For Paris, having a instructor acknowledge feelings in math class was humanizing. “She acknowledged my expertise as part of this actually massive expertise that so many different individuals have. And that was actually validating,” Paris mentioned.
Sturdy devotes a couple of hours to studying the letters, making notes about broad patterns and particular person particulars. “It’s the start of an ongoing story between you and the scholars and their math expertise for that semester or yr, and it’s actually vital to begin by listening to them nicely,” she mentioned.
Hierarchy in math schooling
Sturdy teaches at High Tech High and its Graduate College of Schooling in San Diego. She developed the Pricey Math routine virtually a decade in the past, and he or she revealed a e-book about it, Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math And What Teachers Can Do About It, co-authored by her former pupil Gigi Butterfield. In it, the instructor and former pupil mirror on the themes throughout a whole lot of letters. One pervasive theme is hierarchy.
“Youngsters as younger as kindergarten and first grade are defining themselves nearly as good at math or not good at math,” mentioned Amy Parks, an elementary math schooling researcher at Michigan State College. A lot of that definition comes from how they rank amongst classmates – from timed assessments, to ‘excessive’ and ‘low’ teams, to refined cues in academics’ language. “I’ve been in lecture rooms the place academics have had children line up by what number of questions they answered or what number of issues they obtained proper,” Parks mentioned. “These hierarchies get bolstered so typically and in so many alternative methods it’s virtually overwhelming.”
For a lot of children, the comparisons add as much as a destructive self-perception round math. And by the point they attain highschool, that mathematical id can really feel immutable. However math class doesn’t should be this fashion. “Lecturers and fogeys can have an effect on the way in which children take into consideration this stuff,” mentioned Rachel Lambert, a professor and researcher at College of California, Santa Barbara.
There’s a cussed cultural myth that some of us are “math people” and some of us aren’t. This concept will get repeated explicitly on a regular basis, and sometimes implicitly with gendered and racialized associations. However neuroscience exhibits that everyone is capable of learning math, and Lambert mentioned it matters that kids hear that. “College students join topics to academics in a reasonably intense method that I feel as adults we regularly overlook. So in the event that they really feel their math instructor believes in them as a human being and believes of their competence in arithmetic, that may make an enormous distinction,” she mentioned.
In Sturdy’s classroom, listening to college students’ tales is step one towards disrupting these hierarchies. She additionally seems to be for methods to spotlight college students’ mathematical pondering every day. A method she does that is by having a number of college students write their problem-solving concepts on the whiteboard and asking different college students to touch upon what they like concerning the methods they see. One other routine is an exit ticket that asks college students to share one thing they discovered from a classmate that day. She may share the main points the following day with a pupil who was talked about or with the entire class if there’s an even bigger lesson in it.
Math is for everybody
Isabela Avila, one other of Sturdy’s former college students, mentioned these sorts of practices created a way of group: “It was by no means even like a query of did you get it proper or mistaken. It simply appeared like we have been at all times simply all studying collectively as a category.” She had Sturdy as a instructor twice and wrote Pricey Math letters each occasions. In her letter as a sophomore, her self-doubts confirmed up within the first sentence:
Pricey Math, I actually such as you, however you don’t come naturally to me. I’ve to work additional laborious to grasp and absolutely conceptualize what you need to supply.
In her letter as a senior, Avila wrote about her math progress over the prior two years:
I developed a way of persistence and open mindedness for the primary time ever. … I do know it will assist me so much in school and past, and I look ahead to utilizing it sooner or later.
When Avila obtained to the extremely aggressive setting of Johns Hopkins College, nonetheless, the same old order of issues returned. “I actually struggled so much with evaluating myself, particularly in math,” she mentioned, discussing her freshman yr. “And I simply discovered that to be tremendous, tremendous counterproductive for each my studying and my self-worth.”
Sturdy mentioned her personal math story has had a variety of highs and lows, too. Although she will be able to’t defend college students from the methods math is taught and talked about past her classroom, her hope is that earlier than they go away highschool, “they begin to see themselves as mathematicians in new methods and that they begin to see their friends as mathematically good in new methods.”
For Avila, the persistence she developed in highschool did repay within the lengthy, emotionally powerful hours of school calculus. “I really feel like how you consider your self and how briskly you might be to get again up and preserve attempting is actually, actually a lot extra vital than in case you can really do the maths,” she mentioned.
