Pam  0:00  
Hey, fellow math-ers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris, a former mimicker turned math-er.

Kim  0:09  
And I'm Kim Montague, a reasoner who now knows how to share her thinking with others. At Math is Figure-Out-Able, we are on a mission to improve math teaching.

Pam  0:17  
Because we know that algorithms are amazing historic achievements, but they are not good teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures can actually trap students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop.

Kim  0:31  
In this podcast, we help you teach math-ing, building relationships with your students, and grappling with mathematical relationships.

Pam  0:39  
Y'all, thanks for joining us to make math more figure-out-able.

Kim  0:44  
This is going to be a good one. Neither one of us can speak today.

Pam  0:48  
We'll see how it goes.

Kim  0:50  
I know. I know, I know. Okay, we have another review that's actually more recent. This is AmyKRuss50. And Amy says your podcast has become a staple on my weekly playlist. I work as a secondary math teacher for 20 years. Worked as a secondary math teacher for 20 years, and I've been coaching K-12 for the past four years. So much of your work goes straight into my coaching. I set you guys at almost every PD, I do. Thanks for your dedication to this very important work." Thanks. Amy.

Pam  1:22  
Amy, thanks so much. Thanks for being a secondary teacher who is willing to go learn all that really cool stuff in the younger grades. And thanks for giving us a review and a rating. Thanks for the five star rating. Y'all, we really appreciate that. Algorithms help the podcast be found by more people if you give us a rating and a review. So, we appreciate that. Thanks, Amy. And go, go, go. You should join our coaching group. We'd love to have you there. Alright, cool. Kim, can I do one more? I know we've been talking about South Korea over the last couple episodes..

Kim  1:52  
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Pam  1:53  
I thought about one more thing that was just... This is totally cute, not mathy at all, but I thought it would be fun to share. So, the leader, the math leader of the lower school, they call the village school, is wonderful. And she had gone in the day before and kind of prepped the kids a little bit. I didn't know this until halfway through the lab lessons that I was doing, but she had kind of prepped the kids a little bit to say, "Hey, there's this math person coming in. Her name is Pam Harris, and she kind of says my name, Pam Harris, kind of like one word, PamHarris. It's not like Pam Harris. It's like PamHarris. And she kind of prepped them. "You know like, she's coming in, and how do we treat, you know, visitors when they come. And do we talk over each other?" You know, just that kind of stuff. And and the kids... So, at every time I would walk into one of those lower school classrooms, the kids were ready. Often they were on the floor. They would kind of, as they'd see me walk in the room, they would kind of like jump up. Not jump but like kind of bounce a little bit. You know like, "There's the person!" Whatever. And the littlest ones would be like, "Oh, PamHarris is here. PamHarris is here. PamHarris is here." And it's just, it was kind of cute because it sounded like one word. The way they said my name was the same way the leader had said my name. And at one point, the teacher said "Welcome, Pam Harris. We're so glad you're here. What would you like the children to call you?" Well, you know, Kim, I grew up in a pretty, I don't know, conservative, kind of traditional place, and so we were taught to call our elders, Mrs. Or Miss. Or, you know, with the title. And so I said, "Well, you can call you Miss Harris." And so, little kid goes, Okay, PamHarris, we'll call you Miss Harris."

Kim  3:21  
Cute. I love little kids.

Pam  3:22  
Alright, so my name is one word, PamHarris, and you can call me...

Kim  3:26  
Pam Harris Harris.

