hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0523.txt

Episode: 523
Title: HPR0523: Miscellaneous Radio Theater 
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0523/hpr0523.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 22:27:11

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Music
I don't know if I can do it or not, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure
I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it, but I'm sure I can do it Hello, my name is Sig Bup and you're listening to Miscellaneous Radio Theatre 4,096.
In this episode, we're going to be talking about how to teach kids math, with Petunia, my name is Petunia.
I help children to develop their excitement about all kinds of scientific and mathematical concepts.
And you sprout low-engineers and mathematicians, just like you do a flower, you pour a lot of water on them.
You pour a lot of water?
Yeah, then it's pretty much exactly what you do.
Petunia and I sit on a couch with a couple of microphones in hand, pulled from a couple of headphones that you were around your head to tuck on the internet.
And I've been looking forward to doing an interview with her for some time because her excitement or teaching seems to be very heartfelt.
And wow, let's just listen and see what she has to say.
So you are a mechanical engineer by trade, and I understand you're also...
Not exactly. My education is a mechanical engineer. I feel I do a disservice to engineers everywhere by claiming to be a mechanical engineer by trade.
It really is a lifelong training process and I kind of chose not to go into that because I felt my own skills weren't really along those lines.
So I decided to change my path into something that I thought I would do a better job of doing and would enjoy doing a whole lot more.
Okay, cool, cool beans, so that's teaching children. I take it.
Yeah, I actually have always really enjoyed helping my classmates. That was something that I almost always did was I would help the other kids with the homework.
It was a way of reinforcing it, like it helped me develop verbal abilities and I think it made people accept me a little bit more.
I felt a little uncomfortable being my first person in class a lot of the time and I felt like if other people felt like they were as smart as me that they would like me more.
Yeah, so it was sort of a survival mechanism for me.
That's kind of so interesting to be honest with you.
Thanks.
Well, so I started doing this mentoring program and I worked with this really sweet nine-year-old girl.
I started working with her almost a year ago now.
She just showed so much curiosity and interest in mathematical concepts and when we started talking about what she wanted to accomplish this year, she said that she was really uncomfortable with scientific concepts.
That surprised me because she has such a strong logical mind and as we started talking, it sounded like a lot of her math classes.
She's just not really getting enough information or something.
It's like they are helping her to connect the dots between the different units that they're working on.
So she works on decimals but she's not figuring out how to relate that to percentages or she's working on fractions but she doesn't know what that means to be a decimal and the fraction at the same time.
She doesn't know how to express those two things.
And really it's really important to understand the concept of the number.
I mean the number is just a symbol. Really it's a tangible amount and it's a way to communicate that amount and then feeling more comfortable with numbers.
Lots of you men in people, excuse me, manipulate it in all kinds of interesting ways.
So Algebra is a tool to learn to manipulate numbers and calculus is a tool to manipulate numbers.
And he used that in all kinds of ways to analyze the world around him. He used that in biology and computer science and all kinds of other stuff.
And the problem is I mean like children end up missing out on these vital building blocks at this young age and they never get it back.
So that's what I want to do. I want to fix that problem.
Okay, cool. Now the problem that you expressed with the year mentee, do you think this is a common problem for kids?
Yeah, I definitely think it is. And a lot of it just has to do with the way that we teach our children.
We do so much memorization, but we aren't always doing a good job of explaining what they're really learning the concepts that they're learning to understand.
Most children when they're doing times tables aren't learning what three times eight really means. They're calculating an area.
But nobody really explains to a child what that means. And then we expect them to be able to read a story problem and figure out what kind of math they need to do to solve it. It just doesn't make any sense.
So would you go so far as to say that there isn't children aren't learning the language of math.
That makes sense. Children aren't learning to communicate math, but rather they're learning this is how you find this of this but they're not learning the underlying and the biology of it.
And the problem is that a lot of the time they don't even understand the question. If a child doesn't understand the question in the first place, how do you expect them to give you the right answer?
You know what I mean? So yeah, it's just like getting them to develop this curiosity in a way to relate to the world around them in a way that uses numbers.
So it's just kind of learning a different language. You know what I mean? We use English to kind of communicate our cultural values and that kind of thing to one another and we need to figure out how to do more math communication.
I don't know how it was for you, but it seemed everyone that I knew was definitely afraid of math.
