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The Current Transcript for August 14, 2020

Host: Duncan McCue

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

[Chanting]

DUNCAN MCCUE: Protesters have been flooding the streets of Minsk for days. Some shouting shame. Others singing folk songs or demonstrating peacefully dressed in white and carrying bouquets of flowers. They all have the same goal standing up to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko over a potentially rigged election result. On Sunday, we'll head to Belarus and a moment that later in the show we speak with war photographer Lynsey Addario. Her latest work has taken her to a new kind of battlefield intensive care units during a pandemic. Also today.

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Do you like green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam. I am. I do not like green eggs and ham.

DM: I don't know about you, but I love green eggs and ham. Dr. Seuss's seminal work turns 60 this week. Later on, we'll hear how it came to be and how it transform the way many of us learn to read. Plus, mathematician and playwright John Mighton on why the myth that maths is hard needs to end. But we begin in Belarus. Good morning. I'm Duncan McCue. This is The Current.

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Violence on the streets in Belarus

Guests: Farnak Viacorka, David Marlpes

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[Chanting]

I want to live in a free country. Of course, I'm 18 years old and for 18 years I have lived with one president. This is not normal. He don't respect other nationality. And he always lie to his people. That's not normal.

DM: Women like Anastasia are on the streets of Belarus protesting that country's president, they're forming human chains of solidarity to condemn the crackdown on protesters by police. Two people have been killed and thousands arrested. Demonstrations over what many see as a rigged election by President Alexander Lukashenko have been happening all week long. Both the European Union and the United States have condemned the election as neither free nor fair. Farnak Viacorka, is a journalist from Belarus and has been involved in pro-democracy political campaigns in the past. He was on the ground in Minsk all week. We're withholding his current location for his safety. Hello.

FARNAK VIACORKA: Hi.

DM: It's been an intense week in Belarus. Can you give us a sense of what's happening on the ground in Belarus right now?

FARNAK VIACORKA: The situation is changing rapidly. Almost every day we see new and you brought us, some of them are deadly soldiers and police are using lethal weapons and fire arms against protesters. So we know about at least two people dead. But I think the number of victims can be a much, much bigger. Also, they're the largest enterprises around Belarus. They are on strike right now and they ask for new elections and they don't remember such a situation ever in Belarus history, even in the protests for independence from the Soviet Union, where not so huge as they are right now.

DM: This all has to do with the election results last weekend. Can you take us back? What were the results and why they caused such unrest?

FARNAK VIACORKA: We had so-called elections, but they're not real elections. They're just the right to all say elections. They pretend they count votes, but they do not really. And at this at this year, after 26 years of sort of Lukashenko's rule. People just realised that they are manipulated, they are cheated. Lukashenko, again, for the fifth time, announcing himself as a winner with 80 percent of votes and that people felt like it's not true. They voted for an alternative candidate who is 37 years old, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, English language teacher by training. And they just realised, no, the government is is openly lying, manipulating the results. And and they got enough of that.

DM: Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is a political newbie. I mean, she's a stay at home mom who suddenly got thrust into the political spotlight. Where is she now?

FARNAK VIACORKA: Unfortunately, a few days after election results were announced, she was forced to leave the country. So she left for Lithuania, it's neighbouring to Belarus country capital Vilnius. And she is there right now. And I'd say it's of course, we we believe that the protests will decline after she as she left. But it doesn't seem so. It seems like it's not about the election anymore and it's not about her anymore. It's more about changes. The only thing that unites people around Belarus right now, it's the will of changes. And it doesn't matter that Tikhanovskaya will be leading the country or anyone else, but only not the current ruler Lukashenko.

DM: So there have been repeated clashes over the past couple of days with police using batons, stun grenades, thousands of arrests. And it appears that that many people are gone missing. What can you tell us about that?

FARNAK VIACORKA: It's not about clashes, actually, because people who were on the streets from my understanding, they didn't have any weapons at all. There were peaceful protest and it was looking like more a shooting, innocent, peaceful protesters and the police where driving the vans, opening doors and just shooting arbitrary randomly people walking the streets. For me, it was looking like a terror campaign, like gangs chasing random people on the streets. The car approach and the group of people, sometimes women, sometimes journalists, sometimes a young boy, 16, 17 years old. They approached them, attacked them and began beaten with fractions. Some of them are beaten so heavily that they were not able to walk themselves and they were put in by by riot policemen to the van or to the police van.

DM: And I understand that many of them are being detained. What can you tell us about that?

FARNAK VIACORKA: At least 6000 are being detained and there are no places in regular detention centres and in prisons. So in the cell supposed to seat five, six people, there were 40, 60 people and they weren't able to sleep. They were just extending the whole night or several days. Some of them were sleeping outside on the asphalt in the yard of the prison. So basically, it was like a torture by essence.

DM: So I understand that half of your team has been detained. What happened?

FARNAK VIACORKA: Some of my colleagues were detained the first day, even before election. It's about months ago my colleagues whom we are working on social media and who are managing popular telegram channel message and the telegram where the miscommunication this is happening, and they are facing the multi-year prison term. Authorities accused them in preparing the riots. Basically, if you share any information regarding the protest, regarding the shooting, the regarding the violence, they say that you promoted the riots.

DM: How much of a threat are journalists under then, right now?

FARNAK VIACORKA: The journalists are the major target for police, for riot police firing foreign journalists. We are not able to come to means many of them didn't get accreditation. It's like permission to work. Many of them were stopped at the airport. Many of them were raided in Minsk already and deported for 10 years from Belarus. They hate journalists. Another friend of mine, [unintelligible], actually, she's still in the hospital. Her condition is much better. She got injured. You know, they are using the fire arms.

DM: Are you worried about her own safety?

FARNAK VIACORKA: Actually, this is why I had to hide to had to flee Minsk. So now current time and safe place with other my colleagues. And they can follow and help and to distribute information from here. Many people are my eyes in the field and they're sharing videos and pictures from all these events.

DM: You mentioned that this is spreading right across Belarus now with workers going on strike. The Internet got shut down in Belarus on Tuesday night for more than a day. Cell service was also down. How detrimental is all this been to protesters?

FARNAK VIACORKA: This protest and in general, this popular revolt was enabled by Internet and by digital technologies. Thanks to a messager apps the communication free access to broadband Internet [unintelligible] used to communicate easily and to tell the truth about the reality in the country. The most popular candidate before Tikhanovskaya became the leader was her husband, who was in jail because he's popular YouTuber. And he was telling the stories of ordinary people. And when the protest started, authorities decided to deprive little position the protesters from their major weapon, Internet. So they're going outside and they don't know what's happening in the streets. And when on one side, you see water cannons, guns and grenades. And another side you see people with that, with their smartphones, without Internet. Of course, we know who will win in this unfair battle.

DM: And as the protests have been spreading across the country, there were some developments. Just last night, a few hundred detainees reportedly were released and Belarus's interior minister apologised for some of the force by police. What do you make of those developments?