Pam  3:28  
You can call me PamHarris. Alright, one other thing that happened. This is mathy. Or at least math-edy, math education. While I was in South Korea, I'd really like to dive into. So, it's just one. We're not going to do a bunch of things today, but one. I have a basketball analogy that we have actually used on the podcast, and so you might check out episode 105 if you don't remember that basketball analogy. It's... You know, I like to use analogies. I like to use stories. I like to use ways to kind of help people go, "Oh, that's what you mean." I think often metaphorical things can kind of help us get a different slant on things. And while I was there, I did a full PD with everybody that I was there to work with. And I use this basketball analogy to get us art started talking about maybe give a slant on math education today. So, Kim, if it's okay, I'm just going to do kind of a three-minute version of that basketball analogy. The podcast episode, I think, is like more like 25 minutes, so we really go into kind of some detail and stuff. But here, I did this basketball analogy, and then one of the teachers poked on it in, I think, some relevant, important ways. You know, sort of push back a little bit, kind of ask some questions. And I think that it would be fruitful for us to kind of dive in because I wonder if the way that maybe I said some things kind of came across not how I meant. Or maybe they came across through different. Yeah, you know, all analogies fail at some point.

Kim  5:03  
Sure.

Pam  5:03  
And maybe we kind of talk about what I don't mean with this analogy. 

Kim  5:07  
Okay.

Pam  5:07  
Alright, cool. So, here's the short version. So, I usually start by saying, "Hey, I caught the ball. I tried again. Dribble, step, step, shoot. My coach said, "Nope, try again." So, I got the ball. Try it again. Y'all, as I was learning to play basketball, I just could not figure out how to do a layup. A layup is that cool looking thing where you're like, dribble, dribble. You kind of put it up. I was excited about basketball, and there were some things that just didn't make sense. While I was learning, my coaches allowed me to play the real game of basketball. They let me on the court. I could dribble, shoot. I was pretty good at defense. As I was learning to play, they let me play the real game with what I could do. The system was set up to put me in games and let me have fun while learning. Here's what they didn't do. They didn't say, "Mmm, for some reason you're not naturally picking up on a layup, so we're just going to put you over here, and you can play this other game. It's kind of like a fake game. You just memorize these rules and mimic them. But since you can't naturally get it, you're just kind of stuck playing, like it's not really basketball. Just, you know, kind of over there mimicking and memorizing." As we think about current math education, is it possible the system has been taking students who, for whatever reason, don't naturally pick up on math and relegating them to the game of fake math, where students are asked to rote memorize rules and mimic procedures. And then this became the historic norm. And most of us have actually been playing a fake game of math. What is the real game of math? Is it rote memorizing rules and mimicking procedures? Or is it something else entirely? What if the real game of math is letting students play with what they can do, with what they do know? When students can't just figure it out, could we find out what they can do and use that to help them learn the next thing. Just like me, everybody listening to this podcast is excited about teaching and wants to reach more students, so that they can... Sorry, reach more students. It might have taken me longer to do a layup. It did. I needed more experiences than most people. And I know that you want your students to have the experiences to learn the real game of math. That's why you're listening to the podcast. When we understand the real game and how to teach it, we can make it happen. I'm Pam Harris, and I believe that Math is Figure-Out-Able, and we can teach it that way. Alright, so Kim, that's kind of a metaphorical, you know like, the thing that I've kind of made up to help us have this analogy to think about is it possible that we have this historic thing happening where we've all just been playing this fake game for so long that many of us don't know what the real game of math is? 

Kim  7:59  
Okay, I have to interrupt you for just a second because I wonder if this is where real math, fake math came from. If you had... Like, when you're saying the real game of math or the fake game of math, I wonder if that if real math, fake math has become a shortcut from that analogy. Is that maybe where that came from?

Pam  8:21  
Well, you know what I actually think happened is I was saying real math and fake math, and you didn't like it. And so then instead, I said, "Well, what about the real game of math and the fake game of math?" Because I think that...

Kim  8:35  
It's kind of like in this school setting, we like schoolify what math is.

Pam  8:41  
Yeah, yeah. (unclear)

Kim  8:46  
We cut out parts of math that are math, and we focus only on narrow parts of it, and it's all about answers.

Pam  8:52  
Mmhm. And it's about waiting until the teacher tells you what to do. And if you're given a problem you've never seen before, then you're like, "Oh, I've never seen this, so I just have to, you know. I can't do anything. It's not the idea that Math is Figure-Out-Able. It's the idea that math is rote-memorizable, and I've got to wait until it's handed to me therefore. Yeah.

