Meet Eddie Woo, the maths teacher you wish you’d had in high school | Australian Story

[Music] when I was eatin I remember look at this and I look crazy black magic people come up with these builders and I just have no reason they're just like yeah but it works like but why okay Eddie has created things that will probably change education forever and at least some of them they're always going to charging interest you're going to say all that cool I'll just pay a date oh yeah I don't they ha ha ha joke's on you we'll just charge of interest oh it's difficult to understand really how someone in Sydney can influence the outcomes of people across the whole country we love him to become either a doctor or a lawyer said me Eddie could have been any one of those things and keeps the money but he's chosen to be a teacher I've given you a hundreds of HSC questions what's something you would feel confident explaining in front of other people he sucked me in don't say it but he's actually into math I think that that wakes me up in the morning and makes me roll out of bed is that every day I'm going to stand in front of 24 students every single one had a journey behind it an interesting story and that just is youth every time this is my 10th year teaching and I love my subject there is a shortage of mathematics teachers they're in high demand good boy this is anyway from Trevor technology high school falling hey going it would be lovely to be able to clone Eddie will so that you had a range of him in school [Music] come in grab a seat and if you have your devices there get your devices out I've met many students who come to me and polite as they are will walk into my classroom first day of the m/l say look sir no offense I just want you to know I don't do max there's a lot more to math than just numbers right so I view that kind of student as my personal mission to turn around if she didn't already know I record my lessons or Accord although in fact I about to record this one I've always hated math I don't think I have a brain for it at all I would sit doing homework and mostly end up in tears because it can understand it it never made sense for me and I think not making sense just it made me so angry I'd like to say mathematics never came into the give Lee for me which is why now I sort of know is that just because mathematics doesn't come naturally that doesn't mean you can't work with it and I come to an understanding of it often we give up well this is a taxable income wait Lachlan come I said I'm going to drop it this is the worst thing I have much other things I would want to do my time so I think the hard part is question is there's so much information I implored her to continue and one of the ways that I did that was just to help explain to her well ok look let's go back to the point where you didn't understand and even some of the most oppositional students once they get a taste of what it's like to be able to solve a question they fall in love - is there anyone who still doesn't have their name down I call any is I always call dependence childhood me if you had to pick one that's a big one initially I didn't know that is had so much interested in maths that he would want to teach it my brother has has made a very surprising kind of trajectory of his own that none of us really expected [Music] my parents Tony and Angela they were both born in Malaysia and they moved to Australia largely because the education system in Malaysia and many of the opportunities for people growing up in Malaysia are extremely limited I came here when I was just about 19 and don't know anybody it was quite tough the first year especially after you because of them of the accent problem we couldn't understand was of us and effectively failing them the Aussie accent hit my mum did work when she was back in Malaysia as a newsreader she could speak English fluently also Cantonese Mandarin bahasa melayu 1670 different languages or dialects my parents sacrificed a lot to come to Australia because my mum was leaving a Korea my dad was leaving his family my brother sister and I were born we were raised here in Australia they were very very insistent that we made English our first language I can speak Cantonese and Mandarin in a very cursory way so I can count I can describe foods I can say my name but that marks basically the extensive I certainly couldn't have a conversation in Chinese which makes me a little bit sad because I know that's part of my history then wanting us to speak English came back to them not wanting us to be singled out as immigrants for us to be deeply opposed culture to belong here [Music] hey boys when I go on playground duty I go out nicely these hundreds of children running around and I watch for the students who don't have a group of friends or even the ones who do but I can tell they're at the fringes I think that growing up racism was something which I definitely felt around me in the late 70s and 80s there weren't a lot of Asian families in our area so to us you know we we fought Australian but we just looked Chinese their ignorance I'd leave that for learning our customs or our language or anything else I think there's just too many of them when I was in primary school they used to sing little rhymes which mock Asians and I used to sing them and I didn't realize what it actually meant until later they're over taking school oh man they carried pen knives and everything they go and bash up girls and rape girls and everything I remember someone yelling at me down the street ching chong once upon a time and I'd been called I've been called the people who I spend time with at school you know sometimes they would they would beat me up because I was little because they could there were days when I would not want to go to school because that was what I knew was waiting for me my mum she would buy me books and I really treasured those books people in my class who didn't like me knew how much I loved those books sometimes they would find them and they would steal them and I would find them out in the playground you know all dirty and covered in dust all ripped up so there is no discrimination be suffered you have to put up with as a rule I still remember you know my parents said to me this this happens and it's our role to endure that and know that sometimes life is not fair I only have one rule in my classroom and I call it the human rule very simple I will treat you like humans and I expect you to treat me like a human to one of the most important qualities of a teacher is to be compassionate so you got an answer for it was oh okay let's try and like our happened it's the difficult kids the kids who don't seek out your help the kids who are reserved you're going to multiply both of them by 750 I know those are the kids who need help most because I was one of those [Music] mom and dad put a lot of emphasis on education they wanted us to study hard which i think is quite coming from migrant families out of the