Yeah. Some of the few people that they were the dorks and everyone really like they were abnormal in the sense that the majority of people were afraid of math.
Yeah, yeah, almost everybody was afraid of that. I wasn't one of those people and I guess I'm just really lucky in that way.
I keep moving my mouth, it's hard for me to stay still. And I think that's part of the problem is like you're sitting kids in front of a chalkboard and showing them a bunch of numbers and saying when plus one equals two, two plus two equals three, that's just the wrong way to teach a child to do anything.
I mean, you need to put sticks in front of them and say what happens if you count two sticks, you know, and then you know put the sticks together, but tell me how many you think it's going to be and then how many is it, you know, that's how to teach a child how to add two plus two.
It's not the right thing on the chalkboard. Are you saying it's two approaches to abstract for kids? That's exactly what I'm saying.
Why do you think it's so abstract? Why do you think we haven't been approaching this in more of a textile way with children? It would seem fairly obvious that you would have to do that with any sort of anything that you want to teach.
Yeah, I think that it's just that a lot of cognitive dissonance is built up. And where we all like attacked by numbers when we were in like a previous life with those that know the mobile above your crib, did it fall down and it had numbers on it?
You're like, oh, no, five. I think that's the afraid of five. I think if I answered this question, I'm going to turn into an anti-disadvantaged establishmentarianist or something. I'm not even really sure what that means.
And I think it's just a disestablishmentarianist. Yes. What's wrong with that? Well, what's your okay before? What's your answer?
Well, I just think that the institution of education sprung up without us really thinking about the different dynamics that actually existed in society and to consider that in our approach to how we were teaching our children.
A Victorian thought was very supportive of rational thought. And children tend to be very irrational, rational thought processes and behaviors or something that people have to learn in order to engage themselves in polite human society.
And the Victorians just thought that, you know, children were, you know, little better than wild animals. But, you know, that they were to be seen and not heard and they would, you know, beat them and do all kinds of things to remind them that they were to be subjugated. You know what I mean?
So, are you saying that we're relatively new at teaching children? Renew at looking at teaching from the perspective of how children learn rather than what we think of their horrible, horrible behavior.
And adults learn differently. You would presume that?
Yeah, I've actually found that my teaching methods do not work. Passes are names they just frustrate and annoy, which is part of the reason why I want to work with children.
Yeah, I think that I mean part of it is just that it becomes a lot more difficult to learn. At really, at a really young age children are, I mean, they're like sponges, they're curious about everything.
And if you'll give them an open ended assignment, they'll really blossom into it and get very, very excited about it.
When I was a child, I loved to experiment. I mean, I liked to make my own shame from a new conditioner and, you know, do little chemistry projects that way.
And I was lucky enough to have, you know, a mom who kind of made my development her job and she would call the school and nag them and giving me additional programs and stuff.
And, you know, a lot of people don't have that to offer their kids. So I'm going to do it for them.
Would you say that we generally as a society, as we as a people kind of having collective knowledge about certain things, knowledge about teaching and things like this, do you think that our knowledge we have of how humans learn, how kids learn is adequate.
But then it's the teaching establishment that doesn't allow this to happen or do you think it's inevitable?
It's really funny because most of what I'm learning is the most effective thing to do. And I'm basing this on the training that I got when I started out this mentoring program.
We did a two day training where we got started to think about what a child needs in order to be in a healthy learning environment and how to meet those needs.
You know, I mean, obviously a lot of children need things that are out of our control. But if we can meet the needs in that instance and, you know, in some of the ways that they do this in this program is they give them something to eat.
You know, so they're not hungry because being hungry will make a child act out just like it makes me a little grouchy and probably you too.
And then like working one-on-one with an adult also helps them very much. Everybody kind of develops a relationship with, you know, there's a mentor, mentee relationship that develops between the two people that is really pretty special, I think.
And then the other thing you learn to do is to ask them questions. You get them to learn to voice their own opinions because what children and really everybody in the world is really looking for is to first someone to listen to them and be heard.
First, I'm going to ask the meaningful questions to get them to think about themselves and their role in the world and how they want to play it out.
So all of this, I mean, asking the children meaningful questions. Oh, and then I also read a book and I think that it was Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. I know it was a book by Malcolm Gladwell anyway.
It was a pretty great book. But he was describing the way the observed a Japanese math classroom and they were working in a completely different way from the way that our math classrooms are taught.
