How We're Accidentally Teaching Kids to Hate Math with Pat Murray

Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why, so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now, let's meet today's guest.

This week, we're going to be talking about the very rare why of Simplify. So if this is your why, then you are one of the people that makes everyone else's life easier. You break things down to their essence, which allows others to understand each other better and see things from the same perspective. You're constantly looking for ways to simplify, from recipes you're making at home to business systems you're implementing at work. You feel successful when you eliminate complexity and remove unnecessary steps. And so today, I've got a great guest for you. Today's guest is someone who has taken one of the most dreaded subjects in school, math, and simplified it for hundreds of thousands of students around the world. Pat Murray is the founder of Maths Online, and his mission is make learning easier, faster, and actually enjoyable. So for over 30 years, Pat's been challenging the status quo in education, not by adding more, but by making things clearer. His why is simplify, his how is better way, and his what is challenge. And that's exactly what he's done. Reimagining math education for busy parents, frustrated students, and anyone who wants results without the fluff. If you've ever felt like school made things harder than they had to be, Pat is your guy. Pat, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having me. I'm pretty excited to join you and chat through the why process, which is remarkable. So let's dive in, eh? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, first of all, tell everybody where you are. And is that where you grew up? Where did you grow up? And what were you like growing up?

Okay, so I'm from Sydney, Australia, and where I live now, literally is 30 minutes away from where I grew up. So I, I mean my wife and I, we've lived in various parts but all around Sydney probably. I, I would say within a, a 40, 40, a 40 mile radius. So we haven't gone too far. And, and so that's, that's, that's where we are located now in terms of, you know, growing up. I'm one of eight kids, so I grew up in a large family. I'm number six. So by this stage I came around, you know, got some older, older, older brothers and sisters who sort of took care of me growing up as well besides mum and dad, which was great. But I really enjoyed my school life in terms of not so much the work. I wasn't the, I mean I was lucky. I was reasonably bright student so I didn't have any sort of learning difficulties in that sense, but I didn't quite enjoy too many subjects other than math. I really love math and I love sports. So I was, I was pretty good at sports as well. In fact, When I was 19 I was offered a pretty lucrative rugby contract professional. But at that stage, sure, we got married pretty young. So I was, I was married already. We were starting a family. We, we, we were early starters, my wife and I and continued to add numbers to our, our, our family. So we've got, we've got 10 kids, five boys, five girls and then we've got the same number of grandchildren remarkably also five boys and five girls. So very mathematically minded. But in terms of, of growing up, really enjoyed, you know, my, my childhood and, and got into, into math teaching high school math teaching very early. I was, I was 20 years old when I was, was had my first class, you know, teaching. So there was only, you know, a three or four year gap between my oldest, between my students and me, the older ones at least that was, that was quite remarkable.

But anyway, let's go back a little bit and. Okay, now we're in high school with you.

Okay.

And we look over and there's Pat walking down the hall. What would we have seen?

Okay, well when I was you, you probably see me just mucking around with some mates. Okay. My friends, we were always, yeah, we had had good. We, we look forward to lunchtime and recess. We, we'd always be out on the ovals kicking a ball around or doing some, you know, tackling, you know, know it's probably not allowed so much. The, the, the rough house play that we had was, was good fun.

And, but in class we know we were pretty good in class. We did work, work pretty hard. We tried to get all our work done. So we didn't have much homework. That was. That was the key thing. So we. We knew the trade off there. If we worked hard in class, knock over most of our work. So we, you know, so home was more. More sports and that. I do remember when I was in grade eight, I got very interested in Rubik's Cube. So that was sort of. At that time. So we're talking. Well, we're talking about 1981. So it was the introduction of this Rubik's Cube. And I can remember seeing a couple of guys, you know, using it. And I thought, well, that would be pretty cool. And I had to go and I had. I could. I could complete one of the faces, but nothing further than that. I thought it was really frustrating. And you sort of. But then a friend of mine gave me the book which showed you all the moves in that. These days you look on YouTube and it's really easy, but in those days, you had to sort of follow the instructions or the diagrams, which was quite challenging. But I really enjoyed it. And then I mastered it. And once I mastered it, I would then, you know, then you. Once you master something like that, then you time yourself. You want to improve that. And then also you want to make patterns and so on. So I made some pretty cool, crazy patterns. And then you've, you know, you're always competing against your brother or, you know, friends and so on. So. So that sort of was a. A great learning thing for me, you know, further down the track in the fact that I've seen people with Rubik's Cubes now. They get it to it, they play for a little bit, and then they lose interest because they don't know how to solve it. But as soon as they know how to solve it and get shown it, the interest level, you know, rises. You know, they. They actually enjoy doing it. They'll go back to it. So it's a skill where. Where if you're not shown how to do it, you can just, you know, it's a little interesting thing, and then you'll put it away, never look at it again. But once you've shown how to actually solve that puzzle, it becomes much more. Much more engaging and much more interesting. So, yeah, bit of a segue into. Into learning there, but. But, yeah, so when I was high school, yeah, pretty good farm.

