It All Adds Up at Math Night

On Thursday, October 24, Parker hosted Math Night for an audience of more than 40 engaged Lower and Intermediate School parents. “Now in its eighth year, Math Night came about as an opportunity to help families understand our approach to instruction in mathematics and how they can best support their children,” noted JK–5th grade Director of Studies Barbara Hunt. “We found that many families had questions about a constructivist approach to mathematics—they were expecting their students to be told what to do and that every student would be solving problems in the same way. By attending Math Night, parents better understand why that is not our approach. It’s really a time for families to not only think about math at the grade level of their students, but to get a general view of Lower and Intermediate School math instruction.”

Lower School parents Josh Kotin ’99 and his wife Katie attended last Thursday’s program because “our son has really gotten into math lately, and we realized we didn’t know much about Parker’s math curriculum. We were looking forward to the opportunity to learn more.” With children in JK and 1st grade, Kotin found that his strategy for supporting his 1st grader with homework may not have been the best approach. Many parents will find that, while they were taught math using computational tricks and memorization, Parker’s method focuses on deep understanding.

Kotin noted, “[First grade Grade Head Alexandra] Bearman spoke really thoughtfully about how students are respectful of the various ways to get to the right answer but also understand that mathematicians should be efficient, and it’s important to discuss how some approaches to problem solving may be more efficient than others.”

This year, Lower School Math Specialist Denise David, Barbara Hunt and math consultant Charlotte Murphy, together with Lower and Intermediate School faculty members, shared with families how students approach and solve related problems. Teachers want students to think about what is happening in the problem: What information do they have? What information is missing? What information is unnecessary? Teachers want students to be able to restate the context in their own words. Ultimately, students are also working on communicating their thinking to another mathematician. Hunt added, “We say that you should be able to convince yourself, convince a friend and convince a skeptic.”

According to Kotin, “The evening was really great. We learned about the philosophy behind the program and how to better support our son. It was also great to see how thoughtful the framework is that flows throughout the Lower School curriculum from grade to grade.”

For more about Parker's Lower School math curriculum, read here or view the video below.

Eugenia Chang on Math for Understanding from Francis W. Parker School on Vimeo.