Quick and gradual
Paris, Sturdy’s former pupil who appreciated expressing her feelings in a Pricey Math letter, nonetheless remembers the heart-racing stress that accompanied timed multiplication tests in third grade. In Sturdy’s classroom, she mentioned, there was by no means a timer. When Paris wanted additional assist, Sturdy introduced out outdated algebra textbooks to bolster foundational ideas. She designed tasks the place Paris might make connections between math and artwork – a topic that she already cherished. Most significantly, Sturdy helped Paris learn to break down complicated issues into smaller steps. “Which is such a easy idea, but it surely didn’t even cross my thoughts that I might try this in math,” mentioned Paris. “And that taking my time in math meant that I used to be being a mathematician.”
“Many college students have this conception that they’re the one one who’s taking time to grasp this idea, that everyone round them has already obtained it,” mentioned Lambert, the UC Santa Barbara professor. Lambert prompt that academics can scale back the frenzy of the pacing calendar by pondering of it not as going slowly however selecting the place to take a position time. “You possibly can’t do each customary yearly along with your college students. You must determine what’s value funding, after which spend extra time with these subjects in order that college students really feel that they’ve sufficient time studying these issues,” she mentioned.
In Sturdy’s view, this requires shifting away from math instruction that’s constructed across the concepts the instructor desires to get to in a given interval. Scholar-centered instruction requires much more listening, she mentioned: “Listening first off to their tales and the way they’re displaying as much as class, after which second off (listening to) the ways in which they’re pondering of and understanding and making sense of mathematical concepts.”
Paris, who had Sturdy as a instructor for 3 years, mentioned that point remodeled her. She now works at a bridal store, the place she was just lately promoted from stylist to gross sales supervisor – a task that entails a variety of math. “If I need to educate my stylists how one can improve their productiveness of their gross sales, then I must assume like a mathematician and provide you with the ways in which I can try this,” she defined. In tenth grade, that will have scared her. Not now. “There’s no motive for me to be afraid of math as a result of I’ve confirmed to myself time and time once more that I can do it,” she mentioned.
Episode transcript
Kara Newhouse: Welcome to MindShift, the place we discover the way forward for studying and the way we elevate our youngsters. I’m Kara Newhouse.
Nimah Gobir: And I’m Nimah Gobir.
[Music]
Kara Newhouse: As we speak we’re speaking about math.
Nimah Gobir: As a result of it entails numbers and formulation, we regularly consider math as simple and goal.
Kara Newhouse: However studying math is definitely filled with feelings. I met a highschool instructor who begins the yr with an uncommon task. She has her college students write a letter to math, describing their emotions concerning the topic. Right here’s that instructor, Sarah Sturdy.
Sarah Sturdy: A Pricey Math letter is a letter that college students write to math as if math have been personified sitting throughout the desk from them. … And it actually helps inform academics higher perceive the scholars tales and experiences that they’re coming to class with in order that academics can higher design math experiences for college kids to thrive and flourish in math class.
Kara Newhouse: We’ll hear extra from Sarah later within the episode. First, right here’s a part of a Pricey Math letter from one among her former college students, Taylor Paris.
[Music]
Taylor Paris: [Reading letter] Pricey math, Oh, do I’ve some issues to say to you. You’ve adopted me all through each faculty yr, brought on me the worst complications, and given me quite a few counts of tension simply serious about you … The reminiscences of my seventh grade math instructor telling me, ‘Perhaps you’re simply not a math individual’ nonetheless ringing in my head, and the fixed Bs and Cs are nonetheless imprinted in my thoughts. You’ve been a by no means ending problem and battle, and it’s at all times been laborious to grasp you. Regardless of what number of occasions my buddies and academics clarify you, I by no means grasp you fully.
Kara Newhouse: The nervousness and frustration that Taylor described in her letter are acquainted emotions for a lot of younger individuals. And by the point college students get to highschool, it could possibly really feel like in the event that they don’t perceive math now, they by no means will.
Nimah Gobir: However math doesn’t should be this fashion.
Kara Newhouse: Once we get again from the break, we’ll hear extra about Pricey Math letters and the way they assist college students like Taylor strengthen their mathematical identities.
Kara Newhouse: Taylor Paris graduated highschool a couple of years in the past, however she nonetheless remembers the primary week of tenth grade math together with her instructor Sarah Sturdy. That’s when college students wrote letters to math, as if it have been an individual.
