To be honest Victoria, I cringed as I read this because I wondered how many students our system had short-changed, my daughter included.

The trouble with 'the system' we labour under as teachers, is there is no time to find another pathway, a social way of solving a problem as Brandon did.

My husband was a mathematician, later doing a PhD in artificial intelligence.

On the occasion when our daughter solicited help, he would wax lyrical about ... and this means ... and I'd see her eyes glaze over.

To this day she'd say she isn't good at maths. What she was good at was shutting off from something that held no meaning for her.

Today, as an adult, she tackles all problems successfully with a big-picture approach ... but she's still not good at maths. 😀