Blackpool teacher to appear on BBC Greg James' 'Teach Me a Lesson' podcast

Blackpool Sixth Form College maths teacher Rob Fisher will feature on the BBC's‘Teach Me a Lesson’ podcast series.

Hosted by DJ Greg James and his wife Bella Mackie, the podcast aims to bring school subjects to life for both old and young with episodes exploring why we get ill, how to win an argument and whether or not we should be afraid of computers and algorithms.

One of Mr Fisher's former students, Callum Wardle, nominated him to appear on the podcast and the BBC approached the teacher to produce a maths-themed episode.

Callum now studies maths at Oxford University where Mr Fisher was given the Oxford University Inspirational Teacher of the Year award.

Mr Fisher's podcast lesson will focus on the topic of ‘randomness’ and aims to challenge commonly held beliefs about what is random and what isn’t- through the power of maths.

"I chose this topic because I thought it was a good one for a wide audience as everyone can relate to the kinds of situations when we think something is happening randomly," Rob Fisher said.

"The truth is though that we often over-estimate the amount of randomness that there is in life, so I’ll be dealing a little bit with psychology as well as maths.”

The teacher will cover real-life topics such as picking lottery numbers and shuffling Spotify playlists whilst explaining the maths of randomness and chance.

Putting the episode together was 'challenging' for the teacher, who likes to use visual examples in his lessons. This is not possible when delivering a radio podcast.

As the podcast is meant to be easily accessible for a wide audience, listeners will not need to be Oxford maths graduates to understand and enjoy Mr Fisher's lesson.

Mr Fisher hopes to 'demystify' statistics, which is taught as an A level subject at Blackpool Sixth, by applying them to everyday examples to demonstrate how widely they are used in everyday areas such as healthcare, finance, politics and sports.

“If we want to understand risks, such as our risk of catching Covid-19 at the moment, we really need to be able to understand what the statistics mean," Mr Fisher said.

The BBC 'Teach Me a Lesson' episode featuring Rob Fisher is due to be aired later this month.

More information about the educational podcast can be found at the BBC Sounds website.