Edtech Insiders

The Math We Teach vs. The Math We Need with Ted Dintersmith

• Ben Kornell

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 32:06

Send us Fan Mail

Ted Dintersmith is an education advocate, author, and filmmaker who has spent the past 15 years working alongside educators to rethink what learning should look like in the modern world. He has visited more than 200 schools across all 50 states, listening to teachers and students and studying approaches that prepare young people for real life beyond tests.

šŸ’” 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  1.  Why school math focuses on skills that AI already does better than humans 
  2.  The disconnect between ā€œmath in schoolā€ and ā€œmath in real lifeā€ 
  3.  How standardized testing has narrowed our definition of intelligence 
  4.  What meaningful, relevant math learning could look like in classrooms 
  5.  Why making math practical and engaging can unlock student potential across backgrounds 

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:02:44] Ted’s journey from tech investor to education advocate
[00:05:37] Why the rise of AI makes today’s math curriculum increasingly obsolete
[00:08:55] The ā€œmath of lifeā€ vs. the ā€œmath of schoolā€ disconnect
[00:12:55] The myth that current math instruction teaches critical thinking
[00:16:16] How test-driven systems reward speed over real understanding
[00:20:12] Why math should be integrated across subjects, not siloed
[00:22:52] Students see schoolwork as irrelevant and why that leads to disengagement
[00:25:07] A powerful classroom example: teaching probability through real-world context
[00:26:51] How relevance in math can close equity gaps in learning outcomes
[00:28:37] Ted’s vision for transforming math into a tool for purpose and real-world problem solving

šŸ˜Ž Stay updated with Edtech Insiders! 

Follow us on our podcast, newsletter & LinkedIn here.

šŸŽ‰ Presenting Sponsor/s:

Every year, K-12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars—but most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, then helps you turn them into personalized outreach—fast. Win the deal before it hits the RFP stage. That’s how top edtech teams stay ahead.

Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies, frustrated by other m and a firms, they created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't find. One who understands what matters to founders and whose North Star KPI is the percentage of deals closed. If you're thinking of selling your ed tech company or buying one contact Tuck advisors now.

Cooley LLP is the go-to law firm for education and edtech innovators, offering industry-informed counsel across the 'pre-K to gray' spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful edtech ecosystem, Cooley helps shape the future of education.

Innovation in preK to gray learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years, EdTech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted HireEducation to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission-critical, HireEducation is a partner that delivers. Offering permanent, fractional, and executive recruitment, HireEducation knows the go-to-market talent you need. Learn more at HireEdu.com.

[00:00:00] Alex Sarlin: Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies, frustrated by other m and a firms. They created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't find. One who understands what matters to founders and whose North star KPI. Is the percentage of deals closed if you're thinking of selling your ed tech company or buying one contact Tuck Advisors, now. 

[00:00:24] Ted Dintersmith: Of all the ways that a human can be gifted and talented and intelligent, and people have studied that and come up with 8 or 10 or 20 different ways we can be talented, school focuses on this one incredibly narrow dimension of intelligence, which is exactly what AI does perfectly. And it's not a coincidence, right?

Because we have run our schools for decades now, according to test scores, and we bury our kids in standardized tests far more than any other nation.

[00:00:58] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech inside. 

[00:01:14] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar.

And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.

Hello, EdTech Insider listeners. It's my honor. It's really incredible to have the one and only Ted Dintersmith here. He's an education advocate, author, filmmaker, who spent the past 15 years working alongside educators to rethink what learning should look like in the modern world. He has visited more than 200 schools across all 50 states.

Listening to teachers and students and studying approaches that prepare young people for real life beyond tests. And his latest book, Aftermath has been number one in the Cornell Family Library. I've read it, Juliana's read it, Nico's reading it now. We will also hopefully have an EdTech Insider Book Club coming up on this one.

So without further ado, Ted Dintersmith, welcome to EdTech Insiders. 

[00:02:26] Ted Dintersmith: Excellent. Uh, your family's high on my fan list, so I'm really grateful. 

[00:02:30] Ben Kornell: Well, before we dive into the questions, I think it would just be great for people to hear a little bit about your journey. How did you get on this path of rethinking re-imagining education and how did it end up leading to math of all things?

[00:02:44] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah, I never really anticipated spending any time later in my life on education after I left school, so this was not a planned event. Having spent decades in technology innovation, I feel like I have a very informed perspective on how fast it's getting good and better and great and what it does really well.