Okay, so at that time in your life, you thought you were going to be a professional rugby player?

Yeah, well, I did because my coach at the time, he had a lot of experience with he was the principal as well, so he doubled up as the, as the principal, but also my football coach, my rugby coach and he had coached lots of, he, lots of guys over the years who combined teaching. Okay. A lot of teachers combined with their. And that stage, it wasn't a full time gig. So while it was professional, you got paid, you know, it's pretty lucrative, but you could, you'd expect it to have a full time job in any way. So basically at that stage when I was sort of 16, 17, 18, I had my, my plan was yeah, I'd be a teacher because I already decided I was pretty keen on being a teacher and also have my rugby career and financially that would probably, you know, a ten year rugby career. It was fairly normal but for people sort of at my level. And that was a good way to become financially secure whilst teaching because if you just rely on teaching it was going to be tough to become financially secure.

And then your wife changed all your plans for you?

She did. That's what love happens. But that's okay. That's, that's pretty cool.

That happened.

How does that happen? I don't know. Yeah, they didn't say. Not so much.

How did it. So you guys started dating when you were how old and then at that time you already knew? Okay, I guess I'm not gonna go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, yeah, late, late 10. Well, you know. Yeah, 18 or so, I guess. Yeah. And then. Yeah, so we got, we got married pretty early. Like very early. You know, I mean it's super early now, but even in those days that was pretty unusual. And then, you know, by the time, um, we were in our early 20s, we'd already started our family and. Yeah. So 10 kids later, there's no twins or anything. So all one at a time. So what did your parents think about.

You getting married that young?

They're probably a big concern. Yeah, they were a bit concerned in that and saying that my, my mum got married young but my dad was a bit older. So I, I guess, yeah, there was some concern there, no doubt, but we were pretty confident. But we also knew that we would have had to, we'd had to work hard with, you know, we weren't, we weren't that naive.

I guess we were naive up to a point. But you know, we sort of realized that, you know, statistically marriages.

They, you know, they, the success rate isn't spectacular, that's for sure. So we were aware of that and becoming, being a very statistically minded guy, you know, I needed. Well and that And I guess that was one of the reasons I sort of moved. Well main reason I moved away from the rugby career because that wasn't going to be necessarily conducive to, to being around, you know, as often as I needed to be. So anyway, that was the shift there.

Yeah, so you get married, you start having kids young, but you were you having kids because in order to teach you had to go off to college, right?

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I was married my, my final year at college. But it's a little bit different in Australia. You don't go away, you still live at home and you just, you know, travel to university. So, so I was at Sydney University, which is sort of the premier university in Australia, but it was only a 40 minute train ride for me to get there. So I, you know, so we don't. So typically kids in Australia don't move out of the home. They just sort of do their studies still based in the family home and then they go from there. So yeah, so that you say in my final year of, of, of studies that's when I got married. So I was married still during my, you know, I was relying on my wife to be the, the, the breadwinner at that stage there. So Marie had the, had the job and I was the, well I was the, the student at that time.

So when you got married did you, did you live with your parents as a married couple?

Not initially, no. No, we we were lucky enough that I had an uncle of mine who had a, you know, had some property and he, he allowed us to live at his, one of his properties, you know, rent free for the first 12 months, which was fantastic because we, you know, we didn't have any money. So that was good and then, and then. But that was sort of out. Well, it was out probably an hour and a half away from where we would normally be. So then we ended up living with Marie's parents for like which, a bit closer. For 12, for 12 months. Just while we were saving money to, to buy our own house. And then once we, once we saved enough for a deposit then we, we moved into our own house. So, so we've always had that family support which, which was great and very appreciative of that over the years. But. And, and that's where, where I guess we're trying to do the same now with our kids in terms of helping them get established with their own house homes and that because it's, it's, it's, it's certainly not easy these days.

Okay, so you Graduate from university, become a math teacher right off the, out of the gate.

Yes, yep.

And, and what was that like for you? And yeah, take us down that path.

Yeah, well, I, I, while I was a math teacher, I always also did tutoring. Right. So even while I was at, at university there. So straight out of school I was, I was helping other kids, you know, with their math and that was that. Amazingly, Gary, that was the most important, you know, learning curve for me. More so than anything I learned at university. Because at that stage when you're one on one coaching someone, you actually get to see them have the aha moments or, or that they don't get it right. Whereas if you're in front of a big class, it's harder to pick up the nuances of what works and what doesn't work. So I always say that the three years I spent at university, I was also tutoring a lot during that, during those three years and that was probably, well, definitely the biggest impact on my, on my teaching just because I found out ways that worked and ways that didn't work because, because at university they often the lecturers will just, you know, you say okay, which there's three or four ways on, in this textbook that shows you how to, you know, how to solve this problem, which is the best way. And the lecturer would say, well, you know, often they say, well, it's just whatever preference you like. Okay. They're all, they're all pretty much the same, you know, but that's definitely not true, right? There are definite ways that are really easy, much easier to understand than other ways, but they're all appearing in the textbooks. So it's a bit of a, it's a guess for teachers. They, they don't sort of, they'll just choose one way and that they probably won't investigate all the different ways they're going to until they work, you know, the best. And that's why I guess I was always really interested in finding what's the easiest way that I can teach the kids that they're going to be able to remember it, practice it and then perform well in an exam because that's what they wanted my help, they wanted to improve their exam results.

