TOS: Tell me about Pat Murray’s role.
Nadim: Pat is our teacher, and co-founder.
He was actually my teacher in high school.
We stayed in touch, and after I completed
my university degree, I found myself working for him, writing math problems for the
primary grade. Pat is a homeschooler, and
he’s taught at schools and run tutoring centers. He left his other paying jobs when he
developed an online program in Australia, which took off when McDonald’s approached him and wanted to provide it to
every student in Australia free of charge. So
for three years, every student in Australia
had CTCMath.
From there, we’ve expanded to the US
and UK, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Pat’s role is to continuously write new curricula, lessons, and questions. Right now
he’s working on a New Zealand curriculum, and he just finished some US material. While math is a universal language,
it’s taught differently worldwide because
of measurements, money, etc. The biggest
difference is in Australia and New Zealand,
high school students will do a little bit of
algebra, trigonometry, and geometry in
each year, where in the US it’s very course
focused, so students will study just algebra
for a semester or a year, then just geometry,
then trigonometry.
TOS: Anything else you’d like to tell us?
Nadim: We have so much appreciation
and respect for homeschoolers. I love how
parents take education into their own
hands and have the courage to say I’m not
happy with what’s being offered out there so
I’m going to do this myself. We try to make
life easy for homeschoolers. Math is difficult to teach. We understand that. We try to
take the teaching away from you as much
as possible while still giving you complete
control as the teacher.
The video tutorials teach each and every
math concept, but you have the flexibility of
all grades and all levels. So you can fill those
gaps, or move ahead. There are no restric-
tions on what lessons you take or when you
take them. You have the ability to set tasks
and a reward system described as price-
less. We had experience with Australian
homeschoolers before launching CTCMath
in the US. But we did ask homeschooling
families what’s important in a math cur-
riculum. We learned parents are sick of
wasting money on a math curriculum that
doesn’t work. So Pat offers a twelve-month
money-back guarantee. If the program is
not for the child, we don’t want you to feel
you’ve wasted any money.
TOS: Thank you, Nadim!
Kathleen Conway is a freelance editor for
The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. She
received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Virginia and
Master of Arts in Mass Communication
from the University of Georgia . She spent 20
years as a writer, producer, and reporter for
CNN and HLN (formerly Headline News).
She’s married to KC, has two stepdaughters,
Katie, 22, and Grace, 17, and a 7-year-old
son named Luke . They live in Lilburn, Georgia, outside of Atlanta .
Nadim El-Rahi is the marketing manager
for CTCMath. He has always had a keen
interest in math and business so CTCMath
was a perfect fit for him . He has a Bachelor
of Economics from Macquarie University,
NSW and has since completed a Specialization course in Social Media Marketing via
correspondence at Northwestern University. Nadim is married to his beautiful wife
Tamara. They are blessed with a daughter,
Emma and have another baby on the way.
www .ctcmath .com/
Critically Acclaimed and
Award-winning
Children's Book Author
Don't forget to check out her other
series...
If You Were Me... Culture Series &
Captain No Beard
"If You Were Me and
Lived In..."
civilizations include:
How they react to puzzle games,
coordinating blocks, building blocks,
and similar toys at a young age gives
you an indication about when they’re
ready to start math instruction.
