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How can we bridge the gap between modern math classrooms and the way our generation learned math?

Today’s classrooms look nothing like they did 20 years ago—by design. But while educators are embracing student-centered math that fosters deep understanding, many parents are left confused or concerned. Kelly Green, an experienced educator and math consultant, joins the show to tackle one of education’s most overlooked challenges: bringing parents along in the math transformation. Whether you’re a teacher, coach, admin, or parent, this episode reveals what’s needed to turn resistance into partnership.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why traditional math anxiety still haunts both kids and educators—and how to break the cycle.
• How to proactively communicate instructional shifts to parents (and avoid backlash over things like the delayed standard algorithm).
• What schools and leaders can do to build strong homeschool math connections that empower—not alienate—families.

Press play to learn how you can strengthen your math community by turning parents into partners in the learning journey.

Resources:

Kelly’s Facebook Profile

Kelly’s LinkedIn

Kelly’s Instagram: @ModernMathMom

Kelly’s website

Attention District Math Leaders:

How To Teach Algebra: A Course on Conceptual Understanding 

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jon Orr: Hey there, Kelly, welcome to the Making Math Moments That Matter podcast. We’re pumped. We’re always pumped to chat with people like you, and we’re ready to dig in. you know, do us a favor. Let everybody know where you’re coming from, what’s your role in education, and then we’ll dig into some discussion around supporting parents.

Kelly Green: Awesome. Well, I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Kelly Green and I’m coming to you from a suburb near Chicago where it is currently very, very snowy. Our first snowfall of the season, which is really fun. I have been in education for about 16 years in the roles of elementary teacher. I’ve taught almost all grade levels.

except second grade, which is a grade level that I really would love to teach if I could go back into the classroom. I’ve been an instructional coach, a mathematics specialist, and currently am now on my own business, Kelly Green Consulting, and I am a district mathematics consultant. So work with school districts to help provide professional learning around all things mathematics, modernizing their math classroom, best practices. I work with coaches, teachers, administrators.

district level admin. So I am really excited about this new journey that I’ve been on and working towards just supporting all of our kids in mathematics, especially in elementary. That’s my wheelhouse.

Yvette Lehman: So Kelly, as a guest on the podcast, we always ask, can you share with the community a memorable math moment for you?

Kelly Green: Yeah, so I have, I have two that both kind of center around the same moment, but at completely different times in my life. So as a, as a third grade student, I have this vivid memory of being in math class and having to stand up and, know, they were going through down the rows with your multiplication facts and you had, you know, three seconds or whatever it was.

Jon Orr: Around the world? Were you playing around the world?

Kelly Green: Yes, it wasn’t around the world. I did that with my own kids, unfortunately, my own students when I didn’t know any better, but something similar. And I just remember the anxiety taking over right before it would come to me. Whether I knew the fact or not, it didn’t matter because my anxiety kicked in and I was like, no, shutting down, don’t want to do this. And then I remember a really similar moment when I was a teacher at a staff meeting. We were doing one of those fun little get to know you activities.

And for some reason, we were standing in a circle and everybody had to add six onto whatever the person before them said. And even as a teacher, as an adult, I remember being very, very worried about it getting to me and me not being able to add six without using my fingers. This was early on in my career as an educator before I actually became fluent once I started teaching and understanding fluency.

Those moments for me really stand out just because they were terrifying and really led to this anxiety that I had for teaching math as an educator. And, you know, eventually working with an instructional coach that would change my life forever and the trajectory of my career because she finally taught me how math should be taught. And every time I got a chance to work with her, my mind was blown as to why I was never taught that way. So.

It has now become my passion to never put kids in the same place that I was. And I really strive to help educators not feel like I did when I first started teaching in the classroom as well.

Jon Orr: Got it. Anxiety, you know, putting kids on the spot, you know, and asking questions and hand raising and calling them out when they’re not prepared is can be anxiety ridden, you know, and can cause those moments that we carry with us throughout the year. you, do you feel like there’s, is there any like in the work that you’re doing now and the work that you’re supporting, do you feel like there’s, is there a place for like, you know,

always kind of making sure that kids don’t talk in front of people or is there some sort of blend? Like what’s your stance on in your thinking around that? like, you know, what’s the, is there a right time to help, you know, have a student kind of step forward and share their thinking in front of people when maybe you know they could? Like, I don’t know. You know what I mean?

