Dean interviews educator and author Sunil Singh about changing the narrative of mathematics from usefulness to human flourishing, including beauty, truth, justice, love, and play. Singh shares how math first “came alive” for him as a child, how his schooling was mostly benign, and how a grade-eight contest showed him the power of mathematical thinking. He explains why he quit classroom teaching as math became procedural and coded, and argues for humanizing math through history, storytelling, and meaningful problems that build patience for irresolution and create flow. Singh discusses proof, including a classroom task about expressing odd numbers as a prime plus a power of two, and addresses AI as cognitive offloading, emphasizing the irreplaceable teacher-student relationship and a return to pencil-and-paper thinking.

00:00 Rethinking Math Value
00:24 Math for Flourishing
03:04 Early Math Romance
06:26 Grade Eight Breakthrough
09:20 Becoming a Teacher
11:15 Why He Quit Teaching
15:50 Humanizing the Curriculum
19:53 Wellness and Patience
24:39 Proof and AI Era
28:03 Beauty Beyond Geometry
29:22 Perfect Numbers Explained
29:46 Mersenne Prime Formula
30:12 Odd Cubes Pattern
30:46 Why Perfect Numbers Matter
30:56 Teaching Math as Language
32:31 Future Skills Beyond Grades
34:11 AI in the Math Classroom
36:12 Slow Math Over Offloading
39:15 Content First Pedagogy
42:54 Flow Through Better Problems
45:18 Storytelling Across Disciplines
47:25 Books Music and Shows
52:27 Pickering Butter Chicken
54:23 Slow Movement Conclusion