And so honestly, when my kids got to middle school, I went from trusting to concern, to alarm, to code red. Oh my gosh. Because I just saw what was happening. Right. They were being encouraged to do exactly what machines do perfectly. Mm-hmm. And discouraged from doing the very things that would serve them well.

And at first I thought maybe it was just a school. So I started visiting schools and reading things and interviewing people. And within 12 months or so, my life changed, and I just said having the insights, understanding that machine intelligence is racing ahead, and schools were in fact antithetical. To the goals that needed to be embraced in order to prepare kids for that world.

I just said, I've gotta do something. That led to my first effort was the film Most Likely To Succeed, which premiered at Sundance. That did incredibly well with community screenings that trip, a book, what School Could Be co-wrote a book with Tony Wagner and I've done a film. And then the math book. And the math, and we'll get into that, but I feel like it's the poster child for what we do wrong, thousands of hours.

Every kid spends on math in high school that they don't remember, that they'll never use as an adult, that a phone does perfectly and yet never getting to the unbelievably fascinating, powerful math ideas that rule our lives. And so I felt like, hey, that seems like a good topic for a book. So, and I feel like I'm, this sounds Imma but maybe the exact right person to write that book.

[00:04:34] Ben Kornell: Yeah, having read Most Likely to Succeed, it resonated with me 'cause I was a teacher during No Child Left Behind. And we went from English, math, history, science, music, art to three periods of English, two periods of math. Test, test scores and I was in Silicon Valley on the east side of town, and what I realized is we were preparing kids, no matter how successful they were on those multiple choice tests, we weren't preparing them for the jobs on the west side of town where all the new tech companies were growing, and that was 20 years ago.

Before we dive into math, can we talk a little bit about the problem set or crisis set? The context of ai. So as you think about the burning platform for schools to change the idea of revolutionizing schools, of competency-based learning, of rethinking math and reading and instruction, these have been percolating for quite some time.

What makes the AI moment a unique call to action for schools and for education? 

[00:05:37] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah, and you'd have to trace out the path of an exponentially growing curve, right? Which for a long time looks like it's barely more than a line, you know, slightly trending up, and then it starts to bend, and then it bends, and then it goes as close to vertical as you could imagine.

And you know, just shoots straight up. And I think what's happened since 2022. As we've really gone into that steep upward ascent phase of the curve, and it's not gonna slow down. You know, it's not that, oh my gosh, well it hit this and now it's gonna plateau. Or as good as it is today, it'll get worse, right?

I mean, like it's going to get better and better and better. And I think, and one of the points I make is that of all the ways that a human can be gifted and talented and intelligent, and people have studied that and come up with eight or 10 or 20 different ways we can be talented, school focuses on this one incredibly narrow dimension of intelligence, which is exactly what AI does perfectly.

And it's not a coincidence, right? Because we have run our schools for decades now, according to test scores, and we bury our kids in standardized tests far more than any other nation and administered at that scale. These tests are expressly designed to be graded by a computer. So if a computer can grade it, it can do it.

So in every sense, not in a slight sense, not evocatively, or maybe a little bit of this in every sense, we define school success according to how well a kid does relative to something that AI already does. Way better than they could ever do. Yeah. Tell everybody else. You're not that talented. You're the creative arts kid that should sit in the corner.

You're the hands-on kid that should get on the bus and go over to the vocational education. All these amazing talents we are dismissing. Glorifying what machines do perfectly. 

[00:07:30] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I feel like we've been limited by the instrumentation of our assessments, and so therefore we happen onto multiple choice Cess, when I actually would push you a little bit, I feel like competency based assessment with you in the loop.

Is one of those areas of real opportunity for us to transform education and still have the scalability of machine supported grading. One of the things I'll for listeners, if you haven't gotten Aftermath yet, check it out. You'll love some of the diagrams. They're so simple and profound. My favorite. A consequential Venn diagram and it has the math of life in one circle and the math of school, and they do not overlap at all.

I think that's what's profound actually about the book is that you're actually talking about what the math of life. Should be, and it's really practical. So I guess let's talk a little bit about why math. Why did you pick it, and then why did you decide to write the book the way you wrote it, which was almost, I was kind of feeling like it's Freakonomics style.

Yeah. There's a way in which you're reading it and Yeah. As a pedagogue I'm thinking, oh, this. Totally aligned with experiential instruction, but it also was fun to read, and I'm like thinking about ways in which we've internalized math. So I'm just curious about both the topic and the style that you chose.