Kelly Green: yeah, of course. mean, discourse is number one in a math classroom, especially, you know, elementary nowadays. We need kids talking about and being able to explain their mathematical thinking, explain their strategies, be able to share with others all of those wonderful things that so many tasks can elicit in a classroom. But with that being said, you have to create a community where kids feel trusted, safe, and able to have those conversations so that

when they do make those mistakes, they understand that those mistakes are actually great things that are gonna help their brain grow and that they’re gonna learn from. So I definitely agree with kids talking about mathematics, having those conversations. Now, the situation I was in was that, you know, the timing element of it, you know, was about speed and it was about not being, for me personally, not being prepared for it. But, you know, it’s…

I never feel the need when you’re in a classroom to ever worry about how much time kids take to explain their thinking. But I think it plays a very key role in a student-centered mathematics classroom and bringing forth a lot of things that we want to see from our little mathematicians.

Yvette Lehman: We know Kelly that you are very passionate about not only transforming math instruction in a way that empowers all learners, but also empowering parents as partners. So talk to us a little bit about that. We know you’re a mom yourself, you’re an educator, and talk to us about some of the challenges you’ve encountered. You actually alluded to the fact that your own school experience as a child

varies significantly from what you’re trying to do in the classroom now and how does that create a challenge for parents supporting their children at home?

Kelly Green: Yeah, so again, as a mom, I’ve become more passionate about this now that I am a mom and now that I have conversations with my friends and hear the thoughts that they have around instruction and mathematics and things going on in classrooms. So this new idea of the parent involvement really changed for me when I became a parent myself. And what I notice is that, you know, we’re making these wonderful changes in our classroom.

we’re moving towards these more student-centered classrooms where kids are involved in discourse, where they’re doing deep mathematical thinking and not just finding answers, but being problem solvers, all of these great, great things that we want from kids. without parents understanding that that’s happening, there’s a huge disconnect there. And the disconnect that I see is parents being confused, angry, upset that…

some of the things they’re bringing home, their children are bringing home, or some things that they’re not bringing home, homework, worksheets, things like that. They don’t understand the strategies that we’re teaching, why we’re asking kids to do these extensive tasks when we’re working with mathematics, when they think that there’s much easier, quicker ways for kids to find answers. And so it becomes this disconnect and this problem that, you know, this…

The most recent school district I worked in, we have a community that is very involved, which is fantastic. You want families, you want parents involved, but if they’re not educated around the research done for why we’re making these changes in the classroom, they can become very involved in a negative way, wanting us to turn our classrooms back into more traditional settings.

wanting things to go back to the way it was when they were in school, not having an understanding of what we’re doing, thinking that we’re making things more complicated and so forth. So I have felt very, very strongly about this importance of simultaneously helping our educators understand the shift that needs to take place as well as families, because they can be a roadblock and a barrier to some of the things that we’re trying to do.

Yvette Lehman: This actually just came up in one of our district lead calls recently. We have a district who has worked very hard to intentionally delay the introduction of the standard algorithm for subtraction in their primary classrooms. So they, you of course they will eventually get to the standard algorithm, but they really want to prioritize a variety of strategies. And a question that came up during a call with our other leaders was,

Well, what happens though, when you’re trying to intentionally delay the introduction, but then homework goes home and the parents show them, just stack them and borrow. So what advice would you have to that district who’s trying to really ensure that the reasoning is there before they go to a procedure?

Kelly Green: So the first thing would be getting ahead of that, right? So, and it might be a little too late right now, but kind of thinking about some of those situations that come up. you know, making sure that parents are aware of whatever curricular resource that you’re using, especially if it’s one that’s truly aligned to common core and giving us this deep conceptual understanding. so, you know, whatever, a lot of those curriculums have great resources, videos for parents, letters for parents. Unfortunately, sometimes teachers are not sending those home.

whether it be because they don’t understand that they exist or because just forgetting that those are there as a support for them. obviously, utilizing some of those pieces, but as well as making sure that there’s a space on their website where they are having a place to talk about mathematics instruction, what it looks like, having videos, having opportunities there for parents to be able to access any of the curricular resources so they can see what’s taking place.

And I would also recommend, highly recommend math nights, whether it be district math nights, building math nights. I have facilitated many apparent math nights and there are so many opportunities within there for them to hear a quick presentation about, yes, this is what we’re doing. This is why we’re changing things. This is what math instruction should look like. But also giving them ideas of how you support that at

Right? So all of that is going to be really, really important for them being able to get out there to the community and start some of those conversations. And that’s also going to be a big part on the teacher’s end to be able to make sure that they’re sharing those things as well. And it is very specifically with the standard algorithm knowing that, you know, it’s not taught until fourth grade very intentionally. And

The reality is some kids learn it and that’s okay. If they have it, just was doing a lesson study yesterday in a first grade, or I’m sorry, third grade classroom and the kids were all solving with what they called the T method, which was the standard algorithm. And I tried to ensure those teachers that if they’re doing that, that’s fine. But now your job is going to be to kind of backtrack and talk about, you understand what’s happening?

Jon Orr: and they can have a good process of having a good space. So, I that’s the track to do about it, is the Edge Cable.

