Roger Fischer  0:02  (intro quote)
I've been doing this 16 years - I've never had a student asked me a question about math that was dumb. On the contrary.

Roger Fischer  0:07  (intro quote)
If you're going to ask questions you don't know the answer to, that's a very vulnerable experience and I think teachers should be prepared for that.

Vanessa Vakharia  0:14  (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. 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. 

Vanessa Vakharia  0:39  (episode intro)
Alright guys, so this season, we've been shining a spotlight on the way media shapes our perceptions of math, and this episode hits it from a slightly different angle. Yes, math pun fully intended - do you even know me?? Alright, so today, I talk to Roger Fisher, who I actually met through social media, because tons of fascinating conversations about the present and future of education are happening over Twitter these days. Roger is a math teacher from Montana, who is just as pissed off as I am about the fact that our education system doesn't offer more entry points for students. Today, he shares his mindfulness-centered approach to teaching math, his views on what questions teachers should just never ask, and he talks about that time he was chased by a bear - like, actually, though. Let's do it, guys.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:24  
Roger, welcome to the podcast.

Roger Fischer  1:25  
Thanks for having me Vanessa, this is fantastic.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:28  
I want to kind of start by talking about how we met, which is so like, of the pandemic - we met on Twitter. And Roger actually reached out to me on Twitter and told me how much he loved the podcast and said that he wanted to be a guest on it, so wish granted, here we are! How did you find our podcast in the first place?

Roger Fischer  1:46  
Well, this fall, I taught this class - so I teach developmental math, which you might have heard called remedial math. And in this study skills class, I had them write these reflection papers. And I was just struck by how much trauma there was there. Like a student wrote, "We have to stop shaming people for not understanding math". So a lot of the students they just mentioned how embarrassed they were and how they felt bad about themselves, because they didn't know how to do this math. And so I like to go on walks with the dog, and I love to listen to podcasts, so I just searched "math trauma" in my podcast app, and yours is one of the first that came up.

Vanessa Vakharia  2:31  
Oh my god! What else came up? Are there other things that even came up?

Roger Fischer  2:35  
I don't remember, a bunch of math stuff - but yours was the one that stood out to me. I think it's because it said "Math Therapy" - my friend Bobby literally calls me the math therapist. I'm always asking people how they feel about things.

Vanessa Vakharia  2:49  
So okay, so this is crazy. Like, I mean, it's so insane. Because when I talk about Math Therapy and math trauma, most people are like, wait, what math trauma? What is that? So first of all, it's so crazy that you've also been kind of down that path that I have been, using that word - how did that start for you? Like, when did you start being like, Oh, my God, math, trauma is a thing.

Roger Fischer  3:10  
Probably when I started teaching, I started teaching developmental math. I taught it for one year when I was a master's student. And then I started teaching again in 2015, and I've been doing it since. And I think I just started to see - like, I'm pretty in tune with what people are feeling, I have pretty good instincts about how to make people feel comfortable. I like to think I learned it from my mom, she's really good at that. But I just could see, so many people had bad experiences with math, I'm pretty sure a lot of them had just explicitly or implicitly been told that "you can't do this". And I started to notice, I think a lot of the students just needed a better reason to do math then "because I told you to". And students told me stories about how terrible - like one student told me the story about how her dad was running flashcards for multiplication facts, and when she got them wrong, he would hit her.

Vanessa Vakharia  4:07  
Oh, my God, what? I hate that!

Roger Fischer  4:10  
I know, right? And you hear those sorts of stories, all too often when you work with developmental learners, it's almost like you could describe developmental math as people who have not succeeded due to trauma. And there are some exceptions to that, some people just didn't apply themselves or whatever, they were hung over the day they took their SAT's and so they didn't place, and some people probably don't really need to be in there and just for reasons they are - but a lot, so many of them have just been so deeply scarred, and it just makes me sad.