FARNAK VIACORKA: Authorities are trying to step back a bit to peace protesters to calm down and to win some time. They still believe that the protest will stop. But I think the red line, this crossed the red and the protest will continue. And this government doesn't have any chance already. After workers of companies after they joined to the strike, the nation's strike, there is no chance for this government. What police chair did say, he mentioned, like, we are sorry for random arrests and for random violence. But basically, the whole violence and the whole injuries were made to random people. And many of them did not protest at all. They were just like witnessing the reality, witnessing the events. And they were treated like, I don't know, like the violent revolutionaries.

DM: So, Lukashenko, this government is trying to appease the protesters. Where do you see this heading in the next couple of days?

FARNAK VIACORKA: He released the many detainees, not all of them, because he wants to decrease the level of this. I'll just say of popular disappointment and anger. But I don't think the protest will stop despite all the promises government will make. This government is very authoritarian. Lukashenko doesn't like to make concessions at all. So what he's trying to do, he's trying to win some time to prepare better the law enforcement and if the protests will renew, he will be better ready and perhaps he will be even more violent than he was this week.

DM: Franak, thank you for joining us. Stay safe.

FARNAK VIACORKA: Thank you.

DM: Franek Viacorka is an independent journalist based in Belarus. The anger we've been seeing on the streets of Belarus has been building for decades. This is President Alexander Lukashenko, its sixth election and the fifth time he has claimed victory while being accused of manipulating the vote. So could this time be different? David Marples is a history professor at the University of Alberta who focuses on Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Hello.

DAVID MARPLES: Hello.

DM: As you just heard Franak Viacorka say, I mean, these are protests. Are ordinary Belarussians, not hardened protesters. So what' changed for the citizens of Belarus this election?

DM: This election was very different from previous ones. In previous elections, there was sometimes even a unified candidate from the opposition political parties and usually I would say in almost every case, Lukashenko was a relatively popular candidate. He fabricated the final results but probably in a fair election, he might have won anyway. In this election, he was clearly losing and he was losing to a candidate who was a neophyte and who was simply running by default in a way to replace her husband, who had been put in jail. This election, there were also different because two opposition candidates came from the political establishment. One was a well-known banker and one was a friend of Lukashenko, formerly the head of the high tech part. So people in the elite were prepared to challenge Lukashenko as well as a popular blogger. So it was very different in that respect from previous elections.

DM: You mentioned that that's Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is a political neophyte. How much did Mr. Lukashenko underestimate her and her supporters?

DM: I think he underestimated the popular reaction to his rule in this election. I mean, one reason was his lack of attention to the Corona virus, which he claimed was simply a psychosis, that people could go to the countryside and recover. And he simply ignored the thousands of people who will get in positive case returns from testing for coronavirus that incensed the population. People are also concerned by the lowering standards of living, which was not the case in the past. Living standards were relatively high. The post-Soviet states at the present time, because of the disputes with Russia over oil and gas and the living standards have dropped because prices have gone up and taxes have been placed on imports of oil and gas. And I think they just simply tired of 26 years of living under a dictatorship. And that's what you're seeing right now in the streets.

DM: He's had the title. He's been dubbed Europe's last dictator or what earned him that?

DAVID MARPLES: Well, it's been earned over the years as he's taken a more and more hard line. He was elected in 1994 in a relatively free election, the first election in independent Belarus. Subsequent elections were not free and fair. And in 1999 to 2000, he eliminated political opponents by simply having them disappear, having them kidnapped on the streets. That happened to his minister of defence. It happened to his original campaign manager, Victor [unintelligible]. These people have never been seen again. He's also amended the Constitution to give the presidency more powers, reducing the parliament in size from 260 deputies to 110 is basically a rump parliament that answers to the president. The constitutional court went the same route. There's no brake on any powers by Lukashenko, simply unlimited in what power he can harness. And therefore, he's earned that epithet last dictator of Europe. He cracks down periodically, he's cracked down periodically in the past. 2010-11 was probably the worst time. And many of his political opponents left the country at that time, including some of the former candidates for president. He's taken that same kind of route again with Tikhanovskaya forcing around the country. But this time, she's not the focus. The focus is him and the dictatorship and the rule that people won't stop this time, I think, until he's gone.

DM: He's blaming these protests on what he calls foreign interference. He's saying that it's been orchestrated from abroad. How does that framing benefit him?

DAVID MARPLES: Well, he's trying to create an atmosphere of terror, outside forces trying to overthrow, not only the West, but also Russia. In fact, in this election, neither of those forces made any steps of intervention at all. Russia, for once, kept out of it, which was not the case in the Ukraine election, in the past.

DM: Russia has been heavily involved in in Belarus, in politics, though, and its economy. So where does Russia fit into all of this?

DAVID MARPLES: Well, Russia's put a lot of pressure on Belarus in recent years. It's tried to force integration on Belarus and a much tighter way. The Russia, Belarus Union, which was signed in 1999 but never really brought to fruition. It's now been revived by Russia, which is insisting that the two sides get much closer. Lukashenko has tried to resist this because it will reduce his own power. And he's promoted this sort of soft nationalist perspective that really was typical of him in earlier years. Russia holds a lot of cards. As I mentioned before, they export oil and gas. They're building a nuclear power station in Belarus. They go to military installations on Belarussian territory. They do military manoeuvres in Belarus with the Belarussian army. And most people speak Russian language. And they've got enormous power over social media in Belarus, which is simply heard by every citizen of Belarus. So Russia's got enormous clout. Having said that, none of the candidates in this election were anti Russian or even said a word against Russia. So I don't think Russia necessarily favoured the return of Lukashenko. I think it was fine to be ambivalent on their behalf.

DM: So if EU leaders now are discussing this this crackdown and they're talking about it at a meeting this Friday, in fact, is what influence does the European Union have here?

DM: Well, the European Union could reintroduce sanctions, which had been in place until 2016 along with the United States. And that would basically impose sanctions on individual Belarussian leaders, on major exports from Belarus, economic sanctions. They work to a point in the past. They put a lot of pressure on Lukashenko. But I think what the EU could do is simply condemn the excessive violence that's taking place and the mass torture on political prisoners, which is reaching a height. You know, some people comparing it with the German occupation regime in World War Two. I mean, it's brutal, but it's extreme. And the United States also could stand behind the E.U. that would make it much stronger. And Mike Pompeo is actually in Europe right now and he's in contact with the group in the E.U. in Warsaw, which will likely reach some kind of decision today. He was not traditionally taken a strong stance because the E.U. has important trading links with Belarus, particularly the Netherlands and Germany. But I think Poland in particular is concerned with what's happening over its border and doesn't want to see this kind of situation happening in the middle of Europe.

DM: Part of the issue, though, with the international attention is that Belarus is a very small country. So why does it matter then, David Marples, that it has free and fair elections for its citizens and beyond?

