About Figure

Where this came from

Most of us spend years learning mathematics in school, and come away able to factor a polynomial but unsure how to read a graph in the news, or why a credit card's interest rate matters so much. That gap — between what gets taught and what genuinely comes up in life — is what Figure is trying to help with.

What we cover

The curriculum runs from elementary school through high school, with around eight units per year. Topics spiral and deepen over time — probability starts as coin flips and fairness in third grade, grows into expected value and lotteries in middle school, and by high school covers conditional probability and how to evaluate a medical study.

Along the way, algebra and geometry stay central. The goal is to show what those tools are actually for — grounding the mathematics in situations where it genuinely helps.

How the lessons work

Each unit runs about three weeks. It opens with something surprising or counterintuitive — a question worth sitting with before the answer arrives. From there, students explore the underlying idea hands-on, then get a clear explanation, then apply it to real scenarios. Each unit ends with a capstone project: something concrete to make or write or analyze.

The lessons try to be rigorous and engaging — good pedagogy and genuine relevance aren't in tension with each other, and Figure tries to bring both. The emphasis throughout is on understanding what an answer means, not just how to arrive at it.

Why it matters

The world is changing fast, and a lot of what's changing involves numbers — risk, uncertainty, statistical claims, and decisions that increasingly get made by algorithms we don't fully see. Being able to think clearly about those things matters for your own life, but it also matters for how we make decisions together as a society. Figuring out what's true, understanding what's fair, and thinking carefully about the future are becoming harder and more important at the same time.

That's what Figure is for. The topics here — probability, statistics, personal finance, logic, voting, data — aren't just useful skills. They're the building blocks of being an informed, clear-headed person in a world that increasingly requires exactly that.

Whom it's for

Figure is for students from elementary school through high school. It's designed to work for families, homeschoolers, and teachers alike — as a standalone curriculum, an enrichment supplement, or just a place to find a good unit on something you've been curious about. The only thing you need to bring is a willingness to think things through!

Who's behind this

Figure is a project by Kevin Hu, a data scientist and engineer who has been involved in math education in a few ways over the years — teaching competition math to middle and high schoolers through IDEA MATH and Art of Problem Solving, writing contest problems for Chicago-area competitions, and coaching the Chicago ARML team. Figure grew out of a conviction that the mathematics topics most important in people's everyday lives deserve as much care and attention as the mathematics taught in traditional classrooms.