Math for Every Child: How Mathnasium Makes it Possible with Marc and Tammy Goldberg

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Today, I've got a powerhouse couple that's redefining the equation for success in math education. Tammy and Mark Goldberg are the underground math education innovators who've cracked the code to getting math right. Their journey unfolds at the forefront of Mathnasium Learning Centers worldwide. Today, not only are Tammy and Mark the masterminds behind the majority of Mathnasium's curriculum, but they're also operators of five Mathnasium Learning Centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn, plus one in their hometown of Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

And as parents themselves, they've witnessed firsthand the negative academic ripples of the COVID pandemic. Fueled by their experiences with thousands of students and armed with a curriculum that has parents raving, Tammy and Mark feel an unwavering responsibility to share their collective wisdom. So get ready, parents, because what your kids actually need to succeed in math might just surprise you. We're going to learn all about that today.

Welcome to the show, Mark and Tammy. Oh, thank you. It's so good to be here with you. Thanks, Jackie.

Appreciate it. I'm so excited to talk about this subject because math is hard for a lot of kids, but it really doesn't have to be. And so I'm so curious to learn how you've cracked that math code and how you get kids to really be excited about math and what you're doing to change their ideas or their perceptions about math being hard. So if you think about, there certainly are kids out there that love math, right?

There are. Absolutely. And so, well, why is it that those kids love math? I think generally they love math because they have great ways to think about it.

There's an ease at which they can do math. And why do kids not like math? Well, they don't like it because it can be confusing. It can be stressful.

And that forces them to kind of shy away from it. So our view of it was always, well, there's something about the way that the kids that really love math, There's something about the way that they think that if we can capture that and we can teach that to the kids that don't necessarily get that naturally, well, we can change the way that they relate to math. It doesn't have to be hard. They could do math with ease.

And so I think the essence of what really is brilliant about the foundation that we built upon. So Mathnasium was first founded on the math side of it by Larry Martinek, who's a brilliant math educator who wrote kind of the initial foundation of the curriculum. And then we worked with Larry to bring that to the next level. And that is really what we uncovered, that what we do at Mathnasium is we teach all kids to think like those natural mathematical thinkers.

How do you do that? I'm guessing the curriculum is vast. How early do we start? is mathnasium its own, like our kids are already in school and taking a math curriculum. Is this in addition to that? How do we start with mathnasium and how young? We start around five, five years old, and then we go up through high school level math. It's supplemental. So it works alongside any regular school curriculum that you're doing either via public school or private school, homeschool. If every parent could commit during that period of time, because look, ultimately, I think as parents, we don't want our children to have to have professional support in their schooling throughout the entirety of their schooling. And that ideally, if we could lay a foundation that would give them the ability to grow from there and not need that support,

that would be the ideal. That isn't always going to happen. And so obviously, as we stated, we work with students all the way up through high school. But yeah, I think if a lot of parents made that choice in that third through fifth, sixth grade, really setting that strong foundation for when students then begin to encounter algebra, then everything else can almost take care of itself as time goes on. Now, of course, as you get later into high school and varying degrees of expertise or proficiency from teachers, right? And maybe you encounter a teacher that you don't, that your child doesn't connect with and they might need some extra help, but that's different than lacking a foundation for success. Yeah, exactly. Like if you need a private tutor in high school for like your pre-calculus class, because of the content in pre-calculus, like fine. But what we want to be able to do is make sure that you've got a strong foundation so that you don't need to go all the way back to multiplication facts and fraction computation when you're in that pre-calculus class. You don't want those things getting in your way,

which for a lot of kids, believe it or not, that does get in their way. I mean, even like algebra one, like if we can build a strong foundation so that students can have real success in algebra one and maybe their issues are just around like understanding what slope is versus like not being able to multiply fractions or not being able to multiply whole numbers at all that's what we want to correct in that early in those early years that makes sense and it it also makes sense that that third grade fourth grade fifth grade time because that is when the curriculum changes and starts to get tougher and i think they're accessing a different part of their brain. Yes, for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's where multiplication, division, fractions,

that's when that all really starts to... Word problems. Yeah. Right. Where that really takes a huge leap up in complexity. So definitely that period of time is critical. Also from a cognitive development standpoint too, where a lot of... Sometimes you'll see kids in first and second grade that maybe they're doing some math that just from a brain development standpoint, they're just not ready for.