three of us is went straight into James ruse high school which is selective James ruse is the cream of the crop for all students my parents thought that they had struck gold they had seen that other children who've gone to selected high schools had come out and become the leaders of the world the lawyers the solicitors the the engineers the politicians maybe these are occupations that gives you good incomes so to speak and also sort of more status my brother then said I am going to choose education I want to be a teacher and the air was heavy then you really could cut the air with a knife you really could hear a pin drop we sort of said we really look at each other there what what is it doing what is it they said you know why why do you think we've come to this country for what do you think was the purpose of us leaving behind all our families in our pre-established life did you think we came here for the web ha or for the politics or for what was it even though I could not understand that was so important to him I just let it let it be let him do what he want my mum was a little different she said Eddie over my dead body I had a tea stuck to his guns I really wanted to do something which I I saw my skills really lined up well with and I just the more I thought about it the more I realize this is the direction I want it going no kms what kinds of it now shake hands we call it our problem right it's the shape that every single object made when I saw it through the air like that's a part of like a boy it's just one or two teachers that changed the mind over of his child good sections are all related to get out mathematically mr. best and mr. brown they were the teachers that inspired him to become a teacher a mulberry trees growing in Africa one of the deepest memories I have is of my agriculture teacher in year 7 mr. Brown and the poultry Hilton yes well it is it is quite an establishment we were walking down to the school farm and he turned to me and he said Edward how are you today and I kind of paused because I've never been asked a question like that fine adult before and I thought is this is this a test I just thought teachers cared for their students and that made a really deep impression big part of being a teacher is try and make the kids feel that they counted and so important and I feel like that's the thing which I gained from through the view now that I am a teacher a lot Eddie always struck me as being a very enthusiastic student but the last two years of high school he went through that all of the trauma of having his mother very ill in his senior years [Music] I was in year ten when my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer she was not a smoker she was healthy in every way was very fit and so it came as a complete shock to all of us she's another type of woman who gave up easily to struggle and struggle I have the distinct memory of lots of nights spent sitting beside the bed 11:00 p.m. 1:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. because she would need someone to be able at a moment's notice because when you can't breathe you can't breathe to be able to quickly act and help her bring her whatever she needs it had to be me because there was no one else in the family who could do it somehow a mom passed away is grew up really fast was a very difficult period for all of us and he was a youngest and somehow he was like a rock sounds like this motional when I look at your mum yeah I was an emotional wreck it was him really the reason for my living he would have been comforting me and holding my shoulders and that hanging that you'll be right see as a young he was only 19 yet he knows how to comfort the father and I said my god I wanted to be someone who could be brave it's been a long time that yes it is and not give over to others that burden of having to care for me because I was a mess um I wanted to be able to hold things together because I saw I saw my family falling apart around me and I knew someone had to be strong when I look back at it what I think it was was his Christianity and faith in God that he would meet mum one day again in heaven it makes Eddie the person he is today having gone through the death of his mum I think it's made him more empathetic to people who have an illness [Music] in 2012 I had a student in one of my classes he was very ill he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was away from school for huge chunks of time getting treatment I still had it as a keen memory how much of my later years in high school had been deeply affected by a cancer and and what that did to my education and so I felt very personally that I should do something about this and I came to a realization that actually we have technology now which can help with this why don't I just take my phone and then when my lesson started I just he recoiled one two three down dishes now Sigma notation like this middle one all my other students noticed that I was doing this and they said hey what's that about sir and sure enough they started to watch and they started passing the links for the videos to their friends in other classes and then those students started to meet with friends from other schools worship is honestly a lifesaver I can't tell you how many times like before mass exams people would be on woo tube looking up videos for topics that they don't understand and then as soon as they watch the video they're like ah makes sense now I can do this test I just need to particulate eddi-rue makes these videos free for anyone and that very low quality issue they're available for anyone anytime anywhere and that's really exciting [Music] Cobar a very small Outback town our population is around 5,000 people we're a mining town and we've got three schools two primary and one secondary if it reduces the concentration to collector I love most because it solves problems up and had to go backward before you split it up again I had a really awesome math teacher myself at high school and I thought yeah I'm going to make a uni of Alaska teacher when you know that you're going to be now what divining so that should be on the board of tangent of your division one of my major problems with math when I was struggling with it was that I didn't understand the first steps and that would cause a chain reaction with second step third step the fourth step and your grading here's two or three yes you know it hasn't been my favorite subject but I would like to go to university and maybe do some sort of a business degree but and I feel like some basics they aren't knowledge of maths is important there we've just been doing practice question what are you doing with your year 12 o'clock I think of something interesting and exciting to do with them tomorrow [Music] it's hard to get teachers out here that might be a little bit different so I might know a free of all ways to explain a topic but it hasn't clicked with the students can we walk in this for a second now you've seen this