[00:00:00] Liz Wiznerowicz: Really, what drew me to Math-U-See right away was it was a simple program. I’m the kind of person who looks at today’s math books and math worksheets. I’m overstimulated just looking at all the different things and pictures and things that they need me to do. I appreciated the simplicity of the program. I also love how hands-on it is.

[music]

[00:00:36] Gretchen Roe: Hi, everybody. This is Gretchen Roe. Welcome to this special bonus episode of The Demme Learning Show. I am having the most awesome time having a conversation with my new friend, Liz Wiznerowicz, and we’re going to talk about the fact that she is a Math-U-See supermom. Now, that’s not the only thing we’re going to talk about because Liz is a reading specialist and a math intervention specialist, and I really wanted her to come here today and talk to me about why she thinks Math-U-See is such an amazing program. Liz, I’m going to let you introduce yourself and talk in a little bit of depth about how we found each other, and then we’ll get started into our conversation.

[00:01:21] Liz Wiznerowicz: Gretchen, thanks again for having me. I’m always so excited to talk about one of my favorite subjects, which is math. In fact, in our school’s latest talent show, my talent was singing skip-counting songs that help you learn your skip-counting skills. I have to say, I didn’t win, but I sure did steal the show.

Again, my name is Liz Wiznerowicz. I live here in Richmond, Virginia. I’m a now-retired homeschool mom since both my daughters are in college. One is about halfway through, and one is just about finished. I’ve been a very happy Math-U-See mom for now almost 20 years. Like a lot of people, I got introduced to Math-U-See when talking with other homeschool parents, because of course, when you’re new, you never really know where to start, and I just found all of a sudden it just seemed to be a really good fit.

Really, what drew me to Math-U-See right away was it was a simple program. I’m the kind of person who looks at today’s math books and math worksheets. I’m overstimulated just looking at all the different things and pictures and things that they need me to do. I appreciated the simplicity of the program. I also love how hands-on it is. My math blocks are still everyone’s favorite toys. I’ll talk a little bit later about how I use Math-U-See in the classroom.

[00:03:13] Gretchen: Liz, did you always plan to homeschool?

[00:03:17] Liz: Yes, it was always our intention to homeschool. When my husband and I, before we started our family, I was working for UVA Hospital, and he had just started at VCU in the Department of Music, and we had made the decision early on that we wanted to homeschool our kids. I always had had a passion for education, and I’ve always loved working with kids. Again, this is in the early 2000s, I was really disillusioned with what I saw happening in public schools and what, through the news, I felt the direction that public school was going into.

Like a lot of new couples, we could not afford the private schools that we would have preferred if we were going to send our kids to school, especially here in Virginia. They can be prohibitively expensive. I had thought about going into teaching, but I realized I did not have any desire to enter the machine, so to speak. I really wanted to be able to have the freedom, to be able to have the flexibility, to be able to have the time to discern that, being a standard K through 8 or high school teacher, I never would have gotten that there. Absolutely not.

We started with Math-U-See as a toy. The blocks were just meant to be played with, and so when it came time for us to start learning, it really didn’t take long for them to really be able to use the blocks as tools because they can find a four-block in half a second. They can identify and find all the blocks that they need, and they know because they’ve built so many fortress walls and castles and other things with these blocks. They know how many of each block fit on top of one another. It was a great way for my kids to learn their colors. For us, Math-U-See has always started with associating it with something fun.

[00:05:53] Gretchen: I like that. That’s a really excellent tip, is it’s demystified when you make it fun.

[00:06:02] Liz: There’s a difference between making learning play and gamifying, which I’m not a huge fan of the gamifying trend. That’s a whole nother ball of wax. For my kids and continuing on with the students that I work with now, your first introduction to Math-U-See is always at playtime. It’s always in play. It’s always even in play when I’m working with middle school students. You know, we use the blocks all the way up through algebra. It’s never too late to start playing. I think it really gives this great positive connotation to using the manipulatives because you’re already used to it.

[00:06:51] Gretchen: You homeschooled your daughters all the way through high school, and now they’re both in college. Talk about how Math-U-See prepared them for that, because that’s a question we often get from parents. They’re like, “This looks great, except it’s not going to serve my kids beyond maybe middle school. As the mother who had six of them, I know that’s not true, but I want to hear your perspective.