Kim  9:12  
Well, and when I say schoolify I mean it's like the school that I had. It's certainly not all. You know, it's certainly not all classrooms are that way. It's just kind of what I grew up with.

Pam  9:22  
I think most.

Kim  9:23  
All that stuff that we just described. Yeah.

Pam  9:24  
I could say most of us grew up playing the fake game of math. But not all. I mean, there were some kids who saw through it and somehow were able to play the real game of math.

Kim  9:34  
On their own maybe.

Pam  9:35  
Yeah, I think mostly on their own. Or every once in a while, we had a teacher who really was able to help us see things we've never seen before. But in general, overall, the system was set up to continue this myth that math was about rote memorizing and mimicking, not figure-out-able. Yeah.

Kim  9:54  
Okay, so you had that analogy, and somebody listened to the podcast or heard you talk about it.

Pam  10:00  
Well, no, so it was actually a teacher in Korea heard the analogy.

Kim  10:03  
That's what I mean, they pushed back on.

Pam  10:04  
Yeah, and they pushed back. So, a couple of the things. Now, the pushback I only heard through other people. Which is fine. It's fine. Like, it wasn't... Respectfully, this person didn't raise their hand and say, "Oh, my gosh. That's dumb," for these reasons. Told the people in their group. And so, people in the group later said, "Well, what about this? You know like, this person pushed back."

Kim  10:24  
Yeah, which is fine.

Pam  10:24  
And, well, I love it because I need the feedback, so that I can fine tune the analogy, or that I can, you know like, help people understand this is not what I mean. But honestly, I don't remember. Here's what I remember. I remember that part of the pushback was, "Well, wait a minute. Why didn't your teachers or your coaches teach you to do a layup?" Like, why
did they just keep letting you play and not help you learn to learn to do a layup?" So, maybe that's not clear in that little, you know, three-minute version of it.

Kim  10:52  
Yeah.

Pam  10:52  
My coaches tried. Like, they were doing things to try to help me to learn to do a layup. I just couldn't get it down. While they were helping me learn to do a layup, they didn't take me out of everything else. They didn't put me in a separate room, only doing a layup. Until I got a layup, I couldn't go out and play with my teammates. Does that make sense?

Kim  11:18  
It does. And I think that somebody listening might say, "Okay, well, it's not like we're taking kids out of the classroom, and they can't ever do math with their class, and they always go away." But we do put some systems in place where that kind of happens.

Pam  11:39  
I mean. More than kind of, sometimes. Kim, you told me. Now, this is a while ago. You were in the classroom a while ago. But that they literally came to you and said, "We're going to take this group of bubble kids." Because they label them, which we hate.

Kim  11:51  
Yes, that's what they called them, yeah.

Pam  11:52  
And we're going to give them extra tutoring, so they can pass the dumb test.

Kim  11:57  
Okay, but what they didn't do was say they can't have math with you ever. 

Pam  12:00  
But didn't you tell me that sometimes they said, "And we'll just take him out during your math," and you're like, "Um, not, not math." Like, maybe other... Yeah.

Kim  12:10  
So, yes. There is some of that. There are like systematic situations where it's like, you know, can't get the scheduling or whatever.

Pam  12:18  
Well, I think it happens more than you know. I think today still it is happening that kids...

Kim  12:23  
Oh, I'm not saying it doesn't happen.

Pam  12:24  
Yeah, kids get pulled out for quote, unquote "intervention", and they are pulled out of math class. So, that's one thing that's happening. Yeah, keep going.

Kim  12:31  
Yeah, I think what I'm saying is I'm poking on the analogy because you're saying that what they didn't do was never let you play until you got it right. So, I think that there are situations where we have kids in class, and they get this extra practice. But what we do say is you can't do this kind of math. We say, "You're not ready for this extension. You're not ready for this puzzle. You're not ready for this game. You're not ready for this whatever thing that we allow other kids to have because we say you can't yet. You're not ready yet. You don't have the prerequisite yet." And so, we are. I'm agreeing with you that we are saying you aren't prepared to do this kind of work. I mean, how many times do we have teachers say, "I need an extension for..." pick a pocket of students.

