Math as a Gateway

This morning, Jude and I dove into GCSE Math. I’ve been teaching him trigonometry, equations, even toeing into quadratics. He’s working on GCSE-level problems. While he’s good at mental math, I’ve been trying to get him to show his work. It’s a struggle, but it’s also a reflection of who he is. Quick, mentally sharp, intuitive, and sometimes a bit stubborn. He has a rational, logical and spacial mind much alike one of a stereotypical male.

As we worked through the problems, I had a sudden realization. Years ago, my own math tutor taught me something invaluable: that I could ace math. In fact, I topped the school. I teach math the same way now, as I have learnt it. I am a bit rusty now but it would take a month tops to get things back in gear again.

As I was walking through some practice questions with Jude, and it is tricky for a parent to teach. Psychologically, there is an eternal tug o war going - “I am good enough”, “You are not but you can be” type conversations. How do you teach someone who strives their every moment to better you?

I always start with a question, “do this.” and I watch, he stresses and fumbles, I correct and he fights. Lately, before we start a question, I’ve asked, “Have you learnt ‘x, y, z concept’? Show me what you learnt, what are the formulas you remember?”. He does and usually he has it and I push a question in front of him.

Last night, I interspaced watching him fumble through a question (I looked for GCSE hard questions on the higher tier, and yes probably a mean thing to do to a middle schooler) with math equations. I will interspace working through a question with concepts (hey, this is a problem you can’t solve because this is the tool you need). It went a bit better.

I should add that he was also exceptionally receptive because he got a 100% the previous day on a math quiz based on our prior revisions in the week.

After that, I pushed my luck infinitely (because I am a growing being as well and I like to push boundaries as well) by suggesting he change his outfit (not cool enough to hang with friends) and critiqued his bag packing skills for his day pack, suggested tweaks and additions. I also gave him some strategies for navigating the day without a cellphone and iterated that he should set a meeting spot and all that life skills parents take for granted.

By the time I sat down for coffee, I realized… what a daredevil I had been to push and to keep pushing the way I did. And, I was also languishing in my wins for the morning. I started recalling on how I can more efficiently get my point across to Jude, how I can teach him better, but also do it more quickly so I reduce the amount of time I am under tension for. I realized that my math tutor, one of his greatest skill, was to present the concepts I needed and put that in front of me and then give me the questions that permitted me to apply the concepts. To do that, he had to know the gaps that most brains fall through when loading these concepts, the motivation behind how and why the tests were written and the trends in which these tests were moving towards.

What all that does, in sequence, preps the nervous system. Within an hour of the first lesson, my mind subconsciously realizes that it was prepped to succeed. Just go with the flow, you will win. It relaxes and it takes in everything my tutor presented, without a fight, without a question, without doubts and it just… wins.

It hit me that that is the key to management - it is dressed up in different garbs. As charisma, as leadership, as persuasion, as influence, as motivational, as EQ but really what it all is the ability to control another person’s nervous system. Once you do, you can insert anything you like into it. And all you have to do is to set in front of that mind a path to winning, it soothes the ego, it soothes any mental blockages due to whatever mental obstacles there previously was.

And that’s exactly what happened with Jude this morning. After we finished math, he was open to everything. He let me critique his outfit (he looked like a dork, and he knew it). He accepted my suggestions for his daypack, allowed me to adjust and add to it. He even listened as I gave him strategies for navigating the day without a cellphone or map.

He just… took it all in. No resistance, no eye rolls, no pushback. Just calm, open acceptance. And then, at the end of it all, he offered me a hug, a smile because he felt loved.

And then Jon and I started ruminating about philosophy after watching a talk by Leslie Lamport (2013 Turing Award) on distributed systems.

I realized that is the key to behavioral interviews, moving up the corporate ladder, and life with other humans. People just need to know you can help them win, get there. When there is self doubt, when there is self punishment, they all say it is the worse thing because it isolates, it doesn’t feed into this infinite cycle of giving back energy and purpose.

I am spending the weekend hacking the one human brain, I used to do it a lot and very well but it has been a while. I am coming up with math problems in the realm of what he has learnt, with branching to quiz him. He is competent enough to start tackling GCSE O level exams, he hasn’t been taught some key concepts but I am starting to see a straight A kid emerging. He fixed his carelessness, I couldn’t catch him on a single thing, that is another 25-50% of his grade right there.

We may be emerging from puberty brain fog here.