And that's OK. There's time. There's time to catch up. But that time horizon starts to kind of get smaller for when we have to really know stuff once we're kind of heading towards middle school.

So that kind of heading towards middle school time is absolutely critical. That makes sense. So starting those earlier years is better. But then if you do have a child that is struggling, you know, in the high school years with calculus or or stats class, you're still available to help at that point.

Enrolling your child in a mathnasium program can be for a few months, can be for a full year, could be several years. How does that work? Well, if you do under six months, we're limited in what we can actually accomplish. It took a long time for these skill gaps to develop.

So if it's a child who's struggling or who's behind, which we get plenty of kids like three months to accelerate or like try to get them from being born in school like that or shape their thinking in a different way. Right. Like that's I think it's hard to make solid progress unless there's a commitment to at least six months. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it in terms of when someone's trying to improve their physical fitness, it's not all that different.

If you go to the gym for two months or three months, what are you really going to walk away with? You're not going to be that much different than when you walked in. But when you make that commitment for a longer period of time, that's when you can really make gains. And most magnesiums have memberships that are six months and 12 months.

that parents will continue on a month-to-month basis after their initial commitment of their either six months, seven months, or 12-month period of time. But like we said earlier, we don't want to keep your child in this program forever, unless they want to, because they're, and a lot of them do, because they are finding that now they're caught up to grade level, and they just want to keep accelerating, because they just love the environment, because they've got instructors Actors who love math and they feel like they're just in this setting where they can go and feel celebrated and seen and taught in a way that makes sense to them.

And we make sure that each assignment that they're given, they're completely ready for. So there's just like, they're just getting like a little micro challenge each time. But not like we would never. I mean, I think this is some of the genius that's built into the Mathnasium program, which we help to craft.

is that we never want to put an assignment in front of a child that they are not ready for. And I think this is like the behind the scenes element of like safety that we've created. And we did that because we had an issue once with a child who we put a multi-digit multiplication page. Was it multiplication or division? Multiplication. Page in front of, and she didn't have her multiplication facts mastered this was in our first year before we had what we eventually you know wrote the newer curriculum yeah yeah yeah this was this was definitely one of one of the catalysts for us diving in and becoming writers so it um she she cried she left the center and she cried to her mom that it was just hard and um and the mom called and and very calmly at a conversation with you, right? And what did she say? She said, yeah, Mark, I, I, I don't know what happened. Sarah always loves coming to mathnasium, but she came out crying today and she said something about multiplication and it being too hard for her. And so I just wanted to bring it to your attention so you could see what might've happened. And, um, I thanked her obviously because we don't ever want a kid running out crying, right. Ever. Um, and, and I looked in her binder and I saw that there was this multi-digit multiplication page where she had repeated addition all over the margins of the page. So she would have like eight plus eight, 16, 16 plus eight,

24, 24, so on and so forth. And like, that was my moment where I was like, oh my God, what did I do to this child? She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for this. And, and now was that all my fault? No, it wasn't all my fault. It was a system breakdown. And that's when I was like, okay, so we don't have a really great process for determining if our students have multiplication fact fluency. And then we need to make sure we've got a great way of remediating that if they need the help. And so that was the very beginning of our venture into writing curriculum because I never wanted that to happen again. And it hasn't. No, I mean, not in our, I wouldn't say that in our centers, I can't speak everywhere, but because certainly in order to, to make sure or do your best to make sure that doesn't happen, you have to do a great job of assessing the child. And right now that might not be the same across the board. So I can't sit here and claim that no child that walks through the doors of Mathnasium would ever walk out the door and had said that they did something that they weren't capable of or ready for. But the curriculum we have in place and the processes that we built and that we employ in our centers, we're extremely careful to make sure that we have a strong understanding of not only what kids have mastered, what skills they've mastered,

but how they're thinking, what the processes that they use to solve the problem so that if they're doing it in a way that isn't really supporting them well, we're going to teach them a better way to do it, a much more efficient way, a more reliable way that they can call on not only for this specific task that they're going to do, but that they're then going to apply later. That is so great, you guys. So I wish teachers had the ability to go back and look at what has the child mastered?

Are they ready for the next chapter in their math book? The next lesson that is coming. The next lesson that's coming. Like, are they really ready?