Before they're working, will they have a child at the chalkboard trying to solve a math problem while everybody in the class shouted suggestions or just encouragement?
So he's like trying to figure out how to solve this problem. He doesn't understand the question. He's trying to figure out the solve your problem with the support of his classmates rather than having the teacher explain how to solve this problem.
It's like the child is figuring it out himself and everybody is learning together.
And so to me, it seems like math would be a lot better if you were working with other people and supporting each other and defining your answers rather than like ranking versus like with tests and that kind of thing.
It forces a really intimidating environment and people who are a little more bashful about doing math, well they get scared right out of it.
So yeah, that's kind of a problem because the bashful people might be really smart mathematicians.
So that's kind of the role that I'm kind of hoping to find the shy people and help understand math isn't so scary.
I see. Are you also placing yourself as the person who should find means for kids to teach each other about math as well?
I just think it's really helpful for people to learn that they can support each other into having success in a lot of ways our society makes people think that they're fighting for their own good and not to help other people.
And you know, I mean like we're forgetting how to maintain our friendships that way.
You know, it's like we really need people to survive but commercials are trying to teach us that all we really need is pizza or something.
Yeah, it seems like you personally, you said you had it when you're a kid you would tutor people with the homework.
And you said it was as a means to not be kind of outcast as this right kid.
Yeah, but it seems like you probably have conditioned yourself to realize that you need help from one another in order to do things correctly.
Yeah, it's that and then I also just, I guess I always sort of understood that even though I seem to be a lot better at math than other people,
a lot of other people were much better than I was at other things.
And it just seemed like there was something really appropriate about that, you know, but that even if you're a better writer than you are in accountant,
it's still good if you understand a little bit of math.
So that's kind of what I'm hoping to encourage people.
Do you think the teachers are intimidated by math themselves?
Yeah, they really are. I went to this seminar a couple weeks ago and the goal of the seminar was to teach elementary educators how to teach elementary school students engineering concepts.
Because apparently this is going to be added to no child left behind or maybe it's a state requirement and we're entirely sure.
But I went to the seminar and I was so excited because I'm an engineer and I was thinking, wow, you know, like we're going to do like really need engineering projects all day long.
It's our first time in like engineering projects for kids. It sounds so fun isn't it?
And I go and I go to the seminar and it's a bunch of exhausted, beleaguered elementary education teachers who are like, I don't even know what an engineer is.
How am I supposed to teach engineering concepts to my students?
Like I didn't see every single one of them panicking inside of their heads and I just I was frustrated.
I wanted to shake my fist at everybody and shout, this is supposed to be fun.
And then like after that day I came back and was trying to help my student with her fractions and it turns out she doesn't even know how to do division.
It's like they're trying to get her to learn all these fractions and she doesn't know how to divide two numbers. It just doesn't make any sense.
So yeah, that was kind of what really made me want to become an educator because I feel like I've worked with so many people on how to understand different subjects.
I mean like it wasn't just math like I'd help people with everything kind of street or English or whatever needed help with you know.
And like the thing is is that if you can relate a concept that a person doesn't understand is something that they're already interested in passionate about, you can get someone to understand anything.
So you know it's like stoichiometry which in chemistry is the concept of balancing a chemical equation.
So that's how you figure out how much of these three different ingredients chemically are required to make these two outputs.
And I related that to music because that was the one thing this guy in my high school chemistry class understood, you know, but it was like.
Do you understand it?
Yeah, you need to have this many notes in a measure and you have this many notes in a measure and it's the same thing.
Yeah, that's hilarious.
That's something you think.
But you know, I mean you can do that with all kinds of different things.
And like that's what I want to do is to, you know, I mean four days out of the week we do math concepts, but we do math games, you know.
I mean like to help my student understand fractions, I had this spinning wheel game and she spins the wheel and she makes her fraction based on where the arrow ends up the numerator ends up one place and then the denominator ends up one place.
Yeah, and it's a pretty good game.
Yeah, it's so simple, you know, but they didn't have anything like this.
And so she calculates the fraction and then she figures out what the decimal is and then she gives herself that many cents.
Yeah, and like all the kids really enjoy playing it because they really like to play with the money.
We all laughed about the phrase, which is Matt legal tender.
There wasn't the one student asked what that meant and I said that means that if you took it to the sort that they would laugh at you.
Yeah, I remember getting kicked out of that firm and not playing money to be honest with you.