Pam  13:21  
Yeah, yeah, they label them in some way.

Kim  13:23  
And we don't even let other kids make the attempt.

Pam  13:28  
Yeah, and I think there's a group that has the audacity to call themselves "The Science of Math" that suggests that until kids have learned the basics, they will never be allowed. They wouldn't say "allowed". I think they're well-meaning people who would say they've got to learn the basics. We've got to memorize the multiplication tables. Got to memorize their addition facts before they can do this other stuff.  And we would suggest, actually, there's a lot of people that don't have their multiplication facts memorized. There are other basics that are more important, and we can actually develop those basics through some of this other stuff. I would agree with them that we don't want to throw kids in an untenable situation where they don't have what they need to be able to reason at all. Like, they can't. They have no access. Of course, we want to put them in situations where they have enough access. But I think we would very strongly say there are important basics, and it's not a bunch of rote memorization. It's other ones. Yeah, go ahead.

Kim  14:34  
Yeah, I think to speak to the analogy, we don't say, "You're in. You're out. You can play. You can't play. We've decided. And that's how it is." So, I did go back and listen to the episode, and I wanted to bring up a few things that you said that either maybe I think you could elaborate on more, or I'd like for you to like explain and give us a better picture. So, you talked in the episode about a triple threat. Which I maybe still don't know a ton about other than the coach taught you that there was this stance maybe that was a triple threat because then you had three options, and you could pick the way you wanted to proceed in that moment, based on kind of where people were. And so, first of all, give us 60 seconds of what that even means.

Pam  15:17  
Yeah, I kind of like that.

Kim  15:18  
What's a triple threat?

Pam  15:19  
I kind of like that. So, when I catch the ball in a basketball game, I'm holding the ball. Ideally, I would stand in such a way that, right now, I could dribble, but I could also shoot from that stance, but I could also pass from that stance. 

Kim  15:32  
Okay, okay.

Pam  15:33  
So, there is a way that I could hold the ball that dribbling would make the most sense, and it would be really uncomfortable. I would be off-balance to try to shoot, or I'd have my hands in the wrong place to pass. But if I catch the ball in such a way, and I have my feet in such a way, both the way I'm standing, and the way I'm holding the ball, then I could do any of those three things from that stance, and so I'm a threat, like and I'm a threat in three ways. So, the defense has to be ready to not let me do any of those three things. You know, if I catch the ball, and they're really clear, "Oh, you always hold it that way. That means you're going to shoot," bam, they're going to be in my face with their hand up ready to jam the ball. But in that triple threat, they don't know what I'm going to do because I look like I could be doing any of the three things. Does that help?

Kim  16:23  
Yeah.

Pam  16:23  
Okay,

Kim  16:23  
Yeah, and it sounds to me like you made this analogy to math because you got to have some choice based on the situation.

Pam  16:32  
Absolutely.

Kim  16:32  
So, can you talk a little bit about choice in math class and why we want to offer those choices to kids?

Pam  16:40  
So, you could look at math as there is one way to do this problem and you memorize and mimic these steps. Or you could look at math as an interconnected set of relationships that you can use to reason through things, and so our goal is to help kids build that interconnected set of relationships, so that then when they look at a problem, they ask themselves, "Huh, what does this problem even mean? How can I use what I know to ferret out what it's even asking?" And, "Oh, it's asking that. Well, then, based on that, now that I kind of realize the relationships involved, well, I could just use this relationship, but I also could have used that relationship. And if I own three relationships..." Which we should if we're teaching math as a landscape of learning, we're really helping kids build those mental connections. Now, I have a choice between those relationships that I can use.