DAVID MARPLES: I think two reasons one. Just a pure human rights situation that no one likes to see this kind of terror taking place in the middle of Europe. And it's also a matter of the popular will is for a change of regime in Belarus. And second, it's got an important geo strategic location between Russia and the European Union. That's a very fragile zone. We've already seen in the past what happens when Ukraine tried to move closer to Europe. Russia has moved in, annexed territory and regards these countries, Russia and Belarus, as part of its national territory, if you like, part of its history, part of its culture, and draws a red line when these countries tend to try to release themselves from this Russian fold, they act very strongly. Belarus has not tried to do that, yet. This is a popular revolt against the dictator, is not a move toward Europe. So I'm not sure, you know, how far this will go on Russia's part and how they're going to respond.

DM: David Marples, thank you for your analysis on this.

DAVID MARPLES: You're very welcome.

DM: David Marples is a history professor at the University of Alberta. CBC News is coming up next. But for that, I want to tell you what's coming up on Monday. We're only a few weeks away from back to school season. Yesterday, most provinces gave us a glimpse of what this big step is going to look like. Our new ongoing series No Easy Answers has been tackling all the ins and outs of getting back in the classroom. On Monday, we turn to E-learning. It was an essential solution to salvage last year. But can it be a permanent fixture of education or just a stopgap until we return to normal? So that's coming up on Monday after the news this morning. A conflict zone journalist turns her lens on intensive care units in the United Kingdom. I'm asDuncan McCue. Stick around. We'll be right back.

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What this Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer saw in ICUs fighting COVID-19

Guests: Lynsey Addario

DM: Hi, I'm Duncan McCue. And you're listening to The Current.

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Still to come, how dropping the myth that maths is hard won't just help kids learn, but could save the planet, quite literally. First from the war zone to the ICU.

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Every day, I know that this virus brings new sadness and mourning to households across the land.

DM: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after being released from hospital in the spring following his recovery from COVID-19. Johnson spent three nights in an intensive care unit where he thought he would die. Lynsey Addario is an award winning photojournalist for National Geographic. Usually she's in the middle of conflict zones or humanitarian disasters from Iraq and Afghanistan to Darfur and Libya. But her latest report includes rarely seen images from inside intensive care units in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lynsey Addario joins me now. Hello.

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Hello.

DM: Lynsey, you have spent a career jumping onto aeroplanes and racing off to frontlines all over the world, conflicts and catastrophes. This project, you decided to stay closer to home England where you live. When did you know you wanted to photograph inside Britain's intensive care units?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, it was interesting because, of course, when it became clear there was a global pandemic, I was looking at images coming out of Italy and New York and just sort of waiting to see images come out of the United Kingdom. I've been living in London for almost nine years now, and I have my family in London. I have two children and my husband. And so, first of all, I'm not used to working in a place where I live. Generally, I do jump on a plane. I go somewhere else. That is dangerous. And I don't have to worry about the safety of my family. So first and foremost, we decided where we would spend the lockdown and that was in the countryside in England, in West England. And immediately I knew I wanted to cover whatever I could. I wanted to cover the ICU unit, the COVID wards, because that seemed, of course, central to how to photograph the virus. But access was a real problem. So while I was making phone calls, I was also considering going to New York, where it is sort of the place that I lived most recently in the United States.

DM: You say access was a problem when you started requesting access to hospitals in March. How difficult was it?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: I mean, it was next to impossible, I started requesting access, I think, March 21st and I contacted six different hospitals, some through very personal contacts, some people who were familiar with my work, some who were not places that were very well known and respected in England. And all of the answers were respectful decline. There were some hospitals didn't even bother to answer, which was really interesting to me. And then some said for the safety of not only you journalists, but also the patients. And so there were a host of different reasons. And it wasn't until end of May when I was actually given access to my first hospital.

DM: You write that as a journalist, it kind of made you inherently suspicious that you were denied access. Why was it so important for you to document the pandemic from within the hospitals?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, I mean, first of all, it was important for me to document the pandemic because it is sort of an incredibly historical event of our time. And that is what I've dedicated my life to covering. And I think, you know, for me, it was important to show what the virus can do to the human body. And I think also there were a lot of people who were suspicious who were saying it's just like a flu. And. And so my job as a journalist is to document what exactly the virus looked like. And to me, the most obvious place was obviously a hospital. I was also seeing images coming out of Italy in York that showed ICU units piling up with people being treated in the hallways, in tents. And those were very important images that showed the toll and sort of the amount of people who were being affected. And so to me, that was a very important aspect to cover, and that's why I wanted to get into the hospital.

DM: So what was it like for you the first time you got to see the inside of a COVID-19 ICU? What kind of scene did you encounter?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, the so the NHS, which is a national health care service in a month, they did not allow me to go in while things were very hectic, while most of the wards in a specific hospital were being dedicated to COVDI patients. They were completely overwhelmed. I was not given permission, but I finally did get in at the end of May when things were calm and under control. But there still were some covered patients, but not too many. And so for me, it was incredible to get in just to see exactly what I just described. You know, people who were being kept alive by machines, people who were 50, 51, very young compared to sort of what we were hearing about who were the vulnerable people being on ECMO support, which is ECMO is a machine that's available in only five different hospitals in the United Kingdom. And it essentially does the job of the lungs for the human being where it extracts blood from the human body, takes all the carbon dioxide, puts an oxy and replaces it in the patients. So essentially, the patient can rest and recover from the illness while the asthma machine does the body of the job of the lungs. And to see a 50 year old who had been on ECMO support for almost three months was extraordinary. You know, it was terrifying.

DM: You do this remarkable job of capturing what's going on with the health care workers and I mean, what's it like to be in the same room with these high stakes operations going on Colvard patients with the health care workers?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: I mean, first of all, it's a you know, obviously it's a real privilege to be given access to this. You know, I think that it requires a fair amount of trust that I will be professional and that I will treat people with respect and dignity with not only my work, but also the health care workers who are in these very vulnerable situations. And so for me, it was extraordinary to watch them at work day in and day out. I mean, these are doctors and nurses who are treating every single patient as if it were a relative. There are five, six doctors and nurses require to treat each patient to do rounds to talk about the medication, any changes in medication and changes in a person's condition, pre-existing conditions. I mean, there's so much that goes into dealing with coronavirus. And I think to see this this team of people in each of the four hospitals I ended up visiting was amazing and also to see the way they helped deal with their mental state. You know, the mental state of each other and also of the patients they were treating, they had to be in tune to both the physical and the mental.

DM: You got rare access to many patients that were in the midst of treatment being treated for the coronavirus. One of them was it was William Ferguson. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Yes, William, 50 year old man, he was a doctor of chemistry. He was very healthy, according to his wife, had almost never been to the doctor. She was joking that when he fell ill with coronavirus, when asked for his medical records, she sort of laughed and said they didn't even have any because he had never been to, you know, he had never needed to go to the doctor or hospital. So his symptoms came on sort of over a period of five days, I think, before he eventually needed to go to the hospital. And he had been in there for 74 days on an ECMO machine. By the time I met him and photographed him, he was coherent. He was able to he was on a ventilator. So it was difficult, of course, for him to speak. But he was completely conscious. He was able to give consent. He was able to answer questions by blinking or nodding. So it was really amazing to be able to communicate with someone in an in critical care, someone who was able to sort of react and respond to me as a photographer, because that's also something that does help create an intimacy not only for the photographs, but for the viewer, you know, people who are seeing those images.

