actually ask the people who do it? Or with math, you run out and get somebody who maybe was in school 40 years ago…

V: And yet we’re never asking the actual kids who have to sit in the classroom what the issue is.

M: Get the students around a table and talk to them. Figure it out. Not even in a professional setting, just sit down with some kids.

V: I think it’s interesting that we’re starting, but just starting to hear from universities who are saying, “Hey listen, you're sending us all these students and they don't have the skills that they need for these programs.”. There's something wrong and there's something wrong with the pipeline where no one's communicating. We're teaching some random math in elementary school, they get to high school and high school teachers are like, “I don't know what's happening but no one in my class knows anything”, and they get to university and the university professors…

I’ve actually heard this is why a lot of bell curving has started to happen, because university programs are like, “We kind of have a bit of an issue here, so we’re either going to fail everyone or we need to change our standards.”, which is pretty fucked up. Sorry we’re getting really off topic. Okay, back to you.

M: I’ve always felt that we need to move away from just memorizing things. Don't just memorize an equation, don't just memorize BEDMAS. Use actual examples of it. You need to teach the kids this is why you need to know these things and do practical examples. Somebody teach me how to do my taxes, I wish someone taught me how to do my taxes when I was 18. Finances, all of those kinds of things and the last thing honestly is we need new resources and materials. I can’t breathe when I look at my nephews textbook.

V: Totally, It’s disgusting.

M: Why is this written in 1989? This doesn’t make any sense. Why are the pages falling off and why is one page white and one page brown? Why can’t we give these kids new things? 

V: (Laughing) For diversity reasons maybe.

M: So everyone feels included. I feel like we need to redo all of it. Brand new things, invest in it.

V: I agree! Miguel, it was a fucking treat having you here today I’ll say.

M: Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.

V: This was so much fun, can't wait to do it again and fuck, let’s go be our best selves today.

M: Everyday.

V (outro): Are you guys still laughing because I legit am. There are so many mic drops in this episode but I think the biggest takeaway to me is that asking for help and offering help can be life changing for everyone involved. That’s not just a math lesson, it's a life lesson so remember that when you go out into your world today that being a mentor can make a crazy, amazing difference in someone's life. Whether you know it or not you are a mentor, we all are. We're all teachers, we all have the power to teach someone something and that is a beautiful thing.

So now that we’re all crying and channeling our inner teachers, mentors, and superheroes in general, I'm just going to take a moment to remind you that you can find everything we talked about with Miguel on our show notes at themathguru.ca/maththerapy. Remember to follow us on all social media @themathguru and of course Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is Waves by my band, Goodnight, Sunrise. Guys, finally, if you know someone who needs math therapy or just needs to hear someone getting math therapy, please share this podcast and write a review on whatever podcast app you use. Those 2 things made a huge difference. I am so determined to change the way we look at math ability in this world and I need your help, so spread the word. That’s all for this week, stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday.