How to Help Your Kids Love Math with Professor Akil Parker

In this episode of the Homeschool Your Kids podcast, Professor Akil Parker joins Jae to discuss how we can revolutionize the way we approach mathematics by bringing it into the home and our daily lives. Learn how to turn everyday moments into educational opportunities while empowering yourself as your child's primary educator.

🏫Professor Parker, the founder of All This Math, shares his journey from memorizing formulas to developing a deep conceptual love for the subject. He explains why parents are the most underutilized resource in a child's education and how we can bridge the gap between reading literacy and math proficiency. From using nutrition labels for lemonade math to exploring 'histematics' by connecting historical dates with equations, this conversation is packed with practical strategies for homeschoolers and traditional students alike.

📚We also explore the deeper purpose of subjects like geometry, which Professor Parker describes as a tool for logic and building cogent arguments rather than just a study of shapes. Whether you are a parent looking to support your child or an adult healing from your own math trauma, this episode provides the inspiration and tools needed to make math palatable, comfortable, and even fun. ✨

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Akil Parker is the founder and CEO of All This Math, LLC, an educational services company aimed at drastically improving the relationship between Mathematics and the Black Community.

The company was founded in 2017 and offers math tutoring as well as educational consulting, professional development, and other math instructional resources. His company maintains a free YouTube channel with over 1,000 tutorial videos ranging from arithmetic to calculus. On the channel viewers are able to access simplified math instruction infused with Black History and culture. More recently, Mr. Parker has begun offering parent workshops to help parents understand what many refer to as “New Math” to be able to help their children with math homework assignments.

He previously served as a math professor at both Cheyney University and LaSalle University where he taught Math Methods courses to aspiring K-12 teachers. He has been a math educator for almost 21 years having started out as a high school math teacher in the School District of Philadelphia in early 2005.

In 2023 Akil Parker authored his first book, 'How To Use All This Math, Volume 1,’ a guidebook instructing parents/guardians in how to use everyday activities to develop arithmetic, algebra, and geometry skills in their children. Be on the lookout for Volume 2 in the series. Akil Parker also believes that one of the ways that we can increase math proficiency in the community is by simply having more positive conversations about mathematics and amplifying its usefulness in daily life. As such he has been featured on over 200 podcasts and radio programs throughout the country discussing this topic as a means to refute much of the prevailing negative propaganda surrounding mathematics as a subject.

In 2019, he coined the term ‘Histematics’ which is a teaching framework that uses Black History to teach mathematics and mathematics to teach Black History. He can also be found on the Knarrative online education platform teaching his weekly Histematics course. In the summer months, he provides his Histematics Summer Program to Baltimore youth where they receive exposure to important literature regarding Black History and how to perform quantitative analysis of that literature using arithmetic, algebra, statistics, etc.

His greatest achievement by far is being the father of three children - Nasim (age 20), Assata(age 13), and Kwame (age 6). Lastly, Akil Parker is a firm believer that math should be used as a tool of liberation and something to run towards instead of away from.