Back to NCTM San Diego: Family/Parental Involvement

This is the summary of a presentation given at the 74th Annual NCTM Meeting, 25-28 April 1996, San Diego, CA.

One of the biggest obstacles to our changing math curriculum and use of technology is acceptance by parents and community. Presenter will share strategies and activities for helping non-school people to understand what we are undertaking as we revise mathematics curriculum in the elementary school. Parent/community education is essential and must be nonthreatening, meaningful, and professional in order to succeed. The over-riding principle is that we are expecting more from students, not less, as the popular press would have the public believe. Sharing with parents/community that we expect children to learn basic skills in the context of mathematical situations, rather than as isolated facts, and to learn to use mathematics to make sense of the real world, including the job market. The parent/community audience must be actively involved in some learning experiences which knit together the acquisition of concepts with the understanding of math as a process. Activities from many sources will be shared - - including Family Math and several of the newly-published math programs commercially available. Participants in this workshop will experience, first-hand some activities and will have time to share their frustrations with parent/community groups, as well as invited to share their successes in working to build meaningful bridges between school, home, and community.

Dee Brown (DeMirjyn-Brown & Associates, Riverbank, CA)

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