And unfortunately, they often don't. But I love that you're just the heart in it and really seeing the student for where they're at and who they are and wanting to make sure that you're doing no harm. And so I just really appreciate that. Also, I'm wondering, do you get a lot of students that are struggling and that's why they come to Mathnasium?

Or are you getting more and more that are just like the parents are saying, nope, we want to get ahead of the game? It's a mix. Yeah, it's a real mix. But I would say it's more struggling.

But it depends on the community because there are some communities where it is very much like the kids that are the families that are drawn to mathnasium are the ones that feel like they're not getting challenged enough in school. So I'd say it really varies community by community. Well, I would, I would think the more we get the word out about what mathnasium is, like I was mentioning before we started to, to record, we have a mathnasium in a town near me. And I didn't even notice it until our son was like in 10th grade. And at that point, we had already had, you know, some different supports for him.

And so I think, too, the awareness of what is mathnasium and getting that out there is key. But also I wonder about do you get kiddos with students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities, and are you able to help them? We do. And I would say as long as there are other team members that are supporting them, then we are the best place to go to for the math.

I can just imagine that, especially since you're really figuring out where they're at in their understanding of the different concepts and things, because typically it's, you know, it's a myth that kiddos with dyslexia can't learn math. In fact, there's stealth dyslexia. So those, the stealth dyslexic kids are usually pretty super smart in math and science. And a lot of people aren't aware of that.

But again, they may need to be taught in a little bit different way. you used to be so like like you didn't want to know anyone's no i didn't want to know anybody's diagnoses or any of that because i didn't want that well no no i didn't believe that that would get teach anyone yeah i didn't believe that that would get in their way to learn in the ways that we were teaching and the because i saw it had proof we had proof of it yeah i had living proof i was doing this all the time we would have students that would come to us i remember this one time a parent told us that the child was diagnosed with a math learning disability.

And after probably about eight months of working with us, suddenly the diagnosis was gone and she didn't have an IEP in school for math and all of that. It was like- There's a lot to be said for a strong personal connection and a curriculum that is really matched to their exact needs for any child. Yeah. I've had a couple of people reference dyslexia, for instance, not as a learning disability, but as a teaching disability.

Totally. Yeah. And that's exactly what you're saying right now. And I love that. In fact, Mark, when I used to do in-home family counseling before I met with the family, I didn't want any other background information on anything. I just wanted to be able to hear them and acknowledge them and validate them and kind of like, where are we now? And what is your goal? You know, or what do you need? So I really respect and appreciate that from, from the both of you.

Let's transition a bit here to how is Mathnasium different than tutoring? Because I think people often kind of confuse it as it's a tutoring program, but it's really not. It's a blend I'd say. So, because there is a certain amount of schoolwork support that we do offer. So it's not that you can't bring any of your homework or any of that into the center.

It's just kind of at least how we do it in our centers. It's a limited amount of time. Everything starts with an assessment that we do of the child's skills. We determine what they've mastered, what they haven't mastered from a certain grade level perspective. And then- Can I say something?

Sure. You're assuming that tutoring means working on the current homework. Preparing, working on today's homework or preparing for tomorrow's test. Right. Right. I guess. Thanks for pointing that out, Tammy, because that is what I'm referring to. It's not. So mathnasium is not there to for your child's current math assignments to like bring those to mathnasium and you're going to help them with their current math assignments. That's not what it is.

That's not a little bit. Yeah, that's not. But that's not the primary focus. Generally, generally speaking, that doesn't mean that there's never a case where someone will spend an entire session on helping somebody prepare for the test the next day.

the primary focus is on building up the foundation and filling in any of the skill gaps that they may have missed along the way that are causing the problems with the current homework. Right. Or teaching them a different way of thinking about solving a problem that actually serves them better than how they had been taught previously. I'd say the big difference when it comes to hiring the private tutor compared to Mathnasium is that generally what the tutor has only to work with is what the child is bringing into to the to the lesson or the or the tutoring session. And there's generally not a structured approach to how do I deal with whatever underlying skill gaps could be getting in the way of this child being successful in the homework today.

