Ulli and Daria – Understanding Life Through Learning Math and Physics

Math and Physics are two of science’s fundamental and most exciting branches. For centuries, scientists have used Math and Physics to answer some of the world’s most fascinating questions and help us understand the universe that we live in. But no matter how important it is in our daily lives, most students now shy away from these subjects and is disinterested in them. For this week’s Outer Travel, Inner Journey, we will talk with Ulli and Daria, two teachers of Math and Physics, as we dig deeper into the cause of students’ fear in these subjects and find ways to bring a positive light to it.

For Ulli and Daria, the low interest and fear of taking up Math and Physics stem from how it is taught in today’s educational system. These subjects are taught by teachers and educators that are not experts on the topics, making it hard to translate concepts into simple explanations. Since Physics and Math are complicated and complex, making them as basic as possible is crucial to allow students to grasp the concepts. It does not also help that the system is forcing teachers to take a shortcut in teaching these subjects with the view that not all are good at them; therefore, students won’t need it. This is a struggle that Daria deals with because she believes that students must understand the whole process to connect with the subject and apply it in the real world.

Both agreed that to capture the interest of their students and increase their appreciation of Math and Physics, teachers like them should engage their students based on their interests and relate them in a way that students can easily understand the concepts. For parents, it is also vital to continue being curious and open to learning themselves. This way, they can be students and models themselves for their children too.

Join us to learn more about being better teachers and students in learning about ourselves and the universe in this week’s episode!

Links mention in the podcast

Pocket Quotes

  • “Physics and Math are some of the most fundamental sciences that we have to understand the world. It explains the universe or tried to explain the universe, and how it works. But there’s a contrast that it has very low interest in school.” – Ulli Helmstetter
  • “It’s the fear, that they always, or so many of them, fail in Math or Physics. And this failure is maybe the biggest reason why also the joy is gone.” – Ulli Helmstetter
  • “The simpler an explanation is required, the more of an expert you need to introduce it.” – Daria
  • “Slowing down and always taking a look at the ability to estimate an answer and to take as many steps as are required in order to see the logical progression of the question as opposed to taking a shortcut.” – Daria
  • “The fun is in the understanding, and not so much in the use of the stuff.” – Ulli Helmstetter
  • “Know who you are, what is your key interest, and come back to what is your key interest in learning. We can inspire ourselves, and we can be inspirational to others. as teachers or as parents who find inspiration for their kids.” – Alexandra Kreis

Parenting Young Children For the Long Run – Alexandra Scherzer

If you are a new parent, have you ever wondered why no matter how much you take care of your baby, give them milk, sway them, sing a lullaby, sometimes it’s just not enough? Do you ever ask yourself if what you’re doing is correct? Do you ever question why parenting portrayed by the media is different from what you are experiencing? Don’t worry you are not alone.

In this week’s episode of Outer Travel, Inner Journey, Alexandra Scherzer, a parenting educator and counselor shares how becoming a mother pushed her to look within herself more, which made her a better parent to her child.

She starts with explaining that in babies and toddlers, behavior and emotions are what we see. It is important to understand what lies under their behavior, what influences it, what part of one’s parenting is going to affect their behavior, and what part of a child’s in-born genes is going to affect certain behaviors. These are the factors that most parents are not aware about because these things are not explicit. She said that parents need to consider what they want for their children to be in 30 years time, and reverse engineer their strategy to support their children reach that goal. It is important for the steps to start early because the first five years of a child’s life is at its most formative. What happens early on will impact what will happen to their family life 40 years from now.

The way a person was raised in early childhood will impact on how they will parent in the future. It is called the Inner Parent – gut response and emotion when something happens as a parent. How you parent your child during their formative years will also be their parenting style when they themselves become one. This is why parents must focus on what they want for their child, in order to work on it on the long haul.

To raise a child that can trust him/herself and his/her intuition, a parent must respect their child from the start and not try to box or conform them to what society dictates. Parenting is a long game and to develop a healthy relationship with your child, you must not try to change them. Build their confidence and uplift them by encouraging them to trust themselves.

Both Alexandra’s share their parenting experiences, which concluded in a realization that in parenthood and to be better parents, one still has to look from within and understand oneself.

Links mention in the podcast

Pocket Quotes

  • The way that you are parented in your early childhood, before your memories really begin have  a long term impact on them (your child) when you become a parent. Your inner parent is your gut response when something happens, your gut emotion when something happens, as a parent. The way that you’re driven to automatically respond is very in line to how you would respond when you were so young. – Alexandra Scherzer
  • Knowledge is extremely powerful. Once I understood the main goal that my son’s brain was trying to reach in the first 18 months, it made a lot of small decisions get smaller. Our framework is what we do with that one main thing, and everything else is secondary. When you have that type of focus, it’s just like with anything. All of the noise starts to settle down. – Alexandra Scherzer
  • To establish trust as a primary caregiver, is to understand your child’s inborn characteristics and what that means in terms of their behavior, because they are actually expressing emotions through their behavior. Understanding that piece of the pie is actually really valuable because what many parents start to feel as the beginnings of negative emotions within themselves because it’s frustrating. If you understand why your child is behaving in a certain way, and then you understand that responding to them in a way that they are expressing it. – Alexandra Scherzer
  • Parenting is such a long game, that if you hope to raise a child who can trust him or herself in the long run, who can trust him or her intuition in the long run, the best way to do that is to respect who they are from the very get go. If you truly respect who they are, and not try to conform to everything that society is sometimes pushing and pulling us to do, you truly respect your child for who they are, and not try to change them. – Alexandra Scherzer
  • Looking within can be very powerful in our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with everybody. Our children, family, parents, friends, colleagues, everybody. Starting within first applies to anybody in any circumstance. Whether they are a parent of a young child, not a parent at all, or just looking at who they are day-to-day, living through life in their own life’s journey, or interacting with the other adults in their life. – Alexandra Scherzer

Guest Bio

Alexandra Scherzer is a parenting educator and consultant at W.I.S.E. Parenting Academy. She focuses on parenting for secure attachment. Her passion for helping parents started when she herself became one and what she was experiencing was far from what she expected. As a mother experiencing new things, she had a lot of questions that traditional sources were not able to answer. She teaches parents like herself how to manage parenthood and raising children especially in their formative years of first 5-6 years, which will impact how the child will grow to be themselves in the long run. Alexandra conducts one-on-one sessions and pod/group sessions and works with parents and expecting parents alike.