Yeah, I don't know why exactly.
I just realized that they're legally required to stamp that on their fake money.
Wow, is there anybody who thinks that that is real money?
Although there is that scene in the wire where the guy takes that money and then with his $20 real money.
But that's how it should be.
Don't believe the TV kids.
Yeah.
No kids.
Don't believe the TV.
I don't think any kids will be.
Maybe there will be.
I don't.
Don't believe the TV.
One thing that you're not going to recommend.
Kind of.
No, don't believe the TV.
One thing I've noticed, this is kind of stepping back in the conversation.
But even with adults, I got in this.
I don't want to say argument.
I got in this conversation as someone.
And he didn't conversation.
I like to.
He did conversation.
And I was.
I had a point and he had a point.
And I would express.
I would listen to his point.
I express my point.
And then he didn't.
I don't think I was listening to his point exactly.
And I don't think he thought that I was listening to his point.
So I wouldn't be able to express my point without him going back to his point.
And so like.
Just to stop and say I see what you're saying.
You're saying this.
And you're saying this.
And that's very problematic.
Because you're saying this is very problematic because of this and this and this.
I'm saying that is very unfortunate.
But we can do this.
And so like that reiterating of what people are saying I think is fairly helpful.
Probably for children as well as adults.
Just you are listening to them.
You know exactly what they're saying.
Right.
And this is what I'm saying.
One of the one of the concepts is to facilitate a classroom discussion.
You have been open-ended subject in the way that they taught it to us as we looked at a painting.
And the first thing you say is what is going on in this picture.
I mean like and you can adapt that phrase in a lot of different ways.
But it's important to limit it to what you see.
The presenters said that at a certain age children start to develop their own opinions about things.
And then they can tell you more than just what they see.
But if you ask what they see they're going to tell you what they see.
So rather than telling you oh well I see this woman and she's walking in the street.
Like you're going to say you're going to hear them say well I see a hat.
I see a dog.
I see a cart.
You know you aren't going to hear it there as much.
So the first question is what is going on in this picture.
And then the second question.
Oh and then the second aspect is to basically repeat that.
What the person said to say okay so you're saying this and then ask them what makes you state that.
So that they give some kind of justification.
And then the third piece is to ask it.
Ask what else other people do in this picture.
So that's a way to help the person who's speaking and feeling validated
and also help everyone else to feel that there's still more to see in this picture.
This person has necessarily given the correct interpretation of what's in the painting or whatever.
Yeah.
It's a very healthy way to have a conversation about a bit of being nice.
So I've tried to change the way that I interact with people to ask more of those questions.
You get very far.
I have two.
I wouldn't say recently but within the last few years it really helps communication.
Yeah.
One of the things that they counsel against is to not use any questions that start with why.
Because there's an implied judgment.
So it tends to make people feel defensive.
Whereas they may have a perfectly logically logical reason for thinking the way that they do.
What do you mean?
Why do you think this?
Why do you think that?
Do you see how my brow automatically throws itself?
Why would you ever think that?
And I did have an English teacher in high school.
A method that was very similar to this one.
And we had great conversations in every once in a while.
Someone would bring up a theme in a book that she hadn't previously explored.
And we could see her pause and kind of evaluate it in her head.
Like, she was thinking, how does that really even make sense to me?
And then she would say, well, what makes you say that?
And then they would give their explanation.
And it kind of increased everyone's interpretation of the book a little bit.
You know what I mean?
So, yeah.
I mean, I've really seen how that can be a very effective way to have a really good discussion.
And I just, I think that does a really good job of reinforcing people's own knowledge and awareness.
I mean, like, that's kind of one of the things that I think people really enjoy about the eye report.
And that kind of thing that's on CNN now where people, I mean, you know, people roll their eyes.
That's the eye report.
Oh, okay.
CNN has started taking reporting from everyday citizens.
So people will film themselves doing the same thing.
It's basically a recognition of the concept that media outlets are pretty much obsolete at this point.
You know, it's like anybody can take a camera, go out and take some film and put it on the internet.
Yeah.
And probably reached almost as many people as CNN.com potentially.
You know, I mean, depending on how viral it gets, I mean, think about people.
Think about the people who made that kitten, the giggle kitten, the tickling kitten.
Have you seen that?
We're going to have to look at the tickle kitten in a minute.
It's super duper cute.
