Today on the podcast, we welcome Dr. Aditya Nagarath, the author of
Treating Mathematics Anxiety and the founder of Elephant Learning.
Aditya has a PhD in mathematics and computer science.
He's an author and the founder of Elephant Learning Mathematics Academy.
Aditya is on a mission to empower children in mathematics and remove
the anxiety around mathematics.
He designed Elephant Learning to be the most effective tool for
teaching mathematics ever created.
Welcome Aditya.
It's such an honor to have you on Blooming Curious today.
Hi, thank you for having me.
Happy to be here.
Really wonderful to have you here and to talk about something I think
that is quite pertinent for me and I think many others like myself,
teachers, parents, and anybody who has ever struggled with mathematics
learning at schools and has children who struggle with mathematics too.
So let's start with you breaking down how do deficits in mathematics, especially
in early childhood, because I know that's sort of your focus, lead to
difficulties in mathematics later on?
Sure.
So, one of the things is that mathematics sort of builds upon itself.
So, like, you can't really understand multiplication unless you understand
addition, because multiplication is defined as repetitive edition.
And so like, what we find in, at least in the United States is
that four out of five students is entering kindergarten unprepared
for the kindergarten curriculum.
And that's a gap in language around the numbers.
And, that, that gap sort of exacerbates over time because at least over
here, we don't tend to hold them back to ensure that they got that.
I mean, they could be exhibiting that they got it, but, , it leads to, children
being as much as three years behind, in certain neighborhoods on average.
Again, breaking down by income.
And so when you look at that issue and you say, well, so you have a
student in the classroom in third grade trying to learn multiplication, but
they have an understanding of numbers that kind of rivals a kindergartner.
That's an impossible situation for both the teacher and the student.
And so this also then creates a lot of anxiety around mathematics because those
students who are, they're kind of getting moved along, they, they also don't feel
like they understand what's happening.
And so there's like a lot of strategies then that are developed, uh, as coping
mechanisms to either keep going.
And then also to maybe avoid the subject.
So can you give us some more, definitive examples when you say, when
you talk about the language around mathematics, that children are coming
into kindergarten and they lack this mathematical or this understanding
around mathematical language?
Sure.
So , the standards define counting to 10, as like, can you give me 10 things?
And the student is able to slide over 10 things and stop on 10, but
most parents think counting to 10 is just saying the numbers aloud one
through 10, where they could just be saying it without necessarily
having understanding underneath.
Okay.
So not just say the numbers, you know, when kids are really little, they sing
the alphabet song or they'll just recite numbers in a classroom, for example.
So that is, I guess, just one part of it.
So what you're talking about really is the understanding of
what those numbers look like.
Is that correct?
Well, so like the understanding of the actual quantity behind it.
So like we, we teach it in three phases.
So the first phase is.
definition.
The second phase is recognition.
The third phase is production.
And for counting, that sort of looks like, okay, well, I have
two pens,, I have two fingers.
Then you move on to, recognition.
So how many fingers am I holding up?
How many pens do I have?
And then from there we move on to production.
Can you give me two pens?
Can you give me, can you show me two fingers?
And so like, if they're showing it to you, now they're demonstrating
full understanding of that language.
From there, we start to also introduce the ideas of more and less because that's
the ideas of addition and subtraction.
So we're developing some language like which, which column has more.
There's a lot of language then after that addition, multiplication, and trying to
look at it from different angles, like the number line in quantities, base
10, there's just so many different like things that we go through, but what we
go through is what we consider to be the essential language, because the goal is,
is that If you can do this, then you can understand the teacher in the classroom.
Okay, would you like to give us some kind of, an overview, I guess, or just
some insight into your program, Elephant Learning, and how does that help children,
and what does it encompass, really?
Sure.
So, we cover the essential topics from counting through algebra.
Uh, the way it works is the students come in and, , most of them start in a
placement exam, , which helps them or helps our system understand what their
initial level of understanding is.
And then from there, we start building them up to, uh, more advanced topics.
And there's really no kind of end to it, except for , after you get past the end
of our curriculum, but we keep going.
