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I am a mathematician and a maths teacher. Therefore it is an occupational hazard that any random person who finds out what my job is will respond with "I'm not a maths person." The most frustrating people are my own students who I am trying to tell that my actual job is to help them learn maths. I used to tell them that there was no such thing as a "maths person", but I have recently come to the conclusion that this is a lie. There is definitely such a thing as a maths person because I am a maths person.

Let me explain.

I used to think that the phrase "maths person" meant "a person who naturally finds maths easy and without working can do all the maths". I'm pretty sure a lot of people do mean this when they say they are not a maths person, as if I'm going to force them to knuckle down and learn complex differential geometry at any moment.

But it occurs to me that a more literal interpretation of the phrase "maths person" would be "a person who is maths". That is, a person for whom maths is part of their identity. And in that case, there is absolutely no denying that actually, yes, I am a maths person.

Maths is a huge part of my identity as a person. I have a favourite fraction (3/8), and a favourite fraction fact (1/3 + 1/6 = 1/2). I love the classification of quadrilaterals. I can't help but see shapes in a building, or try to tell if a friend's age is a prime on their birthday. I actively seek out puzzles to try. For goodness' sake I wear home-made maths t-shirts to work every day!

Of course, maths is not the whole of my identity. I am a Christian, a husband and a father. I love to read children's bo