[00:07:21] Liz: We absolutely used Math-U-See all the way up through Algebra 2. At that point, they were beginning to take their dual-enrolled classes at the community college before heading off to university. I really appreciated again the stepwise sequential nature of Math-U-See, where each step isn’t this giant leap above the next one. There are times when the progress seems so subtle that your students don’t realize, your kids don’t realize that they’re actually making these big jumps over time. It never feels very overwhelming, which I really appreciated.

I know that it might seem a little daunting to maybe families who don’t have as strong of a math background. However, I do come with a strong math background because I’ve been working in the science fields before starting my family and becoming a homeschool mom, but there was a lot of stuff that I had to dust off the old bookshelf in my brain. There are so many great resources, whether you like to read to refresh, you want to get a backup lesson from Mr. Demme, want to start working through some of the pages themselves. I really appreciated that the Solutions Manuals had stepwise solutions, not just the answers. There were times where if I just needed to call Math-U-See and talk to somebody, I could.

[00:09:09] Gretchen: Yes. Yes. That was a huge differentiator for me. I didn’t start homeschooling with Math-U-See. I started with another math program, and in fact, wended my way through six different programs before I found my way here. Unlike you, I was not a confident mathematician, so finding my way to Math-U-See was a revelatory experience for me because it helped me understand why math had been difficult for me. It showed me what I didn’t know and helped me really untie some of the myths that I had built around what I perceived to be my own math inabilities. I’m never going to say I love math, but I don’t have the adversarial relationship with it.

[00:09:59] Liz: Yes. Yes. From my personal experience, I feel like Math-U-See circumvented us building that adversarial relationship in the first place. My older child decided to go into computer science. She is mathing her way through university. My other child is in the fine arts, and she was able to complete her math requirements in university. She’s like, “Actually, this was pretty easy, Mom.”

I really can speak to the fact that Math-U-See just really helps– I want to prevent that kid who’s going, “I’m just not good at math.” Somehow it’s this final decision, this irrevocable decision, like, “I’m just not a math person.” That math thinking, whether you use it later or not, is just as important as music thinking.

[00:11:06] Gretchen: I’m so glad that you said that. You just read my mind because I was going to say–

[00:11:08] Liz: Yes, both of my daughters studied music. I asked them to go until each one was able to study piano until they were 13. I said, “Okay, I want you to have a good music education. I really value what music does to your mind and to your thinking processes and how it builds you as a person. You’ve done eight years. If you want to stop now, let’s focus on something else that appeals to you.” I had one who stopped and one who just gave another piano recital last Saturday, and has been paying for her own piano lessons.

[00:11:48] Gretchen: That’s amazing. That’s wonderful.

[00:11:51] Liz: Math is kind of the same way. Even if you’re a person who is not going to be using high-order math regularly, developmentally, it’s so valuable because it changes your thinking processes. It builds your creativity when it comes to solving problems. Pattern recognition is so important in all forms of life, whether you are recognizing patterns of behavior or patterns just anywhere. There’s a value to learning math, even if you’re not going into a field that’s going to be–

[00:12:36] Gretchen: Absolutely.

[00:12:36] Liz: You don’t have to work for NASA to justify learning math.

[00:12:42] Gretchen: It actually helps us also learn to think, and I think that’s where it’s really, really valuable. One of the things that I have loved so thoroughly about Math-U-See is my children have gone far beyond my capacities mathematically. I have two of my kids who have gone all the way through calculus. One is a computer scientist now. He’s a network systems engineer. One is a soon-to-be certified electrician, but they both did Math-U-See through calculus.

In fact, Duncan, who is now 27, drove Steve crazy one summer. Duncan came to three conferences with me, and poor Mr. Demme, Duncan would say, “Can’t you write a college calculus book? Because you explain calculus so much better than my college professors.” [laughs] Mr. Demme was like, “Duncan, I don’t want to do that.” Duncan was like, “Yes, but it would be so amazing.” Then we’d go a month, and we’d see him at another conference, and Mr. Steve would be, “Hey, Duncan, how are you?” Duncan said, “I’m here to petition you to write a [laughs] college textbook.” Steve was like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” [laughs]

[00:14:13] Liz: I don’t want to say the culture of Math-U-See, but that might be the right word. The philosophy of Math-U-See is straightforward, it’s sequential, and it’s focusing on mastery rather than just– I don’t know if achievement is the right word. It’s not focused on doing. Doing is just a tool that leads you to mastery, and mastery of one thing is the stepping stone to the next thing. Math-U-See is consistent. You don’t go through these kind of slow, boring periods, and then all of a sudden you hit this huge roadblock where everything’s really difficult. The sequencing of the curriculum is very consistent, and the goal is not to rush.

