it's kind of funny to talk about why I
love maths because I didn't love maths
when I was at school I really thought of
it just as okay how good are you at
crunching numbers mathematics is
literally all around us there are
patterns and relationships and
connections which when you get to sense
them they're really beautiful and
elegant and surprising I get to touch
the fabric of the universe when I
understand what mathematics is
when I realized that through this
incredible platform of YouTube my
teaching could help people all over the
world that's really what set this stir
ball going
back in 2012 I was teaching a pretty
ordinary maths class there was one boy
in this class he was diagnosed with a
really serious illness and this boy is
gonna be away for at least several weeks
and I didn't want to leave him with just
a textbook that's all I could give him I
knew there was more I could do from this
point he loved mathematics
I took my phone and I literally sat it
just on top of a table in the middle of
my classroom and I realized that if I
just put these ears up on YouTube which
was free easy to access then I could
send them to him and he could literally
keep up with us just like his friends
were when I started putting my videos
online
it all seems fine quality but as the
video started to increase in number I
started to think about okay if I can
make a better quality it's actually
helping people so I had to look up some
tutorials on how to do basic editing
transitions how your diction is how you
use tone of voice I learned a lot of
that ironically not that ironically from
YouTube itself
hey sir you'll be really funny if you
called your channel rutube we're never
hilarious and we had a great laugh even
though it started with just him it kind
of just took on a life of its own
spreading out to those students in the
class students from other classes and
other schools they became interested I
still remember that was on my food just
watching YouTube comments sort of come
up onto my video and it was the middle
of the day and I was kind of like why
are people watching they don't realize
this person who was commenting was from
a completely different country in a
completely different time zone
and I was like whoa this is global now
even at a party of five thousand people
I'm proud to declare I love mathematics
Yale is Australia's most famous teacher
and these turned out to be the math
teacher
we all wish that we had everyone was
like sitting next to apart like oh my
gosh grab mr.  woo like can you believe
this the hands were actually shaking
with the excitement to see kids get so
excited about a maths teacher education
should be free people shouldn't have to
pay to learn and I love that YouTube is
about that's a marketization of
knowledge and lady I teach about 800
hours over the school year but my
YouTube videos have been watched for
over 90 million minutes that's more than
I could teach in not just my lifetime
like several copies of my lifetime I
mean it's amazing he's still a young man
and his impact has been so profound
it's he could help a generation fall in
love with mathematics again and I think
that is truly an extraordinary legacy
that I expect any to have for education
here in Australia and increasingly
around the world
I love that mass helps us understand and
wonder at the world around us in a
deeper way that we could otherwise it's
really about taking what I love and just
saying you know what if we put that on a
platform that can access the world
there's no limit to what we can achieve
you
