The ‘Lady Gaga of math education’ is on a mission to make math cool

Math Guru proves math is as cool as a Taylor Swift song!

Vanessa Vakharia wants to make math cool.

Dubbed the “Lady Gaga of math education,” Vakharia is a math teacher, a musician, and a two-time math failure, she proudly says.

While in Ottawa for a conference this week, Vakharia stopped by CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Tuesday to discuss her story, her philosophy, and to discuss how anyone can be a math genius.

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“It started with me failing Grade 11 math twice,” she said. “I was always told I wasn’t a math person. I was a creative kid. I wanted to be a rock star and marry Keanu Reeves — still my dream to this day. I’m in a band, not married to Keanu yet. I was always told, ‘you’re more of the creative type.’”

She said in Grade 12 she had a different teacher and math suddenly made sense.

“I have this amazing experience where I end up with a 96 per cent in Grade 12 math, and I love math and I’m like this is crazy. Being creative is not a barrier to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), it’s actually like an additional skill you have,” she said.

From that point, she said she made it her life’s mission to show every single person who was told they’re not a math person that they are just as capable as anyone else.

She founded “Math Guru” in Toronto in 2010, which she describes on her website as “a super chill space for all students to feel safe and inspired in exploring and learning math & science.”

She later released a book called “Math Therapy: 5 Steps to Help Your Students Overcome Math Trauma and Build a Better Relationship With Math” that she said is about giving math a “rebrand.”

“The thing with math is it doesn’t need me to make it cool because it is cool, but it does need a little rebrand. It has really bad PR,” Vakharia said. “We have framed math as kind of boring. We all know about people’s math trauma in school, it’s a real thing, but the truth is every single person is capable of doing and loving math. You don’t have to, but I want every single person to have the choice.”

Her nickname, “the Lady Gaga of math education,” is inspired not only by her own musical pursuits, but also by Gaga’s message.

“The whole vibe is Lady Gaga is all about not having to sacrifice who you are to do the things you love. You should not have to choose between being mathematical and logical and being creative and artsy. We want people to bring their whole selves to the field of mathematics because that’s what makes math so cool,” she said.

Vakharia was in Ottawa to attend a conference led by Actua, a Canadian organization that focuses on STEM education for youth.

“Actua is an incredible organization whose goal is to make STEM accessible to youth across Canada. They do the most amazing outreach, the most amazing work, and they’re here to remove the barriers that I’m talking about that prevent every single person from feeling like math and science is something I could do if I chose to,” she said.

A simple math trick

Vakharia showed off a simple trick for multiplying any digit between one and 10 by nine.

“You are going to put down the finger of the number you’re multiplying by. We are going to do nine times four,” she said. “Put down your fourth finger on your left hand.”

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The number of fingers to the left of the finger you put down is the first digit of the product, while the number of fingers to the right is the second digit.

With the fourth finger down on the left hand, there are three fingers to the left and six fingers to the right.

“Thirty-six,” Vakharia says.