I want to do it because we're recording and it's a visual thing.
But it's like, oh, yeah, the birthday they reenacted the tickle kitten.
But the real one.
But the real one.
The real one.
There's a real one.
I know there's a real one.
Like with the real kitten.
Yeah, she really does it.
I've seen the real one first.
Okay, get it.
Yeah, it is pretty cute.
It's impossible to be upset at all.
And that's happening.
Yeah.
It really is.
It's so funny.
It's so funny.
Yeah, but she did.
Okay, but conversation is someone.
That would be a good thing.
I know how that really ends up.
Who kitten?
They'll watch it for a couple of minutes and forget what we're talking about.
What were we talking about?
No, seriously, what were we talking about?
Well, I was saying that, you know, the owners of that kitten.
They're probably just, you know, some people in Ohio or something.
You know what I mean?
So CNN is doing this thing.
Right.
Like, just like taking submissions from people all over.
And part of it is like curiosity about, like, hurricane victims and that kind of thing.
Like, they just, they want to hear from actual people.
And I think, like, people are starting to recognize that.
That's who they really want to hear from.
They don't want to hear from someone like, oh, well, I'm standing right here.
And it looks real crappy, you know?
Yeah.
Looking at the radar, these guys are up.
Like, you know, they don't want to hear from that person.
They want to hear from people who are inside of the houses, like, trying to survive this stuff.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But these days with the internet, like, as long as they've got a Wi-Fi signal,
like, I can pretty much do with themselves.
So, I mean, like, citizen journalism, I mean, let's make it happen, people.
So you can do it.
Yeah.
Um, and, I mean, that's the only way we're ever going to get some truth out there,
because, uh, media is owned by huge corporate conglomerations.
And, sort of, huge corporate conglomerations.
In relation to teaching, I forgot a train of thought, but were you saying that?
I mean, I want to empower people.
And I think, yeah.
I think that teaching is a tool to give people power, because people are more powerful than they think.
But, um, the difficulty is time.
And, unfortunately, we have so many distractions these days,
that, um, everyone's forgetting to think about how little time they have to really accomplish
what they want to do in their lives.
So, um, yeah.
I mean, every day goes by, and it's a day last.
Yeah.
But we have.
Why do you think math is...
Because...
Especially a problem.
Um, math is objectives,
and you can communicate it very simply to anyone.
It's a way to rebuild our civilization, no matter what happens.
Yeah.
Everyone needs to know math.
I agree.
Um, but it's not being taught properly, it's not being listened to properly, it's not.
People aren't involving math in their life.
People don't respect how much math can contribute to the quality of life.
Yeah.
I think a lot of it has to do with television and marketing.
It's the same thing with...
I personally feel it's the same thing with the computer.
Um, just, um, for instance, like, um...
Well, I don't know, it seems like people, the computer, the way it's being taught nowadays,
is it's being mystified, like math is being mystified.
Maybe not in the same way that math is being mystified, but, uh,
a computer is becoming this mysterious box that has some sort of dark magic.
Leave it to the experts.
Leave it to the experts.
The experts didn't build the computer, the experts, like,
a lot of computer stuff is as a history with people.
I was really interested to find out that Bill Gates was a poser who, like, stole everyone else's ideas.
I thought that was hilarious.
He was worshipped by the media, you know what I mean?
It's like he's this god because he came up with windows.
It's kind of sad listening to, uh, we together, we watched earlier, we watched this video.
Uh, and I forget the name of the person who wrote the logo, but, uh,
you guys know logo, right?
Logo was this teaching language that was developed in the 70s.
I think it was, or something like that.
And, um, it was a computer language to teach kids.
And, uh, what a cool concept teaching kids computer language is.
Totally cool.
Yeah.
People don't think that way anymore today.
You can't teach kids computer languages.
Seriously.
What are you talking about?
Children are stupid.
Exactly.
Don't you know?
Children are stupid.
Yeah.
Because we've, like, lost the ability to meet a child needs.
And, like, and I just feel like all, okay, uh, everybody who's, like, laid off,
and doesn't have anything to do, go volunteer in a classroom.
Like, contribute your knowledge every single day.
Like, every day, you're not using your knowledge and sharing it with people.
It's a waste of day.
Hmm.
So, time's a waste of.
Yeah.
Hackers.
And this is who I'm talking to, right?
Yeah.
