Lucy Bush

Perspectives on early development of number sense within a rural Amish community

This study investigates parental conceptions of number sense in an Amish community, where families live collaboratively, without many modern conveniences or technologies. Research suggests that family interaction impacts children’s learning more than a family’s education level or social class (Fox, Levitt, & Nelson, 2010). Number sense, partially developed through early interaction with parents, is one factor in mathematics understanding (Gersten, Jordan, & Flojo, 2005). JohnsonWeiner (2007) investigated how mathematics in Amish schools parallels mathematics used in homes. Within the research field concerned with family involvement and learning, this study specifically investigates Amish families’ perspectives on number sense development. We wished to learn how Amish parents nurture number sense prior to children’s formal schooling. The setting was a large Amish settlement in the US. The principal researcher used narrative inquiry, rooted in personal experiences (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), to discover stories of an Amish bishop’s family and three Amish parents. For triangulation, the principal researcher interviewed Amish research experts and an Amish schoolteacher and observed a school day in a one-room Amish school of 24 pupils (ranging from first through eighth grade). Like most Amish adults, the teacher had no formal education beyond eighth grade and no specialised teacher training. The visit added useful context; the observer noted selfdirected learners working independently while the teacher sequentially taught grade levels in small groups. Seemingly adept in number sense, pupils solved problems involving money, time, and nature. The principal researcher invited three Amish parents to share stories of their own number sense development and their nurturing of their children’s number sense. The foremost emerging theme was an emphasis on practical counting. Two other themes, living in the present and crawling before walking, while seemingly tangential to number sense, elucidated Amish perceptions on number sense as part of overall development.