[00:08:55] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah, no, I love the Freakonomics comparison. You know, I was really thrilled when Steve Levitt, the co-author, endorsed the book on the one hand, a book about math, which immediately brings symbols and abstract formulas to mind for people, and maybe every 40 pages I throw a hairball expression. But in the spirit of.

A math geek would express these ideas in this form. It is the ideas explained as simply as possible, and it's been gratifying to get feedback from some of the early readers that 12 year olds are reading the book. This is not advanced math. This is something that kids in even the upper grades of elementary school, can totally take on, including challenges that kids as young as kindergarten kids can do.

So why did I write the book? Well, first. I have a lot of math in my background. I got a PhD in math modeling from Stanford. Consistent with what your work, my best course was the art of mathematical modeling and so often you hear math is not creative and one of the things it did. To do. This was an interview in the New Yorker with the, I hate to throw somebody under the bus, but maybe they deserve it, is the head of the Gates Foundation Education in Initiative.

And his quote was, this is pretty much verbatim. Math is unique among all disciplines because in math there is always one right answer. And I just sort of said, the person who's responsible for massive amounts of grants for math education. Really doesn't understand math. 

[00:10:20] Ben Kornell: No. 

[00:10:21] Ted Dintersmith: If you don't understand math, for instance, you don't understand that data sets can be correlated due to a shared underlying cause, not because they're causal.

And so passing high school calculus or getting fours and fives on calculus BC exams is correlated with success later in life, but it's not causing it because I can't find anyone in the professional world in America who does a close four mineral by hand. You know, I've been to Boeing, I've been to the auto company.

I've been to a lot of engineering shops. Anybody doing closed four integrals by hand? Anybody doing hyperbolic cosign transformations? Polar coordinate substitution? No. You know, that used to be important before computers and now it's just this barbed wire fence we put in front of people blocking many from career paths they'd be quite good at.

So I read the interview, the NAP scores came out. They, the interpretation of that was totally botched in 2022. I knew a fair amount about it. After graduate school, I worked for a company, believe it or not, that did fast multiplication chips. It was like dedicated circuits to multiply numbers together, but it sold into all of the systems that began the digital revolution, and then I rode that wave adventure.

I've always tried to offer things in the spirit of not just, this is all screwed up. But what could be done? What are examples that are great that would get you excited? It runs through my films. It runs through my earlier books. So I feel like I've taken on this ambitious mission of basically bringing to life an entire body of mostly modern era math ideas that hold powerful sway over our lives with interesting descriptions and charts that make it understandable and all sorts of real world examples, and then kind of comma.

Juxtapose that with this sea of math minutia that no adult uses, that your phone does perfectly. That is half of our high stakes accountability. I think Ben, that's the key point, is if the math we're doing in school were an elective, like learning how to play a violin or acapella singing or who knows what a whole bunch of electives, if it were elective, I wouldn't have such a beef with it.

But it is half of our high stakes accountability. You guys are the exception, right? But almost every story you read about the quality of education will immediately go to what I call the twin orbiting black holes of education, you know, math and reading scores. That, to me, have sucked the joy and the real learning out of classrooms as we chase these scores on these narrow skills that machines do perfectly.

[00:12:55] Ben Kornell: Yeah. In the book you talk about mechanical elements of math versus applied problem solving, math being a language, essentially to describe challenges, issues, and to help people think about a solution set, not a single solution. This is where test scores can be reductionist and focus schools mainly on mechanical, mathematical solving.

It made me wonder, what's the counter argument here? Obviously our system is the way it is for a reason. What do defenders of the current system say, and one that I hear frequently is by doing. Advanced math systems that may have limited relevance to day to day. We're helping kids think and learn how to think through this framework, and yet I see in practice it devolves into mechanical, procedural, mathematical problem solving, and one of your graphs actually shows, it's like a arc that starts with numbers and counting, goes all the way up to advanced calculus by college, and then boom goes down to the spreadsheet in career.

So where is advanced math really relevant in our schools as a way of helping students develop cognitive models to understand the world and where is it irrelevant or unhelpful? 

[00:14:17] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah. Everything in the body of high school math used to be important, and I go back long enough ago to having lead author publish papers in jz.

[00:14:27] Ben Kornell: Don't worry, it hasn't changed much. 

[00:14:28] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah. I go back to when we had to do close four integrals by hand, so there were techniques that. Pre-computers, pre widespread, imminently available. Computers were very useful. So there's first, it's in there for a reason. It used to be important then does it help you learn how to think?