So I was a bit of a sponge to sort of work out what the best ways were. And I had, my mind was a bit of a still, still trap in that sense that I just remembered, you know, what was the best way I, I, I had a gift I guess, to just remember what the best way is for most kids. So that Was, you know, that was that. And while I started teaching as well, for the next, you know, for the first 10 years of my teaching in high school math, I still did a lot of tutoring, like, still had to do a lot of tutoring because like I said earlier, you know, I wasn't going to become financially secure on a. On a math teaching way. So I had to. Had to supplement that big time. Okay. So I combined the teaching in the classroom with, you know, with the tutoring outside school hours. And I suppose that combination really allowed me to work out ways that would really simplify math for most kids.

So give us an example of something you noticed kids doing that didn't work versus what you noticed kids doing or what you taught them to do that does work.

Okay, well, one of the great things was trigonometry, right? Because in trig, for example, you've got your sine, your cosine and your tan. So sine, cos and tan. Now, it's an interesting1 Because AI won't even allow me to do this. I've got a mnemonic which basically allows them to remember the sine cos and tan ratios. And that mnemonic, I mean, if you remember the, the Roald Dahl, you know, the children's writer, he's got a book on witches which have got made into a. A movie or a couple of movies now. But so there's the. The witches. There's another word for witches that we use is hags, right? Hags. So the great mnemonic is some old hags can't always hide their old age. All right, now that mnemonic is memorable. You. I tell my kids that and they remember it. You know, I just tell them once we practice it a bit, and where it is, the mnemonic is, you know, some old hags, that's the sign is opposite. And hypotenuse over hypotenuse. And the can't always hide. That's cause being adjacent over hypotenuse. And the final bit, their old age is tan as being opposite over adjacent. Now that is memorable.

And. But the way it's taught in schools and in all textbooks, they'll use this thing, sohcahtoa, right? Sokotoa. Which is fine, except the kids can't spell sokotoa, right? Who can spell sokotoa, right? So, but that's. That's an example where something that's a simple mnemonic works really well. And. But it's not. It's not very well used. And strangely, Enough. Now, I did get, you know, some, you know, some people who, who came back to me and said, pat, you can't say that. That's, that's, you know, that's down, you know, whatever reason they said I can't do it. I said, well, look, it's, it's, it's a fictional character. We're talking about hags being witches. You know, if you're talking about hags being people, then. Then you've got the problem, not me. But it's an interesting1. Even AI does not allow me to, to put that in. Right? I mean, I'll put that in. And the mnemonic that AI comes back with is sohcahtoa. It will not repeat that phrase because it's an interesting one. Interesting example. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, okay, so now you're teaching math to kids and you're also doing your tutoring. And then what got you into. And how long have you been doing the maths online program? What got you into online tutoring?

Okay, so what it was, it was probably 90, 1997. 1970, 1997. And I was pretty good at computers and stuff at the same time, but I came across a program. I always thought, you know, the kids that I'm. I'm tutoring in the afternoons and weekends, I'm showing them the same thing all over and over again. And I'm also asking them how they were showing in their own school, Right? Because they weren't my kids from my school, they were kids from other schools. And I would, I realized that some of the stuff that they were getting shown, no wonder they're having problems, right? It's so difficult, the explanations they were receiving. So I, I tinkered with this program. It was, it's called Hyper Studio. I still remember it. HyperStudio. And this was way before Microsoft, you know, the PowerPoints and all that sort of stuff. But I was starting to create these small videos, and it was just simple me teaching. And it wasn't videos of me. You didn't see me teaching, but they saw, you know, what I would see, what I would, you know, write on, on a piece of paper and show a kid. I was able to reproduce that and get highlights and all that sort of stuff. So that was 97, 1997, and I was testing it out in 1998. Now at that point, I'd been teaching for, you know, 10 years. And then I thought that I had another teaching buddy of mine, and we thought we could start some tutoring centers together. So we opened up So I left teaching. I, I had some long service leave at that stage. So I sort of took, I got to pay out for my long service leave, use that money to open up a tutoring center with this guy Steve. And then, and then I opened up another one. And the idea at that stage, Gary, was to, to develop these tutoring centers, franchise the model. So we just have our software in the centers and then we'd franchise the models. Right. What we found though was that one, I wasn't very good business side of things in terms of promoting these centers and, and two, even if they were successful and my involvement was always going to be after hours. So you know, and at that stage we had, we had five kids at that stage. So it was going to be a stage where, you know, for the critical parenting, you know, after school and you know, evening and dinner time, I wasn't going to be around. So that was, that was uncool. And then the other thing was that parents, they were saying they really love this software that we're producing and can they buy it and use it at home. So that was a bit of a shift away from these tutoring centers. So we went and developed them. Well, this is how old we are. It was on CD ROMs to start with and then went to DVD ROM DVDs and then we went to online in 2005. So 2004, 2005 was our first online stuff. And back in those days in Australia at least we only had dial up Internet. So no fast Internet, so it was dial up. So we had some pretty smart software that we built behind to be able to stream, stream the videos on, on something like 4k or 5k bits per second, which is super slow. I mean, people don't even know how slow that is, but it was pretty slow.