So if you've got a third grader and they just stay in our system.
They can easily get to fractions, decimals, percentages.
They could be doing algebra.
We just let them keep going.
And for me as an early childhood educator, I know when I work with young
children, we use concrete manipulatives to , establish that number sense and
that understanding of numbers and value.
But your program is digital and it's online.
So how do you bridge that concrete manipulative, that concrete understanding?
We always say concrete before abstraction.
How does your program bridge that concrete before abstraction?
Or is there a concrete element in your program, even though it's digital?
Yeah.
So what we do is we've taken the activities that early age education
researchers had already determined effective for teaching the, the
topics, , and we've combined that with adaptive algorithms.
So the manipulatives are like on the screen.
So The student gets to choose from a list of characters.
I think in total we have like a hundred characters.
And then that's what they're counting basically.
Those become the manipulatives.
So like maybe they choose cats and then if they push on the cat it makes a sound.
So it feels like a, an actual object that they can play with on the screen.
And then we're running the same activities that have already
been determined to be effective.
So you've just taken manipulatives and gamified them as well for kids.
Yeah, it's a gamification of mathematics.
Which kids, of course, will love because they love playing games.
In your experience, I mean, obviously a lot of these kids are coming and I see it
as well as an early childhood educator.
And you said it earlier as well, we don't hold children back.
I've often wondered about that and questioned it because as educators,
you have a curriculum to get through and very often when the children
even by the end, don't understand it,
you know, you're pulling out small groups.
You're working with those children, trying to get them up to standard.
But some kids by the end of the year are not up to standard.
And we're not allowed to hold those kids back.
In my day, if you weren't up to standard, you would be
kept back in that grade level.
But now they're saying it's detrimental to children, so we
don't hold children back anymore.
And so we just keep putting these children forward year after year after year, and
yet they have gaps in their understanding.
Which I guess exacerbates as they get older and as they go through,
elementary school and then God forbid, eventually high school where they then
probably have, I'm assuming, huge gaps in their understanding of mathematics.
What's your understanding and your advice really, how do you think that
schools, educators, parents should be handling this kind of situation?
Yeah.
I mean, I think the problem , is that it's like trading one consequence for another,
but I think what they, the research that they're quoting says is that like
when the students stay with their peer group, the results tend to be better.
And so I think the, Process that they're running now where they're
like, well, let's try to separate these particular students out and work with
them individually might be able to, bridge that gap, but, having a program,
say, like ours, where, we're able to maybe try to fill in that language
through, some time on the side.
I mean it's quite an effective program in 10 minutes per day, three
days per week, students will learn on average a year and a half of
math over the course of 10 weeks.
So some sort of supplement like this then would also be great right.
Because, for example, what we do for classrooms is we
show, the teachers, in cohorts.
So like these students are kind of at the same level.
These other students are right.
So if you're a third grade teacher and you got some students at the first grade
level, second grade level, and then.
a whole bunch that are above, at grade level or above.
Well, you know, I can give the main lecture to these students, but these
other students I have to work with maybe separately or differently
because they're not going to understand the third grade lecture.
So is there a built in process in the program that caters to where the
child is at that stage, irrespective of what grade level they're at?
So it's this automatic, , I guess you go up levels as you answer correctly.
questions correctly, etc. Is that what it does?
Okay, it's
adaptive algorithms is what we call it.
So students older than five start in a placement exam.
And what it does is it very quickly is able to kind of move them up.
So like the way I like to describe it to parents is to think about it like a
basketball hoop that moves up and down.
And the goal is we just kind of want to get the basketball hoop to the height
of where the student can throw it.
So maybe at first it goes up a foot and then once you get out of
placement mode, well, now it's just kind of moving up and down with the
student as they get it in or out.
So, it's more complicated than that because it's not necessarily a straight
line of ideas, kind of a complicated web, but, uh, that's the ultimate
thing is that we're trying to find their initial level of understanding
and then we're meeting them there.
So the puzzles should feel challenging, but not too hard.
I love that you just say challenging.
Because I think very often, we don't challenge children enough.
