Can you imagine factoring a polynomial using simple blocks? I was skeptical until I saw, and then truly understood, with Math-U-See.

From preschool to trigonometry, Steve Demme, creator of Math-U-See, takes complex mathematical concepts and uses hands-on techniques to explain their underlying meaning and significance. We are thrilled to have him as our guest this month at TOS!

TOS: I understand you previously taught math in the school system? Did you use these techniques then?

MR. DEMME: I taught in the schools in the early 1980s, but I taught the traditional way. I noticed, as a rule of thumb, that most Americans can’t do word problems. We teach them math by rote. You plug in the numbers and pop out the responses. But as far as computation skills, we stack up pretty well against other countries until fourth or fifth grade. Then we have to start applying math, and that’s where we really get into trouble, because we have never learned concepts. In order to teach concepts to kids, first, you have to understand them yourself, and second, you have to have some sort of tool or illustration to teach the concepts. They need to see it to understand it.

TOS: How did you become interested in homeschooling?

MR. DEMME: We’ve been homeschooling since 1982. Our kids have been homeschooled all along the way. We have four boys. The two oldest have graduated from Bryan College in Tennessee. Our third son is a freshman there now. Our fourth boy, who is 18, has Down syndrome, so he’ll be with us for a long time.

TOS: How did you develop this approach? Did you study other people’s work, or did you discover these teaching ideas yourself?

MR. DEMME: I learned a bunch from J. Mortensen, and he learned a lot from Montessori methods. I think it was Newton who said, “The reason I see further than others is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.” I used Saxon when I taught in the schools and I used to sell Saxon. I really liked his word problems and review. When I was using the Mortensen/Montessori materials, it wasn’t a complete curriculum. So as I was tutoring kids, I would teach them concretely with the blocks, and then I would provide worksheets for them. I never meant to write a curriculum, but people started buying the stuff I wrote when I was tutoring, and it worked!

TOS: Were you tutoring while still teaching in traditional school?

MR. DEMME: In a Christian school, yes. And after that my wife and I started a little company called Our Family Resources. We had a phonics program and we sold KONOS, Your Story Hour, and things like that. This was back in 1989.

TOS: So what would you say is wrong with the way math is traditionally taught, and how have you sought to address that?

MR. DEMME: I don’t think the teachers of today understand math! I think this lack of understanding math actually goes back a couple of generations. If you pinned down your teacher and asked, “Why do we do this?” not many could explain to you why. You can’t teach kids to think if you don’t understand it yourself. There’s a percentage of kids who are going to “get it” no matter how you teach and no matter what curriculum you use. And most kids need a teacher that understands the material and can show them why it works.

One of the big emphases of Math-USee is to produce better teachers. If you watch the DVDs with your kids, you’ll understand math and then you can apply it. You know your kids better than I do. If you have the math knowledge and the tools, then you adapt it to your child.

TOS: I’ve seen that firsthand with trying to teach my kids algebra. I’ve been telling them, “Do this because it’s the way I was taught and it’s the way the curriculum says to do it.” As I’m now watching your DVD WITH them, it’s wonderful. We’re continuing to do our algebra, but with the way you explain the concepts and why we do what we do, it’s opening up entire new vistas of understanding for them!

MR. DEMME: But don’t just leave it there. The reason that you learn is not just to learn new concepts but to apply them in word problems. To do a word problem, you need to know the rule and the process, but you also need to know the concept.

TOS: You have stated that traditional math places too great an emphasis on memorization, yet to be successful in math, students must do some memorizing. They can memorize the multiplication tables or skip counting sequences, for example, but they are still memorizing. What’s the difference?

MR. DEMME: Yes, you have to memorize the rules as well as the concepts. I’ve had kids who had successfully memorized their multiplication facts but didn’t know what it was that they memorized. They couldn’t tell you the area of a room with one-foot floor tiles. I’ve seen this over and over again and the kids that have simply memorized math facts couldn’t solve a word problem to save their lives. There is a school of thought that says, “Just give them a calculator and don’t require students to memorize basic math facts.” I don’t agree with this. I think it is important to memorize your basics, but it is equally important to understand what it is you have committed to memory.

TOS: How do you motivate a student who hates math or has no interest in it?

MR. DEMME: I’ve tutored a lot of kids, and when I tutor kids it’s usually the ones who are having problems, not the gifted kids. One of the things I do is show them how practical it is. Then when I give them manipulatives and show them how to do a problem it really does make sense. And they really can do it. I think most of the time people don’t like math [it] is because they aren’t any good at it. Personally I don’t like hockey because I stink, but I like basketball because I am good at it!

TOS: My high schoolers complain that they see no point in learning algebra or geometry. Can you give me some good arguments to persuade them?

MR. DEMME: If you’ve ever done or seen any kind of construction, it’s all geometry. Roofing, getting square walls, area, perimeter, volume—it’s all geometry. The meaning of the word geometry is “the measure of the earth.” So, geometry is a very practical skill. Algebra is a little trickier. You do use it in real life in solving for missing information. Let’s say you need x amount of money and you’re making x amount an hour, how many days will it take until you get that amount of money? That’s an algebra problem. But algebra is also a language. Once you learn algebra, it’s a general language and it gives you the tools to be able to learn trigonometry and calculus.

TOS: So, it’s sort of like the phonics of math.

MR. DEMME: Yes!

TOS: You have stated that all math boils down to four levels: counting, adding, multiplying, and exponents. Can you expand on this?