DM: And there's a lovely, I'll say, image of a nurse leaning over and speaking with William Ferguson. Tell me about that moment.

LYNSEY ADDARIO: So that is Josephine. She was one of the nurses at Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, and I had spent a total of probably eight hours in the critical care. And I had been there for about three hours. And it's as we've all heard it, it's pretty tiring with the PPE and and very restricting. And so I stepped out of his room for a minute, not only to sort of take a breather, but also to give him some personal space. And when I stepped out, I was sort of peeking through the curtain and I saw this beautiful moment of Josephine leaning in and speaking to him very sort of intimately and very personally. And so I took a few photographs and then I went into the room and I said, Josephine, what were you saying to him? And she said he looked really depressed and down today. And I wanted to make sure he was doing okay mentally. And to me, that just spoke volumes. You know, it really it showed me that these are nurses that are so, you know, they have so much to do in terms of physical care, cleaning the patient, taking care of them, making sure their tubes are changed everything. But they're also taking care of their mental state.

DM: You. Indeed, the mental state of the health care workers really comes through in your pictures. There's another picture where there's a physician on the phone with a patient's family. And it seems that he's wiping his face with the back of his wrist and perhaps crying. What was happening at that man?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: I sort of I've always wondered what those calls look like. And of course, before coronavirus, those conversations were in person. Right. So during coronavirus, the doctor has to do these very long and tense days. But then they also have to take time in the afternoon to call each family of a person in critical care in the ICU and just explain what's going on. And so this was a phone call to the family of a patient who was very critical and he wanted to ensure that the family understood just how bad the situation was. You know, just how severe she was. And so he was talking through it. And I think I'm not sure if he was wiping a tear, if he was wiping sweat. But he was it was very intense. And in that photograph, there's a line of doctors there, each making phone calls to a different family. And so that was also sort of what was extraordinary to me because I was focussed on his conversation. But each doctor was having a very similar conversation.

DM: Of course, the families aren't able to be there with their loved ones. So how are the health care workers coping with that? That extra emotional burden that they're carrying?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, I think that's exactly why that image of Josephine that we talked about is poignant because, you know, you have the medical staff essentially having to do the role also of a family member because no one is allowed in there. And so I think, you know, that's a huge burden on the medical staff as well. And this is not even you know, we haven't even spoken about their own trauma. You know, what they've witnessed during the height of the pandemic, when there were people in hallways, when there were people who were being, you know, dying routinely in front of them. And I think that the trauma, the residual trauma through this period hasn't even- I think most people haven't even begun to deal with that yet.

DM: The other thing we haven't spoken about, Lindsay, is, of course, the situation you were putting yourself in. I mean, what kind of challenges did putting on all of that PPE, that protective equipment pose for you as a photographer?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: I mean, I you know, I have covered war for 20 years. So throughout my career, I have you know, I have snuck into Taliban territory. I've had to wear a full burka and shoot through a burqa. I've worn a flak jacket, a helmet. I've worn sort of every possible sort of like disguise or outfit you can think of. And so for me, it wasn't that wasn't really the challenge. I mean, of course, really uncomfortable, as we know. But I, unlike the medical staff, I'm not doing 12 hour shifts day in and day out. So I certainly can't complain. I'm not getting, you know, sort of scars on my face. But I think it's challenging in that it it's cumbersome to wear all of that gear and to have my camera straps get caught in the face shield and not be able to take an image or miss very beautiful moments because simply, I can't just access my camera as fast as I'd like to is really, you know, that's frustrating. But I you know, I can't in this situation, it's not about me. It's about the safety of the patients. It's about just making sure everyone is safe, essentially.

DM: But I wonder about communication, though. I mean, when you're wearing all of that PPE, both for a health care worker or for a photographer, I mean, it's so important that people feel comfortable with you when you're a photographer. So how were you able to establish an intimacy when people can't really see your face or see smile?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Yes, I mean, that's a really good point. It's sort of took away all the tools I usually used to make people feel comfortable with me. Right. So usually I go in, I talk to people at length, I introduce myself, I explain what I'm working on. You know, I smile a lot. I'm a very friendly person and I think people feel comfortable with me. And I think when I'm wearing a mask or face shield, sometimes I was wearing goggles, hairnet, two layers of aprons, gloves, two layers of rubber gloves and shoe, shoe covers. I look like an alien. And so it's almost impossible for anyone to feel comfortable being approached by someone in that gear. So it was literally I had to defer to either the medical staff who would ask permission before I arrived, for example, at Royal Papworth, their team of nurses had asked permission on my behalf ahead of time, and which was great because I was able to get consent and know who I could focus on. But in other situations, you know, and other hospitals I was working in, I really just had to try and speak through all this gear. The other thing is people are low on oxygen. Obviously, if someone is in the hospital with coronavirus, they're having a hard time breathing. So the last thing I want to do is talk to them at length because I don't want to deprive them of any oxygen. So for me, it's really about being very succinct, saying, you know, introducing myself, saying this is for National Geographic. Sometimes I had to get a video release done. Well, actually, in every case, I had to get a video released done if it was someone whose face would be visible. And then just say, I don't want to make you tired. I don't want to make you speak too much. So I'm not going to talk to you. And it was very simple because I just didn't want to make anyone more tired.

DM: Unlike other conflict zones that you've been in, where you're at personal risk in this sense, you're also possibly putting others at risk if you had gotten infected. How much were you worried about that?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, I got tested about every 10 days to two weeks throughout the entire time I was working, and I was very careful. My contact with people was very limited outside of work. And I wore full PPE when I was in any of these situations, just like a medical staff. And when I was on the street on my way anywhere, I also was wearing a mask all the time. And I had one driver that I worked with who had plastic sheeting completely separating the front and back of the car. And we still drove with all the windows down. So I took a lot of precaution. I had an entire system of decontaminating not only my gear, but my clothes, both at the hospital. I would wear scrubs when I arrived. But at the hospital bleaching and everything. And then also when I got home, there was a red zone in my house where I decontaminated everything again.

DM: You got access Lyndsey's to some incredible moments of intimacy. I mean, moments of death. And you've continued this journey. I mean, you've gone on from these photos that you took in the U.K. You've gone on to cover coronavirus and other ICUs in the United States, for example. So so why do you think it's so important for the world to see these images?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, because I think a lot of people are just still not taking it seriously. And I think, you know, young people think they're invincible. And many people fail to realise they live with other people or they come in contact with vulnerable people every day without knowing it. I mean, you can't make a judgement call that just because someone doesn't look old or not vulnerable. People have illnesses that are not visible. And so I think it's really important for people to see how coronavirus can really ravage the human body, that we are all responsible not only for looking out for ourselves, but for others. I think it's important not to be selfish at this time to wear masks to prevent other people from whatever you yourself might be carrying. You know, for me. One of the reasons why I was getting tested so often is because I didn't want to infect anyone else. I was so worried about it that I just got tested all the time. I paid for those tests. I did it privately. I didn't want to do it at the expense of the NHS. But it was important for me to make sure I wasn't infecting other people.