The number one thing that I said to many people is I love Math-U-See because it’s skill-based and not grade-based. What kind of pressure does a homeschool parent feel when they have a fourth-grade book for their fourth grader, and they know their kid is smart? It’s not like your kid needs to be held back a grade, but what does that do to your confidence and to your student’s confidence when your child is in fourth grade, and they have a fourth-grade book, and there’s something in there that they can’t master?

[00:16:01] Gretchen: That’s very true. It’s very true.

[00:16:03] Liz: Even as a homeschooler, just by labeling it as a fourth-grade book, they’re comparing themselves now to every other fourth grader in the whole country. Like, “Every fourth grader can do this and I can’t. What kind of person am I? I’m just going to give up on math.”

[00:16:20] Gretchen: None of us want that for our children.

[00:16:21] Liz: No, absolutely not.

[00:16:21] Gretchen: Though I think it’s very important that we can take that message and apply it and recognize that even as adults, we can internalize that message. Math-U-See was able to unpack that for me to be able to understand– I’m not going to say I love math, but I don’t hate math anymore.

[00:16:45] Liz: I think between my path and yours that I would say that Math-U-See has done a great job of providing that foundation of confidence, whether they love to do it or not, they can do it. There’s not this sense of identity that’s connected to their math skills. It’s like, “This is a thing I can do. This other thing I haven’t learned yet.” The other thing is for you, it’s unpacking and undoing and dismantling that feeling of I just must not be good at math. How can you make any progress if you’ve labeled yourself as a person who just can’t?

[00:17:34] Gretchen: One of the things that has been a blessing working here for 12 years, I was able to figure out where I developed that belief and unwind it, if you will, so that I no longer hold that belief about myself, and that was very empowering. That gave me the opportunity to change the game for my children. You have loved Math-U-See so much that you’re still changing the game for a lot of kids. There’s a lot of moms who are going to watch this and go, “I’m at the end of my homeschool journey. Now what do I do?” Tell us what you did.

[00:18:21] Liz: I don’t know about you. I definitely was not wishing that I had more children, but when I came to the end of my homeschool journey, I just wasn’t ready yet. I’ve always known that I’ve had a teacher’s heart. I’ve always known that that’s my charisma. I guess the hallmark of a successful homeschooler is your kids can do it on their own. They’re on it. Honestly, especially a little bit in Algebra 1, by the time they got to geometry, it was just them and Mr. Demme. I was like, “Let me just look over your work and make sure.” They didn’t need me. It came far too soon. I don’t know, maybe somebody else might feel that same way too, but I was not ready.

[00:19:16] Gretchen: I was kind of grateful that they did not need me, I will be honest. [laughs]

[00:19:20] Liz: I was grateful, but then I felt like, “I’m not ready.” This also happened right at the time where the pandemic was starting. My youngest one, had she been schooled, was in eighth grade at the time. I didn’t have this plan to go back to work. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had been working part-time for my church, and obviously, during the pandemic, we were furloughed.

The way things started was our church had recently welcomed a small group of maybe about a dozen refugee families that had resettled in Richmond, and they were Catholic, and they had come to our church. It felt like as soon as they got here, all the schools shut down. We were furloughed, and all of us were trying to navigate this new digital environment. All of us were becoming Google Meet and Skype and all these other apps that were popping up, learning how to use Zoom.

Our church recognized that there was this huge unforeseen need. These kids had come to the United States. Most of them had been born in refugee camps and had either received no schooling, some of them had parents who were preliterate, not literate in any language. They had come here with very limited formal education, and then were being put into not only an age-leveled classroom, which some of them were only in for about six months before, then they had to go to an age-leveled digital classroom.

[00:21:20] Gretchen: Oh dear.

[00:21:21] Liz: Yes, kids had never used laptops, not used the internet, nothing. Our church started connecting volunteers who would work on Zoom with these kids and help them learn how to use the computer, help them with their homework, all of these other things. There were three young men who, at the time, were 14, 16, and 17, who had all come from different families, but who had all come with almost no formal education and being put into algebra classes, basically.

[00:21:58] Gretchen: The lunacy of that-

[00:22:00] Liz: Oh, absolutely.