Kelly Green: in each of these steps of the procedure. Can you show me with base 10 blocks? Can you use the right mathematical language when you’re decomposing these numbers? All of those things. you know, sometimes there’s things we can’t change, even if we were to do all of those wonderful things, math nights, having these videos, all of these things, right? But sometimes we can’t change what’s going to happen. And so as best we can as teachers, we need to be able to know that that might happen and figure out how to support the kids moving forward.

Jon Orr: Totally agree. Like you have to, you have to realize that that is going to happen. And it’s about, it’s about kind of realizing that, you know, people are going to have different opinions to you and all different ideas, no matter what, no matter what it could be mathematics, could be, could be even just, you know, it could be parenting, you know, techniques. It’s a, it’s, you know, when, when you’re trying to teach someone something, it’s like, it’s better to kind of adapt and learn about.

how to adapt and how to think about things in different ways. And those are some real benefits of like what we get to do in mathematics classes. I want you to, I want to spin this around on you a little bit. Like you’re a parent, you’ve got some mathematics background knowledge. You know, you know, some great strategies that could be, you know, beneficial for your child to learn math. Let’s now imagine that the teacher doesn’t.

teach it that way. What is your nice way of saying, Hey, how do I handle this situation? When my teacher is teaching this standard algorithm first as the V all end all in that situation, but you’re like, Hmm, do I say something? Do I not say something? What’s your thoughts, Kelly?

Kelly Green: Yeah, so I was actually the mathematics specialist in my children’s district, which also adds a spin on to that because I was a colleague of many of my children’s teachers. So that is a whole different other situation. I’m lucky and grateful that both of my children have amazing educators. And I know too that I never ever

Jon Orr: Mm-hmm. Right, yeah. Right, right. We’ve all been there.

Kelly Green: feel that it’s the teacher’s fault when things like this do happen. I think it’s lack of professional learning. I think that professional learning is number one, the best way to make impactful changes in our classroom, right? And so when it does happen, which it has happened, I have had to take a take a step back, take a deep breath, have a little bit of time and space before I before I do or say anything. And so

I don’t reach out to the teacher and I don’t say anything to the teacher out of respect for knowing what teachers go through every day, knowing what a parent that does that can be like, as well as just having respect for former colleagues. But I do have conversations with my children about that. So I am very much the parent that says, I don’t really care about the answer that you get.

Right? My son constantly, he’s obsessed with numbers. He’s in third grade. He asks Alexa every single mathematical problem that he could ever ask her. He wants to know all of it. And that’s his reality. And it’s only going to continue. He’s going to be able to find answers anywhere at any time, constantly. So I tell him that. And so I always tell him, I don’t care about the answer. I care about how you got to that answer. And I care about your explanation about the work that you did.

So whenever those things do come up, know, I do have the luxury of being able to go back and draw models and be able to make the connection for them. So I’m grateful that I do have that knowledge so that they’re not just becoming these procedural children that don’t have any of that depth of knowledge, but that’s usually how I handle it is just making sure that my son or my daughter, whoever it might be, knows that there’s more to it than just this quick procedure.

And that yes, this is a strategy, but you know, I need to know and understand that you, you understand this strategy. And I always try to tell them too, that I’m okay with them solving it in whatever way makes sense to them. If they’re finding this as a, as a proficient strategy for them, great. If not, that’s okay to go back to something else.

Yvette Lehman: So for all the parents listening today who maybe just, you know, they landed here because they’re trying to make sense of the changes that are happening in math education. And, you know, we mentioned, you know, the difference that we’re seeing in the classroom today compared to 20 years ago. If you had them as an audience right now, how would you articulate the shift that we’re trying to make and why the shift is important for student learning?

Kelly Green: So I would make sure to kind of what I just talked about, talk about the reality of our kids and their lives in 10, 15, 20 years and how quickly technology is advancing and all of the things that are going to be at their fingertips and all of the things that they’re going to have to know and understand by the time they are in college and ready to take on the world and whatever job they’re going to take.

it’s going to look very different. you know, that first and foremost is something that I really want all parents to understand. Education should not look at all like it did when any of us were in school. We live in a very, very different world. Yes, it worked for us then, but it no longer works for us now because of the advancements with technology. And so I would make sure that they understand that and then explain that the importance of

that deep conceptual understanding and mostly, especially at that elementary level, obviously K-12, that conceptual understanding. But when we’re talking about building the foundation of numeracy and number sense, it really is about that problem solving, that modeling, all of those pieces. And so as I hear people complain and get angry about, you know, Common Core and

you know, what a that that we had this shift and that it’s it’s not good for kids. It’s making it complicated. I want them to understand that that’s not the case, right, that it actually is taking each of these really, really important and foundational skills and breaking it apart for students in a sequence and in a progression at a conceptual level that is helping them become mathematicians and actual fluent learners of mathematics and not just these answer getters.

that we all were asked to be when we were children. So I think that that is key for parents to understand so that when worksheets aren’t coming home and when kids are not bringing flashcards home anymore, they have to understand that that’s okay. That what we want is conversations within the classroom, modeling with mathematics, a lot of things that can’t come home on paper is really what we’re looking for, especially K-5 in those elementary buildings.