I think we need to set high standards for kids, that's just my personal opinion,
and that's the way I raise my kids, and that's what I do in my own classroom,
is I set high standards for children, because actually if you set the bar,
I mean, not out of reach, but you've got to give them a challenge, right?
That's why kids love games.
That's why they love playing games, because there's a challenge.
Because, you earn so many coins and you get to the next level.
They enjoy that challenge.
And so we do have to set challenges and just push kids a little bit,
because otherwise they don't grow.
So I love that you've said that that does have challenges and
so that we can actually expect something more of children.
I think very often we don't set that bar high enough for kids.
And so they don't experience the euphoria, that dopamine hit that comes
with, achieving something difficult or doing and completing a difficult task
it's a compromising of the standards.
So like the challenge is, is that and we talk about this in the book, treating
mathematics, anxiety, um, like if the students playing basketball, the ball,
it's very clear to everyone, did it go in the hoop or did it not go in the hoop?
The other thing that is, kind of special is that the coach
can not shoot for the player.
The, the player shooting the ball.
And they know, right?
Like if the coach could somehow shoot for the player, then one of the things
that happens is that the player would not believe that they could play basketball.
They believe the coach could play basketball.
And so there's some challenges basically with
the idea of, everyone gets a trophy, but , it depends on how it's implemented
because the standard could be that like, okay, well the team that
wins gets a big trophy and everyone else gets the part and that's fine.
Right?
Like, okay, you participated.
So you met that standard.
You're the winning team.
Yeah, but like the challenge occurs when we compromise the standard when like
we say the ball went in when it didn't and that's, that's the real challenge.
Tell me Aditya, you talk about Math anxiety, what causes it?
So any place where we don't know what something means, we start to have anxiety.
That's just kind of human nature.
So like this gap in understanding that we're describing is
the source of the anxiety.
It's just that the challenge , is that from a belief level for anything that the
students trying to do, they're falling into, I can do this or I can't do this.
And they're looking at what's happening around them as evidence for like, Oh
yeah, that's the, so like whatever direction they're trending towards,
that's the way they're headed.
And so like, as educators, as coaches, we have to keep them on
the, I can do this side of, it.
And so like that involves telling them that I believe you can do this because
when you do that, you've kind of made a commitment to them that like, I'm
going to be here until you do this.
And they've also kind of implicitly made a commitment back because if
they didn't leave well now They're committed to doing it And so now the
second step is is you have to meet them at their level of understanding.
Because if you meet them too high they continue to not understand you Continue
to develop more anxiety and if you go too easy It feels like patronization.
And so it's about kind of meeting them at that level and then showing
them, yeah, you're doing it.
So students in our system, after three or four weeks, they're showing some
gains our coaches start to reflect that back to them and say, Hey,
look, you've learned a half a year of math in the last two or three weeks.
So that's a big deal, right?
Like, people don't do that very often.
So now they, they start to feel like they can do it.
You know, that's very true.
And I'll relate a quick little example from my own life.
My son, who's now 24, has just graduated in a double degree in
chemical engineering and metallurgy.
So maths, right?
When he was in year two.
A teacher called us in and said, your child is struggling.
And we thought, Oh, my word.
And the very first thing we did is we got him some tutoring.
And this tutoring program was a gamification online thing where
we took him, I think, once a week.
And what we discovered was it wasn't that he was bad at maths.
On the contrary, he was really good at maths.
But he had.
an anxiety issue against maths because he compared himself to some of the kids
in the class who were really high flyers.
But what he didn't know was that those parents of those children were sending
them to tutoring, not because they were struggling, but to make them high flyers.
And so he was comparing himself to those children and thinking,
I'm stupid, I can't do this.
And the minute we sent him for this, these extra lessons.
He realized, well, yeah, he can do exactly what they can do.
And he, all he needed was this little bit of a confidence boost.
I think it just took a few weeks for a few months , and off he went.
There was no problem ever again.
And as I said, he's just, graduated in mathematics and he's an engineer now.
So I think the message there for parents is when kids are struggling, you have to
step in and do something to help them.
You can't just leave them flaying.
