Did you know that the infamous math movie Mean Girls was actually inspired by Rosalind Wiseman’s non-fiction book called Queen Bees and Wannabes? Today Vanessa talks to Rosalind about why we need to change the media and messaging that girls get about how it’s not “cool” to be good at math. How can we teach students that they can be good at more than one thing? How can we help them embrace who they are individually in the face of the completely insane pressures of high school!?!  Well, don’t despair; Rosalind has a whole career’s worth of inspiring answers to those questions, and provides hope that we can fix our messed up education system.

About Rosalind

Rosalind Wiseman is the founder of Cultures of Dignity, an organization that shifts the way communities think about our physical and emotional wellbeing by working in close partnership with the experts of those communities–young people, educators, policy makers, and business and political leaders.  She is the author of multiple New York Times Best Sellers including Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World, and is also a co-author of the Distance Learning Playbook for Parents: How to Support Your Child’s Academic, Emotional and Social Learning in Any Setting and the Owning Up Curriculum, a comprehensive social and emotional learning program for grades 4-12 which is in widespread use across the world.

Show notes:

• Pre-order Rosalind’s new book co-written with Shanterra McBride: Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Important, Brave, Life-Changing Conversations about Race and Racism: 20 Questions and Answers for Becoming a Better Advocate
• The article that Vanessa wrote with Michole Washington about police brutality techniques used in math class 

Connect with us:

• Rosalind Wiseman: (Twitter, Insta)
• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)