head in. i had a gift for numbers ever since i was a child. but today i want to introduce a simple exercise to your audience that i believe will revolutionize the relationship between people and their brains. it will give teachers and parents a chance to share that will make every student feel like a math athlete. everyone, think of your age. now, add those two digits together. everybody should get a total. take the total and now subtract total from your age. now you ll get an answer. add those two digits together and you get gretchen: i know what you re going to say. magic 9. why is it so important? we re teaching kids to memorize. they haven t experienced arithmetic. we re teaching them to memorize their math facts so the kids get the right answer, the teachers get paid, the parents are happy