TODOS Podcast · TODOS Mathematics for ALL

S4E11: The Role of Hope with Francis Su

·58 min·3 clips

Francis Su says mathematics is “inherently a human enterprise,” built from creativity, persistence, and abstraction.

Teddy Chow opens a new Tohoto's podcast conversation with Sherry Kaku and Francis Su. The season frame is visibility and hypervisibility. Su is introduced as a former president of the MAA, the first non-white person in that role, and a math professor at Harvey Mudd. He is also the author of Mathematics for Human Exploration. The talk quickly turns personal when he mentions his four-and-a-half-year-old son. His son recently announced that he is four-and-three-quarters. That small detail opens up a discussion of how children think about fractions and how teachers hear mathematical language in ordinary life. From there, the conversation moves into Su’s time in Australia. He reflects on the racial dynamics he observed there. The discussion does not stay abstract. It reaches toward indigenous history, discrimination, othering, and the disparities in education tied to all three. Su also talks about hearing his wife’s family experiences as Chinese-Australian. He notes how inclusion and exclusion can coexist in the way people are imagined as Australian. The conversation names familiar stereotypes about Asian students and math. Those tropes, Su says, show up again and again across countries. He and his wife grew up in different places, yet they still carried many of the same experiences. That leads naturally to their questions about schooling for their child in Los Angeles. They want a racially diverse school, but finding one is not simple. The episode closes by returning to the need for answers in math and the value of working together. It leaves the sense that the conversation connects history, identity, and school choice to the everyday work of teaching and learning.

As heard by us

Math, family, and race sit side by side in a calm, thoughtful conversation that stays close to lived experience.

Francis Su's conversation with Teddy Chow and Sherry Kaku moves from math education into leadership, family life, race, and inclusion without feeling stitched together.

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Why you'd press play

Francis Su brings math, fatherhood, and racial belonging into a conversation about schooling, identity, and equity.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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