And my answer there is it could, but it doesn't. And so when my kids were dealing with this stuff and they had to factor polynomials by hand, I knew enough to say, Hey, let's spend some time and understand. Why was that important? What were the two crew members of the Enola gay doing with slide rules when they're trying to figure out exactly when to drop the atomic bombs?

And then that leads to a whole ethical discussion. I mean, lots of interesting things, Matt. Math esoterica could be a portal to unbelievably interesting discussions that wasn't happening and doesn't happen in schools. The other thing is when you visit schools like in Finland and you look at the math there, they call them professors appropriately, and they're incredibly well-trained teachers, but they'll put an interesting problem on the board and then they'll just say to the students, come up with as many ways to solve this as you can.

I'll come back tomorrow. And that leads to, I think, interesting problem solving skills. A lot of the places I've visited in the US is like, kids are marked down 'cause you're not doing it the way you were taught. How heartbreaking is that? But I think there's logic to that, right? Because we define lies by the ability to perform these low level math tasks quickly and accurately by hand for timed high stakes tests.

A test tutor, if your family's lucky enough to afford a really expensive, competent SAT tutor. The first thing they'll tell your kid is if you come to a hard problem, skip it, maybe flag it and come back. 

[00:16:16] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:16] Ted Dintersmith: But if it's gonna take you several minutes to figure out, that may cost you five problems at the end.

So if it's hard, skip it, which is a pretty dismal life lesson. You just sort of say like, wait a minute. Then when, A point I think is fair to make right is if we continue to clinging to the possibility is teaching kids how to think. Show me the evidence, right? Because as I've looked everywhere, the only study ever done of that was by the Rand Corporation, and they looked at the degree of deeper thinking on high stakes, high school math exams.

Their number, not Ted's, was 0%. 

[00:16:52] Ben Kornell: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:52] Ted Dintersmith: 0%. And then you have to say, for all this time, what do we have to show for it? And that cheerleader fore math, I think it's fair to say, is a National Center for Education statistics. And their own study says 82% of adults can't compute the cost of a carpet given length, width, and cost per square yard or meter, whatever.

Okay. I mean, if we had ample evidence that this. Allocation of thousands of hours of time, the weight we put on it, the blocks life paths we're actually leading to adults that can compute the cost of a carpet. I might back off a bit, but I mean like we have almost nothing to show for it other than trauma and scars.

And I will say as somebody who has published papers who did enjoy the symbolic formalism of math, I'm all for somebody who aspires to that path in life. And you know, and there will be people in school. Who could compete for even win the Fields medal, the Nobel Prize equivalent for math? 

[00:17:51] Ben Kornell: Yeah. 

[00:17:51] Ted Dintersmith: Being immersed in the symbolic formalism is actually really important.

So for that narrow set of adults being immersed in the formative years in the abstract symbolism. Fair enough. Right? Just like there are concert violinists and just like there are master, I mean, there are narrow important professions where a set of basic skills are really important. 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:14] Ted Dintersmith: But we don't make violin chords half of our high stakes assessments.

Right. We don't block millions of lives and do enormous damage to self-esteem over the ability to play the violin. Right? 

[00:18:26] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:27] Ted Dintersmith: So do I love violinists? Yeah. Do I love abstract mathematicians. Yeah, I love them. But there's just escaping disconnect between helping those on a very specific path thrive and using something in a weaponized way to block millions of kids from life paths they wanna pursue.

[00:18:46] Ben Kornell: So this leads directly to why I always enjoy your book so much, rather than stating the problem and hammering us on all the issues. You also offer a path to change, and I always find in your books you have technical and adaptive change, both what needs to happen, but also the mindset shift. You call out math phobia, 30% of Americans would rather scrub a toilet than do math.

That made me laugh that loud. I know in each chapter you kind of, I was reading the book and I'm like, is this for math teachers? Is this for me? Is this for my kids? And I think the answer is yes to all of the above. But you had concrete examples of students doing real math in classrooms and then at the end kind of calls the actions or way people can put this into practice.

So kind of given all the case for change that you've made to help our listeners understand a little bit about. What are the elements needed to change our math instruction in schools so that we can move to the paradigm where it's way more relevant, way more empowering, and ultimately way more successful?

[00:19:55] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah. Consider the two main defining elements of math in school. One, it's siloed and not. Integrated across all subjects. My book shows the relevance of math ideas across all subjects. Yeah. You know, I have examples from civics and science and sports and 

[00:20:12] Ben Kornell: Yeah. Yeah. I love the baseball example. Yeah. 