Kim  17:33  
Mmhm. And somebody might say, "But you don't have somebody in your face who's going to like predict your movement." But I would say that you do have things that are kind of on your mind, and that sometimes you want to make sure that all three of those relationships are strengthened, so that whatever you're messing around with that day, that those three relationships, something's going to pop to you, something's going to say to you like, "Use this one now." And when we are in math class, and sometimes we tell students which one thing to do, we are not letting them strengthen all three of those relationships.

Pam  18:10  
Oh, nice.

Kim  18:11  
Like, I think sometimes we say, "Oh, in this problem, we should use the blank strategy," and then there becomes this over reliance on one particular strategy. Now, that's not to say we can't like nudge and lob things out.

Pam  18:26  
Also over reliance on waiting to be told what to do.

Kim  18:29  
Yeah.

Pam  18:30  
Yeah.

Kim  18:31  
Yeah, yeah. 

Pam  18:31  
And it also sends the message that math is wait-to-be-told-what-to-do, and there-is-one-way versus Math is Figure-Out-Able.

Kim  18:40  
Yeah.

Pam  18:41  
I interrupted you. Sorry.

Kim  18:42  
And did you say that... What if you were good at two but not three? Like, if you always used one of the strategies, one of the... You said that if people knew that you were always going to like pass, then they would get in front of you so you couldn't pass.

Pam  18:58  
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Kim  18:59  
How did your coach handle that? 

Pam  19:00  
They knock the ball down. Coach would help strengthen the one that we were bad at. So, like the coach... Another story I'll tell sometimes is the day that Coach (unclear) came up to me and said, "Take out that shuffle." And I was like, "What do you mean? I was shooting a three-pointer." He's like, "Well, take out that shuffle, you'll, you know..." He didn't say it. I know now. I would have been faster. I would have been a faster shooter. And I was like, "Ah, it's working for me." Idiot, prideful idiot. Gah, come on, Pam. Young Pam, I want to bop her on the head. Because he was right. If I would have taken out that shuffle, I would have been a more threatening three-point shooter, because I'd shoot the three, but I was too slow, because I had that shuffle. So, they could get in my face. They could knock the ball down. Or freak me out or whatever. So, they would help me strengthen that. Yeah.

Kim  19:45  
I love that you said they would help you strengthen the other one, instead of telling you don't do the one you always do.

Pam  19:50  
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Kim  19:52  
Because we're going to keep doing what we do until we have a different experience or until we have strengthened the other options. 

Pam  19:59  
Yeah, nice. Yeah.

Kim  20:01  
Okay,

Pam  20:02  
I'm not even sure I meant to say it quite that way. I'm glad you picked it up.

Kim  20:07  
And so, you know, I think in math class at some point you said in the other episode about what's worse is that if kids can't do one of the three things that we take them off the court. Like, we take them out of math if they can't do some of the things that we're suggesting that they should be able to do. 

Pam  20:25  
Yeah, yeah.

Kim  20:26  
We just stick them somewhere else. Okay, another thing that I want to mention, or that I want to ask you about is that you said that you think that there is some natural talent involved in your basketball analogy. You mentioned height and that, you know, some people are taller. You know, you're born taller than somebody else. You also mentioned that you thought that you had a teammate who had some natural athleticism while you had some natural game analysis. You were sitting next to them, and they said, "Is this man to man?"

Pam  20:56  
I told that story. 

Kim  20:56  
"or zone?" Yeah, yeah. So, you talked about some natural stuff. What does natural talent to you mean in math? Because I know you've said that before. And maybe even people have pushed back. So, talk about natural talent. 

