Math is a Language

No one can simply speak another language, and it’s not fair to expect them to. 

If you asked me to read out a Japanese poem, I wouldn’t know where to start, and you wouldn’t think it strange that I couldn’t read all those strange, beautiful symbols. 

If you then made me memorize the poem, it would be a horrible, painful struggle – a literally meaningless task. To make things worse, it would take a long long tedious time. And realistically, there’s no chance I’d be able to do it accurately. 

I’d be bound to make mistakes – probably many mistakes.

But even if I did somehow manage to memorize the poem in Japanese, I still wouldn’t be able to answer any questions about it. Because I still don’t understand what it means.

So of course it’s impossible to do math when you don’t understand it and don’t speak the language.   

If you believe that you – or your child – “can’t do math”, then think again. 

The astonishing fact is – if you don’t speak the language of math – you actually have absolutely no idea how good you are at math. You might be phenomenal… as soon as you know what we’re talking about. 

I once taught a math no-hoper who went on to become an engineer; I taught a 17-year old who could not solve “4 plus 10” but a year later he was handling quadratic equations and trigonometry; another 17 year old had been told by teachers that she was, and would always be, no good, which meant that acing her calculus course was a deeply therapeutic personal success.

If you are reading this page then you or someone you know doesn’t “do” math. Not yet.  But that’s because they’ve not yet actually done math. They’ve been trying to memorize a meaningless foreign language. And that’s something no one is good at. 

Please reach out for more information. I do not want you to be in pain any longer.