Taylor Paris: And I bear in mind being so excited as a result of mainly you’re writing in math, and that’s by no means the case.
Kara Newhouse: Interdisciplinary studying permits college students to consider a topic from new views. For Taylor, writing the Pricey Math letter gave her an opportunity to mirror on how her early faculty years formed her relationship to math.
Taylor Paris: I bear in mind, my first, like, scariness of math was lengthy division, as a result of it was like so summary to me, and everybody round me understood it and was identical to, ‘Yeah, nicely that’s simply the way in which it’s and that’s completely effective.’
Kara Newhouse: Writing about these reminiscences was cathartic. It additionally helped Taylor really feel linked to her instructor.
Taylor Paris: I’ve by no means had a math instructor discuss feelings behind math ever. Like, actually ever … She acknowledged my expertise as part of this actually massive expertise that so many different individuals have. And that was actually validating.
Kara Newhouse: Her instructor, Sarah Sturdy, additionally made it clear that it was okay for these emotions to floor all year long. Which made it doable for Taylor to give attention to really studying math.
Taylor Paris: She did an awesome job at making me really feel like I might take a very complicated drawback and break it all the way down to the naked bones of it, which is such a easy idea. However it didn’t even cross my thoughts that I might try this in math and that taking my time in math meant that I used to be being a mathematician. And that’s what mathematicians did, was take their time and work on issues slowly to actually perceive each facet.
Kara Newhouse: Once I met Taylor, she had simply been promoted from a stylist to a gross sales supervisor at a bridal store in San Diego. That’s a trend job that entails a variety of math.
Taylor Paris: So stylists are answerable for clearly, , the customer support aspect of issues, however on the gross sales aspect, there’s a sure aim that you must meet or would ideally meet everyday and sort of week to day, month to day. … And so when you consider it, gross sales is like one massive math drawback daily as a result of there’s a query, there’s a solution that you need to get to, after which there’s variables that go into, , the reply to your drawback, basically.
Kara Newhouse: Taylor is 20. Not that way back, doing a math-related job would have been unimaginable to her.
Taylor Paris: When you informed sophomore yr Taylor that I’d be doing one thing that was straight correlated with math and numbers on a regular basis, I’d be terrified and doubtless chortle.
Kara Newhouse: Taylor had Sarah Sturdy as a math instructor from 10th grade by way of 12th grade. She mentioned that these years completely modified her view of math.
Taylor Paris: And so whereas I’ll have been scared to take a gross sales supervisor place at, , in my sophomore yr, it makes a ton of sense for me now as a result of what I do is assist individuals discover their wedding ceremony costume. And who would have thought that math was to find a marriage costume?
[Music]
Kara Newhouse: Taylor now sees herself as a doer of math. That is what’s known as mathematical id.
Nimah Gobir: We did an episode that includes Chris Emdin, who talked about college students’ STEM identities. Mathematical id is one type of a STEM id.
Sarah Sturdy: Mathematical id is a method that college students see themselves as a mathematician, and subsequently it connects to the ways in which they enter into mathematical areas and join with different mathematicians round them.
Kara Newhouse: That’s instructor Sarah Sturdy once more. She created the Pricey Math exercise throughout an even bigger challenge the place college students have been exploring their mathematical identities. They have been utilizing various kinds of math as metaphors for his or her experiences. And Sarah needed so as to add a writing part to that challenge.
Sarah Sturdy: And one among my colleagues shared with me the thought of writing letters to a factor like books or basketball, and the way she’d heard of that apply. And he or she thought I might do Pricey Math letters, and I believed that was an incredible thought. So I ran with it.
Kara Newhouse: The letters have been highly effective. And Sarah realized that having college students write them in the beginning of the yr might assist her educate every class higher.
Right here’s how she does it now. She introduces the task throughout the first week of faculty. She reads her personal Pricey Math letter as a mannequin, as a result of most college students aren’t used to writing in math class. Listening to her letter additionally lets them know that despite the fact that she teaches math, it hasn’t at all times been straightforward for her.
Nimah Gobir: After studying her letter, Sarah offers her college students prompts for writing their very own. Questions like…
- What’s one among your best mathematical strengths?
- How do you intend to interact with math sooner or later?
- What would you want extra of in math lecture rooms?
