Chris Colley: 0:12

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Shift Ed Podcast. Um scouring the world for brilliant minds and education to come and make us all a little bit smarter. And today I have Dr. Chris Wright coming in, who is the CEO and founder of Early Family Math. And we've been kind of talking about early numeracy in our preschools and cycle one programs. And I thought Chris would be a great person to come on and make us all a little bit smarter about how it all be how it all starts and the importance of numeracy. And we might touch a little bit just math-wise because of the door opening of AI and just how that is math. All of it. So Chris, thanks so much for for joining me today. Oh my pleasure. So uh Chris, I usually start these off with just maybe a little about you. What are some moments that brought you to to you know start this company up? And you know, like some of those experiences that that led you to where you are today. So do we have a couple hours? Give me two or three.

Chris Wright: 1:26

I I've always loved math since I was a child. And when I had my own children, I started investigating what was out there in the education world and found that there was next to nothing. I mean, Denise Gaskins has some wonderful books, but generally speaking, there's very, very little, which I found disappointing to say the least. And so I wrote some books at that time that got started because I wrote some notes for my brother, whose children are a little younger than mine. And the notes turned into books, Dr. Wright's kitchen table math. And then 20 years went by, so, and somebody asked me to give a talk. And I thought, well, I could talk, try to sneak in some things about early math education. I'm not really somebody who wants likes giving talks, but I looked into what was going on in early math education for families, and as little as was going on when I my children were little was still going on. So I got excited to start doing more again. And I mean, one thing led to another, I guess. But yeah, I started this nonprofit when COVID came along. I never gave got to give my talk, but I'd started up this nonprofit to uh early math education in the home is very much ignored. And you're told to read with your child, you're never told to do math with your child. And yet studies show that it makes a huge difference to a child's outcome. So that was the beginning.

Chris Colley: 2:55

Interesting. Yeah, and I I do know that like kids at a certain stage can get this math anxiety, right? When they're going through formal education in our public systems and private systems. And we don't address it early enough. And that's why I find it so and you're totally on spot. Like we we talk about read-to your kids, read to your kids, but we rarely talk about numeracy with our with our youngest learners.

Chris Wright: 3:21

Yeah, and and well, first off, I wouldn't just call it numeracy. I think that's leads to a misconception a lot of people have that talking about shapes and properties of things, that's math too. And looking for patterns and all that, it's not just about numbers. And the other thing is not only are you not told to do math with your child, but it seems to be acceptable to say, that's okay. I was never good at math either.

Chris Colley: 3:47

Right.

Chris Wright: 3:48

And can you imagine somebody saying that about reading? Oh, that's okay. I couldn't read either, and that's how you know, don't worry about it. You know, that that that would be a thing that would shame you to say, but in math somehow it's acceptable. And I think that that attitude then gets trans, you know, transferred to children. And so one of the big things in our program is to try to involve adults with the children in playing with math so that everybody's attitude is changed or or started in the right direction. Right. And it's so important.

Chris Colley: 4:22

Yeah, absolutely. Why do you think math has that stigma though? Like in the sense that it it just seems to be like, oh no, I'm like what you said. No, I'm no good at math. No, I don't do math. Like, like, where does that come from, do you think?

Chris Wright: 4:35

Oh, it's a host of things. Uh I th I think it's generally seen as this dry and uninteresting subject. I think it's taught in ways that emphasize boring skill building with right and wrong answers. I think it I think it it it has this reputation for being very difficult and very black and white, and people don't understand that it it's something that you can explore, that you can have fun with. That I th the beauty in math is not trivial to access. You can show somebody a beautiful painting and they get it. You know, there's art, there's something that causes awe and inspiration. But in math, it's trickier to get that those access points. And so, and combined with that, most people, teachers included, but not to pick on them, haven't had those experiences with math. And so they don't know what they're missing. They don't know, not only do they not know how to give that to their students, they don't know it for themselves. And so there's a lot of things to overcome for math. All the I I think in the US there's some terrible statistic about over something like 90% of adults have had math trauma in their lives. I mean, it's just it's just so pervasive and is is a big thing to turn around. Yeah, totally.

Chris Colley: 6:21

Well, how can we start to reverse this trend? How can we put playfulness and you know, building this positive relationship around, you know, playing with math and and all of its beauty that it can be and and turning off that negative because I mean you're you're having parents that might have this math trauma want it, you know, encourage them in them to, you know, participate in this playfulness with their s with their with their children. It well, uh go ahead. Well, go for it, please.

