This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in F’ing up the status quo and fixing education. When I was in high school, students divided into two camps: those who “got” math and those who believed they simply weren’t “math people.” I was one of the “got” math people who spent countless hours doing trigonometry and eventually doing AP Calculus where I was doing derivatives and all sorts of ‘fancy’ math. Deep down, I knew what this was really about – it wasn’t about prac...