Pam  21:11  
Yeah. This is a tricky one, and so please let me continue to explain until I make sure I've, you know, said what I mean. And, listeners, if you're listening and you're like, "Wait, does that..." Hear me out, and hopefully I'll do a decent job. I do think we have interests that we follow. I think that sometimes we follow things. We do things in our life because we just have an inclination, an interest, that we're drawn to things. I think sometimes we're drawn to... So, for example, maybe we might be drawn to sports. Maybe we might be drawn to cooking. Maybe we might be drawn to art. We might be drawn to music. Give me something else. We might be drawn to knitting. Like, I think there are things that we might be drawn to. And I'm not sure why we're always drawn to those things, but I think sometimes we might be drawn to things that come easier to us, for whatever reason. Now, they might come easier to us because we were raised in a family that was always in the gym. Like, we used to call our coaches' kids, gym rats. Our basketball coaches' kids were always in the gym. They were like born with a basketball in their hand. So, maybe they would have been good basketball players if they didn't have that experience. They weren't always in the gym. I mean, they were always under foot. Sometimes we were like, "I'm going to kick your kids." Not kick on purpose, but, "I'm going to accidentally run into your kid coach," you know, because they were just always... It's funny because many of them grew up to become coaches. They're all quite good. So, how much of that was, you know, nature, nurture? How much of that was because they were in the gym? And how much of that was because our coach was phenomenal player himself? And maybe, you know, his genes were sort of some natural athleticism. I think there is some natural talent in lots of things that we're drawn to. But I think there's also that environment and how much experience that we had. And I think there's also maybe what's around us. Which is maybe a little different than just because I was sort of raised in the gym. If I grow up and I'm put in a situation at work where all of a sudden I'm interacting with people who like to rock climb, I might be like, "Huh, you know, I never knew." Like, we may never know that we have an inclination towards something. So, I don't know if it's interest. Oh, good you want to interrupt?

Kim  23:44  
Well, it's almost like you can see me. I leaned forward. Did I make a sound?

Pam  23:47  
Yeah, you breathed in. I was like...

Kim  23:50  
I'm sorry. Okay, well, because I've heard you say natural talent. But then just now in my head, I was saying inclination, and you said inclination towards.

Pam  23:59  
Yeah. 

Kim  23:59  
So, I wonder if it's not natural talent, if it's we have an inclination towards something. Because that, to me, can be very much explained because you were given options earlier, more often. Like, my kids have me as a mom. Can you imagine? Poor kids. I'm going to talk math to you every single second I can. When they were born, I was talking math in their ear. They have more of an inclination because I have made math fun.  I have made it interesting.

Pam  24:35  
Their car toys were Omnifix cubes.

Kim  24:38  
I mean... Yeah. I mean, they had others. But, yes, they did. But so, they have an inclination towards mathematics because that has been in their life for so long. But I don't know that I would say they have a natural talent for it.

Pam  24:56  
And I don't know that it matters. Maybe part of what I want to bring up is that I think we have... I think we have kind of a continuum where there's people on one side of the continuum or at least an attitude on one side of the continuum that either have the math gene or you don't. And I want to push back on that hard. I want to say like we need to let all kids play the game. Like, get them in the real game, and let them play, and then let them choose from there. Like, somebody used to say... As soon as they hit seventh grade, they don't need to take math anymore if they're not going to go into STEM. And I'm like, "I don't know that seventh graders make the best choices. Like their prefrontal cortex not the most well formed." Like.

Kim  25:37  
Yeah.

Pam  25:37  
I think we need to give kids enough experience, so that then they have choices when they're sort of mature enough to make those choices. And, in other words, I don't believe there's a math gene or not. But I'm also not on the other side of the continuum that says we're all equal in math. I don't know that that's true either. I think there are some people who are more interested in it. I don't know why. I don't know if it's because they have natural talent, or they're just more interested, or they're just more inclined. They've had more experience. They were gym rats in math class. I don't know why. But for whatever reason, I think there are people that are inclined to do math more, and that then... I'm troubled if we say "Everyone can do the same amount of math." I don't think (unclear).

Kim  26:33  
Is that what you... Okay, is that what you mean by we're not equal in math?

Pam  26:36  
Yes. 

Kim  26:36  
Do you mean that we... Okay, okay. I was waiting for you to pause, so I could ask you about that because I don't think you mean like equal people. I think you mean...

Pam  26:43  
Correct.

Kim  26:43  
...we don't all have the same abilities at the same time for the same mathematical thing. 