Vanessa Vakharia  4:39  
So okay, so the students get into your class, you're there, and you find like - what is the difference between a student - because I think it would be helpful for teachers and parents to identify, because often when someone's like, "Oh, I'm just not a math person" immediately I go to math trauma, I'm like, "Okay, hold on." 

Roger Fischer  4:55  
Yes. It's a trauma response.

Vanessa Vakharia  4:56  
It's a trauma response, right? Because they normally start getting really defensive, saying things like, "Well, whatever, I just never needed it. So it doesn't matter". And so you have convinced yourself of that almost, you don't have to feel that shame.

Roger Fischer  5:08  
Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia  5:08  
What is the difference, when you think about your classroom, what is the difference between someone who has math trauma and someone who was hung over on the day they wrote their test, or just doesn't know the basics because they didn't apply themselves? How do you figure that out?

Roger Fischer  5:24  
Oh, that's a wonderful question. My immediate thought is that fear, I think that's ultimately what drives it. The students who were just hung over the day they took their test, or just blew it off in high school that are capable of doing it - if I have them in my class, they they do fine. They figure it out, they participate, and they answer questions. And sometimes they're mad because they get placed in there, and they really don't need to be and that's legit. But then the ones who really need the help are ironically the ones who are so afraid to get it.

Roger Fischer  5:56  
I've just got on to this area of research about avoidance behaviors, which my department chair actually told me about. So resisting help, resisting novel approaches to learning, withdrawing effort. And so it's basically a way to protect yourself from feeling that shame. So that's sort of what I look for is yeah, the people who you can tell are afraid of it, and that someone always says, "I know this is a stupid question, but..."

Vanessa Vakharia  6:25  
Right!!

Roger Fischer  6:27  
Yeah, and you know, I don't even say there's no such thing as a stupid question, because of course there is, like, what size is your shoe? Sure. That's stupid. What the hell does that have to do with anything? But I always say -

Vanessa Vakharia  6:36  
Wait, what?!? (laughing)

Roger Fischer  6:38  
Well I'll ask them, I just try to be silly and like, not take myself seriously. And I'll say "you can ask me anything you want. What is my shoe size? 10? What color is my hair? Brown? Have you ever had a terrible haircut? You couldn't change back fast enough? Yes." But I have never had a student - I've been doing this 16 years - I've never had a student asked me a question about math that was dumb. On the contrary, they usually ask really amazing thing.

Vanessa Vakharia  7:00  
Yes. Yes. Yes. You guys heard it here first. That is amazing. That is amazing. And I wish - so, it's so weird, because we're almost doing the same thing, but calling it different things like I call it "math therapy". And I try to train teachers on how to use exactly what you're talking about: how to go into a classroom, how to spot math trauma, and how to deal with it, right? Like, I've been doing more and more workshops on this. And I find that teachers are really hungering for this becausen they have not learned this stuff, like you're talking about avoidance behaviors - they don't teach you that in Teachers College. So how do you learn to approach math, as you say, with an emphasis on compassion, empathy, and healing trauma? How do you even start to learn that as a teacher?

Vanessa Vakharia  7:00  
I think that you have to really genuinely care. And you have to really be interested in the students as people, I think that is really important. And open to hearing whatever it is they have to say. I really wish people would really think about not asking questions they already know the answer to, that's huge.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:08  
What do you mean?  Oh, like teachers?

Roger Fischer  8:10  
What's four times four? You know what four times four is, jackass - why are you asking?!

Vanessa Vakharia  8:15  
(laughing) Okay, well, wait, what do you mean? Like a teacher should not ask a student four times four?

Roger Fischer  8:23  
Um, well, I may have you edit that out, because I'm not sure if I if that's coming across clearly.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:27  
(laughing)

Roger Fischer  8:27  
But I've read this somewhere, I don't remember where, but I just got this idea that maybe if I ask instead of "how do you factor a trinomial", I'd say "what do you know about factoring trinomials"? Or "what do you think we should do next?" Instead of "what is the right thing?" Does that make sense?