[00:22:00] Gretchen: -it’s like, just because I stand in my garage doesn’t mean I’m a car. Just to say you’re 14 or 15, here you go, we’re going to put you in this class, not a recipe for success.

[00:22:16] Liz: Me and my teacher friends, we did our research, and we talked with the parents, and we were able to pull these three young men from school and register them as homeschoolers because they weren’t going to school anyway. Frankly, I had all this homeschool energy just bubbling in me that I wasn’t ready to check out yet.

I am not a licensed teacher, but my friend, who has helped me with coordinating all these tutors, she is a licensed teacher. She became the teacher of record and the evaluator for these students, and I stepped in with all of our reading curricula with my friend. She’s one of the ESL coordinators for Henrico County. She brought me all of these amazing ESL programs. We started with Math-U-See, and we started with Alpha. We started from Alpha. I’ll have to send you the picture. I got a couple of these boys. I took a picture of them with their certificates. In one year, they had gone from Alpha to Zeta.

[00:23:28] Gretchen: In one year?

[00:23:29] Liz: No, they had gone from Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, sorry. They got through Epsilon. I put on our little classroom board five books in one year with a big certificate for them. They made such huge gains. Now, does that say when you’re done with Epsilon, you’re ready to go jump back into your high school classes at whatever? I figured we can get them through Algebra 1, we can get them through geometry, that’s enough to get the standard diploma here. We were able to graduate these young men, and they went on to– One is getting ready to enter the military, and two are in community college and working part-time right now.

[00:24:16] Gretchen: That’s amazing. Never underestimate the power of a homeschool mom. [laughs]

[00:24:23] Liz: Also, that was my first time raising boys. Wow, wasn’t that a crash course?

[00:24:31]Gretchen: [laughs] As somebody who has three of each, I can tell you there is a lot of difference between girls and boys.

[00:24:38] Liz: Obviously, I was using Math-U-See this way. In 2023, my friend Kenya Gray and I formalized our church ministry of trying to match students up with tutors to be able to help them. We had started a summer school program and a Saturday school program. She actually, as an ESL teacher, had been pulling students to come and work at the library on Saturday and bring in volunteers, and I originally was one of her volunteers. We said, look, “I’ve got a church. Let’s make this a real program.”

In the summer of ’21, we started our first summer school with eight students. In the fall, we started our first Saturday school program, eight Saturdays, and we have steadily grown. We just finished our fifth full year. The summer season will be the beginning of our sixth year. Our last spring season, because I had a record number of volunteer applications, we were able to accept 40 children, 40 children who originated from about 12 different countries, speaking all kinds of languages with all kinds of cultural backgrounds.

As I was saying before, Kenya and I formalized this program into a nonprofit in 2023. This educational nonprofit is called Tusome, which is the Swahili word for let’s learn together, and we coordinate dozens of teen volunteers. We recruit them, we train them, and we place them in our summer school and Saturday school programs, almost like Big Brother Big Sister. We call it the buddy system, where a student will get assigned a mentor or a buddy, and that is the person that will be working with them through the whole season.

That program has been very generously funded by various granting agencies and private donors. We do work on a bit of a shoestring budget, and everybody is volunteer. We have been able to provide this program, which not only provides private tutoring, personalized curricula, half of it’s Math-U-See. The math portion is all Math-U-See, it’s all I use. We don’t do lunch, but we do heavy snacks, healthy heavy snacks, and then we do special activities each year. We’re able to offer that program for free.

[00:27:24] Gretchen: Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. How many days a week are these kids with you?

[00:27:30] Liz: During the fall and spring season, it’s six Saturdays in the fall, six Saturdays in the spring, and then two weeks in the summer. Our summer season this year is scheduled for July 20th through the 31st, and we’re already in full recruitment mode. We have 35 slots, and already 22 of them are full for volunteers.

[00:27:57] Gretchen: Do you find that you have volunteers who love it so much they come back and volunteer again?

[00:28:01] Liz: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, during the summer, I get a lot of my college students to come back that were with me for either most or the entirety of their high school years. We do take volunteers starting at eighth grade, and they do stay. Right now, we have about 34 applicants. All but six of them are returning.

[00:28:25] Gretchen: Amazing. That’s amazing. That speaks to the quality with which you are doing this, because if it compels them to return again-

[00:28:35] Liz: Absolutely.