And so what was it like to have your first online client? I mean, I bet that was an exciting day.

Well, that, that was exciting because I mean you don't, you know, you, you, you think you're working on this program, you think it's going to be good. I mean it was, we had some validation. We were a bit back in 2001 when it was on CD. We did get featured on what's called A Current Affair in Australia, which is essentially a, a national sort of interest sort of television thing. But what it was, it was like, it was an interesting one because sometimes if you're on that show, you know, often it's not a good thing because people are, you know, chasing you down the road, you know, saying you're ripping off people, you know, they're chasing you with their tv. But this was a very positive on spin on us. It was really like a five or six minute national advertisement for our program. So that was pretty cool. So we had at that, that was 2001. So up to that stage we probably had, you know, sales in the tens of thousands of dollars. And then once it hit that, you know, we had $1.2 million in sales just, you know, in the next next couple of months. Okay. I mean, unfortunately, you know, when I did mention earlier, I wasn't that business savvy and I still wasn't at that point because we had a distributor who had signed up the rights to distribute our program. Right. And essentially it was the worst, it was the worst, worst deal we'd ever had when I look back. And it took us a while to unwind that, that distribution agreement, but we, we essentially didn't see much of that money. But at least we knew, we knew that the program was, would, would work okay. So we had that validation. But yeah, to get that first online client in 2005, yeah, that was pretty good because, you know, you're putting it out there, you're advertising as on go in those was Google Ads even back then. And then to have that first person click on and sign up. Yeah, I still remember she was from Wa. Western Australia. And yeah, I still remember that one coming through. And my, my brother and I, because my brother is my partner in, in this, he's the, he's the computer guy. You know, he's the super computer guy and, and I'm the math guy. So we, we blended our, our skills together. But it was pretty exciting, Gary, I gotta say.

Wow. Wow. And, and so what percentage of the population.

Struggles with math? Do you, do you have a sense of that?

Yeah, well, it's, it is more than 50% now. I mean it's, it's not, it's not a situation where it's getting better. I mean, one of the things, I'll share a story here. McDonald's Australia approached us. A McDonald's, the big hamburger company. They approached us in 2007 and they wanted, they wanted to use our program for their own kids. Typically 15, 16 year old kid getting their first job at McDonald's. They said, you know, part of the interview process they would get them to do a very basic literacy numeracy test. And I can remember the VP, McDonald's, Frank McManus, he said, now Pat, this is a basic test, but 50% of them are failing. And I thought, well, that's extraordinary because you wouldn't hear any education departments, you know, admitting that failure rate. Okay? But this was a very unbiased look. Okay, McDonald's, they're interviewing kids. That's what they're seeing. So they used our program.

Basically as a, as a bit of a Perk. Whoever's joining McDonald's, they can use our math program to help them with school. And McDonald's were pretty excited about. That was 2007. They came back in 2008. And it's interesting because I hadn't heard much about, you know, we sort of set them up and just sort of let, let, let them be. Came back in 2008 and I hadn't heard from them. And I said, oh, I hope the program's going okay because no news is. No news is, you don't know. Anyway, they came back, they said, pat, this program is unbelievable. You know, kids love it, but the parents, they're, you know, they're ringing us up, they're sending us emails, they're saying this should be available to everyone. So that's what McDonald's did. They made it available to all, all Australian high school kids and teachers. We did a three year deal with them in 2009, 10 and 11. And they just rolled it out everywhere. So they, you know, did commerce, TV commercials, I was on TV commercials, which is always good fun. We were on the wrapper bags in their restaurants, on placemats and everything. So that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. And that was McDonald's being a good corporate citizen. Okay. Of course there's a bit of, you know, bit of backlash, but, but most, most schools, they were fine with that, you know, because the thing as well, they didn't have the, they didn't have the, the McDonald's logo blasted on any, or they weren't trying to get them to, you know, buy more burgers or anything. It was just, they were just providing our, our program. So that was, that was great. That was great.

What, what do you think it is.

That is missing in the teaching in the school systems that 50% of the people going to school to learn math can't figure out Math.