Vanessa Vakharia  8:47  
I love that. And I actually think what you might be trying to say, although I don't want to put words in your mouth, is creating more entry points for students?

Roger Fischer  8:54  
Yes! Yes, that's a much better way of putting it.

Vanessa Vakharia  8:56  
Well, you put it great, because I actually think you're right. I think one of the problems in math is because it's the one subject where we are so obsessed with the right answer that when you ask the question, like, "how do you do this", a student automatically thinks, "if I don't have the right answer, I shouldn't put my hand up". Whereas if you say something like, "what do you think you do next?" That's a really open question. And there could be multiple, like, quote unquote, right answers. So I really like that idea of creating more entry points for students to feel empowered to say something and I actually think that's a really, really good point, I love that idea. And I think also, I was gonna ask, you said a lot of your students come in, and they have this math trauma. and they mentioned things like wanting to get rid of the shame around math. Do you think this is specific to math?

Roger Fischer  9:46  
Absolutely not. I have a colleague that teaches writing and we've talked a lot about how she tries to teach writing as healing and transformative because so many people have had bad experiences with writing as well.

Vanessa Vakharia  9:59  
See, Okay. So writing and math, I think I can get behind. I feel like those are the two places where you hear people have phobias, but what about geography? Or like, I feel like if somebody isn't good at history, it doesn't affect their whole sense of self. Whereas like, if they feel like they're not good at math, it's like a blow to the ego.

Roger Fischer  10:17  
It's bizarre, right? This is a good question, I don't know what the answer is. But you're right. Like, when you hear people talk about bad experiences in school, it's rarely about, you know, their chemistry lab.

Vanessa Vakharia  10:33  
Yeah, exactly! Like, they're not like walking around for the rest of their life being like, "Oh, my God, I could, I could never do history like no, like, Oh, don't give me a map. Like, I can't like geography's traumatic!" Like, if anything, they're like, "I don't know, whatever, can't read a map". But I feel like with math and English, we position them in such a way that like, both of those things are of such high value that if you can't do one of them, you're automatically unintelligent. Because that's the other thing, when we talk about math, someone could be a complete jackass, as you said, but be good at math. And we would call that person "smart". Whereas somebody could be like, really smart and like, let's say, an amazing artist, and we will never use the word "intelligent" to describe them will say, "oh, they're so unique, they're so creative", but we won't say intelligent. So I feel like because we have these associations with writing because it relates to literacy, and that's a key skill you need in life, right? And then math, because it's always positioned as this special thing that only smart people can do that, like, the second you can't do it, it makes you "stupid", which is painful. Whereas if you can't do history, it doesn't make you stupid, it makes you not able to do history.

Roger Fischer  11:40  
Yeah - are you familiar with Hiebert and Jim Stigler's work on the TIMMS study? They wrote a book that came out in 99 - I actually got to meet him when I was in grad school - it's pretty cool, it's called The Teaching Gap. And they did the third international math and science study, they were analyzing all this video of these instructional lessons that were recorded across the world. And their big takeaway from this was that teaching is a cultural activity, and that if you want to make any difference in teaching or make any sort of changes, you have to understand it as such. And that's sort of what came to my mind as we're talking about here. We have this culture around math that it's about, "you're good at it if you get the right answer immediately".

Vanessa Vakharia  12:23  
Absolutely. And you know what, I like what you said before about the idea of one of the ways to enter a classroom with compassion and empathy and with a trauma focus is to simply care about the students. Which first of all really puts teachers in the driver's seat, because caring is something we can all do. It's not like you have to learn a skill set. And it reminds me - I did an interview for this season with Esther Brunat, you've got to check her out, she's just so so amazing - she is a math influencer - she was saying that one of the key reasons she connects with students is, she was talking about how really the key thing is to simply give a fuck about your students lives, like care about what's going on.

Roger Fischer  13:00  
Mm-hmm!

Vanessa Vakharia  13:01  
Let me ask you, do you have like a favorite Math Therapy story - like a Math Therapy success story? Is there something that sticks out?

