Kathy has the benefit of hindsight as her children are mostly grown and she has worked in the field of early childhood education, in one capacity or another, for eons.   I appreciate how positive her responses are even though each of her children had vastly different early childhood  experiences.

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1.  Please describe how you are involved in the field of education.

 I am a professor, researcher, teacher and college administrator.

2.  How many children do you have and how old are they?

I have 4 children and they are 18, 22, 25 and 31

3.  Describe your children’s early childhood experiences.  Did they stay at home with a family member? Did they attend preschool or childcare? Did they attend a home-based childcare program, or a combination of the above?  (If your children have not yet entered a childcare setting, please answer these questions for the future, i.e., What do you hope your children’s math experiences will be? What are your plans for introducing math to your children at home?)

My children all had different experiences because they are between 3 and 6 years apart in age.  Some got me as a stay at home Mom while I attended graduate school (and had a childcare person come to the house sometimes daily, sometimes part-time and sometimes as needed), others attended preschool part-time, some full-time, some were in my own preK classroom when I worked.  Some had the lovely advantage of having au pairs who lived with us.

4.  Describe your children’s exposure to math in their prekindergarten years both at home and at school.

My children had many “math manipulatives” in the house and I played games with them, let them explore, taught them and emphasized mathematical thinking such as before, after, more, less, greater, less than, plus, minus etc. They also played school together a lot and practiced their “math”.  Their schools were often university laboratory schools and Montessori schools and were well versed on not only providing a positive environment for mathematical literacy, but actually “teaching and guiding” math learning.

5.  Knowing what you now know about raising and educating children, what worked well in your children’s early math experiences?

I have to say that I think one of my children chose to get a degree in math because she loved the challenge, but also loved the fact that there was a right answer to the problems.  Even as a small child she was interested in time and how long things took and solving mysteries.  Most importantly, she had a great math teacher in high school that she is still in touch with and still has as a mentor.

My oldest is what I would call an artist and math just came easy for her too.  My musician son claims to not be good in math and not like it, but I have observed he does just fine in all college math classes and tests…so I believe he just does not like the formulas etc. 

My youngest is a “math natural” too. 

I think having lots of materials for them to experiment with helped…having good teachers really helped.  In fact, besides the home environment, that is probably the most important thing. My youngest had a 3^rd grade teacher who taught the kids cribbage and they had daily tournaments all year long.  He learned his math facts so fast and so well that he can tell you every way to get to 15 or 31 that there is:)

GAMES work

6. What didn’t work well?

My musician son had a poor and absent teacher in 3^rd grade and I believe it greatly influenced his thinking about math and his perception of his ability to be good in math.  I should have provided more guidance during that time. In addition, with all of them, they soon enough surpassed my abilities and I never could use a graphing calculator…so I could not help them after they reached a certain level.  Luckily, they could help each other and we have an economist friend who helped with the super sophisticated stuff…like probability haha.

7. What would you have done differently at home?  Nothing actually

8. What would you have like to have seen done differently in their prekindergarten settings?  They were lucky in that they had great PREK settings….I would not change a thing

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1.  Please describe how you are involved in the field of education.

I teach college mathematics.  My wife teaches 1^st and 2^nd grade.  I’m also in the process of getting a Ph.D in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Math education.

 2.  How many children do you have and how old are they?

I have 2 children, Vincent and Joseph.  Vincent is 2 years old; Joe is 4 months old.

 3.  Describe your children’s early childhood experiences.  Did they stay at home with a family member? Did they attend preschool or childcare? Did they attend a home-based childcare program, or a combination of the above?  (If your children have not yet entered a childcare setting, please answer these questions for the future, i.e., What do you hope your children’s math experiences will be? What are your plans for introducing math to your children at home?)

Vincent spent his first year (during the school year) at a nanny’s house.  She had a 1.5 year old.  He spent the next year in a nanny share with our neighbors.  The nannies work more on language and behavior than with math.  The same goes for my wife and I.  We focused significantly more on language and behavior, more recently because he’s exhibiting a speech delay and is seeing an occupational therapist.  However, inconsistently my wife and I have counted, compared, sorted with him.

 As for Joseph, we haven’t done much yet but hope to be more diligent with the early math experiences.

4.  Describe your children’s exposure to math in their prekindergarten years both at home and at school.

See above.

 5.  Knowing what you now know about raising and educating children, what worked well in your children’s early math experiences?

We’ll see.

 6. What didn’t work well?

We’ll see.

 7. What would you have done differently at home?

I would like to make a more conscious effort in engaging Joseph in more organized play, particularly focused on mathematical concepts.

 8. What would you have like to have seen done differently in their prekindergarten settings?

I would encourage the nannies to vary the activities to incorporate mathematics more deliberately.

1.  They had to be educators (in some capacity).

2.  They had to parents (in some capacity).

That means that I sent the questionnaire out to dozens of people who I know who fit into both of the above categories.  The educators range for early childhood professionals to college professors.  They are local, national and international.  The parents range from having adult children to being brand new moms and dads.

My thinking is this…

Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear from parents who know something about education to find out how they felt about the own children’s early childhood experiences in math?  Was it satisfactory?  What were the strengths and what were the challenges?  I also wanted to hear what they hoped for and how they might have done things differently.

Their answers might surprise you.

Over the next several Fridays, I am going to post their responses to the questionnaire and we can discuss them.

It is really hard to formulate questions so they don’t sound too intrusive: How often do you read to your child? (Yikes, is there a right answer?)  or condescending: Do you read to your child? (Uh, oh.  I don’t but I am going to say I do.)  No matter how you ask them, these types of questions often make parents feel put on the spot.  It is not unusual for parents to fib a little bit: How much TV does your child watch? (He watches four hours a day, but I am going to say one hour because that makes me a better parent.)

If you wanted to find out about family attitudes about early education, how would you ask?  What would you say?  How could you ascertain that some families have “math fear” or have high expectations for their child’s early math education?  I would love to hear how you might formulate these questions and then we could discuss them.