Inspiring students to pursue math is no easy task. To many, the thought of studying higher levels of math is intimidating and undesirable. This is one of the mindsets that my generation grew up with.

My kids have a strange aversion to numbers. They seem to like the idea of quantifying things around them, but when the numbers hit three or four digits we have something of a family mental block.

Corey Murray is a former managing editor of EdTech: Focus on K–12 and a 20-year veteran of writing about educational technology. There’s no escaping the urgency for better science, technology, ...