Roger Fischer  13:09  
I like to think I'm helping. I have a -

Vanessa Vakharia  13:13  
Oh my god, you're being "John Mighton humble" now! (laughing) I'm mentioning John Mighton again!!

Roger Fischer  13:23  
(laughing) But it's okay. It's out of the bag now.

Roger Fischer  13:26  
So I think of a student I had last spring, who had a lot of different struggles and really struggled with attendance. And I had worked with her in our tutoring lab before. And she is American Indian. And a lot of my work in grad school is with American Indians, and that's something that I've done that was the most valuable thing from my graduate school experience was working with Native Americans and helping them - there's a lot of math trauma there in that community. And so I have this dream, I would really love to find Native Americans who would want to become math teachers and go back to their communities and teach. And so I saw that in her, I saw that she was thoughtful, and liked to think deeply and seemed compassionate, and so I encouraged her to think about that. And I gave her a copy - have you ever heard of Tracy Zager, I think is her name? She wrote a book called "Becoming the math teacher you wish you had" and I talked to her about it from time to time, she says she's still reading it. And so this is one of those times where I planted a seed and I don't know if it's come to blossom or not yet, but I just think of her because I'm hopeful that I can convince her to become a math teacher and go back to her community and teach.

Vanessa Vakharia  14:45  
Yeah, and I think it's just the idea that this girl came into your remedial class and left with a professor who not only taught her math, but was like, actually, I think you should be a teacher. I mean, what an empowering experience for somebody to think, like to come into a place thinking they don't know math and then to leave with this person who believes that they're this incredible math teacher on top of being a good math student.

Roger Fischer  15:10  
Yeah, well I think there are a lot of people like me - so I was mediocre to lousy at math in high school, was so so afraid of it, I can still remember how physically ill I felt and I just needed someone to settle me down and say, "it's okay. We'll get through this together."

Vanessa Vakharia  15:27  
And what happened? How did you even get here if you were just mediocre?

Roger Fischer  15:36  
It happened to me in college, I had that great math tutor I told you about. He was this big guy who I had this long silver ponytail and a gray scraggly beard and a blue pastel bandana that he wore every single day. And I worked on the remedial math, the developmental math, like introductory algebra by myself. And then twice a week, we would sit down and talk about it. And it was just this easy back and forth. And I still remember him. I'm saying, "Well, I'm trying to do this problem with exponent laws and I don't get it." And he says, "Well, this is what's going on". I said, "but the rule says", and he stopped and he said, "well forget about the rules. Roger, what does it mean?" And that's been something that's driven me my whole career - let's just slow down and think about what it means. I mean, I'll ask the students like, do you ever feel like the rules just changed because the teacher's socks are blue? And they're like, yeah! Like, it just feels like it's made up and capricious and it changes all the time and I can't keep up with how. And so that's why I like to focus on "what does it mean" - people like thinking that way.

Vanessa Vakharia  16:38  
I totally agree. This is what I always like to say too, like, whenever someone's like, I'm bad at math. I'm like, have you solved a problem in your life ever? Like any problem? Did you lose your keys and deduce where they were? Were your friends in a fight, and you figure it out? That's math, math is about problem solving. It's about making meaningful connections. We're all good at that and we all like doing that. Because it's feels so good to solve a problem, right?

Roger Fischer  16:47  
Yes!

Vanessa Vakharia  17:04  
So I love that idea of meaning. Is there something you would - like if you were going to tell teachers like a thing or two that they should avoid doing in class - like, for me, I'm always like, if you want a hot tip, don't compliment only the girls in your class about how pretty their notes are, that's a tip for you, like, you know, we do it's subconsciously, don't do that.  Or don't stand at the front of the class and say, "Hey, just so you guys know, this is going to be really fucking hard. And most people fail this unit." Do you have any tips that you would give teachers to avoid trauma responses from students? Like what are things they should avoid doing?

