Schoolwide News

Math often gets a bad rap—not just in school but also in industry and business. Films and sitcoms frequently depict the dorky accountant or CFO as boring, overly literal, and a buzzkill in the room. These characters are often the butt of jokes and, frankly, wholly uninspiring. While some films and shows, such as Hidden Figures and The Big Bang Theory, have made efforts to challenge these stereotypes, they still persist.

My own experience with math-related jobs today is completely different! Each week, I meet online with a group of mathematicians, and we play games that they design. Some of these games get published, while others are used to solve more complex mathematical problems. I attend these sessions for fun and to find engaging games to play with my students, but for many of these mathematicians, these games are part of their actual jobs. They’re getting paid to play!

Actuaries and accountants may have a different relationship with math than my mathematician friends, but when I talk with them, they don’t view their jobs as boring or mundane. Actuaries, for example, analyze the risk of uncertainty—which sounds a lot like predicting the future! How exciting is that? Using sophisticated statistical models, they evaluate data to assess the likelihood of future events, from financial market fluctuations to natural disasters. If someone had shown me as a child that math could be used to predict the future, I would have wanted to learn more. What an incredible skill for children to explore!

I dream of a society that works together to shift the stereotype of math from something painfully dull to a subject that reveals a world of beauty and wonder. Math is everywhere—in every field, even in unexpected ones like sports, fashion, art, and animation. A deeper understanding of math can open doors of endless possibilities for our students.

So, here’s my plea: the next time you and your children encounter a stereotypical “math is hard and boring” comment on TV or in the media, challenge it in front of your kids. Ask them if they feel the same way and explain that this is just an opinion, not a universal truth. By working together, we can dismantle this outdated stereotype and help children develop a sense of wonder, curiosity, and love for math.