[00:20:14] Ted Dintersmith: Yeah.

Like it really, in many ways deserves to be integrated broadly because it's more of a mindset in a way to go about thinking through things, analyzing things, understanding things, and I think you see. As a silo, particularly when it's now a silo of roadmap that no adult's using and math teachers, you know, I actually thought, here's a surprise for me with the book.

I thought I'd get pretty hostile reactions from math teachers. You know, because like you've dedicated your life to teaching high school math, and this guy comes along and says, you know, nobody uses it and your smartphone does it perfectly, and we're missing what really matters. But it's been gratifying.

So many have said, thank you. They basically say, I am so tired of when a kid looks up to me and says, will I ever use this to have to either like cross my fingers or I know that we're being told we have to teach what's on a test and not being allowed to teach what's important in life. So that's been really interesting.

But I also think this is a bigger issue, right? Because one of the most important things we can give to a young adult is a sense of purpose in life. Like a kid that feels. They have found their purpose in life is a kid that's going to succeed. And I think math, in many ways, the way we've handled it erodes that purpose, right?

Because fundamentally, the answer is you've gotta study this because somebody who doesn't understand math is making it half of the SAT or making it a graduation requirement for something you're never gonna use. Or making it a prerequisite to a career in medicine or business like on and on. Somebody who doesn't understand math has thrown this in front of you, and you now have to get through that just because.

And at the end of the day, we don't have a good answer for you beyond just because, and I think kids see through that. And so we wonder why kids come out of school feeling like it's just a game. Feeling like in many ways during those formative years, we've told them that life is all about competing your classmates on stuff that doesn't matter.

And so. When we see an epidemic of cheating and then you interview kids about it, which I've done, they say, and they're like, I wouldn't cheat on something that mattered, but this is bullshit. I know it. My teachers know it. We all know it, so don't get at me for cheating on it. And I'm feeling their pain with that.

Right? I mean, I feel like that's a fair observation. Like when we ask a kid to get good at something, we ought to have an answer to their question of, will this serve me well as an adult? Too often we don't have a good answer to that. 

[00:22:52] Ben Kornell: Yeah. A former colleague of mine, Devin Vka, was superintendent of Vista Schools and he interviewed students.

This is about 10 years ago. He interviewed a bunch of students at every single school site, and the one word that came through in all of those was irrelevant. And I think this is not just a mathematics issue, but potentially maybe most profound. I actually love that you have such a favorable view of the people who make the math test assume that maybe they don't fully understand, maybe they do fully understand, and it's a reductionist.

Exercise where it's like, well, kids can't actually apply math as critical thinking, so we need to dumb it down to mechanical memorization. I just think we've gotten to the point where that's so obviously not viable with AI essentially at your fingertips. Yeah. That we now have the burning platform 

[00:23:51] Ted Dintersmith: I have to bring up, so against all odds, this book about math includes this TV series I love called The Wire.

And season four, which many people, including yours truly think is the best multi-year, multi episode TV series ever done. And season four has a third of the focus in Baltimore public schools. And so I squirreled, I mean, I just sort of used every angle and I was able to convince Ed Burns the co-writer to do a learning walk.

We went to a bunch of schools in Newark one day, but I was really interested because. Prior to talking to him, I understood that the character in Season four, preez, former police officer turned math teacher in Baltimore Public Schools, was based on Ed's life. True. And what you see is preez slash ed burns in real life is assigned to teach kids in Baltimore public schools algebra.

And the kids are having none of it, you know, like throwing wads of paper, throwing gum at each other, not paying any attention at all. But he goes at lunchtime and looks at what they're doing and they're playing craps. And he says like, why don't I teach these kids probability? And these kids are like, wait, there's logic behind why a nine is less likely than a seven, and I can actually weigh those numbers in making better bets.

[00:25:07] Ben Kornell: Yeah. 

[00:25:08] Ted Dintersmith: And in the series, but also in real life, those kids come to life. And I think we offensively and quite inaccurately assume a lot of kids aren't capable of doing really interesting math when the reality is we bury them in worksheets on stuff they have no interest in and they're smart enough to know that they'll never use it.

And I conclude my book and this is quite relevant. I had this, another thing I just sort of like be resourceful to pull it off. I did a long interview with the head of the National Center for Education Statistics and her top statistician. Nice people, well intentioned, do not understand anything about math.