This is exactly what you think.
Hello, hackers.
It's Petunia.
This is your conscience speaking.
You should log out of that website.
Yeah.
Turn off the porn.
Quit the, quit the typing, read the fucking manual in the IRC chat room to the newbies.
Have you heard, have you heard JFGI?
The JFGI.
Just effing Google it.
No.
Just fucking Google it.
I think, I think just eff Google.
That's what I think.
The hacker community is very welcome to teaching people.
Yeah.
I mean, like, there is a little bit of an oddism.
A little bit.
A little bit.
Yeah.
That's not so bad.
I mean, like, if you go to any sort of hacker con people, they're just really friendly.
I mean, there's some elitist people, but the people who are too elitist usually don't know
what they're talking about.
Right.
But you notice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're bragging to hide their identity.
Yeah.
Of course.
Of course.
We just called you up.
Of course.
Anyway, sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm getting so crazy over here.
Yeah.
Like, hanging out with teachers is a really happy experience too.
It's like everybody wants to communicate or share strategies and stuff.
What's it like hanging out with teachers?
It's really, really geeky.
Really geeky?
Yeah.
My friend Sarah, who I was hanging out with yesterday, is an educator actually.
And, um, I could tell because she had all of these eyeshadows that she was sharing or
giving away right.
And so I picked out the ones that I wanted.
And she pulled out all these tiny little plastic baggies and she labeled them with stickers
so that I'll know what they're all called so that I can order them from the website later.
Like, that is what an educator's work looks like.
Very organized and well labeled.
You learned to take notes.
I've noticed that there are certain type of people who I am, like, Mori, for instance.
You guys don't know Mori, of course, but there are certain personalities.
I think kids are drawn to, and I think adults are drawn to as well, that there's a certain
warm and lighting sort of personality that some people have.
Yeah.
But you just want to, like,
I don't know, like, they will be kind and they will share things with you.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Definitely.
So I think that's important.
Yeah.
Mori is a really special individual.
And I think the program that I got involved with, I got so lucky.
I mean, it's just such a great program.
And I'm learning a ton.
And I just, I really hope that I can share it and export so much of my knowledge to other people
so I can help with many people as possible.
As far as teaching in general is concerned and the future of teaching,
what needs to change?
What is, what are we doing that's good?
Well, we also need to, we just need to open it up a lot more.
I don't want to, I don't want to hate on teachers.
Teachers are some of the hardest working people in the world.
We just need to open it up a lot more.
It's like, we got so limited because of like the idea of no child left behind.
And let me just completely about no child left behind for one second here.
Okay.
Take all the time you want.
Okay. All right.
Thanks.
Okay.
So we have this, we have this law that our venerable W passed a few years ago called no child
left behind.
And this law states that in order to determine that children are indeed learning the things that
we are trying to teach them in class, we are going to test them.
And if they don't fail, if they, I'm sorry, if they did not pass this test with a high enough
percentage of the children in their school passing this test, we will close their school.
Yeah.
Does that sound motivating or what?
Um, that's kind of threatening.
It sounds horrible.
The idea of closing a school because they aren't able to get their children's test scores
up to par is just the most ludicrous thing for the children.
I mean, we are trying to teach the children here, right?
Yeah.
We are trying to punish the teachers.
We are trying to punish the, like, neighborhood.
We're trying to teach children.
And if we're going to teach children, we need to look at how we're teaching them.
And whether there's a way that we can change it to be more effective.
You know, if we aren't having success, then maybe we aren't doing it quite right.
But I don't think closing the school is ever really the right answer.
You know what I mean?
So, um, I'm hoping to be able to demonstrate success with my method.
And, um, then to be able to export it to as many places as possible.
Um, you know, I...
There really isn't any reason why all of the teachers in the country are scrambling to come
up with ways to meet their children's needs.
I mean, we've been teaching first graders for hundreds of years.
It should be simpler, simpler, but no.
So, you know, I mean, I'm not talking about, like, socializing education.
I'm just talking about, like, coming up with really effective ways to teach children
across cultural barriers, language barriers, you know, mathematical barriers, whatever.
You know, just, like, getting it to be, like, simple, playful, and exploratory.
Because that way we're tapping into what children are already really, really good at
and passionate about.
And the more ways we can get them up and moving, the fewer times that we're sitting them
in rows of seats and having to take notes from a projector.