And also, I think it's sometimes just about their levels of confidence.
Sometimes they just, it's not that they can't do it.
You have to give them the confidence and do whatever you need to do to
make sure that they can succeed.
So for me, that's always important because, and I noticed as well, and you
actually mentioned it on your website, I thought it was a really pertinent point.
We seem to have fewer and fewer kids and I know it's very true for here in Australia.
So I don't know about in America, but here in Australia, when you get
to high school, kids can do three different levels of mathematics.
You have the highest level of mathematics and there's sort of a
middle one methods and then there's a slightly lower form of mathematics.
And it seems to me that kids are being talked out of doing higher
levels of mathematics, those STEM subjects for whatever reason.
Personally, I think we need STEM.
And I think we need people to be doing mathematics, even if you never use it.
For example, I have another son who's finished studying actuarial science.
And what he said was, of course, it's all mathematics driven.
But he said that high level of mathematics allows you to think differently about
solving problems, and it gives you a different dimension to your thinking.
So, to me, I think why is it, and I don't know if you have that issue in the States,
but we certainly, I see it with, when I speak to colleagues and things with,,
whose, children are going through high school, where schools are almost actively
in some instances, and I'm going to be really awful here and say, it's often
with girls, say to them they don't need to do those higher levels of mathematics,
because I think even if you're going to be doing law, for example, which doesn't need
mathematics, If you are capable of doing that higher level and you're capable of
thinking broadly and having that problem solving, shouldn't you be doing that?
And I know that you've said in the video on your website, you have some
very strong takeaways about that.
So I'd love you to share that now for anyone listening and thinking
about you know, pushing their kids.
And I know I say pushing, I think, oh my gosh, you're going to make them do
things that they're not ready to do.
No, it's not.
It's about making sure and helping your kids meet their full potential.
What are your thoughts around those STEM subjects and the higher level of
critical thinking and problem solving with regards to mathematics in schools?
Well, yeah, so like the STEM subjects are extremely important, and there's
a lot of, I think, systemic push to try to get students to engage
in the STEM topics, though the challenge is that if, you don't have
a strong understanding of algebra, you can't engage in those subjects.
So, like, while in the United States, and I don't know how it is in Australia,
but it's probably similar, right?
We have a push towards third grade reading.
So like, oh, we have to get every student to the third grade reading level.
And I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me when you think about it,
like from a government perspective, because it's if I can get them to
the third grade reading level, then they at least match George Bush.
So that's the average American, right?
The average Americans at the third grade reading level or higher.
And if I can at least get all of these kids to the third grade reading level,
they're at least functional in reading.
But the challenge , is that like for mathematics.
You don't actually get to the written language of mathematics
until you get to algebra.
And so if you want to read anything on finance finances or statistics or et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera, chemistry, physics, you have to have enough algebra
and feel confident enough with variables and functions and, you know, to kind
of understand what's happening, because if you see an X and a Y and a Z, and
it flips you out, that's, that's kind of the end of the story here, right?
And so there's then the anxiety of the people in the system.
So like half of first and second graders, uh, in America, almost half
of first and second graders in America report having mathematics anxiety,
but that matches half of all Americans that have mathematics anxiety.
And so that means there's a 50 percent chance that your student's
teacher also has mathematics anxiety.
And so, like, the problem with the anxiety is that it wants to prove itself right.
And the way that it proves itself right is typically avoidance tactic, right?
Either sabotage or avoidance.
Avoidance is a lot less humiliating than sabotage, so
avoidance is the first tactic.
And so, if I have math anxiety and I have to teach you mathematics,
Well, it's just, what do you need?
And now, so you see what I'm saying is like, these are the real challenges
that the system is facing, but now when you look at maybe the philosophical
definition of mathematics actually is,
I define it as, as the tool that you use to solve a problem and now, like,
when I'm talking about that, , people think well, you're talking about
arithmetic, which, yeah, by the way, has solved a lot of problems for humanity,
but I'm talking about something maybe a little bit more abstract than that.
So, for example, One of the subjects that you might learn in an
advanced math degree is game theory.
