A Letter to the Curious
There’s a beautiful teaching practice I love called Convince a Skeptic.
It comes from Jo Boaler, and it’s all about depth. Can you explain why something works — not just that it does? Can you stand in your understanding with enough clarity to walk someone else through it?
At Girlmath, that’s exactly what we help kids do.
And sometimes, I find myself wanting to offer the same clarity to adults.
Because if more adults understood how kids actually learn —
how much emotional weight they carry into math class,
how real understanding is built slowly and bravely,
how vulnerable it feels to be wrong in front of your peers —
they might treat kids differently.
They’d stop asking, “Why isn’t she faster?”
and start noticing how persistent she’s becoming.
They’d stop worrying about whether she got the right answer,
and start celebrating her ability to think clearly under pressure.
They’d stop saying, “She’s probably just not a math person,”
and start seeing the math person right in front of them — growing stronger every day.
So here’s what I’d say.
Not in defense of what we do, but in celebration of it —
and in the hope that it helps you see all children, and their learning, in a new light.
“How can beads and string possibly build real math skills?”
Because while they’re beading, students are making real-time decisions about structure, scale, and pattern. They’re translating visual ideas into spatial plans, adjusting when something doesn’t line up, and persevering through trial and error.
Cognitively, this activates the same parts of the brain they use in geometry, algebra, and proportional reasoning. They’re multiplying, dividing, predicting totals, estimating quantities, and adjusting variables when their first assumptions don’t hold.
Emotionally, beading invites calm. It regulates. It slows the nervous system enough to make real learning possible — especially for kids who come in carrying anxiety and pressure from school, or just the social noise of being a middle schooler.
In a traditional math class, this translates to better focus, stronger working memory, and a quiet confidence when approaching a blank page.
“Shouldn’t they be doing something more serious than playing games?”
Strategy games are serious. They’re seriously good at building the exact reasoning skills that math requires:
Analyzing patterns. Managing resources. Anticipating outcomes. Adjusting plans when the situation changes.
Cognitively, games build conditional reasoning, working memory, and flexible thinking — all skills that transfer directly to problem-solving in math class.
And emotionally?
Games give kids low-stakes practice with high-stakes feelings.
They lose. They get frustrated. They rethink their approach.
They learn that progress doesn’t always look like winning — sometimes it looks like learning from the person who beat you.
That’s a skill most adults are still working on.
“Isn’t talking about emotions kind of a distraction from learning?”
Only if you believe that math and emotions exist in separate worlds.
They don’t.
Learning math requires risk.
It requires failure.
It requires staying in the game long enough to figure something out — even when you’re uncomfortable.
We teach kids how to sit with those moments. How to name what’s happening inside them. How to ask for help or take a breath instead of shutting down.
This isn’t a detour from learning. It’s the road back into it.
Kids who can regulate their emotions are more available for complex reasoning.
They don’t panic when things don’t click immediately.
They take another look. They try again.
That’s not a distraction. That’s the heart of the work.
At Girlmath, we’re not here to push girls ahead.
We’re here to go deep.
To help them see themselves as thinkers, creators, strategists, and makers.
To build the confidence that comes from knowing — not just the answer, but the process.
To shift the story from “I’m bad at math” to “I’m figuring this out.”
So yes — we bead.
We play.
We talk.
And the whole time, we’re doing math.
With precision.
With purpose.
With joy.