Sunil Singh was a high school Math and Physics teacher for 19 years before he quit teaching in the classroom in 2013. He had worked in diverse situations such as a socioeconomically challenging inner-city school in Toronto and at a prestigious International Baccalaureate (IB) School in Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Sunil’s vast experience teaching Math in every setting imaginable has helped him become a leader in creative math education in North America. Since 2005, he has led over 50 workshops on kindergarten to grade 12 mathematics at various locations—math conferences, faculties of education, and even the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In addition to having been a regular contributor to the New York Times “Numberplay” section, Sunil works full time as a math specialist at Scolab, a digital math resource company in Montreal, Canada. As well, he travels all over North America as a speaker and promoting Family Math Nights in local communities. He is a Lead Ambassador for the Global Math Project and his ambassador designation is helping him communicate the beauty and happiness of mathematics throughout the world. Sunil is the author of Pi of Life: The Hidden Happiness of Mathematics.
When Sunil and I began speaking, I had to ask him about a particular post on Twitter that garnered my attention, among the many other things he has written. It was a quote by Paul Lockhart, “Mathematics is not a language, it’s an adventure.” In his opening for Family Math Nights, Sunil asks people how old they think he was when he learned to love math, but he answers them that his love of math began in his 40’s. “I was always good at math...I got good marks...but my favourite subject in school was History.” Sunil went on to talk a bit about Mr. Scott’s History class. “When I finally started seeing math through an historical lens, through a human lens, that is when I started to love mathematics.” Sunil describe math as a rabbit hole when you get to a state of euphoria with it. He added, “The history of mathematics is all about failure...success is punctuated at the end...What is neglected is all the hard and toil, blind alleys and locked doors, the tripping the stumbling, the giving up...The dedication required to keep pursuing and to be resilient is a great tribute to the resilience of the human spirit to go into the abstract ideas…” Sunil asserted that children need space and time to learn math, among other things, which will be the focus of his new book Math Recess. Sunil exemplifies math as adventure.
Sunil had been scrolling through the 13,000 songs, on just his iPhone, in preparation for his guest appearance on the Personal Playlist Podcast. His nostalgic song is one he refers to as hauntingly romantic. He said, “It took me until recently to unpack what this song is making me feel.” He encouraged people to listen beyond the bridge at the end, where the lyrics are: Wandering through the endless streets, nobody has where I’ve been, nobody has seen what I’ve done- nada one.” Singh added that, “There’s a lovely quote by Simone Wail where she said Every voice cries out silently to be read differently. We are all searching for connection. This is what music does; it becomes part of your family of experiences.” While Sunil says that the band has been rightly known for hits like Crazy On You, and Barracuda, to name a few, this song is usually the number one song cited by its most devoted fans--including himself. “When I hear the song, it makes me nostalgic for really my whole life...how a song can overwhelm and haunt you (in a good way) and the power of music.” Here is Nada One by Heart:
This hard rock band’s song is Sunil’s choice for his identity song because of the artist and the lyrics. The artist himself has impacted him deeply, and he almost chose all three songs for his P3 by Chris Cornell, the former lead singer of Soundgarden. “His death last year...I did not think but I should have understood how deep of an impact that would be...When that voice is taken, suddenly, tragically, and through this depression that is also part of our society, it makes you really reflect on what is the core of yourself.” He chose this song, as well, because it’s about fatherhood. The love that Sunil expressed he has for his children punctuated his unpacking of the song. He said, “There is something important there for me to being a wonderful father.” While he said that, it was as if he had a realization that all of his closest friends are good fathers, too. He shared that Chris Cornell was an amazing father adding, “He gave his blood, his love and, in the end, yes, he lost to depression...the songs that he made and this one... one of lines from the song- Let your heart keep time and let all your tomorrows shine, he’s talking about his children to have these wonderful tomorrows because he knows, deep down inside, that he may not be there [forever].” Here is Audioslave’s Dandelion:
When beginning to discuss Sunil’s pick-me-up song, I referred to something he had posted with the lyrics. He explained it saying it’s about, “...throwing mathematics back into the sea.
Sometimes we have a narrow focus of rigid curriculum, and you’ve got to follow this river with narrow tributaries, and you have no choice of where to go.” Now untethered from the constraints of the classroom and curriculum, Sunil made the comparison to a scene from the film Shawshank Redemption in relation to his liberation. “This song represents my pick-me-up because every time I hear it, whether I’m in the car with the windows rolled down, headphones, before I go to sleep, I’m inspired because of where I am and where I was.” This energetic and inspiring song, as described by Singh, is one that makes him literally want to run to the oceans and throw his hands up in celebration of his unshackling. Here is The Waterboys with This is the Sea:
At the very beginning of the show, Sunil said that he anticipated his experience to be a discussion that is “flowing and filtered and free through music.” Whether you are an audiophile, have only a few songs in your life’s story or have always just had an affinity to to it, music is powerful, and this show really helps to communicate a lot about a person in a short time. Sunil explained, “Music connects people who may not be connected; [it’s] a binding force, and we need to share how music affects us.” He observed that sharing even a little bit of the guest’s songs and story was, “...enough to create an intimacy in 30 minutes of conversation,” referring to the playlist as wonderful nuggets to get to know people. If you want to get to know more about Sunil or connect with him, Twitter is the best place to begin. He just presented Learning Math in the Age of Disruption for MADPD and left for New York to present at The National Museum of Mathematics a few days after the recording. You can follow Sunil’s adventures across North America as he helps show people “the hidden happiness of Mathematics.”