And so it's a lot of, oh, okay, it's it's like, there's a boat that's that's leaking, and I've got to just keep putting patches on it in the moment, but am I actually going to help that child to master that underlying skill so that not only for tonight's homework or tomorrow's test can they do it, but can they do this two years from now, right? And that's when we know that something has truly been mastered because, by the way, they're going to need that two years from now because it's going to be embedded in some more complex task that they have to do in math, right? Because it doesn't go away. Math is cumulative. So generally the private tutor doesn't have that type of structure. And that's very critical in elementary and middle school years. Like we were saying earlier, all building up to, let's say algebra one,

which is kind of like the culmination of everything that we've been doing from elementary through early middle school. Some kids start to get algebra in seventh, eighth grade. The private tutor doesn't have those tools available. And then not only those tools, but okay, even if you identify the skill gap, how are you actually addressing it? How you address it matters. The way that we teach kids in efficient, reliable ways of thinking that is very well crafted, very well structured, generally the private tutor isn't going to have that container.

I was a private tutor. I've done lots of private tutoring before mathnasium and the kids that I did the best with were the ones that had a strong foundation and they just needed a little help with the concepts that they were learning in algebra or geometry or above. The ones that were difficult were like the algebra one student who had severe gaps that I couldn't fix in a once a week, one-on-one private tutoring session.

They needed a more comprehensive plan. If they couldn't add and subtract integers effectively and they're trying to do Algebra 1, that's a problem. Are you going to just pull worksheets off a computer or just start writing out problems for integers? It's not well-structured.

So ideally, parents, don't let your kid get into that position where they're in Algebra 1 and they've got foundational gaps. That's where Mathesium can come in. That's what we want to spread the word on, is that if you can get a solid foundation before algebra one, your child's going to be so much better off in algebra one through college math. Right. But then there's also the idea of, okay, let's say your child had some struggles in algebra one. Algebra is most likely not going away for them. And so that's where if, hey, if your child's in a geometry class, there's no reason why, you know, you, you should just abandon algebra, go get some help on the, on building up the algebra skills because algebra two is coming up next. You just need a more comprehensive program than what I could have provided or any private tutor could provide, especially in a once a week.

Yeah. And well-structured, right? It's got to be well-structured. And so how is your curriculum, what you have all added to the Mathnasium curriculum and what you've all developed, how is that different than maybe another math support?

That's a great question. We could probably talk about that for hours. Well, I'll have to have you back on. give us the cliff notes oh so there are two schools of thought it seems in math right now there's like very dichotomous the conservative way of teaching math traditional traditional standard algorithms and then there's right math is memorization formulas algorithms they taught math in the 80s basically um where and like it was wasn't perfect there was a lot of like timed well there still are time tests which are awful yeah too much too much anxiety yeah producing i mean you need new calm for that yeah yeah right this is a good little segue for a better night's sleep less stress less anxiety try new calm new calm is an app you download it on your phone there are tracks to help you sleep better like deep sleep and there are tracks to help you focus focus is an essential technology for getting more done in less time you know our minds are often distracted with worry, uncertainty, anxiety, to-do lists, and feelings of overwhelm.

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yeah. So 80 we'll call it 80s math traditional math where it's like, you've got to learn the standard algorithms, meaning like carrying and borrowing and the long division algorithm. And the criticism against all of that was that it wasn't transparent enough and why we're doing the things like it's just following just telling you what to do here are the rules go do it right or even things like okay subtracting subtracting a negative is a positive and you just tell them the rule and that's it right there's no helping the child to understand why that's the case it's just it's the rule go do it so that was like so here i'm going to put in another little disclaimer about dyslexia you can't just tell a kid with dyslexia here's what you do they are often engineers kids with dyslexia are often have that entrepreneurial or engineer in their blood and so they need to know why why am i doing it and that's a great question and we should all be asking that right right there's genius in that yes why and i remember i remember in 80s math i was kind of like yeah why why do i have to do that why do i have to carry and bring down and all that why does that make sense like that kind of drove me a little crazy so i get the complaint the problem is the math education world swung way in the opposite direction where it's like complete rejection of standard algorithms and you could come up with your own

way of doing it yeah let's explore eight ways of doing this and then okay how do you feel about it what which way it works best for you and nothing gets mastered so what happens is they come students come to us and we give them an assessment and there's like let's say a four digit plus a four digit number and they blank, they have no mastery of any one technique that could work. Right. Or that the child and the reverse of that, the child that's, let's say in a traditional program where they've memorized their multiplication facts, like, but, you know, just by rote memorization and okay, you, you ask them, okay, how much is 12 times 12? And they tell you, Oh, one 44. And you ask them, well, what's 12 times 13. And they just say, I didn't learn that one. They have no, there's nothing they can do. Or like, I love this one, 101 minus 99.