Kara Newhouse: They spend 15 to 30 minutes writing at school. Anybody who desires to jot down extra can end at house.
Nimah Gobir: Then Sarah reads the letters on her personal. She says that is an important step.
Sarah Sturdy: ‘Trigger it’s the start of an ongoing story between you and the scholars and their math expertise for that semester or yr, and it’s actually vital to begin by listening to them nicely.
Kara Newhouse: She first seems to be for broad patterns throughout the category.
Sarah Sturdy: If I’ve obtained a disproportionate quantity of scholars that hate math, don’t assume they’re mathematicians, that I’ve to be actually intentional about my class design, the place I’m recurrently noticing and calling out their mathematical strengths and giving them alternatives to see themselves as mathematicians and see one another as mathematicians. Or do I’ve a variety of college students who, who really feel like ‘I’m a very sturdy mathematician. Ever since I used to be younger, I get all the correct solutions. I’m actually quick.’ Then I can be aware that that’s a pattern within the class and be pondering how I can proceed to push these college students whereas additionally broadening their understanding of how they’re mathematical and the way vital it’s to additionally hearken to different college students’ methods of being mathematical.
Kara Newhouse: She additionally reads the letters for particular person particulars about issues college students love and issues that journey them up. She may make a couple of notes and …
Sarah Sturdy: Examine in with college students like, ‘Gosh, I bear in mind you mentioned that you simply had a very laborious time with the thought of percents and like each time percents come up, you panic. Effectively, tomorrow we’re going to want some percents in our work with exponential features. And so I needed to just be sure you knew that I consider that you simply’ve obtained this. If you wish to perform a little apply beforehand, we are able to try this as a result of I need you to really feel assured. I don’t need some story from sixth grade impacting your confidence in what we’re engaged on proper now.’
Kara Newhouse: Sarah mentioned that attending to know college students was at all times vital to her. Even earlier than she created the Pricey Math task.
Sarah Sturdy: I’d typically attempt to join with them in quite a lot of methods and I’d hear their feedback right here and there that have been each optimistic and destructive. And I at all times tried to be a very good listener and perceive my college students’ emotions.
Kara Newhouse: However she wasn’t at all times getting a full image.
Sarah Sturdy: Typically I feel I used to be being a bit of delusional earlier than I obtained to listen to their complete tales as a result of I’d assume, ‘Oh, that they had actually destructive experiences. They don’t like math, however now that they’re in my class, every thing’s going to be effective.’
Kara Newhouse: The letters helped her take off her rose-colored glasses.
Sarah Sturdy: It wasn’t till I began having them write Pricey Math letters that I obtained to listen to extra full tales and achieve an even bigger image for his or her earlier expertise and the way these experiences have been informing the methods they have been displaying as much as my class.
Kara Newhouse: That information allows her to assist college students develop as math learners all year long.
Sarah Sturdy: My largest hope is that they begin to see themselves as mathematicians in new methods and that they begin to see their friends as mathematically good in new methods.
[Music]
Kara Newhouse: Nimah, it could be nice if writing a Pricey Math letter helped all college students see themselves as able to doing math – the way in which it did for Taylor Paris.
Nimah Gobir: It will. However after all not each pupil’s math story is linear.
Kara Newhouse: No… Some math tales go up and down over time, like a periodic perform.
Nimah Gobir: Hey, good math analogy!
Kara Newhouse: I obtained that one from Sarah Sturdy. She described her personal math story that method. It additionally applies to a different of her former college students, Isabela Avila. Right here’s the beginning of a Pricey Math letter Isabela wrote in tenth grade.
Isabela Avila: [Reading letter] Pricey Math, I actually such as you, however you don’t come naturally to me. I’ve to work additional laborious to grasp and absolutely conceptualize what you need to supply.
Kara Newhouse: In earlier math lessons, Isabela felt stress to at all times be quick and have the correct reply. However she informed me that expectation wasn’t there in Sarah Sturdy’s class.
Isabela Avila: It was by no means even like a query of like, did you get it proper or mistaken? It was simply appeared like we have been at all times simply all studying collectively, as a category.
Kara Newhouse: That sense of togetherness mattered.
Isabela Avila: And like, I feel that basically helped me like primary, like, assume extremely of myself as like an issue solver and in addition … be assured in my concepts.