Jon Orr: Now, when you think about, say, at the district level, or at the school level, think about our principals.

say math, the math programming or the math education that is happening in our schools. What are you consulting in up there around this idea? Is there anything that those folks can be doing to support what’s happening in their buildings and help support that communication between classroom teachers and the home?

Kelly Green: Definitely. I think that all of our administrators, especially principals in our buildings are the instructional leaders of that building. So we want them to have the knowledge of exactly what should be taking place in a classroom. And when they’re walking into classrooms and they’re evaluating teachers, being able to know exactly what they are looking for, how to provide feedback and scaffolds for those teachers as they’re walking in to do their evaluations.

There’s many, many principals I’ve worked with that don’t have a math background. A lot of people that are in elementary education don’t have that mathematics background and then, you know, move into a principalship and same thing. They’re lacking that. And so I think just like our teachers, our administrators need to have a solid understanding of exactly what shifts need to take place in our classrooms, as well as what professional learning the teachers are involved in. So

In one of the roles that I’ve been in, I provide a lot of professional learning for educators through institute days, half-day sessions, different things that the way that the calendar works. And unfortunately, a lot of times those district and building administrators are pulled for other meetings and they’re not able to be in and involved in that professional learning. And that becomes an issue, I think, when they don’t understand what is being taught to these teachers and what the expectations are for these teachers through these professional learning sessions.

And then they’re being asked to go in and evaluate them without the knowledge of what type of learning they have received. I also think that, and I remember this as a teacher, I always had a different feeling when my administrator was in a professional learning that I had as compared to when they weren’t. And always wondering like, why aren’t they in here learning about this or even hearing about what I’m learning? Because I want to be able to show them that I’m taking what I’m learning and moving it forward, right?

That for me is a big piece is them being involved in it and making sure that they get the professional learning that they need. And principals especially are pulled in a hundred different directions. And I know that I’ve seen it firsthand, but if we want them truly to be those instructional leaders of a building, they need to have the same professional learning, the same understanding of the shifts that need to take place so that they can provide that really, really clear feedback and help teachers move forward.

Jon Orr: For sure, for sure. Tough stuff, tough stuff to accomplish too. Kelly, if there was one main idea that you would want the listener right now, the teacher, the math leader, or the parent, to take away from this conversation, what would be that one thing?

Kelly Green: So I think that one thing would be that, and I haven’t mentioned this this much. when I think about my own children and the things I do with them at home, it really is about kids being able to make sense of math in the world around them. Math is not separate from, okay, I have math class and then there’s math in my world, right? It is all very, very connected.

And so if we are not shifting to the student-centered mathematics world and we are not allowing kids to use strategies they have and to understand mathematics at a deep conceptual level and model and talk about math and all of these things, that disconnect between when I use math in my everyday life and what I’m doing in the classroom gets completely lost. And so, you know…

The reason why I do what I do and mostly work with these school districts, but also want to do what I can to help parents understand this is because we want every child to understand mathematics so that they have this world available to them where they can go into careers and have opportunities that a lot of people like myself did not have because I didn’t have this understanding and because I didn’t see the connection. between things I was learning in school and the math that really exists around me every day.

Yvette Lehman: Kelly, we want to thank you so much for joining the Make Math Moments community and really shining a spotlight on the importance of establishing a strong homeschool connection.

Kelly Green: Yes, of course. One more thing I would like to mention, I did start an Instagram page about a year ago called Modern Math Mom, where I just take videos of things I do with my kids at home to help build their mathematical thinking. And I know that I have some friends and some other educators and people that follow. And that’s a great place to go to just see that I’m not I’m not using flashcards. I’m not having my kids do workshe that come up throughout t about mathematics and it me see how my kids have g from birth all the way to

Jon Orr: Awesome. Anywhere else people can go to learn more about the work you’re doing and what they can see.

Kelly Green: Yeah, so you can head to my website kellygreenconsulting.org where you can find all the information on the consulting work that I do with school districts, buildings, daycares. I try to get to as many different platforms and places and businesses and things that I can to move forward our math instruction for our kiddos.

Jon Orr: Awesome. Thanks. put that in the show notes. Kelly, thanks so much for being here and we’ll be in touch.

Kelly Green: Alright, thanks for the time.

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