Roger Fischer  17:42  
Don't embarrass kids with content. I had some of my students in my low class, tell me about how teachers would call them on purpose when they knew that that student didn't know the answer.

Vanessa Vakharia  17:55  
Why do teachers do that? Why do they do that?!

Roger Fischer  17:57  
I don't know. And I try not to rag on teachers, because I know they have a tremendously difficult job, under resourced, and yada, yada, yada. And I know when I taught middle school, I was so frustrated, because I didn't know how to run a classroom. And so I got really frustrated, and I would, you know, snap at people. But I really worry about the teachers who try to do instruction through intimidation, and I think that's masking some sort of insecurity with the content that goes back to this idea of - if you're going to ask questions you don't know the answer to, that's a very vulnerable experience. And I think teachers should be prepared for that. Because when I started doing it, it was scary for me, because you're sort of losing control of the classroom and teachers don't necessarily like doing that. So I think that's something to keep in mind, that if you're going to involve students in a meaningful way, you have to let go of some of that control. And that's scary. And you should be ready for that and know that it's not always gonna go well and that doesn't mean you should stop trying.

Vanessa Vakharia  19:00  
No, but I like that because it also makes you more authentic. And I think, as we're talking about, students really respond to the fact that you're not just some robot trying to shove content down their face, but you're having an experience as well as them. 

Roger Fischer  19:12  
Yes.

Vanessa Vakharia  19:13  
And you know, we talk so much about professional development here in Canada, at least. And we're always like, oh, let's like get teachers in a room and show them how to teach like multiplication through discovery. But I find there's such little professional development about how to teach from a place of compassion. I feel like people like you and I - not to be like, Oh my god, we're so great. But we are -

Roger Fischer  19:33  
(laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  19:33  
Like, we should be running workshops to teach teachers how to avoid triggering their students or to respond to trauma because again, it is a skill set. It's not like anyone can just walk into the room and know how to do it. There are things you need to be careful of. Have you ever found any sort of professional development like this? Do you guys have anything like this? Like, have you ever been to a workshop where someone's like teaching a group of -

Roger Fischer  19:58  
No. And this is an amazing idea. I've done some professional development before, and it's usually always focused on content, which makes sense to a point, but now that you say it, you put this fine point on it, maybe we need to do some professional development on just how to treat this, how do we get away from triggering these trauma responses? I don't think people - teachers don't wake up in the morning and say, "I want to scar Johnny for life!"  But it happens -

Vanessa Vakharia  20:32  
(laughing) it's so true! You know, I find this with students too, when you're doing a workshop on "this workshop is going to help you get great marks", everyone's into it. When you're like I'm doing a workshop on, "I'm going to reduce your anxiety." kids want to do it, but at the end of the day, they're like, "but it's not tied to my marks, like I don't know if I can really afford to like spend that time". And I think it's the same with professional development. We're like, well, the most important thing is content. Like that's priority. I know we have an anxiety problem, but that takes the backseat. But the truth is, they're so intertwined, that until we start teaching our content from a perspective of anxiety, reduction and compassion, that content will never get across the way we really want it to just so many students. So like this needs to be a priority!

Vanessa Vakharia  20:37  
Right? And are you familiar with mindfulness to any extent?

Vanessa Vakharia  21:29  
1,000,000%, I actually took a mindfulness course three years ago, a weekly course that completely changed my life. And I actually teach math and study tips from the perspective of mindfulness.

Roger Fischer  21:38  
You must teach me how! I don't know how but I'm trying to figure it out.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:42  
But I think you are! A lot of this is intertwined. Sorry to interrupt, but like I'm getting so excited.

Roger Fischer  21:47  
No, it's totally fine. Because from what I know about it, when you're activated and your thinking cap is off, it's like you're being chased by a bear. That's what your lizard brain thinks. I've been chased by a bear, and you're not doing math when you're being chased by a bear because you're surviving! And so to say that anxiety doesn't matter, is just dead wrong, because if you are anxious, you cannot learn if your brain thinks you're being chased by a bear.