DM: You're really trying to raise awareness and about the severity of the coronavirus. I wonder what kind of impact does the project had on you?

LYNSEY ADDARIO: I mean, I guess it was surprising to me sort of where, you know, we had so much advance knowledge about what was happening because we were looking at China first and then in Europe we were looking at Italy. And Italy was amazing in terms of allowing journalists and allowing the public to see what it looked like, in order to sort of help other countries take the right measures to prevent it from happening there. And I think people and governments just didn't really think it would happen and unroll the way that it is. And it did. I think it is important to have awareness. It is important to take these measures because this can come back. There still is no vaccination. So this is something that governments and people need to take seriously. When there is a lockdown, they need to respect it. When they feel ill, when they have a fever, they need to stay home. I mean, these are things that, you know, the toll on me is really just it's in line with the work that I've been doing for so long. I mean, unfortunately, for the last 20 years, I have been photographing people passing away. I've been photographing incredibly vulnerable people. So it's not something I'm unfamiliar with. But, you know, it is surprising that it happened in the United Kingdom and in the United States after we had so much advance notice.

DM: Thank you for your work and thank you for telling us about it today.

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Thank you so much. Thank you.

DM: Lynsey Addario is a National Geographic photographer. Her books include It's What I Do and of Love and War. Very sobering pictures. You can see some of Lindsay's pictures, including the ones we've discussed on our Web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[Music]

This song is a bittersweet by Lianne La Havas from her new self-titled third album. The British singer says the record is inspired by, quote, the life cycle of nature and its ability to thrive. Go away and come back stronger, which seems pretty fitting these days.

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[Song: Bittersweet by Lianne La Havas].

DM: Bittersweet by Lianne La Havas. Coming up after the original update, debunking the myth that maths is hard. Plus, a special celebration of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham. I'm Duncan McCue. The Current is back in 90 seconds.

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Green Eggs and Ham is 60 years old. It started as a $50 bet between Dr. Seuss and his publisher

DM: I'm Duncan McCue, and you're listening to The Current. 60 years ago this week, a book was published that changed the way kids learn to read. Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham went on to sell over eight million copies. But the book wasn't simply the product of Dr. Seuss's imagination. It came out of a bet between the author and his publisher. That all started with another iconic children's book with the full story, here's Dr. Seuss biographer Brian Jay Jones.

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BRIAN JAY JONES: On the pages of Life magazine, the novelist John Hersey was sort of wringing his hands, wondering why children can't read. Why are you reading scores down? Why aren't children reading books? Why aren't they interested? And his conclusion was that the Dick and Jane reading primers were terrible.

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READING VOICE: This one's called family fun. See it go. Look, said Dick.

READING VOICE: They were boring. That Dick and Jane Leidy's lives of quiet desperation, that the art was really, really uninteresting.

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READING VOICE: And there's the aeroplane going up.

BRIAN JAY JONES: And at the very least, Hersey says at the end of his article couldn't even get maybe Walt Disney or Dr. Seuss to illustrate one of these terrible stories. An editor named William Spalding called Dr. Seuss. And he said, I love this idea and I want you, Dr. Seuss, to write me a book that a first grader can't put down. But the catch he's got here and the problem Seuss was going to have is even though Dick and Jane were awful, Dick and Jane actually have a pedagogy behind them. They are using an educator approved wordlist. So Dr. Seuss promises Spaulding that he will play with this. And play with it he did. He stares at that list for about a year. Finally, what he said is I was going to throw it across the room but decided to look through it one more time. And the first two words I found that rhymed, that was going to be my title and my main character.

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[Music]

CHILD: So all we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit. And we did not like it. Not one little bit.

BRIAN JAY JONES: And that sort of gets him started. But it takes him another year to write the book that eventually comes The Cat in the Hat.

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CHILD: Then we saw him stepping on the mat. He looked, and we saw him; the cat in the hat and he said to us.

CAT IN THE HAT: Why do you sit there like that? I know with his wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun. That is funny.

DM: That book becomes a huge success. But remember, a Dr. Seuss had a list of more than 200 words to choose from for The Cat in the Hat. His publisher, Bennett Cerf, had an even bigger challenge for Dr. Seuss.

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BRIAN JAY JONES: Smart guy, can you write me a book using only 50 of those? I'll bet your 50 dollars you can't. Well, challenge accepted by Seuss, but it was agony. He ends up putting maps up on the wall of his vocabulary words and his flow charts. It's a maths problem from him part of the time and really agonises over this book. So it's no wonder that the ultimate plot of this book is about convincing someone to do something they didn't really want to do. Seuss had a really hard time with this book.

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VOICE 1: You do not like green eggs and ham?

VOICE 2: I do not like them, Sam. I am. Could you. Would you. With a go.

[Children laughing]

BRIAN JAY JONES: Dr. Seuss was a crusader for children, for children's reading. Seuss thought kids deserved great books. He thought they deserved books that they wanted to read. Now, the book that a Grown-Up thought they should be reading. He said that was the worst thing you could do to a kid, was hand them a book you thought they should read. He called those bunny bunny bunny books. Dr. Seuss was all about plot, about keeping the story moving forward. And in Green Eggs and Ham, he is doing that from page to page as Sam is tormenting this poor guy to try to get him to try green eggs and ham. I think that's part of the appeal that that book for kids is, you know, what little kid hasn't wanted to eat their green beans and their parents are trying to get green beans.

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VOICE 1: Try them and you may. Try them and you may, I say.

VOICE 2: Sam, if you will let me be, I will try them. You will see.

BRIAN JAY JONES: But what he said about green eggs and ham, more than anything is said, you know, people try to read metaphore into this. They try to read hidden meaning into green eggs and ham. What I was doing with green eggs and ham is Bennett Cerf bet me I couldn't write a book using 50 words or less. And I wanted to show him that I could. So I think he was proud of the accomplishments. I think he was pleased that the book ended up selling so well. But, you know, he sort of wrote that and moved on. It's not a book that he waxed rhapsodically on for the rest of his life. He was very pleased that he did with it what he set out to do. And the kids loved it. That to him was always the most important thing, was that those young leaders loved it and were reading.

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VOICE 1: I do so like green eggs and ham.

VOICE 2: Thank you. Thank you, Sam. I am. Thank you very much.

CHILD: That was Brian J. Jones with the story of Green Eggs and Ham. The book was published 60 years ago this week. Jones is the author of Becoming Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel in the Making of an American Imagination.

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When 'math is accessible to any brain,' we can make better political, social choices, says mathematician

Guest: John Mighton

Let's shift gears from reading to maths. John Mighton says anyone can be good at maths. He is the founder of Jump Maths. It stands for junior undiscovered maths prodigies. His new book is called All Things Being Equal: Why Maths is the Key to a Better World. He joined The Current host Matt Galloway in January. And Matt doesn't fancy himself a terribly good maths student. Here's their conversation.