Yeah, well, it starts early because it starts in, you know, the elementary, primary school years where the teachers, well, they're generalists, okay, so they're teaching all subjects. They got to teach all subjects. But there's 32%, it's a ridiculously high level, 32% of primary school teachers, elementary school teachers aren't good at math. They, they're they. They not only not good at it, they have math anxiety. So they, they're trying to avoid teaching. They, okay, so you got a situation. So your kids are going in, you know, a kid going into kindergarten, they love numbers, they're excited about learning all this sort of stuff. But over those, you know, early formative years, they're not getting the instruction they need. I mean, I'm not blaming the teachers at all. I mean, it's just the way the system is set up so that. Okay, so by the time they've reached high school, you know, you've already lost close to half of them, right? They're already got some sort of math phobia. They're convinced they're not good at math because they haven't had much success. It's difficult. They haven't seen easy ways to do it. You know, a really good example is long division, right? And the fact that long division is such a hard concept for kids, typically they get to introduce grade five or grade six. It is such a hard thing, only the very top kids will have a chance of actually, you know, achieving success in long division. And to give you an idea how hard it is, the only time they see long division after grade five and six is way back, is way into, you know, algebra two, you know, algebra two or calculus, when they do polynomial division. So that's, that's long division with algebra. But even then, they've actually simplified it to make. They've introduced what's called synthetic division to make even that easier. But kids, you know, fail. You know, they'll fail long division, nothing. I'm a bit of a failure. And unfortunately, there's a big disconnect between primary and high school. All right, High school teachers, they know, for example, kids don't need to know long division. But the primary school teachers, it's part of the curriculum. Or my kids need to know long division. It's important they don't. They have no clue that, you know, it's not important. Don't focus on it. In fact, don't even worry about it if your kids are struggling, okay? So there's a big disconnect. Another real good example is when you've got a, a little drill that I always use where you've got two, you've got to find two numbers that multiply to give something. And those two numbers add to give something, right? Add to give a number. So, you know, two numbers that multiply to give 24 and add to give 11. Now, I won't put you on the Spot Gary. But I'll tell you, the numbers are three and eight.

Okay, Yeah, I got it.

Now that's, now that skill, for example, if that was done in primary, that would be a tremendous skill, right? And the reason is because that skill is used in factorization in high school. But when I give that little quiz or that little widget to a primary school teacher, if I give them that widget compared to something that will make long division easier, they'll always choose the long division. Oh, that'll save my problem. That'll save problems. Long division. Give me that. Whereas, whereas this other thing is way, way more important. So there's a big disconnect between primary and high school. And the biggest, the second biggest was when they hit high school, the textbooks they get, they're, they're, you know, they're the size of three big stakes, right? They, they are, you know, the kids look at it and they defeated before they even start. Okay? So I, I'm, we, we're developing some newer, streamlined textbooks now. That's going to be a big impact that we can, we can help out. But currently, you know, textbooks, 600, 700, 800 pages. And that's just, you know, when they enter high school. So it's, it's ridiculously. And it's filled with a lot of superfluous stuff. It's a lot of stuff that they don't need to even look at.

And.

There'S a few other things. I mean, sometimes, and the next big thing, they don't spend enough time on skills on the skills base. Like, you've got to spend a lot of time on skills base. So many programs, I see now they'll spend a very quick time on skills and get, start trying to do these real world applications, which really aren't real world applications anyway. They're just textbook real world applications. But the thing, it's, it's like if you, you know, you, you're coaching a kid basketball and you're teaching that kid to dribble for the first time. So, and then you're teaching that kid the dribble and five minutes later you're saying, okay, now I've taught you to dribble, go and go and beat five defenders in front of you. All right? It's just, you know, so you, you wouldn't do it in basketball, but, so why do you do it in the math classroom? I don't know. I don't get it.

So what did you actually do to create, like, what do people get when they buy your tutoring? That they're not getting from their school.

Okay, well, the clearest thing and the easiest way to look at it is when you're getting taught a math concept. All right? So when a teacher's up at the board and they're in their teaching explaining, they're writing stuff down, typically you might look at that being a 15 minute instruction. All right? 15 minutes of instruction. And it's a little bit haphazard, it's a bit ad hoc. Oh, there's just sort of a new way to do it. I can show you this way and there's another way. I can show you. All right? It's confusing or right. So what we did is simplified it. And most of our videos are five minutes, all right, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. You know, when it's algebra 2 and calculus and so on, they might go to seven or eight minutes, but really that's it. So the idea is, if you're Talking about a 15 minute block, all right, now typically in school, that 15 minutes, the teacher will be just writing stuff out, explaining. We rather spend 15 minutes, 5 minutes of actually learning. All right, that's the instruction, 5 minutes and then 10 minutes get straight into practice. All right? So we have this speed to practice as our big mantra. Speed to practice, get into practice, because that's the only way to learn, right? Math is not a spectator sport. You gotta, you gotta practice, you gotta do it. Doesn't matter if you fail. We don't look at failing here, you know, we know that, Gary, you're either learn, you're either winning or you're learning. All right, we're not failing, right? So that's, that's a key thing. And, and we want to make it, you know that they, the kids get into practice as quick as possible, get that immediate feedback. All right, now you're spending 10 minutes on something as well, and then 10 minutes later you think, oh, I did everything wrong. So you try to build in a situation where they're getting immediate feedback on some on quiz sort of stuff they're doing, then they can dive in and do a worksheet. I mean, I still very big on the pen and paper. All right, the pen and paper. I see some online programs and some digital stuff, which the kids are just on the computer all the time. That's bad news. If you see that, you sort of will want to avoid that because the amount of.

