Math is Figure-Out-Able

More Information About Math is Figure-Out-Able

The show description is: math teacher educator Pam Harris and her cohost Kim Monague Answer the question, if not algorithms, then what?

Join them for about 15 minutes every Tuesday as they cast their vision for mathematics education and give actionable items to help teachers teach math. That is figure outable. The length of each episode is about 20 minutes, and it is completely kid-ear friendly. It is an ongoing show with new episodes available on Tuesdays.

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Introduction to Pam & Math is Figure-Out-Able

So I’m Pam and I teach math teachers. So my gig in the world is to try to change the way that we teach and think and perceive mathematics and ourselves as budding mathematicians.

It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be just like we sort of expect all kids to be able to read. Like that’s just an expectation, right? Everybody can read, everybody can do what I call real math. Not everybody does great at school math or, or, or sometimes I even refer to it as fake math.

But everybody can do real math. We just need to know it’s a thing and actually do that. I love that. 

How Math is Figure-Out-Able Got Started

Well, and some people kind of chuckle a little bit at figure outable because it’s about math.

It’s about doing things with figures and so people will, you know, kind of laugh a little bit. Oh, figure outable, of course that’s a cute, catchy way, but it’s actually really purposeful because I think a lot of us went to school and learned that math was this different thing, that it was more than wrote memorization.

So teachers gave us the rule and then they gave us the steps to do, and we were supposed to memorize those and then mimic the teacher. And that’s what we got credit for in math class. And my message is that that’s not actually real math. That’s sort of the school math procedural thing. But we can actually teach the math that we’re supposed to teach, but in a completely different way and get kids to do what mathematicians do.

So similar to when we teach kids to read, they read, When we teach kids to write, they write, Well, when we teach kids to do math, They should do real math, like actually do the thing that we need a verb for that. So we make up this verb called mathematize Or sometimes people will say, we wouldn’t need kids to math. Like they need to actually do what mathematicians do. And, and, and that’s a thing. Like we actually can do that. So my podcast, I think is what you asked is to try to get that, try to get that message out. We wanna free people up from being, from thinking that they aren’t good at math, Can’t do math. I also wanna free teachers up. Not all, but often teachers were the ones who sort of followed the steps. They did the rules. They kind of did what they were asked to do in school. And so, because of. They were doing an awful lot of that school procedural math and so I kind of free them up, empower them to do math more like a mathematician and then therefore teach that way and then we can get more kids doing math and doing real math.

What to Expect from Math is Figure-Out-Able

I want people to leave enthusiastic and excited and energized and and empowered. I really want people to realize that they can think and reason mathematically and therefore help their students or their, or their own kids.

We have a lot of parents that are listening. A lot of homeschool parents are listening that they can be empowered not only to think like a mathematician themselves, but to also help their students, their own children think and reason, like mathematicians and we almost always do a little math.

So you should leave like going, Whoa, I actually did. I was able to do that. 

The Vibe of Math is Figure-Out-Able

I want math to be figure-outable and I want people to leave really knowing that they’re empowered and they are excited and energized.

So yeah, hope the vibe is fun. Well, and let me add a word of, of intrigue. Like, I want students to be intrigued by the patterns and the relationships that they can use to solve problems. Not nobody’s intrigued by mimicking something that someone shows you to do. Nobody’s intrigued by, let me give you this rule, and now do what I say, That’s not fun. That’s not intriguing, but we can actually get kids really interested and intrigued in this actual real math that they can do. 

And if you don’t wanna take and run and do math more for the rest of your life, no problem. But at least you have the choice. How many people do you know that have let school math limit the choices that they made in life?

My husband, For example, wanted to be an architect and he couldn’t hack the math. And so he’s, he’s done other things and he has done some amazing things, but he’s always just sort of like, Ah, I really wanted to have done that, but I couldn’t because that, that gateway of math was closed. I wanna open that.

I wanna throw open the gateway wide and then let people choose. So I’m not gonna force anybody to do more math than they want to, but boy, they’re gonna have the choice. 

Pam’s Favorite Episodes

So since your podcast, Andy, thank you for having me. One is kind of for general listeners, Maybe I’ll throw out one that would make sense for a general listener to, to be the first one that they would try. It’s episode 55 and it is specifically for parents now. It doesn’t have to be parents.

It could be administrators. It could be really anybody who’s kinda like, like, what’s happening in schools today? Why are they changing the way we teach math? And that, that episode is our attempt to tell that story clearly, briefly. It’s a. 11 and a half minute episode. It’s very succinct. And in that 11 and a half minutes will really give you a good idea of why, why and how we could teach math differently and what sort of is the controversy of, of kind of new math and where it doesn’t really have to be. But then you can really understand sort of what’s happening with math teaching today.