Vanessa Vakharia  22:18  
That's exactly it. You can't learn, you can't perform. And it's so crazy when you really get into the mindfulness stuff to learn that like, this isn't just like woo-woo hippie shit, like, your brain has neural pathways that you can retrain, you can literally train students through resilience, through grit, through repetitive motion, to retrain their neural pathway so that when that lizard brain kicks in, they're able to fizzle it out, chill out, and go down a different path than they're used to being triggered.

Roger Fischer  22:45  
Yeah, I've actually had students, I've just told them, okay, put your feet on the floor, hands on the desk. Find three red things.

Vanessa Vakharia  22:52  
Love it! So you're doing it, you're already doing it. Honestly, you're already doing it. And sure there's more, but again, this is the stuff that I wish more people were doing, but you're already doing it so please take a moment to celebrate the fact that you're like doing it without even calling it -

Roger Fischer  23:04  
Well thank you!

Vanessa Vakharia  23:05  
Okay, I could talk to you forever, you're getting me so excited! But I think we got to nail down the final two questions. So the first question is, what is something you would change about the way math is taught in schools?

Roger Fischer  23:21  
I think I just really want teachers to approach their students as real people that have real stuff going on in their lives, and just to be really interested in them and what they think and that's such a powerful way to get people to put down those walls and those avoidance behaviors and focus on building trust. That's so important, especially with people who have been traumatized.

Vanessa Vakharia  23:49  
Yes. And so beautifully said and also we've been talking a lot about math trauma here, and I want to take a minute - because I feel like when you say that a lot of people are easy to be like, "well, trauma, that's a huge word. Like I don't have that my students don't have that. That's a big word" - trauma can happen in the simplest of ways, right? 

Roger Fischer  24:08  
Right.

Vanessa Vakharia  24:08  
Like trauma is being shamed in front of your class for not knowing an answer when you were in grade two for literally two seconds and now the rest of your life that trauma sticks with you.

Roger Fischer  24:17  
Yes, I had a student in class in my really low class and he said something about how he just felt so stupid because he didn't know this multiplication fact. And I almost started crying. I was so upset about it, because it was just so painful. I could tell how upset he was.

Vanessa Vakharia  24:31  
And you're dealing with an 18 year old and that multiplication fact - let's do the math here, that that probably happened to him when he was 10. So for eight years, he has been feeling stupid.

Roger Fischer  24:43  
Over something that he shouldn't feel stupid about!

Vanessa Vakharia  24:46  
Exactly!

Roger Fischer  24:47  
Yeah. I have this thing I say - that this content, this is sophisticated, and anyone who tells you it's easy, you give him a dope slap and tell him it's from Dr. Fischer! Because to say math is easy in that dismissive like "you should know this" way is so not okay.

Vanessa Vakharia  24:54  
And that's my other tip for teachers, in case anyone wants my tips, is like to not preface stuff with "Oh, it'll be easy", because when it's not easy, then the student feels stupid again.

Roger Fischer  25:14  
Yeah, my analysis teacher was always trying to make us feel better by saying, "Oh, this is just freshman calculus". And I'm like, No, that doesn't help. Nice try.

Vanessa Vakharia  25:22  
And again, I think it's important, like you said before too, I'm not railing on teachers, teachers are trying their best, but you might not know this stuff.

Roger Fischer  25:30  
Right!

Vanessa Vakharia  25:30  
That's the other thing, again, you're not taught this stuff. So this is just like, kind of cool to know. And it's kind of, I think, when you go in there being like, you can kind of expect at least half your classroom to have experienced math trauma. So just go in there, go in there with that mindset. It's kind of liberating to be like, okay, I kind of get where everyone's coming from. Most of these people were traumatized when they were younger and feel stupid. And that is a fucking horrible feeling. And I, at the front of the room, have the potential to completely change that for them. Like, this is exciting! This is exciting.