So you analyze these different games, like for example, the Cuban Missile
Crisis is equivalent to a game of chicken.
And so like when you're analyzing these games, you're looking
at what are all the outcomes?
What is the best outcome?
What are winning strategies that the players could be
engaged in, for example, right?
So that's one example of where I've taken a field, which would be extremely
non mathematical, which is politics and said, but look, that's the
first game you study in game theory.
What's one of the simplest games because it's, it's not
a very deep game to analyze.
And so this is one of the challenges
if the definition of mathematics is a study of tools to solve problems,
then how is it not pertinent?
Like, if you're solving a problem somewhere.
Now, the challenge is that the anxious thinking, again, is well, you just need
to be able to solve business problems.
Or you just need to be able to solve You know, language arts
problems, like the amount of math you need to know that, right?
Like, what do you need to know?
So we're not trying really to now, if the student, they want
it, they're able to get it right.
Like they're able to go into MBA programs or advanced math.
So it's the student who has to be motivated to go get it ultimately,
because no one else can attain freedom for you, especially when they
themselves don't believe they can do it.
Right.
And that's why they don't believe you can do it.
Okay.
That was massive.
Absolutely what you just said, I agree with you, but then we really
do need educators and parents to, in the first place, have a
greater belief in themselves.
And you talk about the Math anxiety, but, and you're mostly targeting kids.
Do you have programs that can help
educators and parents to target their anxiety and mathematics and
perhaps get them to a level where they can actually help children?
Because I also think it's a massive problem if we can only have reading
till third grade because I've seen it as an educator is that if children
can't read, they can't read a maths problem because it's really English.
You have to be able to read and understand.
So that's the standard, right?
Can we get them to the third grade reading level?
But that's not enough.
The goal.
It's not enough.
I mean,
now you can't be in high school and have a third grade English reading level.
That just, that's insane.
So, to set the bar so low for children, is that all we can
actually get out of teachers?
Just to teach at a third grade level in English?
Well, I don't, I don't think that, , they necessarily have the
percentage that they're looking for, which is why that's the goal, right?
The percentage of proficiency.
So it's not like they stop teaching reading at that point, right?
No, of course.
They keep, whoever can keep going.
It keeps going.
But the goal , is like, we got to get everyone above that level.
So like real, I think scare behind it is that like, well, there's
so many students that are not at that third grade reading level.
Because they haven't introduced synthetic phonics because they're still messing
around with programs that actually don't work on, are not scientifically proven.
So and that impacts mathematics and all children's learning.
And I know it's changing, but as far as see it's not changing fast enough
because we're letting children down.
And if you're an educator and a parent, your job is to educate
and to give children the best opportunity as you possibly can.
And that means using scientifically proven programs that actually help
children learn and achieve their outcomes and achieve their full potential.
Also set higher, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's one of the other things they could be doing.
Wow.
Talk to me about strategies that you think parents can use at home, to foster more
positive relationships with mathematics.
Because I know as a teacher, and I've spoken to parents in my classroom,
and one of the things I often see is that there's this breakdown between
mathematics and the rest of our lives.
It's like in a little box.
It's like in a compartment.
And I know I very often have said to parents, look, you've got to
make it part of your everyday existence, your everyday life.
And you've got to involve your children in your shopping and in
your cooking and in your language.
And you're talking about mathematics so that they can see
it's part of our everyday life.
And we use it in our everyday life.
How do you go about helping parents have the strategies to deal with that?
Right.
So what we do is, for the subject matter that's active for our
students, we describe it to the parents so that they can understand
what the level of the student is.
So for example, cooking is going to require fractions,
decimals, and percentages.
So like if the student isn't in fractions, decimals, and percentages,
talking them to them about a half cup, you got to understand, well,
you're starting from zero, right?
So you can, but you're at the defined stage, right?
Right.
Okay.
And so we encourage parents to use the language out loud.
We find that students start using the language out loud more, , as
they come through our system.
And I think that one of the things is that like societally we kind of tell, I
mean, at least my parents told me, I don't tell my children this because it doesn't
work, but oh, don't do it out loud.
Don't do the math out loud.
Right?