I mean, it's just, that's not for elementary school students.
That's just not something that they're going to be good at doing.
So, I want to change the way we look at education.
It's, uh, it seems, uh, teaching to me seems kind of like, uh, I don't want to call it a craft exactly,
but it seems sort of for someone who is a teacher kind of.
You have to take a lot of, there's a lot of time that you have to take and a lot of trial and error
for you to understand how to teach.
Yeah.
The way that I'm really going to try and approach it is, um, to tell my students that, uh,
they're actually going to be teaching me how to teach fourth graders math.
That's cute.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Listen, kids.
I'm, I'm the one who's really learning today.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, I'm really, I'm really excited about what I'm going to be trying to do.
I've always thought that would be like kind of, like, I don't know when I sort of, um,
when I sort of envision myself teaching kids, I, uh, kind of envision myself doing it.
In a way where I am someone who can suggest things,
but like, I kind of want to be surprised.
Like, maybe they'll, like, no, like, here, this is how I do it.
I'm going to teach you.
Teach me how to do it better.
Like, maybe they'll come up with some sort of way to do something better.
That's, that's one of the, um, teaching methods that I learned at one of my seminars
that I think is going to be really powerful is, um,
and that's, uh, you know, I think maybe it is welcome glad.
Well, um, because he has this book called Blink about how to tap into your intuition
and, um, that's kind of one of those things.
It's like getting, uh, figuring out a way to suggest the answer to the child in a way
that they're figuring out the answer for themselves is the real trick to teaching.
So, I'm hoping to facilitate that in a lot of really open-ended ways.
Okay.
Do you think, um, teaching as, uh, teaching as a profession in general,
could you use sort of more standardized, uh,
the more standardized methodology a more true-
Yeah, true.
That's what I'm talking about is, like, coming up with, um,
how people actually learn-
Notals and representative symbols.
I mean, like, I have this idea for a series of posters that really demonstrate
what addition subtraction and multiplication and division are in terms of, um,
gridded square.
Uh, because I think that a lot of people just really don't understand the concept.
Um, and I think that that's kind of what causes the problem with, you know,
where people aren't sure how to figure out how to budget and stuff, you know?
I mean, like, you can do all of that very simply with these fix-out,
but, um, if you don't know the basics of, like, telling the stuff you're adding,
telling stuff you're subtracting, you know,
if that is to abstract for you,
then you're really going to struggle with a whole lot of different problems later in life.
Yeah.
I, um, some fortunate teaching isn't a scientific study.
Like, uh, kind of-
Yeah, I mean, like, that's what I'm-
That's what it's-
It's starting to be, though.
It's like, there are-
Yeah.
Starting to be, like, um, cognitive people who are interested in-
Uh, the field of mesointerrupt, this is-
Go for it.
Way far-fetched, right?
Okay.
But the field of artificial intelligence has been stagnant for years and years and years.
And the term artificial intelligence itself, I have a problem with,
because artificial and-
It doesn't-
Doesn't work out our-
The goal of it is-
Not right.
And I think what a cool goal for artificial intelligence research,
especially with that, with the development of quantum computers,
hopefully in the future, which we'll solve, like, all search complexity problems,
and sort of push the artificial intelligence, work forward a little bit.
But, uh, I think the goal should not be to make a computer that can think-
I think the goal should be to-
Figure out how our brains learn.
No, exactly how our brains learn.
I have a model of how our brains learn.
I wrote-
I wrote a short story about a futuristic colony on the moon,
and one of the concepts was that learning happened,
not by sitting in a classroom,
maybe you'd go to a place where they would put a silicone implant
in a particular memory center of your brain,
and you would be able to access it like a hard drive.
Pretty sweet, right?
Yeah, on the moon.
On the moon.
They just have to do your brain.
On the moon.
Okay.
Do you mind if we pause this interview, though,
because Laura just starts.
We can close it, I think.
Do you want to be done?
I- I could talk more, so I-
I'll leave it open and-
Oh, okay.
But we have about 10 seconds to start watching leverage
before my window clips.
What was your handle again?
We're out of the sun.
Petunia, signing off.
Wait a minute.
All right, well thank you, Petunia, for-
for your thoughts on-
for your thoughts on teaching.
Hey, you know, anytime you would like to have me back,
I'll then do a lot more about how other people are doing it,
huh?
Okay.
It's one of my favorite subjects.
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