I teach high school math. I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it.

Meyer frames the high-school math teacher’s job in the language of sales and coercive markets: students are the “customers,” mathematics is the “product,” and compulsory schooling is the legal mechanism that forces “purchase.” The line highlights a structural motivational problem in math education—many students arrive resistant or disengaged, not because they have freely chosen the subject but because it is required. Implicitly, the quote critiques curricula and pedagogy that assume intrinsic demand, and it sets up Meyer’s broader argument (common in his work) that teachers must create intellectual need, curiosity, and perceived value rather than merely deliver content to a captive audience.