MG: John Mighton, good morning.

JOHN MIGHTON: Good morning.

MG: I can be good at math? Really?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. If you gave me a couple hours, I think you'd believe that.

MG: Really?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah.

MG: Why do you believe that anyone can be good at math?

JOHN MIGHTON: There's a couple of reasons. I mean, there's a lot of new research now in cognitive science that suggests that maths is different from other subjects. And I can get into that in more depth. But it's more accessible to the human brain than other subjects. And that's surprising to a lot of people. Another reason is, I mean, I've seen this. I've seen students who struggle, succeed over and over. So one of my first students was a remedial grade 6 student whose mom was told he could never learn maths and he was afraid of the subjects years behind. Last year, we went out to celebrate the fact that he's now a fully tenured maths professor. Why? Yeah. So I've seen radical changes in the brain in people who learn maths, and I actually struggled myself and I've seen those changes in myself.

MG: You said that you write this in the book that you didn't show an aptitude for math until you were 30 years old.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, about 30.

MG: So what was happening before that?

JOHN MIGHTON: You know the research suggests you can't get really good at something unless you practice efficiently. And I was afraid to practice or, you know, make too much of an effort because I was afraid of meeting my limits. I had a very fixed mindset. I thought you had to be born with ability to do well. And I really didn't want to find what my limitations were. So I didn't work hard enough. Sometimes I'd do well, but then I'd do terribly. I think a lot of people are like that. They won't make the effort because they're afraid that they will discover that they don't have the ability.

MG: What changed when you became 30 years old?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, it was a series of accidents. I mean, I'm a playwright and I was struggling as a playwright in the beginning and saw I notice in a you know, at a job office for a maths tutor. I thought, well, maybe I could tutor Grade 6 or work, because at that point I was reading a lot of science and I was getting more interested in maths. I thought maybe I could tutor at a low level. And I started doing that. And it was a revelation to me that by explaining the maths and working at it over and over at my own pace, things that were mysterious to me became easier and easier.

MG: You said something at the beginning of this that's interesting. You said that math is easier than other subjects. The assumption from a lot of people is that math is one of the harder subjects at school.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, and that's the case I make in the book. We have to we have to drop that myth because at all levels from early childhood development right up to brain scans of mathematicians, the research is suggesting that maths is accessible to any brain. So I'll give you an example that had brain scans of mathematicians a couple of years ago and they thought they were using very high level semantic processing, complex linguistic areas of the brain. They got a surprise. They found mathematicians are using the same very primitive part of the brain that has the same sense of space, a number that kindergarten kids do. And I could have told you that because mathematicians proved 100 years ago that all maths can be reduced to very simple concepts or steps that anyone can understand.

MG: So if that's the case, why is it that so many of us think we're bad at math? We have this idea it's difficult. I couldn't do it. And when you are faced, if you're a parent with your child's homework, you throw your hands up often in the air because you don't know what they're doing and you assume that that you couldn't wrap your head around. So why is that the case?

JOHN MIGHTON: I think there's a couple reasons. One is maths is more like a ladder than other subjects. You know, if you miss something, it's very hard to go on. And unfortunately, teachers are my heroes. They've been responsible for the growth of jump maths. But teachers are sometimes asked to do things that aren't really well supported by evidence in the science of learning. So, you know, for example, if you want kids to become great problem solvers, which we which I do and we do it jump, you might think we'll start with the complex multi-step problems, but that's not a very efficient way to learn. It's better to start with more gradually, with more scaffolding problems and where you develop the basic skills and concepts and work your way up.

MG: What happens if you miss one of those steps on the ladder? If you're in school and you point to grade 3 as a key step in in that maths ladder that you need to be on, and if you miss that step, things happen. So what happens if you miss the step?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, a couple of things. If you start to miss some of the foundational concepts, you simply can't think or solve problems. You can't see the deep structural problems. You can't developmental representations. If you've missed foundational concepts. But the other thing that I think is really overlooked, there's research that suggests as early as grade one, kids know where they are in the hierarchy. They know if they're in the very group, you know, anthropologists call human status seeking primates. If we're good at one thing, it's knowing where we are in a pecking order. And there's research that suggests as early as grade one, no matter how good a teacher is, a child knows that. They have different expectations for them. And so if not everyone could learn bath. You might think, well, those kids are going to have to adapt to being new in the inferior group. But if, as the research suggests, everyone could learn maths, then we couldn't have devised a better way of shutting down the brain. Because once you decide you're in the inferior group, you stop engaging working. You stop remembering things. Eventually you develop anxieties by grade 3 or grade 4 and it makes it very hard for your brain to work.

MG: And so what's happening specifically in Grade 3? In that year of learning and learning about math, what's going on?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, I think that's where all of the foundations for later problem solving are stylish or most of them, I mean, especially in multiplication and division, understanding, beginning to understand patterns and even the foundations of algebra. A lot happens in Grade 3 and I think also around that age, kids really start deciding whether they're going to engage in math or not.

MG: You write about the pride that we often have in math illiteracy. What drives you around the bend when it comes to people championing the fact that they aren't good at math?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, I mean, first of all, it flies in the face of science because everyone, even adults, it's never too late to learn maths. And if you have a good teacher who can lay down the foundations for you and scaffold the learning into steps, you can manage or unravel the concepts in the thread, you can understand, then anyone can move forward. So that drives me crazy. But it's also, you know, no one would say I'm not literature or I can't read. They wouldn't be out about exactly because we understand how important reading is. And I don't think people understand how important mathematics is. And that's one of the arguments are making in the book at every level in our society math is much more important than people think.

MG: Tell me about JUMP Math. You mentioned you're a playwright. You did a little bit of tutoring, struggled with your understanding of how good you could be in maths until the age of 30. What is JUMP Math?

JOHN MIGHTON: I eventually went back to school and got a doctorate in math and when I was finishing I thought I should give something back to my local community. So I started a tutoring club in my apartment. And at first we were helping very challenged kids. I had a girl arrive the first day who literally couldn't count by twos, was working about a grade one level in grade six, and three years later she went into academic grade nine maths and then skipped a year. So began to think that maths was this tool for equity, for really closing the gap between students and almost rewiring the brain. And then teachers eventually invited us to come into the classroom. And I got another surprise because I'm a playwright. I thought of the class as an audience. And the only advantage we have of putting kids in a group is they'll never get more excited together. Durkheim calls it collective effervescence when we all feel a sense of wonder or curiosity together and I saw that happening in these classrooms and I realized it was far more efficient to teach kids in group than one on one tutoring because that group excitement allows the brand to work much more efficiently. And I think I see kids asking to stay for recess to to do maths. I just couldn't believe how excited they got together. And that's one of the tragedies when we think that kids are very different in maths, that we have to differentiate widely between kids because we don't get that group effect. And if teachers are allowed to use evidence based methods of instruction, they can close the gap very quickly and then take advantage of that excitement that comes with the groups.