Kara Newhouse: Isabela had Sarah Sturdy as a instructor twice, and he or she wrote a Pricey Math letter each occasions. You possibly can hear her elevated confidence within the letter she wrote as a senior.
Isabela Avila: [Reading letter] Essentially the most mathematical progress I really feel I’ve ever skilled was throughout my junior yr. I felt assured in my algebra expertise for the primary time ever. … My mindset additionally shifted drastically. I developed a way of persistence and open mindedness for the primary time ever. … I do know it will assist me so much in school and past, and I look ahead to utilizing it sooner or later. Sincerely, Isabela Avila.
Kara Newhouse: When Isabela really obtained to varsity, the transition was rocky. She’s a pre-med main at Johns Hopkins College in Baltimore.
Isabela Avila: Our like math division is thought for being like notoriously laborious.
Kara Newhouse: Throughout her, Isabela noticed classmates who had come from elite excessive colleges and appeared to grasp calculus extra simply than she did.
Isabela Avila: I actually struggled so much with like evaluating myself, particularly in math. And I simply discovered that to be tremendous, tremendous counter-productive for each my studying and like my self-worth.
Kara Newhouse: Typically she would break down crying whereas doing homework, which might take eight hours to finish. At school, she didn’t take part as a lot as she had hoped to.
Isabela Avila: I simply actually didn’t need to sound like I didn’t know what I used to be speaking about or like, not that I don’t belong there, however I don’t know. It was simply, everybody round me was so sensible. And I do know, like, assessments don’t outline you, however everybody round me, like, even when they have been beginning in calc one, they, like, obtained fives on just like the AP calc exams and did exceptionally nicely.
Kara Newhouse: Again in highschool, Isabela had written in one among her letters that she’d had a variety of highs and lows with math. Freshman yr of school was positively one other low.
Once I talked to her throughout her sophomore yr at Johns Hopkins, being a premed main was nonetheless very anxious. One thing that helped, although, was making buddies who didn’t discuss grades.
Isabela Avila: We don’t discuss, like, what rating we obtained. We don’t discuss how we’re doing within the class. We don’t discuss — truthfully we don’t speak that a lot about like our precise like faculty.
Kara Newhouse: And he or she mentioned the persistence that she developed in highschool did assist her get by way of calculus.
Isabela Avila: Particularly in math right here in school, like, I really feel like how you consider your self and like how briskly you might be to love, get again up and preserve attempting is actually, actually a lot extra vital than in case you can really do the maths.
[Music]
Nimah Gobir: Kara, the way in which Isabela in contrast herself to her calculus classmates isn’t distinctive to being at a college filled with excessive achievers.
Kara Newhouse: That’s proper. Sarah Sturdy mentioned these comparisons have been pervasive in college students’ Pricey Math letters. And based on consultants, this sort of pondering begins early.
Nimah Gobir: Researchers say even kindergarteners begin to discover their spot within the pecking order of math capacity.
Kara Newhouse: It typically begins with these one-minute math quizzes that so many people bear in mind.
[Sound of pencils scribbling and slamming down]
Nimah Gobir: College students may hear their classmates furiously scribbling solutions and slamming their pencils down after they end. They equate that with being “good” at math.
Kara Newhouse: And there are many different methods in class that college students are ranked and sorted. In youthful grades, academics typically group college students by capacity after they’re practising math. In higher grades, college students might get tracked into ‘common’ and ‘superior’ lessons.
Nimah Gobir: Some academics will even publicly show children’ progress in sure math expertise. This will seem like a bulletin board that makes use of paper ice cream scoops to characterize what number of multiplication information every pupil is aware of.
Kara Newhouse: One researcher I talked to had a variety of concepts about how one can disrupt hierarchies in math schooling. That is Rachel Lambert, from College of California, Santa Barbara.
Rachel Lambert: I feel if there’s one one factor I’d like to speak, it’s that academics and fogeys can have an effect on the way in which children take into consideration this stuff.
Kara Newhouse: Rachel shared 5 ideas that academics can use to assist children cease evaluating themselves to others in math. The primary tip is to alter the narrative about who can do math.
Rachel Lambert: College students would inform me how a lot it mattered to them to listen to their instructor say, ‘There is no such thing as a distinction in who may be good at math.’ Like very clear messages round race and gender and the clear message that there is no such thing as a one group of individuals that’s higher in math than different individuals, these college students informed me that was useful to them.