Chris Wright: 6:57

Uh we intentionally uh give uh games and puzzles for families to do together. And the same for educators in the classroom for that matter. I think playing games and puzzles in the classroom is undervalued. It it can not only be every bit as good as you know, straight practice, it can be much better because kids tend to be more engaged and excited about the learning they're doing. So I think educationally it's very sound. In the home, yeah, we want the parents or caregivers, as I prefer to call them, to be playmates, not teachers in the home. And so I think too often some studies I've seen show that when you impress upon parents or caregivers to how important math, early math education is in the home, they suddenly get very serious about it. They they pull out their flashcards, they pull out their worksheets, they come up with these apps, electronic apps that gamify the math. And all of that makes math into this dry, isolating experience. Whereas if you can, if you play Parchee together or whatever it might be, you're having fun and you're doing a lot of math. And to see math in that way, I mean, obviously a three-year-old's not going to understand anything about number theory, and that's fine. There's a time for that. But they can start getting introduced to playing around with shapes and some puzzles having to do with consecutive numbers. And there's a lot of playful things that families can do together without. I mean, if a if a caregiver can count to 100 and do single-digit arithmetic, they're a pro at what their child needs. They whatever ugly experiences they had in algebra one don't need to come into any of that.

Chris Colley: 8:52

Right, right. You got to kind of parse it away and just focus on the present and and and well, and be accepting of what like yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you how do you counter that? That you know, you were saying before that math is kind of seen as like it takes more effort to kind of get to, you know, your result or you know, to to solve that puzzle, or to, you know, how do how do you move that away so that struggle is not seen as frustration? And that's a positive thing that you're actually going through a process of something.

Chris Wright: 9:29

That's that's really difficult. It's a big mindset change for people. I in some ways, me included. I I got back into teaching, I don't know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And I had taught before that, before I went into software, I had taught at university level before that. And I had thought, okay, here I am in a seventh through twelfth grade school. I'm going to take the math and I'm going to puree it, and I'm going to spoon feed it to my students, and they're going to, they're going to get it as easily as possible. And after a couple of years of doing that, I realized I was doing exactly the wrong thing. That what they would get out of doing math was the problem solving and the experience in over, you know, how do you solve a problem? What, what strategies do you use to overcome obstacles? And that's something that's not unique to math. Those skills will help them in their whole lives. But here I was being the victim of that attitude of, oh, I don't want to make this hard, I want to make this easy. But the the productive struggle, the learning about problem solving, the doing problem solving with others, so it's collaborative, all those things are wonderful skills to develop. Being able to explain your reasoning as you solve a problem, all of that builds so much in a person. Francis Sue, S U, wrote this beautiful book about mathematics of human flourishing. He wrote it in 2020, I think. And it goes into lovely detail about all the things that math has to offer a person at a personal level, not to be able to become an engineer or some practical thing, but at a personal level, what does being deeply involved with math, not even deeply, but just doing problem solving, bring to a person? And it's it's there's a lot there. So it I think so many people not understanding what math has to offer say, well, at least I can balance my checkbook and understand car loans. And yes, you can do that, but that's a little bit like saying that you read and write because you want to understand how to fill out a government contract. I mean, it's it's it's not what the subject really has to offer. It happens to be a byproduct, but and an important one, but it's not the reason to study math. And while I'm on that little rant, math is the subject in school that is taught the least way, like professional pract professionals in the subject practice it. I mean professionals explore, they they get stuck, they you know, they they discover wonderful relationships in the numbers or shapes or whatever it is that they're learning about. There is so much there, and so little of it is reflected in most math classrooms.

Chris Colley: 12:22

Interesting. Interesting. And I mean, we always have this idea that you know, there's there's problem solving, and you know, that these are, you know, like the big goals of math, but there's way other things that are developed, as you were saying, within yourself, you know, just confidence, commun, you know, how to communicate, how to collaborate, persistence, which we see is a big issue nowadays. If kids just kind of like, I don't, I don't got it, you know, at least fixed mindsets a little bit.

Chris Wright: 12:55

Yeah. I I accidentally read yeah, I accidentally ran an experiment on that once when I was teaching geometry. I every year I did a a short thing on persistence.

Chris Colley: 13:06

Right.