MR. DEMME: When you think about it, in its very basic sense math consists of counting from 0 to 9. Fast counting would be adding. Fast adding of the same number is multiplying. Fast multiplying of the same number is exponents. When you have those four levels in front of you, you realize that adding and its opposite, subtracting, is level two. Multiplying, dividing, and factoring would all be level three. Exponents, roots, square roots, cube roots, and logarithms are all level four. I like to make math very practical, but I also like to give students some broad strokes of how it all fits together.

TOS: What is your view of testing in the area of mathematics, especially for homeschoolers? Many of us are not required to test. Should we or shouldn’t we?

MR. DEMME: There are two ways to look at testing. If you’re taking a test from one of my books, the real function of that test is to see whether you’ve mastered the material. We emphasize that you’ve mastered the material in that lesson before you move along to the next lesson. Math is sequential. If you haven’t mastered adding, then you have no business being in multiplication. So testing to see if your child has mastered the material is very good. Standardized testing serves no purpose. The only reason to have standardized testing is to show how you measure up against students all across the country. It’s not going to tell you whether you’ve mastered material. It’s just going to show you how you measure up against other students. Fifty percent is the average, with half the kids above and half below. This type of testing is used by colleges to see whether you’re at the top or the bottom of the class. We hardly ever tested our own kids.

TOS: You have rewritten the levels of Math-U-See. Is there really a big difference?

MR. DEMME: It’s the only rewriting we’ve had! We’ve been tweaking for years, but we finally got to the point where there were a couple of things I really wanted to have in there—for example, things like measurement. At the lower levels, this is one of the best places that you can apply math, such as changing ounces to pounds, yards to feet, etc. We only had that measurement in individual lessons and it wasn’t being reviewed throughout the student books. That was a biggie. Subtraction and division review were also strengthened.

The original books were written over a span of several years. The new books were all written at the same time and they’re more integrated, like a seamless garment. We’re reviewing things and carrying more concepts better from one book to the next.

Also, the first three videos filmed in 1994 were not digital. We needed to refilm those because we’re getting requests to do Math-U-See in different languages. And now that they’re all digital, people can watch the DVDs on their computers.

TOS: How does a parent decide where to place a child? Can a child easily transition from traditional math to Math-U-See at any level?

MR. DEMME: There are placement tests on the website. If they transfer in from another text, no problem. Sometimes it’s good to borrow the lower level videos from someone, because a student coming in from another text may have memorized how, but they’ve never learned why. Just watching the videos and playing with the manipulatives will help them get the concepts.

TOS: I would imagine that all types of learners would have success with this approach. True?

MR. DEMME: Yes, because we’re not just making it visual. We say to build it, write it, say it. We’re using your auditory, visual, and kinesthetic systems. The whole thing is that when you’re going to teach concepts, you have to have some kind of tool as an illustration. Math-USee provides that.

TOS: Off subject a bit here, but do you think we’ll ever go totally metric in this country?

MR. DEMME: No. I wish we would. The more I’ve learned about the decimal system, it’s a natural fit. Let’s say you’re under a car, you have a 16 mm wrench and it is too small. You just reach out for a 17 mm wrench. But if you have a 3/8” tool and need the next size, there is no 4/8” wrench, only 1/2” or 7/16”. The rest of the world has already changed, and we’ve just kept going and I don’t think we have much change left in us.

TOS: I noticed the Math-U-See Foundation at your website. I did not know that you are available to speak on a number of topics in addition to math. Please tell us about them.

MR. DEMME: I’m leaving for Thailand soon, where I’m speaking to missionary families. I’ll do two math talks and four talks about the family, along with some consulting. When I was in Kenya, it was the first ever homeschool conference for Kenyans and missionaries. There I did only one math talk and seven family talks. I like math, but the biggest thing is that I want kids to be home learning with their families. I’m pro-God, which makes me pro-family, and it just seems like homeschooling is the best way to be pro-family.

My ministry is expanding in this direction. I’m writing a stewardship book now, a Christian approach to finances, written as my advice to my boys. I have 38 devotions on how I’ve applied the Scripture to my boys and I’ve got 30 lessons on finances—credit cards, how to buy a car, etc. (This has been out since August 2005.)

TOS: That Foundation work sounds exciting— and needed.

MR. DEMME: Yes. When you’re homeschooling, you’re together all the time. It’s a 24/7 deal. When you’re in the house with these same kids, you need to figure out how we’re going to resolve conflict, in the Spirit, [and] you have to understand personalities, why they act the way they do. The things that I talk about in family seminars [are] our testimony of things that we’ve done in our home that worked. Real-world training is learning how to get along with people. That’s real socialization.

Part of what really attracted my wife and me to homeschooling in the first place was that we started seeing teenagers that really liked their parents, and they were still getting along with them. The other positive benefit is that our sons are each other’s best friends. Loving each other is what it’s all about.

We are so grateful to have had this enlightening conversation with Steve Demme. To learn more about Math-U-See or about the Math-U-See Foundation, visit www.mathusee.com. When you see it and understand it, you won’t be intimidated by teaching your children math, and they will truly comprehend the concepts. What a blessing!

Christine M. Field, TOS’s Resource Room columnist, practiced law for eight years before becoming a full-time mommy for her four children. Her husband serves as Chief of Police in Wheaton, Illinois. She is a freelance writer and the author of several books about homeschooling, adopting, and more. www.HomeFieldAdvantage.org www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/ChristineField