So like as adults now, like when we start doing math, we're doing it in our
head, but theoretically speaking, we should be doing it maybe out loud because
then they'd be hearing the language
cause that's the way children learn languages through the
inference, they're hearing us use the language and then they're trying
to figure out what does it mean.
Well, it makes sense.
If you think that we try to teach them reading where they have to
actually sound out the words that they can hear the sounds and see
the letters, and often we have a kinesthetic component to that as well.
So it makes sense.
Why wouldn't you do that in mathematics, right?
Right.
And I mean, being able to hear their thinking, that would be great.
Right.
But if we're telling them, no, don't do that, then you asking
them later, but show your thinking, it's contradictory messaging.
So I'm going to ask you a question how would you redesign an early childhood
math curriculum, if you could design the math curriculum in schools for the early
childhood, where kids are just starting with mathematics, what would you do?
Well, I mean, the main thing is if we could just make sure that
all the students are at the level, then theoretically speaking, the
education system actually works.
So we designed our program to kind of like, if we could just
fill in the essential topics, then whatever curriculum you fit around
it should theoretically work.
At the end of the day, the language for mathematics, uh,
is fairly universal, right?
It's the same here in the U. S. as it is in Australia, and oddly enough, it's
the same in Russia, even though they don't use the same, characters we do.
So, that piece, I think, , is sort of well known.
And it's just, now it's just a matter of figuring out where will the child engage.
Um, and where will their natural curiosity take over?
Tell us a little bit more about, Elephant Learning and how does it
specifically address these deficits?
And how does your approach transform children's lives in terms of
their mathematics understanding?
Well, it's the adaptive algorithms, uh, combined with the early age education
research, meeting them at their level, so like, that's very important.
And then, between the videos that we give to the parents to help the parents
kind of be at their level and the coaching program that we have so that if
any of these people have anxiety, they could be talking to our coaches and we
could be helping out wherever we can.
Between all of that, like they learn a year and a half math
over the course of 10 weeks.
So, once they catch up to their age, if they're behind or have
surpassed their age in any way.
Then their confidence kind of skyrockets.
Plus they're seeing success in the classroom.
They're understanding the teacher they're participating.
And so like they actually go from maybe not liking mathematics to
loving mathematics and it makes a lot of sense because if you're,
in a, say a second or third year
course for something that's not your major.
Like if I took, like, just jumped into third year economics, I
wouldn't understand what's going on.
It's going to be, maybe a very exhausting thing, cause you're gonna
get bored and fall asleep probably.
And, by making it so that, yeah, no, they have that language.
They're able to go into the classroom and now participate.
So if I had taken the first two years of those economics courses,
and I understand what the professor's talking about now, it's probably
a very interesting conversation.
And so that I think is the most, uh, maybe rewarding thing about
it because , any student that we get, that's now interested in
mathematics, those STEM futures
are within their grasp.
Which is so, so necessary.
Aditya, can you share some success stories of kids that you've helped,
maybe even your own children?
I know you're a father.
What are some success stories, little stories and anecdotes that you
can tell us about kids that have gone through your program or have
changed their outlook on mathematics?
Sure.
So Some of these things that I was saying from those were testimonials.
So these are mainly testimonials.
They come in typically through comments on Facebook.
Sometimes they email us a lot of times they might be talking to our coach
and just telling our coaches some things, but we don't get to maybe
necessarily quote those later, or at least we don't have a system to do it.
My son Elliot, he's eight now.
So he's working on fractions, decimals, and percentages.
He seems pretty good with fractions.
I'm not a hundred percent sure with decimals.
I see him working with percentages within the app.
He seems to be kind of getting it, but like maybe not getting it quite as yet.
And that's kind of the weird thing is that like, he doesn't want input
from me, so I can't, help enrich him.
I was thinking about getting him on the phone call with a coach because then that
way they could work with him at that level or putting him in a kumon or something.
So it's like hey Can you work with him at the fraction decimal percentage
level, because they're doing in school what they're doing at the third grade
level, and to be honest with you,
I like both right like he could be doing theoretically both because it's almost
the same idea and so that's kind of got what's going on with him , The three
year old, uh, he's, he's not quite yet.
