October 13, 2026
Dear Mirowitz Community,
Every once in a while, a film, a book, or even a conversation comes along that makes you stop and think differently about something you thought you understood. Counted Out did that for me.
On Thursday, October 22 at 6:00 p.m., Mirowitz, along with the J and the Independent Schools of St. Louis, will host a screening of Counted Out at the J. I really hope you will join us.
At first glance, you might think this is a movie about math. And it is. But it is also about so much more.
Counted Out asks us to consider what it means to live in a world increasingly shaped by numbers, data, algorithms, statistics and, now, artificial intelligence. It asks what happens when children decide early in their lives that they are simply “not math people.” And it makes a compelling case that mathematical literacy is about much more than doing well in school. It is about having the tools to understand the world around us and to participate fully in it.
The film is especially meaningful to me because I have known its director, Vicki Haberkorn Abeles, for many years. Vicki was a parent at one of my former schools, and I had the opportunity to see an early cut of Counted Out and offer some thoughts as she was developing the film. I am delighted that Vicki is planning to join us virtually on October 22 so that we can hear from her directly and ask questions after the screening.
One of the people at the heart of the film is Bob Moses, an extraordinary civil rights leader who later became a math teacher and founded the Algebra Project. Bob came to believe that access to mathematics was, in fact, a civil rights issue—that understanding math gives people access to opportunity, power and full participation in our democracy.
That idea has stayed with me.
Because when I walk through Mirowitz classrooms, I see children learning something larger than any particular subject. I see them learning to ask good questions. To challenge assumptions. To listen to one another. To look closely at evidence. To wrestle with ideas. And, very importantly, to understand that their learning carries with it a responsibility to the world beyond themselves.
Those are Jewish habits of mind. They are also mathematical habits of mind.
So, yes, I want us to come together to watch a really good film. But even more, I want us to have a conversation together: What do our children need from us to flourish in the world they are inheriting? How do we prepare them for a world of AI and algorithms? And how do we make sure they grow up believing that difficult problems are things they can engage with rather than things they should avoid?
These are big questions. They are also very Mirowitz questions.
I hope you’ll join us on Thursday, October 22 at 6pm at the JCC (Staenberg Campus). I’m really looking forward to sharing the evening—and the conversation—with you. Click below for more information and to purchase tickets!
Shabbat Shalom,
Brian Thomas
Interim Head of School