And I'm talking about this, I said, if we make it relevant, kids will learn it. And she says to me, and I quote this in the book, so I'm paraphrasing it here, but she says, you know, that's very interesting because a few years ago we were looking at questions where the low income kids actually did way better than the rich kids.

And the question that popped up was something to do with calculating tips in a restaurant. And we couldn't understand why the low income kids did so well in that question. So we did some focus groups. It turned out many were in families where one of the parents made a living, put food on the table by working in a restaurant, relying on tips, and she sort of says.

Kind of like, gee, I wonder if it were relevant. We'd see low income kids actually do incredibly well on these tests, and I'm like, of course, make it relevant. And kids are gonna learn and it's gonna be agnostic to what income level they're at. And oftentimes, by the way, the really well off micromanaged kids, the more it's open-ended and creative and expansive.

They tend to freeze up. Like, wait, wait, wait. Gimme the three steps. I 

[00:26:51] Ben Kornell: memorize. Yeah, I memorize this thing. Like, 

[00:26:53] Ted Dintersmith: I can't do now. Now, yes. I need to know exactly what I've gotta do to get that A and, and if they don't know, they'll tell their parents and the parents will call and say, what? And like, you're asking them to come up with alternative approaches to estimating the number of homeless people in your community.

That's vague. No. You know, like, I want them to prove cosine squared plus sign squared equals one. Because it's like that's precise. Gimme a break. 

[00:27:17] Ben Kornell: Yeah, no. I remember when standardized test scores rolled around, I was proctoring a group of my middle school students and there was a question around, they were trying to help you understand triangles and the length of the hypo, and it was using sailing and it said tax.

From this point point B to point C, and the kids don't know what tacking is. I mean, who knows what tacking is. There's limits on what you can explain as the kind of teacher Proctor and I kept thinking, why on earth would you choose this as the example? I lived in San Jose, half of my kids had never seen the ocean.

I think your book is a real call to action, but it is also so relatable. There's laugh out loud moments. There's moments where I reflected on my own math teachers and thought, man, Mrs. Kurtz was really good. And there was other times where I'm like shaking my head so. Whether it's a pleasure read or whether you're really thinking about transforming mathematics in your classroom, your school, your district, your company, I really recommend everyone check out Ted's book Aftermath.

Ted, it's been such a pleasure. Kind of like lifelong bucket list checked off here to talk with you today. Thank you so much for joining us for Edtech Insiders. 

[00:28:37] Ted Dintersmith: Oh no, you're so kind to put it that way, because this has been a total honor for me and, and I love the idea of Book Club. My feeling is that this would be a great book for book clubs if it only started with how did math affect you earlier in life?

You know, that could be an hour long discussion for several adults because we all have our stories, and for some it was a really good friend, but for others it was Freddie Krueger. 

[00:28:59] Ben Kornell: Yeah, so we'll be doing math therapy with Ted Dintersmith. Stay tuned at Tech Insider listeners. And Ted, if people wanna find out more about your work and the book, where should they go?

[00:29:10] Ted Dintersmith: The book landing page is Aftermaththebook.com. My website is very easy to find teddintersmith.com. My email's pretty easy to find, which is just first initial last name@gmail.com. I may regret that 'cause by the way, I am miserable at staying on top of emails, but I'm very motivated. I mean, I hope it comes across that I'm really energized about this because I do think these are life defining math ideas that do determine what we read, what we watch, what we believe.

And I feel like math is actually a fundamental pillar of civil society. And if we get that wrong, which we have lots of bad things ensue. 

[00:29:47] Ben Kornell: Yeah, and we are at a moment where it's so clear that the former paradigm is irrelevant, that I actually have hope that we could. Jump in, jump and really reimagine what math and what problem solving can look like.

Thanks so much, Ted, and thank you, listener. 

[00:30:04] Ted Dintersmith: Hey, thank you. Yeah, thanks for all you're doing. It's awesome. 

[00:30:07] Ben Kornell: All right. Talk to you soon. 

[00:30:09] Ted Dintersmith: Bye. Bye-Bye. 

[00:30:10] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more, EdTech Insider, subscribe to the Free EdTech Insiders Newsletter on substack.

Innovation in pre-K to grade learning is powered by exceptional people for over 15 years. EdTech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted higher education to find the talent that drives impact when specific skills and experiences are mission critical. Higher education is a partner that delivers.

Offering permanent fractional and executive recruitment, higher education knows the go-to-market talent you need. Learn more@hireedu.com. That's HIRE edu.com.