And the kids do it with an algorithm. Right, where they line up the numbers. 101 minus 99, they don't just think how far is it from 99 to 101. So there's problems on both ends.

What Mathnasium does is we take the best of both, we packaged it up, we make sure that the assessment knows exactly how the child thinks about all of these different topics. And then we put a program together that is perfectly aligned for what they need given that we've taken the best of both they're going to learn the number sense and mental math techniques they're going to also learn how to use the standard algorithms we're going to bring transparency to the standard algorithms it's like meeting in the middle of these two polar opposite worlds and and finding the best of both and delivering it in an elegant, comfortable way to each child so that they are able to digest and move on to the next challenge. And apply, yeah, and apply going forward. And I think there definitely has been an emphasis in math education on developing number sense, which is great, right?

That's great, and that's a big part of what we do. And what constitutes number sense? It's like this kind of nebulous thing. It's like understanding the relationship between numbers. And okay, part of that is having great mental math techniques, great mental math skills, but it's also being able to look at a set of circumstances that you're given and say, what tools do I have to get this efficiently and reliably? And if what that means is I'm going to use the standard algorithm for multiplication or for division or for addition, so on and so forth, That's exhibiting good number sense.

and carry the one that no, I can double 17 by doubling 10 and double seven and putting it together to make 34 at 20 and 14 to make 34. So we're teaching kids to see math in that way. So not only, and then teaching them those ways of thinking, but then also helping them to understand like surveying the situation and having that recognition of what tool do I pull from my tool belt right now. So the key is you guys figure out with the kid, which way is most beneficial to them or that they're going to catch on. I mean, so in that case, we would expose kids to both ways of doing it. So let's say like the two digit plus a two digit with carrying, they should be, they should learn how to do that. And they should also learn the two digit plus a two digit mentally yes and we would we would teach it that way and then that child's going to gravitate to one or the other but ideally they would be able to pull out whichever tool that they need in whatever situation like we just want to equip them well what here are the most efficient ways that work because there's a ton of other yeah there's other ways of doing it ways that they're teaching kids in school now but like a lot of that is like it's good mind game or exercise to do yeah so like We've figured out the ones that are actually going to get you the most efficient answer quickly.

Right. This gets us away from having to memorize those facts, but we can actually commit them to memory by having a thought process that we do repeatedly over and over again for a period of time until, okay, now I just know it. It's in my memory. I don't have to keep thinking about it that way.

but yet the mastery of the facts is critically important. This is, this is an area we could have a whole. Yeah, exactly. I, anytime, any chance I get to have people on the show that talk about ways that we can change the conversations that step three of no problem parenting with our kids and really actually step one is seeking first to understand getting to the root of the problem. You guys are at Mathnasium.

Not only have you developed a curriculum that is helping kids who are struggling. I mean, you've developed this so that we don't even have to get to the point where our kids are struggling. We can, we can get them started right away and prevent so many behavioral and emotional challenges that our kids go through. So I'm really grateful that you guys took the time to be with me today. What's the best way that a family can find out more about Mathnasium?

The best thing would be to just go to mathnasium.com and people can search in their local community and put in your zip code and find a local mathnasium learning center. And you'll be able to experience most likely if you have a child that's in kindergarten through probably at least seventh grade, you get to experience some of the work that we've done at the franchise level. You don't have to do this alone. There are some amazing experts out there. Getting a third party look at your child's math skills is really, really critical right now, especially in the post-COVID world. Yeah, most mathnasium centers offer a free assessment. And so it's a great way to experience what mathnasium has to offer with no obligation, no financial obligation.

So I would highly encourage anyone listening to this that if you're even curious about it, contact your local center and have that free assessment. And from there, you can get a really good sense of whether or not it's a good fit for your family. I love it. Thanks so much, you guys, for helping us turn those math problems into no problem.

Thanks for being with me today. You're welcome. Thanks, Jackie. Hey, thanks for tuning in today, parents.

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