A group of students at Southwest Middle School love math. In fact, they love math so much that they arrive at school at 7 a.m. and sometimes don’t head home until 4 p.m. These children wear their purple Math Counts t-shirts with great pride. And, why shouldn’t they? The group recently took first place in the Black Hills Math Counts contest.
Math pride is something to be proud of and not hide from.
These students enthusiastic response to math is indicative of how the way the subject is being taught has evolved over the years. Nowadays, teachers, like math instructor Crystal McMachen have learned how to present the once dreaded subject as fun and practical. She doesn’t approach math as a scary experience and shows how it can be used in everyday life situations.
Algebra, geometry, counting, probability. With the problems they work on, students learn that math is practical with real world applications.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Key takeaways
- Making middle school math fun is getting kids fired up to learn.
- The teachers running the extracurricular math program are letting kids’ problem solve more than they could in a one hour classroom session.
- They believe that giving kids an opportunity to think about what they’re learning for themselves will lead to passion for the subject.
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