You know, the neurons in the brain that are sort of activated with a pen and paper, you know that that's still. The latest research is show that's so important. So you want to avoid programs which are just digital. That's no good.

So it sounds like what you've created is exactly in alignment with your why, your how and your what.

Right.

So for those listening, we'll go through it again. Pat's why is to simplify things, right? Make things simpler, easier to understand, easier to do. How he does that is by constantly looking for better ways. And when he finds them, sharing them, putting imp, you know, implementing them, but ultimately what he brings is a different way to get the same result. Does that feel accurate to you?

Well, not getting the same result, Gary. Getting a better result.

Better. Yeah, actually, that's right, yeah. Get a better result. Doing it differently.

Do it differently, yeah. So the kids are learning faster, they're getting better results, which was the key thing. All right, so we want to get them, okay. They want to become more confident. Okay? So we talk about the confidence builds capabilities and they sort of, sort of go interchange, okay, got more capabilities, they become more confident. Because I think most parents, they really just want their kids at school to be, to be good at what they're doing. But the confidence is such a big thing. I mean, because confidence spreads, it's just not math. It's just we hear all the time, okay, they're good at math now they were bad at math. So that already, that's a big switch. But the confidence then spreads into other subjects and not just subjects, just, just general well being. They're just more confident in themselves. I mean, one of the biggest things that the kids, you know, if you really want to get them in a depressed state, you get them turning up to something where they're going to fail over and over again, right? And that's what, you know, that's one of the things, even the normal setup in the classroom situation where, and I, I touched briefly before where it's, they don't learn enough skills before, they've got to apply them. So pretty much every class these days and every textbook is designed such that a lesson is you do a little bit of skill work at the start. And when I say skill work, they're just learning a new skill. They're not really practicing it, they're just learning it. And it gives them such a short window to learn and practice. But before they jumping into really problem solving stuff, which, which is, which is really self defeating because every kid knows, even if they like math to start with, they know that every class I go to, they might have a short Runway, that they're good at something, but they Know that, you know, halfway through the lesson it's going to switch to something that most kids. It's not, it's not just a few kids, but it's most kids are going to really struggle with. So our design is a lot more, you know, it's really skill space. Get them really practicing those skills first and then, then do the applications and the problem solving, but let them get really good at the skills first. So you're giving them the best chance of success at the, at the problem solving stuff, because the problem solving stuff's important, but it's just introduced much too early in most cases.

So how is AI affecting what you're teaching?

I mean, yeah, that's great question. Very, very pertinent at this stage. Well, I gave you one example where AI didn't actually allow me to use the some old hags mnemonic. It's an interesting. We had to because we designed AI, an AI Helper bot, very early when it first came out. And we've actually used some AI, you know, our own AI, if you like, for years. Years. But we, we're looking at it and we were sort of struggling with when to introduce it for the kids. When, when do you give them help or assistance without letting them actually to try something first? Because I mean, I mean, any kid at this stage, if they got a math problem, they can throw it into AI and, and AI will generally come up with often a reasonably good explanation. I haven't seen it nail every good explanation. And in some cases they just give you the wrong explanation as well. So that's a tricky one. But we built this. We're just trying to figure out when to let the kids access it. And we eventually made the decision that, no, we're not giving them the original one. We've decided because it was going to give them hints. So if a kid got a question and they didn't know where to start, we give them a hint and then we give them another hint. And then we found that really they're always, a lot of the kids, they're not going to have a go at it themselves because they're always going to say, oh, I'm not sure, let me get a hint first or let me get a hint first. So we actually change our thinking then and say, well, let's, let's switch back to. What we do is actually teach them really well. Get them to dive into and practice. Don't second guess themselves and ask, oh, what's the hint? What's the hint? What's the hint? When they have a go. If they get it wrong, then we've got a beautifully worked solution that they can look at. All right? And that's. The AI has helped us develop these work solutions in a really quick way. All right? So, I mean, you know, beforehand we'd, we'd write, we'd write them all out, we type them all out. Well, my team would at least, and then we would, we would implement it. But we've, we've used AI to leverage sort of, you know, the speed to that. But we are very aware that we don't want AI to be a crutch for the kids to second guess themselves and, and not have that because it's sometimes a struggle. And you want it to be a struggle. They got to figure out something, right? That's where a lot of the learning is done. But you don't want them to struggle because they've been poorly instructed. That's different, right? And that, that's the difference. One of the big things that, thankfully, after three decades, the education is starting to swing back to what's called explicit instruction. Okay. For three decades we had this crazy thing called inquiry learning or discovery learning. Okay? I call it the discovery disaster. Okay? It's like, it's like, you know, rowing, rowing to the middle of a lake. You know, you got, you know, you got a bunch of kids in the boat, they don't know how to swim, but let's chuck them all in the water. And we're only, we're only 50 meters offshore. You know, let's see which kids can swim to the shore, right? And then, you know, maybe a couple of kids can, but you're, you're fishing out all the ones who are drowning, getting them back on board, right? That it didn't work for them, right? But you can tell the kids that it didn't, did not work for. I think they might develop some sort of water phobia if you treat it like that. Okay, but that's what happens in math. That's what happened. You know, you, you know, often you've got this sort of approach, you know, you're giving them a problem. They haven't got the skills to do it, but they're expected to sort of figure stuff out for themselves. And then they like, you know, and then they, then you've got this peer learning where you've got one confused student teaching another confused student. And I think that's good practice as well. So anyway, it's been crazy for the last, like I said, three decades now, but the explicit instruction which was what we've always done. That's now becoming, thankfully, you know, that's, that's being recognized. Oh, this, this is the way to go, you know, and it's a strange thing. Things happen in cycles. So if you hang around long enough, good things come back, but if you hang around too long, the good things are going to get wiped out as well. So, um, yeah, that, that, that's what happens.

