A little look into the future with Crewton Ramone.
Will be having a sale in June. And maybe even a Mother's Day Password sale since my primary customer base are WOMEN...must figure out how to get the FATHERS more involved...but I understand the dynamic. The father's are out earning money while the mother's are home with the kids in most cases. A very traditional and IMO desirable stable situation, the education of the child often falls primarily to the mother in the primary years and then gradually to the father in the later years especially tradesmen and farmers...again in the more traditional "old school" family situations. They have attempted to destabilize the traditional family with social engineering and we can look around and see the results. Nothing wrong with single parent families but there is no question it's harder. Two is easier. I'm a single parent but only on week ends. I know a lot of single parents who have no other to look to; ask them if it gets overwhelming at times. Also nothing wrong with non traditional families but also nothing wrong with traditional families either...and certainly women (or men) who choose to stay home not "work" and raise children shouldn't be stigmatized. I hear "I'm just a mom." All the time when dealing with customers..."just a mom" is about the most important full time job there is.
I like my clientele because this is the 4 to 5% (up from about 1% 20 years ago) that actually understand the teachers are there to ASSIST you in the education of your children, not do it all for you, babysit 6 to 8 hours a day...act as surrogate parents, counselors, psychologists and more. Many of you eschew the public school system altogether and want to do it yourselves BUT math is a sticking point and so is the money. My aim is to change that.
Soon I will have an affiliate program where those of you who have told anybody and everybody that will listen about me will be rewarded for your efforts...again I can not immediately do anything about the physical products (blocks etc) but I can and will have training and "how to" vids along with internet courses, pdfs, audio and such that you can be proud to share and that will be quite reasonably priced. This will also allow you to hire out other experts to assist you in the education of your children, music teachers for example or language teachers, artists, etc. My commissions will be generous.
With regard to physical products I will be having dvds and books soon and I can tell you in the same manner people didn't understand I could build this entire website with nothing more than my $400 tablet now when in the early 1990's it would have cost 10's of thousands (I was looking at a proposal I wrote back then and equipment and hosting were over 100 grand) print on demand has made DVD's and books entirely doable...and I made friends with a vice president of a company that does just that. Further we are not there yet but 3D printing will make $300,000.00 injection molds obsolete in the very near future buying blocks and shipping them will be almost obsolete you'll just turn your 3D printer on, either way blocks/manipulatives are going to be inexpensive too--give it a few more years...then it's going to be all about information--it already is but even more so.
Several people have told me $250 for an annual is still too "cheap" and when it was $100 it was "a total no brainer" because of all the stuff you get plus the fact that more is created monthly. This is where the marketing comes in. People don't always GET what they are getting until they look around the web and find nothing else like it. Getting people to understand that it's more than worth it is the hard part. Still quite bemused that I couldn't sell a password for 5 bucks but once I upped the price to $150 I sold them like hotcakes. Better marketing on my part is coming. I have acquired a guru who is showing me how...he has it down to a pretty simple, extremely successful formula and I can use a formula better than most. The part that I lack is the ability to let people know how cool this is because they have been programmed to hate math and anything to do with math even if there is a guy who claims he can take the pain out...further, people are so used to gimmicks they think I'm kidding when I say the sale lasts ten days or this is a real spring sale prices won't be this low again. Then when the sale is over they can't believe there really isn't going to be another one. People are still waiting for Mortco to have another sale. People also think lifetime passwords are going to come back down to 100 bucks...opps they keep going up. (I'll tell you right now, there may be a sale for 150 bucks again, but only for a few days and when it's over--it's over, but they will never be 100 bucks again so quit waiting.)
"The human mind has never invented a labor-saving machine equal to algebra." ~Author Unknown
"Calculus is the most powerful weapon of thought yet devised by the wit of man." ~W. B. Smith
Another thing I'll be doing eventually is interviewing people who use math in their business or vocation. I talk to scientists, engineers, physicists etc but also business owners and always ask them about their math. How often do you use algebra? For scientists, engineers, physicists the answer is usually EVERYDAY. How often do you use the calculus? The answer is usually not as often but a lot. And stats? Depends on the person/job. Anyhow the point is I will be offering that as a product for parents and teachers to answer the perennial question: "Why do we have to know this?" Asked by the teen age whiners in most math classes.
I spent a lot of time in bookstores this last two weeks from Portland to LA; books on math are...uh...difficult. I understand them because I see the pictures in my head...but they contain no pictures for you. I was reading a book called "Forgotten Algebra" which presented math the traditional way: formula first, no pictures not even for Pythagoras, then rules and process--no mention of concepts...no wonder it's the most failed subject. As one person who I'm pretty sure has left this page said, show a problem, show how to work the problem, show a problem show how to work a problem. Exactly NOT what you get here.
"There is a great danger in the present day lest science- teaching should degenerate into the accumulation of disconnected facts and unexplained formulae, which burden the memory without cultivating the understanding." ~J. D. Everett [In the preface to his 1873 English translation of Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy by A Privat Deschanel. (D. Appleton and Co.)]
All I'm going to do is teach concepts anybody can understand and put the pictures back in, add some humor and sex...and for this I am labeled a visionary radical.
So be it.
:) I can hardly wait what to see what is next from you. IMO there is no label that fits you or any individual. Labels are made and accepted by people with certain thinking. Learning and teaching math the way you do is a way to break that thinking and free the mind. One needs guts for that. Cheers to all teachers, parents and kids with guts!
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