Chris Wright: 13:07

And I would show them the five platonic solids. I have models of those in front of the classroom. And I intentionally asked them this question before they in the year before they could answer the question. I said, Why are there only five? Think about it, let's talk about it. And I didn't expect them to answer it. What I wanted to see was how long they would it it was a question that felt approachable, but wasn't quite with the tools they had at the time. And for for several years, what would happen is after somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds, their heads would pop up and be looking for to me for the answer. And then I started doing problem-based learning, where you give them problems overnight that are not easy, that are maybe not prepared for during the day before. And they're not always expected to come up with the answer. They're expected to see what they can do. And when they come to class, they present what they have and they talk with their classmates about ideas and why they got stuck, and maybe one of their classmates managed to do it. So after I did problem-based learning, I still did that little lesson on persistence, but a funny thing happened. I gave them that problem, and after five minutes, they were still going strong. They weren't thinking of looking to me for the answer. They were thinking, I wonder what new ideas, what other ideas we can come up with. And they were working in groups. They weren't working by themselves. So several of them were up on the board whiteboards sketching out ideas. I mean, it was it was it wasn't intentional on my part that to make this a difference, but it was like night and day in terms of their attitudes and their confidence to struggle with a problem and not necessarily have the answer. One group actually got the idea. I mean, it it was such a difference, and I think it speaks to what you were asking about.

Chris Colley: 15:01

Yeah, yeah. I like too that you're saying that I mean, these are our skills then that could flourish in other subject areas and just you know, one's life as they, you know, grow up and you know, go into work and et cetera, that that if if we saw it that way, that math not only is just you know about you know patterns recognition and all of all of what math is, but it also develops us in ways that maybe other areas wouldn't have that same effect. Do you does that ring true to you?

Chris Wright: 15:35

Yeah, I I I to your point, I I think you can get that in any subject, of course. You can have problems to overcome, you can have research to do, you can have ideas to dig out and straighten out. But in math, I think one of the big differences is that it's clearer cut what the reasoning is. And when it's not that everything's black and white, there's lots of shades of gray in math, but it's the thinking and the analysis is cleaner, I think, on a whole. There's less room for opinion. And so I think people benefit from that clarity of a workspace, if you will.

Chris Colley: 16:13

I like that. I like that. Well said. And if you could change one communist conception about early math, what what do you think it would be?

Chris Wright: 16:25

Well, I I think most people think of early math as something that they should only that only should be done in schools. That it is only about learning some basic arithmetic facts and then leads to learning more uninteresting math and so on. And once homes and schools do math right, it can be a beautiful playground where children play, explore, and wonder, and others about with others about amazing mathematical relationships where they can grow as people and as they learn how to problem solve and deal with productive struggle, as we've been talking about. And the other, and I know you said one thing, but the the other thing I'd say is that studies have shown how important math preparation is going into kindergarten. And I mean, it makes a huge difference. It's it's it's actually astonishing. It is the best predictor of success in school all through 12th grade in all subjects, not just math. And in fact, math preparation going into kindergarten is a better predictor of reading ability than reading preparation going into kindergarten. And if caregivers, if families were aware of this importance, I think it would be further inspiration for them to do more with their children. And it doing more with their children, as I said earlier, isn't about giving them flashbook, flashcards and workbooks. It's about just doing math talk in a home where they comment on everyday things in mathematical ways. Oh, could you give me those three oranges and count them out in front of them? You know, where do you think that toy will fit on the shelf? Where all sorts of mathematical things occur. And it's not, it doesn't take extra time and it doesn't take effort. It just takes developing a habit of of doing that math talk. And if all adults could just do that, it would make such a huge difference to their children.

Chris Colley: 18:26

Amazing. I love that. Simple things, but have such a profound effect on the other.

Chris Wright: 18:32

Well, to me, it's it's one of the I believe in the beauty of math for its own right. But if you're looking at nice important consequences of it, I think I think developing early math education in the home and in schools is one of the simplest and straightforward ways of improving social equity around the world. I I think, you know, there you have this easy answer. If only it could be promoted and supported, it's not something that would cost billions of dollars. It's not, I mean, sure, there are lots of other important things like feeding people and housing housing them, but it's coming in, you know, not a very distant second in terms of importance to these children's lives. And it's not doesn't require a lot of resources. It just requires people to come out and say, this is important, and this is how we can help you do it.

