Interview: Carolyn Richardson on Math-U-See (and other schoolings from life)

Interviewed by Moristotle

My wife and I have for many years purchased seeds for our bird feeders from the Wild Bird Center in Chapel Hill. That’s where I met Carolyn Richardson and her younger son, Nolan, both of whom had started working there a few weeks earlier.
    Carolyn and Nolan are always fun to talk with, and Nolan said something recently that aroused my interest. I think I was trying to do, in my head, the math of the discount on my bird-seed purchase, and I was bungling the job. Nolan said something about what sounded like “Mathew C. [company?],” and after some delightful back-and-forth during which he explained what he had said, I said, “Oh, I see!” And he said, “Yes-U-See!”
    For what he had said wasn’t “Mathew C,” but “Math-U-See” – a multi-sensory approach to the teaching of math fundamentals. Since I entered college thinking I might major in math, and I actually taught a high school geometry course my first year out of college, I had to learn more about this, so I started asking questions, and what developed was today’s interview. My questions are in italics.

So, Carolyn, how did Nolan’s familiarity with Math-U-See come about?
    I home-schooled all of my children. I started with my oldest, Jeremy, when he was in 3rd grade and I was working as an art teacher at the private school he attended.

This private school – was it a church school, the school your husband had gone to, or what?
    The school Jeremy was attending was a private, Christian school. The public schools in our area had a poor record, so we looked at all the private schools in the area, and one that shared our beliefs was naturally preferable.

Would you have been all right with your son’s going to a public school otherwise?
    Yes, if the public school been one that got good results.

You said you were teaching art in this school Jeremy was in? How did that come about – were you an artist? A certified teacher?
    I had been working as an audio-visual specialist just outside Boston when I met my husband. I had always had an interest in art and had always loved teaching. The school asked me to help in this area and I jumped at the chance. I am not a certified teacher, but it was not a requirement for the subject.

Thanks for that little detour from your story. Why did you decide to start home-schooling your son in the 3rd grade?
    Well, I disliked leaving my daughter with daycare while working, but I enjoyed being so involved in my son’s education. The perfect solution was home-schooling him while staying involved in a wonderful support group twice a week for socialization.

Was your husband enthusiastic about the idea of home-schooling? Did he participate in the project?
    [Carolyn laughed.] My husband was less than enthusiastic, but at the same time supportive. He did not participate in the teaching.

Was it simply a matter of up and doing home-schooling? What had prepared you to think you could do that?
    It was sort of an up and at ’em thing, but it required a lot of prep work and a lot of clearing it with the State of Massachusetts. They had to see lesson plans.
    This was in the days of Commodore 64 computers and writing your own programs to get the computer to do anything. I wrote a program to do all my lesson plans in.
    Chutzpah. I think I had a lot of chutzpah.

Is that the same as gumption? I’m impressed! So, how did the home-schooling go?
    Home schooling was easily the most exhausting and most rewarding thing I have ever done.
    When we reached algebra 1, in the 7th grade – this was about 1995 – Jeremy struggled with the whys of polynomials. I was at a convention for home educators, a very new thing in those days. We wrote our own curricula or borrowed from public or private school materials in the early days of home schooling. At these conventions we would find new curricula that met the needs of the home educator, greatly easing our work.
    I attended a workshop by Steve Demme, the developer of the Math-U-See K–12 home-school mathematics curriculum, about teaching algebra 1 with “manipulatives.” The workshop had standing-room only, so I was not the only teacher wanting ideas to excite a young man about the wonders of math. I was amazed as I watched Mr. Demme demonstrate polynomials with blocks on a board that showed not only how to perform simplification of a polynomial, but also why. In seconds. Here’s an example:



    I left the workshop early, convinced that his products would sell out before I got to the table.


Carolyn, the excitement you felt then has come back to you now, hasn’t it? I can hear it in your voice, and see it in your body language.
    To be honest, yes! I love teaching. I love seeing understanding light up a person’s face. I was very excited about the possibilities that Math-U-See held.
    That workshop piqued my interest, so I arranged for Mr. Demme to come speak to our support group. We had a huge turnout for that event, and while Mr. Demme answered questions, I sold his books until the stock he brought gave out. That impressed him, and he asked me to become a representative for him.

I take it you weren’t Mr. Demme’s first representative. Or were you? Do you remember how many other representatives he had at that time?
    I was actually one of the first representatives. He eventually had about 28 or so world-wide.
    Each representative worked as an independent business, buying stock from Math-U-See and selling it, and providing product support to customers. I covered New York and New England. If the home-schoolers I was selling to needed help in understanding how to teach a concept, I was there to assist them.
    Helping people was easily my favorite part of what I did. It was exciting that a multi-sensory approach to math was available, with videos to show how to teach according to that approach.

You covered New York and New England! That sounds like a huge territory. I take it you lived in the middle somewhere?
    I lived south of Boston in the town of Raynham.

Ha! I taught at a private prep school in western Massachusetts my first year out of college. Have you ever heard of Berkshire School?
    No, I can’t say I have. If it was in the Berkshires, that was a good bit west of me.

Well, anyway, since Mr. Demme had these self-employed representatives covering territories for him, it sounds as though he had only a small number of employees. Did you ever visit his headquarters and see his operation in person? And where was that?
    Yes. After a few years representatives started meeting once a year. The first meeting was at his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was expecting to tour a warehouse, but I discovered that he was sending materials out from his garage. After that, he generously hosted us at various places around the country each year. The representatives became very close, like a family.

[From the Internet]

How did Nolan get involved in what you were doing? I take it he’s the third of your three children?
    Right, he came along four years before this was starting to happen. I traveled to conventions throughout my territory in the Spring, setting up displays and workshops. This is where Nolan was pressed into service.

