Dinner with Saxon Math

Mr. Meier, one of my high school math instructors, and I enjoyed a wonderful evening with Stephen Hake, Melody Simmons, and the heads or former heads of four charter schools from Flagstaff, Tucson, and Phoenix. The setting took place at the Royal Palms Resort in the very pleasant setting of the restaurant T. Cook's. All beautifully situated at the base of Camelback Mountain. Mr. Hake is the lead author of the Saxon textbooks we use. He was accompanied by his wife Mary who has coauthored a new grammar series that is just being released. All of the other guests were sales people for Saxon or founders of well established charter schools throughout the state, or a principal of one. These founders were not your run-of-the-mill teachers but instead, quite accomplished and experienced. One of these impressive educators has taught for fifty years.

From this occasion, which passed much too quickly, I thought I would share some observations from the myriad number of small group conversations that occurred throughout the three and a half hour dinner. This could be more for me to gather my thoughts on the evening than for your reading pleasure.

As the evening conversations progressed and people began warming up to each other and finding common ground, one of the themes of the evening for me was how opposite they were from politically correct views on educating our youth. I enjoyed experiencing the thought that I was not alone in my views, as well as watching that same idea cross many of the faces present during the evening at the wooden table hosting our party.

Of  course, we all were initially in attendance because of our use of the Saxon math books to support our students. My schools have used it for seventeen years. One school in attendance has for twenty-five.

On testing, there was a short discussion concerning the AIMS test. None of the schools spent time teaching to the test and very little time preparing their students for it. One teacher announced that he had never even seen a test or practice materials. Over and over, the point presented was that great teachers instruct to a broad set of standards and not to tests. Tests will be passed if teaching is performed correctly. This was all preceded by the conversation on education.

A consensus on what an education is suppose to accomplish was exemplified by a story related by one of the administrators on how a former graduate of his past, came to him one day after his third year of college and mentioned how he was going to change his major and begin classes towards an engineering degree." The unfortunate part of this story ", the teacher said, " was that his parents did not want their son to be pushed in math and so only attained a level of understanding at an Algebra I level." The moral being a student doesn't know how their interest and opportunities will change in the future. So take the student as far as you can in skills and understanding while you have the opportunity.

A common theme for our school is to teach and maintain the basics while advancing a student's knowledge. It is just as true for Bible as science. The famous UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, is said to have started the first day of practice with instruction in how to tie your shoes correctly. The same theme was echoed around the table that evening. One administrator emphasized how to correctly head a paper and show their math work the first eight days of instruction each year. When asked why he thought he was so successful in his teaching, he said, " Basics, basics, basics. Once those are down and kept in front of them, everything else is easy." Great teachers know this basic truth.

Stephen Hake had many interesting stories about John Saxon and the early days of the math development. His observation on what schools purchased Saxon math books and which did not was informative. He said the farther away the person who made the decision to purchase math textbooks was from teaching or observing the instruction of math the less likely that person was to purchase the Saxon series. Correlating with that observation was the fact that Saxon has over fifty percent of the homeschool families in the states using their math curriculum.

As you can tell, I enjoyed the opportunity to experience great instructors and the thoughts they shared that evening.