MG: You've said this a couple of times. Evidence based methods of instruction. What are those evidence based methods and how are they different perhaps than what's being taught in the classroom now or how it's being taught?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, there's evidence, for instance, that suggests that kids can easily get overwhelmed by too much information, whether it's in words or pictures. Sometimes if your pictures are too complex and they don't highlight what you want the kids to see, they can be very distracting and kids don't see it. But we often pick resources that are very cluttered or full of cartoons or complex diagrams. So that's one example. Another is that the research suggests that we learn best through efficient practice and we need practice all the research on expertise. And this isn't just about jump maths or me. This is well established beyond my experience or my opinions. We can't we can't become experts without practice, but the practice has to be efficient. So what does that mean? Well, for example, if you want to learn chess, you might think, well, just play chess over and over again, because that's the goal. That's what I want to get to. But it turns out that's not a great way to learn. It's better to start with many games with a few pieces that have been well designed to draw your attention, say, to a pattern or the weakness of a position. And if kids are directed and play those games, it's not like they're learning in a rote way. They're struggling. They're solving problems, but they're within the zone that they can handle and work efficiently. And they eventually developmental representations where they can look at a positions home that's I'm not even going to try that. So there they become much more efficient thinkers. And that's the way they become great problem solvers. It's not by playing the full game. And so in maths, if you want kids to solve EQAO style problems.

MG: That's the standardized test here in Ontario.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, that's the Ontario standardized test or any kind of state or provincial tests. People think, well, let's start with the test questions and just get the kids to do those, but unfortunately, though, if the learning isn't well, scaffold and efficient then the kids just give up. They don't learn efficiently and they never want to see a test problem again. But we've shown in JUMP that you can scaffold the learning so that they become independent problem solvers and confident problem solvers.

MG: At the risk of talking about numbers on the radio, can you give me an example of this? I mean, a simple example that would help people understand what that efficient repetition would look like.

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, I can give example. It might be a bit of a risk because a lot of people don't understand if you divide six by a half, right? A lot of people don't understand why you flip the fraction over and multiply. And I once asked about 700 teachers why you could do that and someone yelled out because you get the right answer. Sometimes teachers even say we'd like a good explanation.

MG: So, I mean, if you take number six and then divide it by a half as a fraction.

JOHN MIGHTON: Most people think that means give me half the chocolate bar doesn't mean give me half the chocolate bar. If you had six pieces of chocolate, let's say, and you divide it by half, if you had six pieces of chocolate and you divide it by two, one interpretation of that is make groups of size two, give everybody two pieces. And if you had six, I hope you can see everyone would get, you could divide it among three people because you've got two pieces, two pieces. I hope that's okay. I know you're a bit phobic about math.

MG: Oh, no, no, no. But this is fun because you're teaching me something.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, okay. Now, what if it was six divided by one? That's a kind of strange thing to do, but you're dividing it into pieces of size one, like so you'd have six pieces you could give away. So if it's six divided by a half, you could actually break every piece into two, I hope you can see that. So if you did that for all six pieces, can you imagine how many pieces you'd have?

MG: You'd have 12 pieces.

JOHN MIGHTON: Oh, my God. Brilliant.

MG: Matt Galloway called brilliant in mathematics. That should be written down.

JOHN MIGHTON: So imagine how proud you feel if you're in a class of kids and you feel you can't do maths and suddenly you're allowed to answer a question like that. And then I could challenge I say, what if you divide by a third? How many pieces could you cut every piece into?

MG: 18.

JOHN MIGHTON: Oh, my God. You jumped right to the answer. I was just expecting three. Yeah. But 18, you'd have 18 pieces. And then the other thing is the psychology of learning is critical. So if you were one of my students, I'd say, now I'm going to really challenge you. I'm going to give you a question I can't even draw. What if it was six divided by one over a hundred? How many? You know, how many pieces would you have?

MG: 600.

JOHN MIGHTON: Right. Exactly. Because there's 100 pieces in each.

MG: Because you'd flip it over and multiply.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. And that's why you'd flip the bottom and multiply it. Now look how quickly that happened. And a lot of people enter grade seven, eight and they never come out understanding why you'd flip. If I had an hour I could teach you it in full depth in all different situations and so on. So why are kids arriving in high school without any understanding of something that's absolutely trivial? That's the question.

MG: That sense of anxiety is a real thing for people. That sense of anxiety around math. And it's not just not understanding, it's that the idea of looking at some of the problems that are in this book would make them physically sick.

JOHN MIGHTON: That's why I was afraid even to do that with you, because it's much easier if I can draw it and the anxiety shuts down the brain. So if you get nervous for a second, you can't think anymore. So I'm glad you survived that exercise. But, you know, imagine if you're working with a kid and you can actually draw it and you can lead them gradually. You know, a lot of people think if you lead in manageable chunks or steps like that then it's rote. It's not rote. That's where the brain works most efficiently. We can only handle one or two variations at a time. And the research is very clear on that. If I if I if I jumped ahead to now, what if not the on the top of the fraction isn't one anymore. What if it's two. I could have overwhelmed you easily and made you anxious and so that's the key is keeping the student in a zone that they can be confident and think.

MG: Why isn't that being taught in schools then? Why is it that often, whether it's in grade 3 or later grades, that students will feel that anxiety, feel overwhelmed? And if they can afford it, their parents will figure out some alternate solution like tutoring to put the child into so that they can get caught up.

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, I think there's two reasons. I think that the science of learning is just beginning to make its way into the school system. And I think that until recently when people adopt programs like districts adopt programs, they don't have to look at the research behind it. I mean, jump maths, participate in a very large randomized controlled trial in which we showed that kids can progressed more quickly on problem solving because we think that resources should be tested rigorously before they go into the school system. And so teachers are my absolute heroes. I don't even know how they survive in the classroom when they're often having to do things that create these hierarchies or gaps. So teachers need access to this research and to evidence based resources and it will make teachers lives much more easier.

MG: What happens if people aren't learning and they outsource some of that education to you know, the tutoring industry? Do you worry about that?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah, I worry deeply about the tutoring industry. It's a booming industry and I think it's masking problems. There's less impetus in the school system to adopt evidence based methods because of the tutoring industry and also, it's very inequitable. And the whole theme of my book is about equity that we can easily establish, you know, intellectual equity if we really taught kids according to their full potential.

MG: What is intellectual equity?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, it's always been a mystery to me why our society, with all our wealth and knowledge, has had so much trouble eradicating material poverty. And I argue in the book that one of the reasons is we've missed a deep root cause, which I call intellectual inequality. To give you an example, we did a case study in a private school once where when we tested the kids coming to Grade 5, there was a three grade level difference between the top and the bottom. And the average mark was in the 50 fourth percent on these test centre tests when the teacher tried to equalize the classroom, made all the kids feel they could succeed, made them feel equal. And this was reported in York Times a year later. The lowest mark was in the 90 fifth percentile on the average in the 98. So that's what I mean about intellectual poverty. Even in private schools, you can see a three grade level difference between top and bottom students as early as grade five. We could eradicate that in a matter of years as we showed in that case study.