His language is not quite yet.
Still counting blocks as he should be really.
Yeah.
I guess he could be starting out.
Uh, so maybe we'll get him started here.
But he's, I, I think just base language, we're still with base language 'cause
like sometimes it deteriorates.
What I was gonna say is I'm sure that your children living in a
house with you, a father who's a mathematics, professor and a scientist.
I'm sure that your kids will be very good at mathematics.
I just thank God that my husband's an engineer and therefore my children were
good at mathematics because I was in the other end of the scale you know, I
was the one who helped them with their English essays and their language.
And then he came in and helped them with all their mathematics stuff.
So it was a really good balance, but thank God for that.
Because if it was just up to me, I don't know whether they would have been as
proficient in mathematics as they are.
So I'm sure that the fact that you are at the level that you are, that
already really helps your children attain that mathematical thinking.
It's just how it's going to be, you know,
yeah, I know what you mean.
Yeah, I think it's motivation for him.
Uh, but like I said, he, sometimes he wants input from
me and then things are okay.
But like most of the time he's just like, leave me alone.
Yeah,
and often you hear parents will come and say, Oh no, they
don't want me to do anything.
But then they hear, you know, my teacher said this, and my teacher said
that, my teacher said this and that.
And so very often, they actually rate what the teacher says or
their friends say more than what you say, but don't worry about it.
When they get to about 23, 24, they understand that, Oh,
isn't that what I told you?
Oh, yes, you were right.
So there you go.
You've got some time.
So, you know, you can marinate on that.
It doesn't help that he asked me questions and then I try to describe atoms to him.
He's like, well, how does this happen?
First, you got to understand what an atom is.
Okay, maybe just take a step back.
The other thing that I have to say, which I think has been really important in the
problem solving thing is that I remember when my sons were in high school, they'd
come to my husband with a problem and he'd go, have you read the textbook?
And they'd go, no, and then it's like, go away, read the textbook, and if
you've still got a problem and you don't understand it after that, then come back.
Because what they wanted him to do was just to solve the problem, right?
And he always refused, as I have with many things.
I said, no, you've got to solve the problem for yourself.
And I think that's always been.
certainly for my children, really powerful.
And it's also the way I teach.
I don't jump in and give kids answers.
I push them to actually find the answers for themselves first.
And of course, if you then see that they've messed it up, they don't have the
understanding, that's when you go in and you guide them to find the right answer.
But you don't just give them that answer.
And I that's very much.
Where that whole problem solving critical thinking comes in with mathematics.
Adita, this has been a very enlightening conversation.
Is there anything you would like to leave listeners with before we finish off?
Before also telling people where they can find Elephant Learning
and , how they can get a hold of you?
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, if you look for Treating Math Anxiety, you'll find it on Amazon, , but
you could also find it on our website.
If you get it from our website, I'll end up signing it and sending it to you.
Um, but I don't think we ship to Australia cause we're using US Post
Office and it doesn't go there.
That's okay.
I'll put all the links, in the show notes and people can get it off Amazon.
I'm sure Amazon will have it and
they can just get it off there, which is perfect.
And, if you want to check out the program, just go to elephantlearning.
com, you can sign up there.
That's the best place to sign up.
Amazing.
So, again, I'll leave all links for anybody listening who's interested
and I urge you to go and have a look at that because mathematics
is a massive part of our lives.
And even if you think about it, it's not just about the numbers, but it's about.
a way of thinking and it's that problem solving mentality that I
think you get from mathematics which I think more people need in this day
and age, especially our politicians.
So, , Aditya, I thank you today very, very much.
for being on Blooming Curious.
It's been a really illuminating and interesting chat and I hope that
so many people take away nuggets, the absolute golden nuggets that
you've given us today in terms of helping children with mathematics.
So thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
So that was Aditya Nagarath of Elephant Learning.
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Can you please click on that share button and send it to a friend or a
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That would be awesome.
Thank you so much.
So until next week, I'll see you again, same time, same place.
So stay Blooming Curious.