So, Pat, with AI coming on, you know, where you see it everywhere, are people even going to need to know how to do math? Is math even going to be a thing that there is going to be taught and learned, and if so, that it is. Why do you think people are going to need math in the future?

Yeah, it's, that's an interesting one. I mean, with the AI revolution, it's, it's here to stay. No doubt, no doubt about it. I think when we look back when calculators were introduced, for example, you know, people go, oh, I can use a calculator now. I don't need to know math. But no, but, but it, the calculator is an assistant and the AI is going to be an assistant. The idea of, you know, when teaching math, you still, I always think it's a great logic that you learn that, you know, the problem solving that you learn. AI certainly can assist, assist you in that, but it's not going to replace your, you know, your brain, it's not there to replace your brain. And if it does, well, I think we've got major problems. Okay? But I'm going to find it's going to be really interesting and really important for kids to, you know, and the parents going to have to have a lot to do with this, but the kids are going to still be on track on learning and engaging that, that, you know, your brain is, it's, it's, it's got to work. One of the other things is pattern recognition. Okay? Now, in terms of the way I look at math, a lot of it, and it's not really, it's not really a big thing that people focus on, but I do is the idea of recognizing patterns, all right, Recognizing trends, I mean, even in, even in with your friends, recognizing trends in behavior or patterns of behavior which may be good or bad as, as an example, as a real world example, that's not mathematically related except that it's pattern recognition. They're things that, that AI again, may assist you with, but you don't want it to do all the thinking for you. Okay? If I can see a situation where there will be people who become quite lazy thinkers because they'll just rely on AI to do all their thinking. It's not going to serve them very well. All right, so treat AI as an assistant to help you, and it can help you a lot. All right, you're going to help you a lot. But does AI always get it right? That's another thing. Okay. That it doesn't always get it right. I can remember because with our curriculums, we, we. We're not just in Australia or the U.S. we're in other parts of the world. We were developing something in India, and part of the Indian curriculum was this stuff on matrices, which we. While we teach matrices in Australia and US, the way the Indian treated, Indian syllabus treated it was slightly different. So I had to sort of relearn a little bit on how, you know, how I needed to teach it in that sense. And because it was new to me, I just threw it into AI. I just threw it in. Check one of my answers, all right? Because I just wanted to go through it anyway. I came back with, you know, the, you know, was the answer. Mine was wrong. So I had to go back and look at mine. And I spent 45 minutes looking at my answer, going through, going, why is it wrong? Why is it wrong? The fact was, AI was wrong, mine was right. So, you know, and I wasted a lot of time that day just to remember it. Just because the AI got it wrong. Yeah. So it's not always going to get it right. Treat it as a good assistant, but don't let it take over your thinking. You're very dangerous. Yeah.

So the future is hard to predict, obviously. And how much math we're actually going.

To need to know.

You know, maybe we're. What's your prediction if you were forced to make a prediction right now? Not that we're going to hold you to it, but if you were, what math do you think is going to be phased out? Or is. Is. Is it going to be just the same as it is now for the next hundred years, or is it going to change and we're going to need less? Let's just say calculus or trigonometry, because AI is going to be able to do it and we just need basic math for when we don't have our technology with us. Or, or what are you predicting?