Chris Colley: 19:23

Yep. I love it. And not to say that there are not resources, like your site is, you know, early family math is is full of amazing resources. So Chris is saying all these things. I'll share all of the resources that he has to offer. He has, you know, games, activities, interactive books, you name it on his site. So we'll we'll share those resources with you as well so that you're not scratching your head of where do I begin? Well, Chris has some amazing resources for where you can begin. I guess my last question, Chris, is that we have the advent of uh, you know, November 2022, AI comes in. It's it's you know, rampant conversation around our schools now, around our educational system, how's it gonna work? How do we use it? I mean, if if we were to think about AI as a positive thing, it is full of math in all its aspects. How how can we harness this new tipping point that we're on, do you think, to kind of like even propel this even more? Because the future of jobs is gonna require more, it seems to me anyway, with with AI the explosion the way it is, that it's gonna require those skills that math brings to us. How do you think we need to go about that? Like how how do we st how do we start this you know, re-education almost of that the importance of it and that we have to you know get away from this like math anxiety because we're gonna need it so much down the road. I mean, it's a complex question. But I'd love to know your thoughts on on AI and education and how it influences math and you know, the future of what do you see?

Chris Wright: 21:25

I I should say I'm I'm not an expert on that particularly. I did work in the AI field in my software days. I think that question has been raised over and over again in the last 50 years with the when calculators came in and with computers available to students came in. So each new level of technology has raised fresh questions. I mean, people ask, well, gee, if you have a hand calculator, why should you learn to multiply? And that to me. Is is really missing the point because if you can't multiply and have a number sense, you're a lost child in the wilderness. You you nothing makes sense to you if you can't see what the difference is between taking 3% of something and 10% of something. You don't need to necessarily be able to do it. You just need to know that you know 10% is one-tenth of a whole thing, and so on. You have you have some number feel is essential. So that was an issue, or still is in many places, an issue with calculators. I think those tools can potentially be great. When I taught geometry, we used Geometer Sketchpad, and it was a wonderful playground for being able to explore relationships. It didn't steal any thinking. In fact, it enhanced the thinking of my students. So I would hope, I mean, I I part of the thing that's hard to answer about AI is that it's still a work in progress in terms of what its capabilities are going to be and how it'll be used. But I would hope that we would find ways, to the extent that students use it, find ways that it helps their thinking. I guess an example that was what was he, a quantum physicist was talking about how he used AI, and he's he said he really liked using it. And the person interviewing him said, Well, why is that? They don't have any particulars, you know, that's not built into AI yet, particularly. He said, Oh yeah, I mean, of course it's not giving me any answers, but it's asking fabulous questions that that that he wouldn't have necessarily thought about exploring or looking into or being challenged about. And when you can use a tool in those ways, then you're really making good use of it. And of course, it can help teachers with preparing things and analyze things. So that's another great use for it. So, but in terms of it becoming someday a tutor for students, that hasn't happened. And I don't know that I'm looking forward to that day because I think the human side of things is so important. I wouldn't want to replace that, even if it could be done easily that way. But so there's some somewhat random thoughts on the subject.

Chris Colley: 24:16

No, I love it. I mean, I do support you in in how it can open small little doors to maybe an idea that you hadn't fully flushed out or even realized yet. I think that it can help us in in in those ways for sure. I love too like how it can kind of give you a concrete example too. Like I always like when I was in high school teaching, it was always like, well, how am I ever going to use this? You know, like they just can't connect it to, you know, something in their lives. Whereas I find AI has that capacity to say, oh, you want an example of this? Well, here's something is working.

Chris Wright: 24:55

Although, you know, I mean, that's you've you've hit and struck a nerve about math because students so often, sorry to go off on this tangent, but students so often ask, when am I ever going to use this? And they don't ask that about a book they read in English class or history class. And I think the reason they ask it in math is because the math they're seeing is so dry and impoverished. And if if we could just give them the math, show them how beautiful and wonderful math is, they wouldn't be asking, when am I ever going to use this? Because they would feel that it's a thing of value.

Chris Colley: 25:29

Yeah, totally. Well, I love how our conversation has come back around to the reading and the math comparisons. Chris, I want to thank you. I've really enjoyed this talk. Um, you've definitely opened a few more doors to think about. And I'm really excited to share the resources and what you have offer have to offer for parents for home play with math.

Chris Wright: 25:54

No, it's been my pleasure, and thank you for giving me a chance to talk about all this stuff.

Chris Colley: 25:59

Well, it's been wonderful. I uh I wish you a happy uh twenty twenty-six.

Chris Wright: 26:04

Thank you. You too.