I wish Francis Su had been my third-grade math teacher

My instinct when I first saw Mathematics for Human Flour­ish­ing was avoidance. “I’ve never been very good at math,” I told myself.

My math insecurity goes all the way back to Mrs. Vinneycombe, my third-grade teacher in Australia, where I was born and raised. We were launching into the deep water of long division and more complicated multiplication, and I was out of my depth. My incomprehension was incomprehensible to Mrs. Vinney­combe. She decided it was sink or swim time. She brought me up to the front of the class and had me stand immediately next to where she was seated at her desk—well within her reach.

I was to perform my math problems right there at her desk. Every time I failed to figure out the problem before me, she would whack me across the back of my legs with her trusty wooden ruler, and I would begin again.