Local Hero of the Year Subash Chandar K. Photo: Supplied
An Auckland mathematics teacher who runs a YouTube channel helping students get through NCEA maths has been named Local Hero of the Year.
Subash Chandar K received the honour on Thursday night at the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards.
As well as being a teacher at Ormiston Junior College, Chandar K runs a YouTube channel called InfinityPlusOne, where he has about 60,000 subscribers, and posts free tutorials covering NCEA maths.
Chandar K said the attitude of young people coming into maths was not always the best, but they did want to learn.
His big message for students was that they should be comfortable making mistakes.
Photo: YouTube
"I think what happens with maths is most people think that 'I need to get the answer correct and if I don't get it correct I'm not good at maths' and I think the attitude needs to change where we're going, actually there's more than one way to get to this answer, just keep persevering," he said.
"I tell the kids never leave any questions empty, give me an answer and we will try and figure out how you got the wrong answer and then how we get to the right answer, and I think that really helps the kids move forward in maths."
Chandar K encouraged parents to be mindful of how they talked about maths around children, especially at at young age.
"One is where parents say 'I'm not really good at maths so it's going to be passed on to you' or the other where they kind of diminish some of the children because they're like 'I used to do this without a calculator' or 'I used to do this way younger than you," he said.
Chandar K said his YouTube channel name InfinityPlusOne stood for how much he loved his wife.
"She has been just incredible... some days I'll wake up at 4am and start working on a video and she just lets me do those things while she gets to look after things around the house. Without her support I don't think I'd have been able to have this opportunity to help this many kids over the last 12 years."
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