Most people don't hate math. They hate how it was taught.
Students often hate math because it's taught as memorization rather than understanding; reframing lessons around real-world applications transforms engagement and attitudes. Spanish teachers face severe burnout from emotional labor, bureaucracy, and lack of institutional support, with one in five considering leaving the profession entirely.
- Lauri Math Teacher has 1.7 million TikTok followers and over 500,000 Instagram followers
- One in five Spanish teachers is considering leaving the profession
- Mathematics is taught as memorization rather than understanding and real-world application
Popular TikTok educator Lauri Math Teacher discusses why students hate mathematics, advocating for understanding over memorization and real-world application. She addresses broader educational challenges including teacher burnout, parental involvement, and youth attention spans.
Lauri Math Teacher has 1.7 million followers on TikTok and over half a million on Instagram, a following built not on dance videos or lip-syncing but on something stranger and more useful: correcting math problems in red pen. She became famous for it, then became something larger—a voice in a conversation about why so many people hate mathematics, and what might actually fix that.
The hatred is real. It persists. A person can fail a math exam badly enough to score 0.16 out of 10 in their first year of secondary school and carry that wound for two decades, the shame and the aversion both intact. But Lauri's central claim, delivered in an interview, cuts through the noise: most people don't hate mathematics itself. They hate how it was taught to them, and they hate the feeling it gave them. If you're told as a child that you're not good at math, you eventually believe it. The belief becomes the fact.
The problem, she argues, is that mathematics has been taught as a thing to memorize rather than a thing to understand and use. The system still rewards students for repeating procedures without grasping why those procedures work. Teachers exist who are doing remarkable work within these constraints, but the constraints themselves push toward rote learning instead of reasoning. Mathematics should be taught as something connected to real life, to curiosity, to the questions students actually have.
When students understand why something matters—when they see that math is in a wave, in Spotify's algorithm, in a penalty kick, in Google Maps, in how a bridge gets built—their entire attitude shifts. They stop being passive recipients of information and start feeling a genuine need to learn something because they want to solve a problem that interests them. This is not a small distinction. This is the difference between compliance and engagement.
But the conversation extends beyond pedagogy. One in five teachers in Spain is considering leaving the profession entirely, and Lauri understands why completely. Teaching carries an enormous emotional and bureaucratic load. A teacher doesn't just teach anymore. They manage conflicts, absorb family problems, navigate social media, contend with students who can't focus, and do all of this while losing authority and often without support from parents. The burnout is real and it's systemic. When asked what her first measure would be as minister of education, she doesn't hesitate: reduce bureaucracy so teachers can actually teach instead of filling out forms, and restore and protect teacher authority in the classroom.
She's also clear-eyed about the role she herself plays. Content creators who teach—teachtokers, as they're called—can be genuinely positive, but only if they prioritize education and student privacy over views and engagement. Students cannot become tools for getting clicks. The criticism she received for marking exams in red ink, she believes, reflects a broader cultural shift: less tolerance for frustration. But she pushes back on the idea that protecting students means shielding them from all discomfort. Failing, making mistakes, receiving correction—these are part of learning. Students need to face small frustrations now so they can handle real ones later.
The deeper problem she identifies is purposelessness. Many young people study without understanding why. They're surrounded by messages about quick success and easy money. They're competing against constant stimulation designed to capture attention in seconds. Attention spans are fragmenting across the entire population, not just among the young. But when someone finds meaning in what they're doing, everything changes. The solution isn't prohibition—though she thinks there should be more digital literacy education and more control around social media for minors under 16—but rather helping young people understand why what they're learning matters. There is hope, she says. There are brilliant, creative young people who want to learn. The problem isn't the youth. It's the environment around them, and how we manage all the overstimulation they're drowning in.
Notable Quotes
If you're told as a child that you're not good at math, you eventually believe it.— Lauri Math Teacher
Teaching carries an enormous emotional and bureaucratic load. Teachers manage conflicts, family problems, and social media while losing authority and often without parental support.— Lauri Math Teacher
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You've built this massive platform by teaching math differently. What made you realize the traditional way wasn't working?
I didn't have some sudden revelation. I just kept seeing the same pattern—students who were convinced they were bad at math, when really they'd just been taught in a way that didn't connect to anything real. The shame was doing more damage than the ignorance.
The red pen corrections became controversial. Why keep doing something that gets you criticism?
Because the criticism often misses the point. Correction is part of learning. What matters is how you deliver it—with respect, not humiliation. Students need to learn that mistakes aren't failures, they're information.
You mention that one in five Spanish teachers wants to leave. That's staggering. What would actually keep them?
Honestly? Treating them like professionals instead of babysitters. Less paperwork, more autonomy, and parents who back them up instead of questioning every decision in front of their kids. Right now teachers are drowning in bureaucracy while losing authority. That's unsustainable.
Social media is part of your success, but you seem skeptical about it for young people.
I'm not skeptical about the tool itself. I'm concerned about what it teaches them—that fast money and instant success are the real goals. There's almost no cultural emphasis on effort anymore, on actually building something that takes time.
If you could change one thing about how math is taught, what would it be?
Stop treating it as a collection of rules to memorize. Start asking: where does this actually show up in the world? Why would someone need to know this? When students see the purpose, everything shifts.
You sound hopeful about young people but pessimistic about the system.
Because the young people are fine. They're creative, they're smart, they want to learn. The system is what's broken—the bureaucracy, the lack of support for teachers, the constant overstimulation they're drowning in. Fix those things and you fix everything else.