before I wanted to do I can bring that other teacher in in the form of an ad or a video he can explain it again [Music] I just got the Wi-Fi to Google elapsing simultaneous equations any room and then it comes out in five cool yeah I think I can match any of this I can use it at home I won't don't need to travel or pay for it just remove those barriers that hold us back sometimes with due to isolation I don't know where he finds the time you talk to him when he's going oh had a mouse or to go to this thing and go an interview panel for health school I go up with this video at this and I'm going to start making practicing with you guys and then old Mike is sick and I go take him to the doctor something there's 24 hours in the day see you right it's not more less than four Tyler alright he's going to go first he really works hard at making family time family time and work life work life was that clear blue Nathan you're tender when he gets home he really prioritizes time with our children I often have ribbed sometimes out of good humor sometimes not about how teachers have lots of time off from school and what isn't that lovely to have so many holidays if it's school holidays you often find me at the hospital I've heard of Izumi having to go to the hospital another night because one of the children have had like an allergic reaction or an asthma check or supposed to beard we like Mason to eat lots of over the next six or eight weeks and at some point after that we'll do another upper endoscopy there really could not be a better example of a family that has the full hand of allergic diseases and they going he does still say my tummy hurt studies show that if you are the Australian born child of two parents born in Asia as both Eddie and Michelle are your chances of having eczema compared with children with two Australian born parents are about double and we'll get a scope organizin yes I remember my mum would send me to school covered in band-aids very soon seven or eight band-aids across my hands because I would just scratch at them and they would just bleed and my face would be all swollen and puffy because I was constantly scratching there's such a strong genetic component the word children really are sitting ducks for allergic disease Emily is allergic to a long list of foods that includes milk nuts and fish Jamie he has immediate type food allergies and eczema of Eddie and Michelle's three children I would say nathan is the most severely affected by allergic disease at four months old I knew something was not right he had really bad eczema all over his skin we had to get the nurses out every day to help us wrap his body like a mummy when Nathan was between nine and twelve months he started losing weight at 18 months old he started vomiting randomly Nathan was diagnosed with a very rare condition called he is an affiliate esophagitis swallow this is something which even many doctors haven't heard of yeah in a while since we had with him the difficulties are everyday for him eating itself has become a really difficult experience because when he was younger eating was associated with an incredible amount of discomfort and pain just to squeeze food and drink down his esophagus he was classified as failure to thrive which means he wasn't growing because he wasn't getting enough nutrients he'd fix any ways less than a typical three-year-old and if you put him in a room with 200 other children his age he would be shorter than 199 of them sinus or hand the PU back I'm getting too Wiggy it's a concern for me when I think about Nathan growing up knowing that he's always going to be a little lamb a little nervous for him knowing that he'll always stand out a little bit because of his size you probably like your toys too since becoming a parent what they do when you leave the room that's really colored everything's about the way that I approach my work as a teacher he wants the best for our kids and in the same way he understands that the parents of his students want the best for their children [Applause] [Music] by the time you of the message I think I was gonna become the team whatever I because I stopped going any results are always really strict we had a student last chief you've got a hundred literally 100 in their extension one HSC TM which is fairly no no it doesn't happen I could say actually in 2016 I taught this boy and I understand that it's possible even being do it so much goes on around you that celebrates the work that he got I've literally never seen a go to battle now our final teach you today from Terra Technical High School where as a maths teacher but he's also an internet sensation this guy is the Kim Kardashian of Austrian mathematics teaching as far as I'm concerned this is Eddie whoo there's no doubt that teachers generally changed rise and somebody off motivated and as wonderful as every undoubtedly would five you all these awards as part of raising the profile of education helped people recognize that teaching matters and it deserves to the best people who'd we could press into its service I can see the pride ending when he tells me there's another student has gone into teaching one to be honest I never really considered teaching math until I had mister as a teacher I finished my HSC last year with an 8 out of 99 point to my mum expected me to do law but my passions were in education so there are definitely a lot of parallels between mystery story and my story no more easy step teach me how to cut them properly I could never do it one - if we went through the stage where we wanted to get all her recipes down a problem yeah exactly this is the recipe book family recipe book and how it just like culture alive and that's how we kept mum alive basically through through cooking Alisha can cook most of it I can cook like maybe properly three actual dishes including this one from from that from what from what she could make any mum not being around to see the kind of teacher that he is really sad she would have been so proud of him [Music] I'd like to think that she'd be proud of me I really feel is third part of what it means to be a son in an Asian family is that honoring our parents really matters I'm very proud but I was afraid I might be both who there was the only thing that I I have to be Asian conscious or sometimes call your son show you're famous it is Tony son so I've become well-known because of my own son the success that I've been able to experience its his success it's the ratification of why he sacrificed what he had we all his family and his security in Malaysia why he gave all that up to come here it was worth it you [Music]

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 1,274,244

Keywords: Australia, Cherrybrook Technology High School, WooTube, Eddie Woo, Math, Maths, YouTube, Teaching, Education, Australian Story, Teachers, Inspirational teachers, teacher inspo, Australian Teacher Eddie Woo

Id: SjIHB8WzJek

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2017