In London in 1854, Cholera was ravaging Soho. At the time, medicine believed that disease spread due to a “miasma” of pollution and bad air. The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed, and people were dying left and right.
A doctor named John Snow (no relation to Game of Thrones) was a skeptic of the prevailing theories and interventions.
Our John Snow didn’t just focus on the symptoms. He mapped the cases, identifying a cluster around the broad street pump. Aided with new techniques of chemical and microscopic examination, John Snow did something radically different. He removed the pump’s handle. Unlike other doctors, he tackled the root cause of the contaminated water, shifting from treating the symptoms to solving the underlying cause.
Medicine since then has made incredible advances by understanding the cellular and genetic root causes of disease. But in education, we often find ourselves in a Pre-John Snow Era. We see symptoms - disengagement, underperformance, confusion, frustration..
At Eedi, we spent the last 10 years conducting basic research in the domain of Math. By decomposing math into fine grained constructs, and also understanding the misconceptions associated with specific constructs, we can identify the root cause. Rather than the broad interventions we apply, we can precisely diagnose that the part of a standard that’s holding a 9th grader back is tied to a misconception that the student picked up in 2nd grade. This work on a unified knowledge graph, led by organizations like CZI and ours, will help us remove the handle.
And there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. I’m sure that many of you have heard that old adage that “math is math”. Well it turns out that given our experience in the UK and the US, it’s more like Math is often, but not always, “maths”. At Eedi, we are continuing this basic research to develop an open source, worldwide effort to develop these graphs across countries, languages, and context. With the support of Gates, Prevail, and Dell, we hope to bring the benefit of these graphs to 1 Bn kids by 2030, starting with India, Brazil, and Kenya.
By understanding and using these graphs, we can stop treating the symptoms, and start addressing the root causes. We can help everyone be a little more like John Snow.