Kara Newhouse: Altering the narrative isn’t nearly what we are saying to children. It’s additionally about how academics speak to one another. And the way they group college students at school.
Rachel Lambert: We would assume as academics – and I used to be a instructor for over 10 years – that children don’t know that we may be calling them low children or excessive children once we’re having lunch with different academics. … However they know, they at all times know they usually understand how they’re being grouped and categorized and seen. … If we resolve that children are going to do nicely in arithmetic, we do a variety of issues in our educating to set them up for achievement day after day. If we predict children will fail once we hand them a mathematical job, we’re doing refined issues to set them up for failure each single time we try this. So if we put them in teams that by no means change, we’re educating them who they’re and we’re additionally affecting who they develop into, as a result of we’re solely permitting them alternatives to do issues quote-unquote at their degree.
Kara Newhouse: Rachel’s second tip for academics is to cease specializing in velocity.
Rachel Lambert: Consider it not as a matter of going gradual. Consider it as investing in sure issues. So you may’t hit every thing in your pacing calendar. You possibly can’t do each customary yearly along with your college students. You must determine what’s value funding and what’s value additional time, after which spend extra time with these subjects in order that college students really feel that they’ve sufficient time studying these issues.
Kara Newhouse: Her third tip is to normalize errors. It could possibly assist college students be taught from one another’s pondering when you may have them share their errors. Rachel informed me a few instructor who did this.
Rachel Lambert: She would even put a bit of coronary heart subsequent to a mistake and he or she’d be, ‘This was my favourite mistake of the day.’ And he or she drew a bit of coronary heart subsequent to it. And the children would go, ‘awww.’ It’s lovely.
Kara Newhouse: Tip quantity 4 is to present college students issues that may be approached from a number of angles.
Rachel Lambert: I see that some children actually love to interact within the visible facet of an issue. Different college students wish to make, say, an organized record. And that doesn’t imply – there’s no such factor as studying types; it doesn’t imply that that’s the way in which they’re going to strategy each drawback, but it surely does imply that an issue that pulls on a number of methods of partaking may be extra wealthy mathematically and in addition disrupt concepts of who’s the perfect at math and who isn’t.
Kara Newhouse: Rachel Lambert’s fifth and closing tip is to make helps obtainable to everybody.
Rachel Lambert: That’s the one of many easiest interventions you are able to do in math to make it extra equitable … And it doesn’t ship any destructive messages to children as a result of they’re selecting in the event that they need to use a calculator. They’re selecting in the event that they need to hear the instructions a second time. They’re selecting in the event that they use manipulatives.
Kara Newhouse: Making these assets obtainable to everybody takes the instructor’s assumptions out of the equation. And it helps children develop the abilities to acknowledge what they should succeed.
[Music]
Nimah Gobir: Kara, there are some individuals who say math academics ought to simply give attention to content material. That actions like writing letters to math are extra about vanity than studying.
Kara Newhouse: These targets don’t should be separate. Direct instruction and problem-solving apply are important components of math schooling. However like we mentioned in the beginning, doing math entails feelings. Though we’ve heard so much concerning the irritating components of math, it could possibly additionally evoke optimistic feelings.
Nimah Gobir: Youngsters who’re absorbed in math problem-solving typically categorical surprise and pleasure.
Kara Newhouse: Listening to younger individuals’s tales and honoring all of those feelings permits college students to be extra human in math class. And that doesn’t simply make them consider of their math talents, it empowers them to be taught math and to do math.
[Music]
Kara Newhouse: This episode wouldn’t have been doable with out Sarah Sturdy. To be taught extra about Pricey Math letters, you may learn the e-book she wrote together with her former pupil, Gigi Butterfield. The e-book is known as, Pricey Math: Why Youngsters Hate Math and What Lecturers Can Do About It.
Thanks additionally to Taylor Paris, Isabela Avila, Rachel Lambert and Amy Parks.
The MindShift workforce consists of Nimah Gobir, Ki Sung, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and me, Kara Newhouse.
Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Chris Hoff engineered this episode.
Further assist from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldaña and Holly Kernan.
MindShift is supported partially by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Basis and members of KQED.
Nimah Gobir: When you love MindShift, and loved this episode, please share it with a pal. We actually respect it. You too can learn extra or subscribe to our publication at kqed.org/mindshift.
