Algebra tends to make people feel stupid. These videos aim to prevent that.

I certainly felt stupid when I flunked algebra in high school. But later I had to learn it as an adult for a job. These short videos grew out of that second experience. They are what I wish I had had in the first.

They do NOT teach algebra—or, to use an analogy, they do not teach you to ride a horse. They just explain what a horse is before you get on one.

They take this approach because I’m not an educator and certainly not a mathematician. I’m an explainer. Much of my career has entailed explaining things that I had known nothing about when I walked in the door – lighthouses, diplomacy, groundwater, legal cases, macroeconomics, heart valve surgery. Whatever the topic, I learn as much as I can and rely heavily on subject matter experts (SMEs) to answer my hundred questions and to check my work for accuracy.

For an explainer, algebra is the ultimate challenge. So these videos are my moonshot.

They are for young people perplexed by algebra and for the adults trying to help them. Please let me know what you think. 

– John Boykin

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