A Personal Awakening - Seeing Beyond the Numbers
Years ago, my relationship with data was built on absolutes. With a background in math and statistics, I viewed data points as objective facts, unquestionable and self-evident. But life has a way of disrupting rigid beliefs.
As a parent to an autistic child, I quickly learned that data alone never tells the whole story. Behind every data point is a human experience. One that requires context, empathy, and perspective to fully understand. What looked like "behavioral trends" in a dataset took on a much deeper meaning when I saw how my child interacted with the world. The data wasn't wrong, but it was incomplete.
That realization changed everything.
I began to see misinterpretations of data everywhere: in education, in business, in media. I watched as people made sweeping judgments and policy decisions based on isolated statistics without questioning their sources, considering alternative viewpoints, or challenging underlying assumptions.
This lack of critical thinking was alarming. It became clear that data literacy is not just about numbers, it's about asking better questions, recognizing biases, and understanding the broader story.