[00:28:36] Gretchen: -that’s got to be amazing.

[00:28:38] Liz: I have always told those mentors that they are the reason that our students are coming, giving up their Saturdays, giving up their summer, to come and do literacy and math, because they’re not doing it because they want to read more and they want to write more paragraphs and they want to learn more vocabulary, they want to master multiplication. They’re doing it because they want to be with their buddy, and doing that stuff is just the means to get them to their buddy.

Their buddy, we train them to be highly encouraging, to help them find their focus, to help us maintain a high standard of learning so that we immediately know if there’s any issue. If there’s any struggle, we can immediately teach into that moment and remove that struggle. It’s been an extremely fruitful journey. Exhausting at times, but fruitful.

It wasn’t until last year that I came on– I had been working with Title I on and off at the high school level, but I was offered a Title I position for both Richmond City School and Henrico County, but serving at a private school. I serve those students at a private school, and I basically do the same programming I do in my tutoring program. I bring it to my Title I classroom, which is all a small group classroom. It’s between one and four students.

[00:30:23] Gretchen: Sure. When you onboard a new volunteer, what are the things that you feel like are essential for them to understand about Math-U-See? Because I’m going to make the assumption that all of your volunteers don’t have necessarily a homeschool background.

[00:30:43] Liz: No, we do have a few homeschoolers. It’s true, we do have a few, but we are lucky to recruit our volunteers– They don’t volunteer every single season, but right now, I have a volunteer base of about 80 teenagers from more than a dozen high schools all over the Greater Richmond area, and some of them travel a long way to serve our students. Again, almost none of them have a Math-U-See background, almost none.

We do training workshops. The literacy one is scheduled for the end of this month. Mid-June, we’ll be doing the math workshop, and that’s a half-day workshop. It’s from 9:00 to 1:00. I do bring in a few students for them to work with, but as their students progress, even the volunteers who ask for the same student over and over again, those students are progressing. You can’t just be good at Alpha or just be good at Epsilon.

I have to have you knowing not only the broad overview of how Math-U-See as a program works and how we work to encourage our students to put in that effort to be able to teach into, these are some of the methods that we use that are just for Gamma. These are some of the methods that we use. This is when we’re going to start learning how to use fraction overlays. Sometimes in the fall, we’ll grab some high school students and start working on the algebra level, but we usually stop around Epsilon. I do have some Zeta students, but it’s mostly Epsilon. The majority of our students are Alpha, Beta, Gamma. That’s 90%.

[00:32:26] Gretchen: Giving them that foundation through Epsilon is life-giving, especially to a child who perhaps has struggled heretofore.

[00:32:36] Liz: Yes. The nice thing is that the sequence of skills progresses very subtly. I don’t want to say slowly. It’s just subtle. It’s just what we did before, plus this one extra little layer. The volunteers who don’t come from a Math-U-See background, they are traveling with those students in the same way.

In our small group rooms, where students and mentors are paired up, I always have a lead teacher in each room. It’s that teacher’s job to not teach and lecture the class because homeschoolers don’t work that way. We don’t have a, “Here’s my lecture, take notes,” is to teach in when we feel like something is a struggle. I train my volunteers to take a temperature. Is something too hard, too easy, or right in the middle? Right in that middle is where I want to stay, where you have to do some effort but no tears.

[00:33:44] Gretchen: Yes, I had that in my notes from last week, and so I was hoping that you would say that because I think that’s a really good attitude for a parent to have as well.

[00:33:52] Liz: Yes.

[00:33:54] Gretchen: Are we in the sweet spot where you’re going to be learning and growing your knowledge without being frustrated?

[00:34:03] Liz: I have never been to a Math-U-See professional development or a training program, just through my consistent use of the videos, use of the teacher’s manuals, and talking to other homeschool moms, calling up folks with a question at Math-U-See. I want to be able to transmit the things that I learned the hard way. I want to put that into my volunteers. This is why we do this a certain way.

One of the things that I really wanted to speak to is encouraging families who are either looking for a math curriculum that’s going to fit their students or has been using Math-U-See a while and just needs that encouragement to stick with it. Even a family that has a student with, I hate to call it a natural math aptitude, but some kids are just puzzlers. They like to solve puzzles, and really, isn’t that what math is for? It’s just solving concrete problems. Even your child with great math aptitude is going to have periods of breezy success and slogging struggles.

