Math In the Carpool Lane

Soccer Mom (Babysitter) Math

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of taking care of my friend’s 12-year-old daughter, Zoey. Between soccer games, visiting friends, and weekend errands, my car became our second home. Thanks to Pam Harris and Kim Montague’sMath is Figureoutable podcast, it also became a surprisingly fun math exchange.

I had lined up a few random episodes of the Strat Chat podcast to catch up on while driving. At first, Zoey sat in the passenger seat, half-listening. But something about hearing Pam and Kim genuinely puzzle over numbers piqued her curiosity. “Wait—what was the problem again?” she asked. I repeated it. We paused the episode. Then Zoey solved it out loud.

That was all it took.

From that moment on our car rides became animated. We were solving. We wereexplaining. We were comparing strategies. She’d say things like, “I don’t know why they’re doing that, it’s too much,” or “Mine was easier,” and then back it up with her reasoning. She wanted to keep listening, and by Sunday night, she was asking for another “math strat chat” on the way home from dinner.

Here is an example. One of our first problems was this: 81 – 27. Zoey approachedit much like Kim did in the episode. “It’s 9 (nines) minus 3 (nines),” she said, “sothat’s 6 nines. That’s 54.” She said it with confidence, not because she’dmemorized a trick, but because she understood the structure of the numbers. She owned the reasoning.

That’s the magic of Math is Figureoutable—it invites everyone in. It doesn’tmatter if you’re a math teacher, a reluctant student, or a tween riding shotgun after soccer. Pam and Kim model how math can be talked about, reasoned through, and disagreed on, all while honoring different ways of thinking.

Zoey didn’t need any paper to participate. She just needed a good problem, time to think, and someone to listen. That’s what Strat Chat offers: permission to figure it out for yourself, with a community of thinkers modeling the way.

So, if you’re driving around with a curious kid this summer, cue up an episode. You might be surprised who leans in, and how quickly they start to believe that they are figureoutable too.