Pam  26:48  
I don't know that I would have said abilities. We don't have the same inclination at the same time.

Kim  26:52  
Okay, so that's good. So, I wonder if when people hear you say natural talent, they equate it to math gene because when you say the word "natural", it's like it came upon you, and you didn't... So, I think when you are giving kids earlier options more often, we create...

Pam  27:10  
And a ton of experiences...

Kim  27:12  
We create opportunities for them that is not equal for others. I think we give them a leg up. Like, my kids had a leg up.

Pam  27:20  
Like, here's an example.

Kim  27:21  
Plain and simple. 

Pam  27:22  
Yeah, Kindergarten teachers are telling me, right and left, almost every time I talk to them, that they can now begin to tell kids who are watching Number Blocks versus kids who aren't.

Kim  27:31  
Sure.

Pam  27:31  
Kids who've had Number Blocks experience. I don't even know how to... The British show, five-minute episodes. That they can now tell. And so...

Kim  27:41  
Yeah.

Pam  27:42  
...that's not kid. That's experience. So, I am suggesting that I think there is some natural talent involved. I think there are some people that, for whatever reason, are better at higher math or maybe even better at math earlier.

Kim  27:58  
That's not the interest and the drawn to and all that?

Pam  28:02  
I think it's all interrelated, and I don't think it's useful for us to parse it out. But I also don't think it's useful for us to say that we should all do the same amount of math in our lives. I think some people are going to be more interested and are going to want to go STEM and some people are going to be less interested. We still give them all the experiences, so they have all the choices, and they have a rich life. They have a rich view of mathematics. But then we're not going to force them to become math professors or force them to become engineers. Like, we're going to give everybody this rich experience, and then let them choose.

Kim  28:38  
Yeah.

Pam  28:38  
And in that scenario, it kind of doesn't matter how much we drill down into how much of that was natural and how much of it wasn't because we're going to let people choose. Does that?

Kim  28:50  
I think the only... I agree with that second part of what you said, that not everybody. I mean, because I have one kid who's going to be a math major and the other one who's like, "Eh, not so much," so he and I are talking about does he need calculus, right? Like, he's on a pathway that he can if he changes his mind, but whatever.

Pam  29:06  
Yeah. Love that you're having a conversation with him.

Kim  29:10  
Yeah. When you say, I don't think we need to worry about it. I think the only hesitation that I have is that if a student feels like some people have natural talent, and some and they may not, then that could feel like, "Well, I didn't get the natural talent." So, I think that's the only hesitation I have about why that might feel troublesome to me. But I'll think on it some more.

Pam  29:37  
Well, and if I could just... Oh, golly. We're kind of long here today. I do think Michael Jordan had more natural talent for basketball than he did for baseball. Like.

Kim  29:48  
Oh, and see I think he worked harder at it. Oh, we should have another episode. We could talk about it.

Pam  29:53  
And we should ask Michael Jordan what he thinks. I think there are some people that pick up a ball, and they just go. And if it's the first time they've ever picked it up, and they just go, I think there's some natural in there. But I don't think that means that me, who to be clear, I think I had some natural talent. But, I had a lot of work. Like, I worked a ton. I was allowed to play. So, even though I didn't necessarily, it didn't come easy to me. They still let me play the real game. That maybe is the most important message I think that I can send. But I think it's a little disingenuous to say we all have the same amount of natural talent for everything. I don't think that's true.

Kim  30:36  
I don't. I agree with you because I think we have different body sizes and different shapes and different, you know like...

Pam  30:46  
Yeah, and different interests. And I don't know why those interests are. Maybe because we had natural talent. Maybe because we're inclined. Maybe because we had more experience. Yeah. Y'all, we'd love to hear what you think about all of this. It's been fun to sort of beat it out. I hope you care a little bit about what we just talked about. Y'all, thanks for tuning in and teaching more and more real math. Worst ending ever. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement,  visit mathisfigureoutable.com. And keep spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able!