Sometime around 1980, a young married couple, Tony and Yuen Woo, emigrated from Malaysia and moved to Australia in hopes of a better future for their children. Primarily they wanted their kids to have the best education possible, and grow up to be doctors and lawyers. Their youngest of three, Edward, was born in 1985, in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney. They may have chosen to settle in Camperdown because the University of Sydney is located there, and in fact that’s where Eddie earned his college degree. Long before he reached that point, however, he faced several challenges and hardships.
Young Eddie suffered from food allergies and eczema. Apparently, these types of disorders are twice as common in Australia among children of Asian ethnicity as they are among Caucasian children. In school he struggled with maths (in Australian English, as in British English, the ‘s’ is normal at the end of ‘math’, unlike in American English). Some of the toughest things Eddie had to contend with were racism, bullying, and physical attacks. Getting beat up by his classmates for being ethnic Chinese was difficult to understand. Tragically, the toughest time for Eddie took place during his final two years of high school when his mother was ill with terminal lung cancer, despite never having been a smoker.
Fortunately, Eddie had dedicated teachers who showed they really cared about their students. These role models inspired Eddie to pursue a career in education, to the great distress of his parents. As for maths, at some point, the light went on. Eddie became a wiz with mathematics, and more importantly, he developed a real gift for explaining math concepts to students. As a young maths teacher, in 2012 one of his students was unable to attend class regularly due to chronic illness. Eddie started recording his classroom lessons on his cellphone and putting it online for his ill student. His in-class students found out what he was doing and started sharing Eddie’s online lessons with students in other classes, schools, cities and regions. Before long, students from all over Australia were benefiting from Eddie’s recorded lessons. His YouTube channel became known as ‘WooTube’ leading to fame on the scale of celebrity. He even has his own Wikipedia page.
Eddie has become Australia’s most famous maths teacher. In addition, he’s received many awards and accolades, and has hosted an Australian television show for teens about handling household finances – which of course includes mathematics. In 2017, a company called Mathspace partnered with Eddie to formally bring his education videos into schools across Australia, and to other countries including Canada, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
I’ve seen a couple of videos on Mr. Woo’s math teaching channel. Without a doubt, he’s the best explainer of all things mathematical I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve taken more than my share of math courses. I truly wish I’d had him as my math teacher throughout my public school years.
Eddie is one of the most inspirational contemporary figures I’ve seen in recent years. I’m afraid I haven’t done justice to his story, but this excellent video does. It’s a bit longer than most videos, but it’s worth your time especially if you could use a dose of optimism and enthusiasm right now.
“Meet Eddie Woo, the maths teacher you wish you’d had in high school | Australian Story” (28:09)
“Mathematics is the sense you never knew you had | Eddie Woo | TEDxSydney” (13:13)