So, I guess if Nolan was “pressed into service,” your other children were too?
    Yes, all three of my children were expected to help in one way or another. As Nolan put it, it was a familial obligation. As the business grew, my children became quite a necessary and well-versed part of the business. They were, after all, the product of the system being used and became a perfect advertisement of how well it worked. It also helped them to completely overcome shyness and learn how to speak and carry themselves professionally.

That’s sort of a family-education success story, sounds like to me! Were there any magazine ads featuring them?
    No. Professionals were used for all the magazine advertisements.

I googled to try to find an ad, but without any success...So, you and your children were both schooling and working out of your home, sounds like?
    More or less. My involvement with Math-U-See started in 1996, with me working out of a closet. By 2006, my very talented husband had built a wing onto the house for my office and the shipping and stocking operations.

[From the Internet]

Did you sell Math-U-See programs just to families who were home-schooling?
    We didn’t seek to market the program to schools, but word of the success we were having got around, and requests from schools started to come in for workshops, so of course we decided to branch out.

Who do you mean by “we”? Just your family part of the undertaking, or was Demme himself just starting to branch out to schools?
    “We” referred to the company in general. We had quite a bit of discussion about it with each representative doing as they saw fit in their territory. It was finally decided to formally start marketing to schools.
    The program did not differ in any way for schools. The approach was naturally a bit different for classes of 20 or more as opposed to one-on-one teaching, but it proved just as effective.

Surely more than “a bit different” for a classroom full of students? And weren’t there a home version of the product and a school version? Or did the same materials serve both home-schoolers and schools?
    No. It remained primarily the same method of teaching. This is why so much discussion took place in the company. Few of us wanted to see the teaching method change in any way for schools and maybe lessen its effectiveness.
    Selling to schools did force us to take a hard look at the weaknesses of the program. When I say us, I mean Mr Demme and all the representatives. We made changes and contributed to the writing of the books with Mr. Demme having the final say in everything.
    There were weaknesses that I had to deal with in Math-U-See. For example, its word problems tend to be too easy because they are usually directed at the concept just taught. The student does not have to do much deep thinking to figure out which concept to utilize. The program really needs more multi-step word problems as well as a lot more real-life application.
    The beauty of home schooling is that a teacher can make changes as the student’s needs become apparent. I would add other word problem books and applications.
    Another problem that I ran into with teachers was the question of too much review. I would far rather have too much review than too little. You can always test a child to see whether he or she is grasping the concept and then move on if so. You don't have to do every problem.
    Also, Math-U-See doesn’t bring out the beauty of math, such as that of the Fibonacci sequence or the beauty of a proof or result. Other books have to be added to inject this.

Were schools’ formal grade levels a problem?
    Math-U-See has a unique approach to grade levels. Since math builds concept on concept, jumping in at a supposed grade level makes no sense. Instead, what’s ideal is jumping in where your understanding has stalled or is just starting. As such, when I was with Math-U-See, there were no grade levels. This meant that if a school wanted to use the program, it would need to group the children not according to grade but according to understanding, which was determined by testing.

How is either version (school or home-school) divided up when it comes to students’ grade or age – does each grade have its own package, or is there, for example, an elementary-age package, a middle-school age package, a high-school age package? I read that Math-U-See curricula don’t readily map to particular grades (which really appeals to me, since math has no inherent grade dependency); was this tricky to negotiate with school clients?
    The program is divided by concepts. The first, or kindergarten level introduces numbers, place value, etc. The next concentrates on addition, the next on subtraction, the next on mutiplication, then division, and so on. Each level includes constant review of what has already been learned.
    It took some time explaining to teachers how to make it work, since the program taught to understanding and not to grade. The teacher really had to be on board and wanting to see the children understand, not just go through the motions of learning.

Did you deal mostly with private schools, or with public schools? Did you prefer one over the other?
    I dealt more with private schools, but I can't say I had a preference.

Do you have any strong opinions (that you would care to share) about Betsy DeVos as our Secretary of Education? As I understand it, she seems to be championing charter schools over public schools, with a lot of opposition from public-school teachers and other citizens.
    I love the idea of charter schools as free enterprise. Monopoly in any market tends toward stagnation.


Looking back, what is your overall take on the experience representing Math-U-See?
    I learned so much from the business experience. I’m very thankful for the opportunity I had to work with so many dedicated teachers.
    If teachers were utilizing this program, they were anxious for their students to learn. It gave me great satisfaction to see students excel and teachers succeed.

So, why aren’t you still representing Math-U-See and selling to and supporting customers?
    I would be happy to still be doing such rewarding work, but in 2010, as Mr. Demme became less interested in the travel and the work involved, he gave the business to his son. His son had different ideas for how the business should work, and the representative position disappeared.
    I’d been so busy with other things since then that it was only recently that I longed to be doing something again, so I started working in a wild-bird center. I’m still casting about to see where I will go next, but I’m very happy with what I’m doing presently, because I have the opportunity to meet wonderful people again. And when it comes right down to it, that has always been my favorite part of any work.

What sort of individual might find doing what you did a good fit for a new venture?
    You would have to be energetic, self motivated and good with people. You never know what may or may not succeed, so just get to work and find out.

You said earlier that your children’s involvement with your work helped develop them professionally. I’m familiar with Nolan’s work in the Wild Bird Center, and I must say he is wonderful at customer relations. What have your other son and your daughter done “professionally”?
    Jeremy is currently working with a national trade show company to help them develop an estimation division. My daughter is a hair stylist with many small, creative online businesses on the side.

Copyright © 2017 by Carolyn Richardson & Moristotle