They will enjoy not– I don’t have to do every single worksheet that goes with the lesson. There’s sometimes when a skill was really easy, I said, “Okay, just do the odd numbers,” or “Just do the back half,” or “Let’s just work on the review page. You do one lesson page, and then we’ll just work on the review.” They’re able to progress really quickly. I’m so grateful that there are not 50 addition problems on one page. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that. That’s so disheartening to see. When they do eventually hit that, just needing a little extra time, it’s there. One of the things that I have always said is that comparison is the thief of joy.

[00:36:19] Gretchen: I have a coworker who would be so delighted to hear you say that because she says it so often.

[00:36:26] Liz: Math somehow lends itself to comparison. Like, “Again, this is my fourth-grade book. I’m now being compared to every other fourth grader. I can’t do this. I’m just going to give up.” Your child is not in a competition with the other children. They’re not in a competition with your other children. They’re not in a competition, even with the child that you want them to be, that you’ve planned for them to be. They’re on a journey, and they will get to their destination as long as they are making progress.

I don’t know whether progress is success or success is progress, but success is definitely not this thing where you’re like, “Oh, I just wanted everything. I get straight A’s.” It’s a way to succeed, but it’s not everybody’s definition of success. I wasn’t a straight-A student, but I definitely feel successful. I’m super proud of the things that I’ve accomplished, and especially the things that I struggled to accomplish. I appreciate those and more.

[00:37:39] Gretchen: Now, look what you’re sowing into the next generation or generations because what you’re able to do with what you’re doing. I’m interested to know, do you have volunteers who come to you saying, “Geez, I wish somebody had shown me math like this?”

[00:37:55] Liz: I hear that more often than you would really believe. It really is. When we first started tutoring, and I didn’t have this network of teens– Teens are always best because being closer to the age of our students, it’s really much more motivating to have a teen than some grown-up. Back in the day, when I did have a lot of grown-ups, they were so pleasantly surprised by Math-U-See, and they’re like, “Where was this? Where was this when I needed it?” I look at this next generation of teens, now college students. One of my first earliest volunteers just graduated from UVA.

[00:38:44] Gretchen: Oh, that’s amazing.

[00:38:45] Liz: I think he was in the 10th or the 11th grade when he started working with me, and he comes back in the summers. I have one kid who was always like, “Is Joe coming back? Is Joe coming back?” I don’t know who in these kids are going to be future educators. I don’t know who in this group are going to be kids that are going to be future homeschoolers. I write a lot of recommendation letters, so I know the few who I know are trying to become dentists or get into med school or get into a business program or something like that, but they are taking this experience with them.

It fosters this idea that relationship is this conduit through all of our experiences funneled. With this strong relationship, you don’t need to sacrifice the relationship that you have with your child to teach them math. You do not need to be heavy-handed and beat it over them and lord it over them. Your child is on their journey. That’s the whole reason you became a homeschooler, was to get away from the schedules and the benchmarks and the standardized tests.

[00:39:58] Gretchen: I should have had you be part of the conversation that we just had two hours ago addressing this very issue because this is the time of year where the homeschool moms are participating in standardized tests. They’re all coming unglued over the fact that maybe their children didn’t perform where they thought they should perform, or they feel like their effort is reflected in the score their child has received, which is completely untrue, but I do understand how we get there from here.

[00:40:35] Liz: Hey, you just gave the most concrete example of comparison stealing their joy. Raising children is hard enough. Don’t compare yourself to somebody else. This is the whole reason that we’re walking this path on our own, is because we know that our first kid isn’t the same as the second one, isn’t the same as the sixth one. Our kids, we’re not comparing them to the neighbor’s kids or the kids who sit next to us in that other family at church. We are getting them where they are supposed to be in their own way, in their own way.

I really want to just encourage homeschool moms and dads, homeschool parents, dads, get in there, don’t be disheartened. Your child is just growing into the person that they were meant to be, and you get the honor of traveling on this journey with them, and they get to benefit from your knowledge and your experience. You get to have all of this wonderful time to spend with them in play, in conversation, to get to hear all the random things that just pop out of their brains and the great conversations.

I’ve been so grateful to Math-U-See for– I don’t know how I just got here. I didn’t do a whole survey of math programs, but I felt like I just stumbled into what ended up being just a really huge positive influence for me. To using that method, the Math-U-See method, I’m putting it into all the work that I’m doing. I’m not worried about, is this person matching up to this person’s skill? Is this child that I’m working with making progress? Are they feeling good about what they’re doing in a way that makes them hungry to go on to the next step?

