Edward Kent Woo is an Australian secondary school teacher and writer best known for his online mathematics lessons published on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. In 2018, Woo was awarded the Australia's Local Hero Award.

Early life

Woo's ethnic Chinese parents migrated to Australia from Malaysia around 1970 for better education opportunities for their children. He has an older brother, who works in IT, and an older sister, who is a dentist. Woo studied at the

James Ruse Agricultural High School , motto_translation = Deeds not words , established = , type = Government-funded co-educational academically selective and specialist secondary day school , educational_authority = NSW Departm ...

in New South Wales and completed his Higher School Certificate in 2003, placing in the top band for Mathematics Extension 1 and English Extension 2. He earned his

Bachelor of Education A Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) is an undergraduate professional degree which prepares students for work as a teacher in schools. In some countries such as Tanzania and Kenya, additional tasks like field work and research are required in order for ...

(

Honours Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...

) in Secondary Mathematics and Information Technology from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

in 2008.

Career

Woo started his career with a brief stint as a technology teacher at the

Fort Street High School Fort Street High School (FSHS) is a Education in Australia#Government schools, government-funded Mixed-sex school, co-educational Selective school (New South Wales), academically selective secondary school, secondary day school, located in Petersh ...

in 2007, before moving to

where in 2008 he held the position of Teacher Mathematics and Technology. He stayed until 2013 before becoming Head Teacher of Mathematics at

Cherrybrook Technology High School Cherrybrook Technology High School is a purpose-built government technology high school located at 28–44 Purchase Road, Cherrybrook NSW, Australia. The school was built in the late 1980s to support the rapid growth of the north-west sector i ...

. Woo remains there as a classroom teacher, but also serves as a mathematics curriculum leader for the NSW Department of Education. As of 2018, he has been teaching mathematics for more than 10 years. He began filming his class in 2012 when recording a lesson for a sick student. His YouTube channel has over 1.61 million subscribers and more than 139 million views worldwide as of October 2022. In 2018, Woo hosted a show called ''Teenage Boss'' on the ABC, which gave teens control of their family's financial decisions for a month. In June 2018, Woo delivered a

TEDx Talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

titled "Mathematics is the sense you never knew you had". Woo has published two books. The first is entitled ''Woo's Wonderful World of Maths'' was published on 25 September 2018. It addresses questions like "Why are rainbows curved?" and "Why aren't left-handers extinct?", with the answer being: maths, and that maths is all about patterns and the universe is extraordinarily patterned. The second, ''Eddie Woo's Magical Maths'', is a children's activity book.

Awards

In October 2015, Woo was a joint recipient of the NSW Premier's Prize for Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education. He was one of ten teachers to win the inaugural Choose Maths Awards on 26 August 2016. In April 2017, Woo won the 2017

Young Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement. In March 2017, he was one of 12 Australian teachers to win a Commonwealth Bank Teaching Award, a prestigious national awards event co-presented each year by the Commonwealth Bank and education charity Schools Plus. In November 2017, he was named 2018 NSW Local Hero. Woo gave the

Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Ja ...

Address in NSW in 2018, the first time a teacher has done so. On 25 January 2018, Woo won the

Australia's Local Hero The Local Hero AwardAustralian of the Year awardees
, accessed 23 January 2012 is a p ...

Award at the

Australian of the Year The Australian of the Year is a national award conferred on an Australian citizen by the National Australia Day Council, a not-for-profit Australian Governmentowned social enterprise. Similar awards are also conferred at the State and Territo ...

Awards. In March 2018, Woo was named a Top 10 Finalist in the

Global Teacher Prize The Global Teacher Prize is an annual US$1 million award by the Varkey Foundation to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.Brain, Rondinelli"Now There's A Davos Of Education And A $1 Million 'Nobel Prize' For Teacher ...

. In May 2019, Woo received an Honorary Fellowship from

Western Sydney University Western Sydney University, formerly the University of Western Sydney, is an Australian multi-campus university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, Australia. The university in its current form was founded in 1989 as a federated network ...

. In September 2019, Woo became a Fellow of the

Royal Society of New South Wales The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. The Governor of New South Wales is the vice-regal patron of the Society. The Society was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June ...

. He received Mathical Honors for ''It's a Numberful World: How Math Is Hiding Everywhere''

Personal life

Woo is a committed

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

, stating, "We talk about the fact that the universe is designed in this way and you can find all of these patterns; do you think that that's a coincidence? One of the things I love to point out is we call the universe the cosmos which means ordered and structured and designed, as opposed to chaos, and the reason why we can find these mathematical principles is because there was a Designer. We didn't just spring into being. It has immense beauty." Woo is married and has three children.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Woo, Eddie 1985 births Australian schoolteachers Living people University of Sydney alumni Australian Christians Australian YouTubers Writers from Sydney Australian television presenters People educated at James Ruse Agricultural High School 21st-century educators 21st-century Australian male writers Australian people of Chinese descent Australian people of Malaysian descent