MG: The title of your book is Why Math is the Key to a Better World. What is that better world that can come out of people knowing more and understanding more about mathematics?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, it's a complicated question. But one thing is, you know, when you learn maths, you learn all kinds of things that transfer to every hour of your life. So you learn to think logically, to create arguments, to look for hidden presuppositions, to see patterns, make, you know, make inferences. But you also learn about risk and probability. So we had a financial crisis because people didn't understand what would happen if their mortgage rates went up slightly. And we have an environmental crisis because people can't add up the consequences of their actions because we're so afraid of maths or numbers. So that's one area where we really suffer as a society is, you know, people think it's not that important if they're numerate or not. It's not just about handling numbers. It's about being able to think deeply and having the confidence in yourself to think deeply.

MG: You give an example of a politician who is talking about the jobless rate in the United States. You walk us through that and how had we understood the numbers better, we would have and people would've been able to make better choices.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. Now, I can't remember the exact numbers, but this politician claimed it was something like 95 million people were looking for work. And the population of the U.S. is around 300 million is a little more than that. So that would be about a third of the U.S. population. And if you look at the working population, it would be about a half. So there'd be about maybe 200 million people of working age and close to 100 million the politician is claiming are looking for work. That's about a 50 percent unemployment. And, you know, when I saw those numbers, I thought that can't possibly be right because I could do an estimate. But very few media, let's call the politician on that claim. It just passed by. And that's a tragedy. I think within a few weeks, most adults could develop the skills they need to be able to think their way through some of those arguments.

MG: You say a couple of things about politics in this. One is that if people want to run for office, they should have knowledge of maths.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. I mean, we'd have a much healthier society if people couldn't didn't immediately seize on the first explanation of an event. If they were trained in probability, they'd learn to consider all the possibilities. If they had a basic sense of numbers, they could recognize mistakes like the one I talked about. And more deeply, if people were confident in their problem solving abilities, they would actually think deeply about the problems before they arrived at an opinion even.

MG: You also say that maths is the one area of discourse where it's impossible to create fake news. Is that just because, as they say, the numbers don't lie?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. Because everything in maths can be reduced to principles that everyone can agree on. I mean, in very high levels of maths, sometimes there's more debate. But in the kind of maths we would use in ordinary life, people could agree very quickly and we'd have much healthier political debates.

MG: You believe that? I mean, given how nasty the political tone of the debate is right now, you think that there would be a healthier debate if people were able to understand the numbers better?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yes, because I think that they would be much more dispassionate. If they learned to create arguments in maths, they would realize they have to think through every possibility before they seize on one. They would also have more respect for science. And you know, if 98 percent of the engineers in the town said this bridge is going to collapse, you wouldn't put your kids in a car and drive over it, even if two percent said it won't collapse. We know that we would respect those. Nears and think there's a risk there. But with climate change, 98 percent of the scientists on earth can say we're at risk and people argue, well, because two percent say we're not, we don't need to do anything.

MG: I guess, do you worry that, you know, somebody could manipulate statistics, for example, that they could lead people, the numbers might be right, but the way that they're treated, the way that they're spun, could lead people down a different path?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yes. And that's why that can happen, but that's why I think we need to respect scientists more. You know, if there's a radical claim being made or there's a claim that's about something is very important to the whole world, you would want to look at bodies of experts who actually know the statistics and trust that they can give you a clear answer.

MG: Part of that better world that you're also hinting at is comes through the idea of wonder. And what kids have and what we olds don't have anymore. What is that sense of wondering and why is it so powerful?

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah. When I think of both the losses we face as a society by not educating kids according to their full potential. We all know the economic losses and even maybe the risk to our political systems. But I think the deepest loss comes because we don't really keep us alive. The sense of wonder and curiosity that kids are born with. And once I taught this behavioural class of very violent students and I taught them how to read binary codes and they went nuts, they thought their little code breakers. And then at the end, they did a magic trick that's connected to the code. Now I want to come up and do it. And on the third lesson like that, these kids who were thought to be unteachable cheered when we came in. Jerry, when he walked into the classroom, they cheered because they were so excited to be solving problems, to be meeting challenges in front of their peers.

MG: What did that tell you?

JOHN MIGHTON: It breaks my heart because I've been seeing this kind of thing for 20 years. It tells me there's just as inestimable potential in children, not only for learning, but for a sense of wonder and curiosity that will drive them to ask to say for recess to do to solve more puzzles. We all want to meet challenges, solve puzzles, exercise every part of our brain, and we lose that sense of efficacy and curiosity through failure. Every year, kids are told this is an important topic. Your parents think it's important. Your teachers think it's important, but you can't learn it. What does that do to people? The kind of sense of learned helplessness we develop through years of failure. You know, we think kids would be stunted if they couldn't see any beauty in a mountain or a star, but the vast majority of people graduate from high school not being able to see any beauty in the invisible structure of the world in incredibly elegant and beautiful world that you can only see through mathematics. And that's a great tragedy for me. Kids enjoyed doing maths as much as sports, playing sports or creating art, if they're allowed to succeed.

MG: If they're allowed to succeed.

JOHN MIGHTON: Exactly.

MG: You were in the film Good Will Hunting.

JOHN MIGHTON: Yeah.

MG: And you had a line in Good Will Hunting, but you added something to the line in Good Will Hunting. What did what did you say in that film? Because it speaks to this idea of kids being allowed to succeed.

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, the writers of the film were very generous. They let me say most people never get to see how brilliant they can be. They don't find teachers who believe in them. They get convinced they're stupid. And that's not a criticism of teachers, because teachers want to help every child. They need to be enabled to do that in mathematics.

MG: It's a really powerful message. For people who are listening and they might have the anxiety around math, they worry that they couldn't learn this or they worry that they couldn't help their kids learn this. What would you say to them? I mean, where do they start?

JOHN MIGHTON: Well, I think read about the research. Encourage your kids. If your child doesn't understand something you're saying, ask is it because I'm not explaining it well. And teachers can do the same thing. Like if you assume that every child could learn math, then is the problem with the student or your lesson? Could you actually equalize the classroom? Could you scaffold more to get every kid understanding things? Parents or teachers. Start with the assumption that if a child's not learning, they can and you have to do something to make that happen.

MG: I appreciate the lesson this morning. I will say, I mean, in reading this book, as somebody who has had anxiety around mathematics and that was the lowest mark that I ever received in school, I was wondering whether I would find myself scrambled by some of the things that are in here. But that idea that you, if you do it gradually, you can learn is a really powerful one. John, thank you.

JOHN MIGHTON: Thank you very much.

DM: John Mighton is the founder of JUMP Math. He spoke to Matt Galloway in January.

That's our program for today.

Earlier you heard about a special anniversary underway...

Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham turned 60 this week.

And I know I may sound like a geek...

But in the spirit of the master of rhyme

And before we run out of time

I'm Duncan McCue

And I say to you

The Current will be back in a few

But first, it's time for q!

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Friday August 14, 2020 Full Transcript

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