[00:42:36] Gretchen: That’s wonderful, Liz. In a way that makes them hungry to go on to the next step. We would all hope that all of our children have that desire.

[00:42:49] Liz: It’s very trite, but they say that success is half aspiration and half perspiration. You got to have both. You got to have both. They have to have that hunger. We’ve all dragged a child through something that they didn’t want to do, but we have an opportunity as homeschoolers to maintain and grow that desire in a way that’s really positive for these kids.

The holistic lessons that I learned in a Math-U-See curriculum, they apply everywhere. I’m just really grateful. Again, now my next goal, I am running a Title I summer school pilot program at the school where I work, and I am working very hard to get Math-U-See as our approved school curriculum for the summer program.

Then my hope is with some good results with that, that I might be able to invite Math-U-See to come do professional development, with perhaps the opportunity to do a pilot program for at least maybe starting in our kindergarten, first grade, second grade classes. I think we would see a huge change if we were able to bring a program like Math-U-See into our schools. It’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to homeschool is that I just felt like the current curriculums were not in good service to our students.

[00:44:37] Gretchen: That’s an amazing thing to hear, Liz. Thank you so much for this conversation. This has-

[00:44:41] Liz: Oh, you’re very welcome.

[00:44:42] Gretchen: -just been beyond anything that I anticipated. Before we close our conversation, if a parent is listening to us and they’re sitting on the fence, maybe the homeschool fence or the math fence, either one, what would you say are the takeaways that they should ponder as they go forth? What do you want them to think about?

[00:45:12] Liz: Your confidence should be rooted in love.

[00:45:16] Gretchen: Oh, love it.

[00:45:18] Liz: Your parenting, how you judge yourself as a parent, should be rooted in how you love your kids, and hopefully they’re loving you right back. The qualifications will come. When your child is four, you don’t need to know algebra. Just grow with your kids. If you’re on the fence about taking that leap, I would just encourage you to go for it. What’s the worst that can happen? You’re going to spend more time with your children.

[00:45:54] Gretchen: Absolutely.

[00:45:58] Liz: You are the person that your children love the most. In lots of different things, I learned. I wasn’t born a great parent. I read all the books, but somehow I didn’t learn anything. It’s all on-the-job training. It’s all on-the-job training. Let your confidence just be rooted in love. You love your children. You’re working hard to build this family founded in love, however your family expresses that. Devoting yourself as one homeschool parent or as a pair working together as a team, I can’t imagine a bigger gift of love than the opportunity to homeschool your children.

[00:46:47] Gretchen: I love it. That’s a wonderful thing to say. Liz, is there a question I should have asked you that I didn’t?

[00:46:55] Liz: Oh, I don’t know, but I can tell you the random fact that I learned today.

[00:47:01] Gretchen: Okay.

[00:47:03] Liz: A first grader needed to tell me something very, very, very important today, and she said, “Ms. Liz, did you know that jaguars don’t wear slippers?” I bet that’s something you’ve never even thought about. I know I haven’t.

[00:47:24] Gretchen: [laughs] No, but Liz, now it’s going to be going through my head for the rest of the day.

[00:47:30] Liz: I was like, “Now that you mention it, I did not know that.” It was very important. I just want to let you know that’s the headline for today. Jaguars-

[00:47:46] Gretchen: That’s amazing.

[00:47:47] Liz: -they don’t wear slippers.

[00:47:49] Gretchen: Liz, I want to thank you so much for joining me. This has been fantastic. This has been beyond anything I anticipated-

[00:47:57] Liz: Oh, thank you.

[00:47:58] Gretchen: -it would be, and I can’t wait to share this video with everybody at Math-U-See because I think they’re going to love it.

[00:48:06] Liz: Oh gosh, I could talk for hours, so I’m glad we’re moving on. Again, thank you for having me. I hope that if even just one person that it touches their hearts and sets a little fire under their confidence, it’ll have been well worth it.

[00:48:24] Gretchen: That sounds amazing. Liz, thank you so much. I’m going to-

[00:48:27] Liz: You’re welcome

[00:48:27] Gretchen: -stop the recording now, but I so appreciate the time that you have spent with me today.

[00:48:32] Liz: Oh, you’re very, very welcome. Thanks for wanting to have that conversation. I appreciate it.