I probably think the biggest shift will be the financial math side of things. The, the curriculum the way it is now. And you'll hear teachers complain a lot. I haven't got enough time to Teach everything that I've got to teach. Right. The reality is you do have enough time to teach if you sort of know what's important and what's less important. And these textbooks are a driving force for, for doing the wrong thing. Okay? I mean, a teacher, a teacher is sort of bound by what textbook their, their kids are using in class. And because they've made an investment in this textbook, all right, and so they've got to really stick with the. What the textbook, you know, is essentially telling them, you know, what material they need to cover through that year or through the, you know, the couple of semesters. This stuck a little bit on that. If they really streamline the textbook, and that's what we're dealing right now, that's what we're doing right now, streamline it. You will give the teacher so much more time to teach the content that that's required. But then allowing for things like financial math, which is not treated very well, it's very, it's. That is treated very superfluously. Like, it's just, you know, it's just a very general sort of things and often not in real life situations as well. But teaching kids to be financially savvy is something that's really missing in, in all curriculums, not just, you know, the States or Australia, but everywhere. So I can see math shifting in a way that some of the stuff is pulled out, and whether that's trigonometry or parts of calculus, I don't know. And, and I would. Wouldn't even try to guess. But I can certainly see there's going to be room made for some really good financial stuff that allows kids, you know, once they finish school, high school, or even, you know, in their later years of high school to develop good habits financially that will serve them well in their early adulthood and then as they get older and make some smart decisions. Because I'll give you one example, and I'm not a big fan of banks, let me tell you that. But one of my older daughters now, she works with me in the company now she's a brilliant at our finances and so on, but when she was 18, as soon as she turned 18, she got a letter in the mile from the banks saying that now you're 18, you qualify for this credit card. And she got a credit card and, you know, $500 of, you know, free money. And, you know, she spent that in an instant. I mean, we as parents, we had no idea, right? So this is one of the problems as well. So she spent this $500. And then, you know, a couple of months later, what happened? Sarah got another offer. Because she was such a good customer, they bumped up the credit limit to three and a half thousand. Bang. She spent that in an instant. By the end of the year, she had an $8,000 credit card debt at 22% per annum. Nothing to show for it. $8,000 just disappeared. And then, and then it took her a while to get out of that. So, I mean, you know, so for the kids to be more financially savvy, that's a real big thing that I think I can see happening. Which, which would be great.

I love that.

Yeah.

Well, I know we've taken a lot of your time now, but I want to ask you one last question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever maybe given or the best piece of advice you've ever gotten. Been given?

Being given? Okay, probably the best piece of advice that I've been given is in terms of sometimes the easiest way to, or the fastest way to complete a project is to drop it. All right? So sometimes you dive into something, and I am guilty of that. I sort of dive in quite quickly. And, and sometimes you spend so much time and effort into something and you want to make it work. You want to make it work and you probably keep on going. But the signs are, Pat, this isn't going to work. Right. So you can keep on going. And sometimes you just got to say, well, I just got to. I've just spent so much time and effort. But that time and effort is. Was a sunk cost. You might not get ever that cost back, so maybe just drop it. It's the best thing. And, and it's so relieving when that happens sometimes. I mean, there's other projects where you just keep on going to the very end because you want to eventually make it work. But there are other times where you just sort of think, no, it's a missing, or just drop it. So that's. That's probably the best bit of advice I've got. And the best advice that I've probably given is, you know, life is pretty tough. Life can be pretty tough sometimes. But to always remember that this time will pass, I guess that's the best bit of advice. No matter how hard things get, this time will pass. I love it. Yep.

So, Pat, if there are people that are listening, that have kids that are struggling in math, they want to connect with you, they want to follow you, they want to learn more about what you're doing, maybe they want to sign their Kids up to have the math tutoring. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you or to follow you or your company?

Okay, well, the best way is to go direct to our website. It's math online.com so math online.com and a lot of what a lot of parents like doing, they sign up for the, there's a, we've got a free trial. No, no obligation free trial. They can really check it out, see whether it makes sense for their kids and, and go from there. So that's the easiest way. And you can, you know, you can reach me at that website as well if you've got any queries, you know, I'll get back to you. One of my team got, I've got a great team working with us. So that's probably the best way, Gary, and we're happy to be, to help. We, we know there' of challenges for parents, for kids and it's not that kids are dumb, not at all. It's just that they haven't been given the right instruction. And once you give them the right instructions or the right tools for success, changes can happen pretty quickly. So we're always excited, you know, to help people and yeah, we'll go from there. Yeah.

And you know, and I thought that was going to be the last question, but then another question popped up in my head. But should be an easy one for math for you to answer. Have you ever figured out how many kids you've actually helped?

How many I've helped over the. Okay, well, right. Well, I haven't really but I could do some quick mental math and work backwards. It's, yeah, it's, it's probably approaching one and a half million. I'd say maybe a touch more than that. But. Yeah, I, I mean one, someone on the, my staff the other day, you know, in terms of the, the sales of our programs over the years, they mentioned, they mentioned if, if, if it was a book, it would have been akin to being on the bestseller, having a best selling book 17 years in a row. So.

That'S amazing.

That's awesome. Pat, thank you so much for spending time with us and I look forward to, you know, of course you and I are going to stay in touch from here forward. But thank you so much for talking with our audience and helping them understand what you're doing.

Thanks, Gary. Absolute pleasure. Anytime. I'll be back.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.