Math Therapy
Math Therapy explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it. Each week host Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, dives into what we get right and wrong about math education, and chats with some of today’s most inspiring and visionary minds working to make math more accessible, diverse, and fun for students of all ages. 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. And don’t worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast ;)
Episodes
113 episodes
Refresher: Predicting the Oscars with math w/ Ben Zauzmer (Oscarmetrics)
The Oscars are this Sunday, and to be completely transparent, Vanessa hasn't seen any of the nominations. BUT, she is always ready to hand out an award to anyone blending pop culture and math, so today we are bringing you our 2022 intervi...
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30:56
The best scientists follow the data AND their hearts w/ Imogen Coe
Vanessa's mentor and friend, Dr. Imogen Coe, holds many distinctions: Professor of Critical Thinking in Biomedical Sciences, award-winning scholar-activist, former Dean of Science, STEM thought leader, and all-around academic badass. But ...
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42:44
How a music studio is just like math class w/ Devon Lougheed
For the last month, Vanessa and Math Therapy producer David have been in the studio working on their band's next album, and Vanessa couldn't help observing many parallels between making music in t...
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27:22
How to change your life by changing your story w/ Gorav Menon
Today's episode is about storytelling. So much of our self-worth and perceived ability come from internal narratives that have been shaped by stories we've either been told or that we tell ourselves - but we have the power to change them!...
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46:34
9 surprising reasons math scores are dropping
Everyone’s always ranting and raving about why student math scores are dropping, but are they focusing on the wrong reasons? In today's episode, Vanessa details some factors that often get overlooked:Kids are raised dif...
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33:33
How math can help prison inmates turn their lives around w/ Christopher Havens
Christopher Havens is a mathematician with published research in number theory, but what makes him unique among fellow scholars is his entire career in math has taken place in prison where he is serving a 25-year murder sentence. Math was...
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40:16
What neuroscience actually says about gender & math w/ Sarah McKay
A lot of brain-related questions often come up on this podcast, like:Is there a difference in math ability between genders?Is there even such a thing as a "math brain"?What about the left brain right brain / math v...
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47:05
How believing in someone can change their life w/ Jo Boaler’s first student Sue Besant
Have you ever been so convinced you were bad at something that you didn’t even question it anymore? Not just as an insecurity, but like it was your full identity: “I’m not a math person.” End of conversation.Well, this episode is about w...
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46:36
Don’t let math define your entire self-worth w/ Shelby Strong
Whenever Vanessa talks to math educator and coach Shelby Strong, they end up saying "why didn't we record that, it was basically a podcast!" So today we bring you an actual podcast with Shelby, exploring an absolutely bonkers range of pro...
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49:19
Can asking for help backfire?
As you may know, Vanessa and producer David are in a band together, and they're currently writing songs for a new album. The path through writer’s block and their ups and downs as a collaborative ...
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47:40
2026: The Year of Student Engagement!
Happy new year! To get in the mindset for a great 2026, here's a motivating episode about one of last year's hottest topics in math ed: student engagement. Why is it so hard to get students to really engage in the class...
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38:46
How Netflix saved both Christmas and math
Five years ago, Vanessa fell head over heels in love with a Christmas movie. The plot twist? This wasn't one of the countless Hallmark romcoms she actually consumes throughout the year - this was a movie about a little girl who literally ...
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33:18
How to make "show your thinking" less anxiety-inducing
Getting students to think is a hot topic - but what does it actually mean? When kids are asked to "show their thinking", can we really blame them for being like "WTF?!?!"Today on Math Therapy, Vanessa explores the surprisi...
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33:15
Math Therapy's 100th (& most manic) episode!
Since our humble (and as you'll find out, quite disorganized) start in 2019, Math Therapy has come a long way ... and today we celebrate our 100th episode!Join host Vanessa Vakharia and producer David Kochberg (with a cameo from OG MT pr...
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48:40
How to believe in yourself when nobody else will w/ Taylor Telfer-Thompson
Today we follow-up last week's episode with unfiltered celeb moms Cat and Nat (listen here) by interviewing ...
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35:08
Hard truths teachers need to hear from parents w/ Cat and Nat
From the moment Vanessa met bestselling authors/podcasters Cat and Nat on Breakfast Television, where the 2 moms proudly professed to hate math ... she knew she had to have them on Math Therapy to dig deeper and find out why.&...
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42:44
Why we can’t binge-learn math like Netflix w/ Rob Baier
*call-out before we get into today's ep* - If you or a colleague/parent/student has a story about incorporating the absurd 6-7 phenomenon into actual learning, we need you! Seriously,
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48:53
What the Blue Jays taught us about math education
This past weekend, hearts across North America shattered as the plucky underdog Toronto Blue Jays lost to the LA Dodgers in extra innings of the deciding Game 7 of the Major League Baseball World Series. And if none of those words matter ...
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1:09:19
How to turn anxiety into empowerment
Most episodes, Vanessa is chatting with colleagues about the root causes of math anxiety/trauma and exploring how math education can change to avoid causing them.But as long as math remains a 4-letter word for some, we need some practica...
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27:25
An unfiltered debate about "natural ability"
Sometimes an interview fires us up so much here at Math Therapy HQ, that we end up debriefing and debating it long after the guest has signed off - at which point producer David says to host Vanessa "we should have recorded THAT too!"So ...
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19:33
Why math sucks and how to fix it w/ Raj Shah
What is memory? Are different brains good at memorizing different things (like math vs music)? Is memorization even a good way to learn? Why don’t we teach math like we teach reading? Why do we love puzzles and escape rooms but hate math class?...
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53:58
Math ed needs more conversations like this w/ Pam Harris
Today's ep ended up in a different place than Vanessa expected when she first sat down to chat with Pam Harris, founder of Math Is Figureoutable. Their first real interaction was on the DebateMath Podcast; Pam insisted that learning algorithms/...
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46:23
The Comment Section w/ Mike Flynn
We're trying something new this week! Last week's ep with Mike Flynn dove into some very murky debate waters: do students need to know the "why" of what their learning in order to truly understand material, or is it fine for them to just ...
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37:13