076 | Boredom Is Where Deep Thinking Starts | Dwight S. Williams | September 16, 2026

<p>Dwight S. Williams learned math on license plates because he was bored. He makes the case that boredom is what deep thinking needs, and that our classrooms may have engineered it away.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Full description:</strong></p><p>Dwight S. Williams is a math instructional leadership coach who helps schools move from compliance driven learning to cognition driven learning. His own math story starts in the back seat of his parents&#39; car in Trinidad and Tobago, pulling relationships out of license plate numbers because there was nothing else to do.</p><p>Pam and Dwight talk about the quiet our students no longer get, the anchor charts and color and texture we fill our rooms with, and whether all of it is sitting in the space where student thinking would have gone. They get into why building understanding is what actually produces speed, what a shared vision for math instruction requires before anything else can happen, and the students who taught Dwight that a correct answer and deep understanding are not the same thing.</p><p>Dwight also shares the story behind his 3-1-4 Newsletter, named for his Pi Day birthday, and what gives him hope in math education right now.</p><p><strong>Key takeaways:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Boredom lets the mind wander, and a wandering mind is where curiosity and deep thinking begin.</p></li><li><p>Our classroom environments are a design decision. Visual saturation can crowd out the reflective space students need.</p></li><li><p>Understanding produces speed. Number sense and flexibility come first, and automaticity follows.</p></li><li><p>Efficiency is the goal worth naming, more than speed.</p></li><li><p>A shared vision for math instruction starts with the current reality and with defining the student experience: what students should be thinking, saying, producing, and who carries the cognitive load.</p></li><li><p>Correct answers and deep understanding are separate things, in both directions.</p></li><li><p>The PLC is a hidden lever. Fifteen minutes in another teacher&#39;s room, in any subject, moves practice.</p></li><li><p>Video works when live observation is not possible.</p></li></ul><p><strong>Notable quotes:</strong></p><p>&quot;Boredom takes us to a place where our minds get curious and wander. So I think boredom is something that is actually needed for deep thinking.&quot;</p><p>&quot;If we build the understanding the speed catches up.&quot;</p><p>&quot;A correct answer doesn&#39;t always necessarily m