Vanessa Vakharia  26:02  
Okay, the final question, what would you say to someone who thinks they're not a math person?

Roger Fischer  26:07  
Well, it's like, we've been saying that this is a trauma response. And I would respond appropriately. I like to ask people, "When was the first time" questions.  When someone says, "Oh, I hate fractions" - "When do you first remember hating fractions? 

Vanessa Vakharia  26:21  
Oooh!

Roger Fischer  26:23  
Or sometimes when someone really stuns me or takes me off guard, I'll just say, "say more about that". And then I'll say, "when do you first remember not feeling like a math person?" And all it does is get people to talk to you.

Vanessa Vakharia  26:38  
This is so good, because you had said earlier you don't try to change their mind. I'm normally like, the second someone says that, I'm like, "math trauma! No, you are a math person!". And they're like, "whoa, like fucking chill out. Like, why do you care?" But you're right. I think the idea of getting them to start just talking, that's the entry point, right? It's almost like people who are really stubborn about something, like you don't want to tell them something. You want them to realize it for themselves.

Roger Fischer  27:04  
2020 year of psychological reactance.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:07  
(laughing) You have been amazing. This has been honestly one of my favorite interviews ever.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:13  
Oh, Vanessa that means so much to me! Thank you so much. You're so much fun to talk to.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:18  
I mean, I'm not gonna say it's better than John Mighton. But since John Mighton probably doesn't listen to this podcast, I mean, I can say it was up there, it was up there with John Mighton!

Roger Fischer  27:26  
I'm truly honored because he's a special guy

Vanessa Vakharia  27:28  
He is but so are you, your students are so lucky to have you.

Roger Fischer  27:31  
Oh thank you!

Vanessa Vakharia  27:32  
Let's keep in touch and see if we can start getting that Math Therapy professional development going.

Roger Fischer  27:37  
I love it.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:38  
All right. Talk to you soon!

Roger Fischer  27:39  
Thanks, Vanessa. Bye bye. 

(outro)

Vanessa Vakharia  27:41 
I loved this convo so much because Roger is so right. We spend so much time focusing on training teachers to teach content that we totally neglect to realize that like, if students feel like they're being chased by a big bad math anxiety bear, you're not gonna learn shit. And that's why we need to focus on showing teachers how to work through all that noise with their students.

Vanessa Vakharia  28:01  
If something in this episode inspired you please tweet us at @MathTherapy. And you can also follow me personally at @TheMathGuru on Instagram or Twitter. Math Therapy is hosted by me Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is WVV by Goodnight, Sunrise, which is actually my band. If you know someone who needs Math Therapy or needs to hear someone else getting Math Therapy, please share this podcast and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use - those things actually makes such a big difference. I am determined to change the culture surrounding math and to give not like a massive makeover, and I truly need your help. So spread the word. That's all for this week. Stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday.

(outtake)

Vanessa Vakharia  28:47  
Okay, awesome. I think I think we got it all!

David Kochberg  28:52  
I have one remaining question. Did ... you said ... did you say that you had been chased by a bear? Was that like, a metaphor?

Roger Fischer  29:02  
Uh, sort of? I love that Vanessa just went right by that.

Vanessa Vakharia  29:06  
I missed that!

Sabina Wex  29:06  
Yeah I missed that too!

David Kochberg  29:08  
Yeah, I didn't want to interrupt, but -

Vanessa Vakharia  29:10  
I thought you meant like, "psychologically, I'm being chased by a bear"!

Roger Fischer  29:13  
No, I mean, it was more like I was riding my mountain bike with my dog and he was chasing bears. And then he realized ... they were bears and came back to me. And they were just black bears, they're pretty chill, they were just like, whatever. But it kind of - I think it was sort of - I was as scared as I think I would have been, had I been chased by a bear. So I just - that doesn't roll off the tongue quite so nicely as "I've been chased by a bear" but it has the same effect.

Vanessa Vakharia  29:40  
You made it better.

Roger Fischer  29:41  
Yeah.