This weekend, a handful of students from Oakwood Country School,
with one sixth grader from Jackson Elementary, will take on
students from around the region in a grueling battle of
numbers.
This weekend, a handful of students from Oakwood Country School, with one sixth grader from Jackson Elementary, will take on students from around the region in a grueling battle of numbers.
“I think its going to be exciting,” said Pete Mains, the Jackson student. “We’ve been working to get ready for it, and I’m glad its almost here.”
Besides Pete, the team includes Oakwood 7th graders Ben Stuart, Steph Mann, Hafsa Lodi, Nick Garber, Kathryn Chen and Ryan Muir.
The competition, which is a national program called Math Counts, involves students in 6th through 8th grades. Saturday’s competition at San Jose State University will pit the Morgan Hill group against students from San Jose, Santa Clara and the region, including a team from Cupertino, which won the national competition last year.
Currently, the group meets at the Morgan Hill branch of Gavilan College in the Community Center complex. The students work on practice problems to help them prepare for what they will face in competition.
“The competition has four parts: a sprint round, when the students will individually complete 30 problems in 40 minutes; a target round, with eight problems to complete in 24 minutes, with the use of calculators permitted; a team round, where they work together to complete 10 problems in 20 minutes; and a countdown round, which is oral problem solving, with a buzzer,” said J. Brian Conrey, executive director of the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM), which sponsors Math Counts.
The Math Counts curriculum requires at least a basic knowledge of algebra, which is why it can be difficult to get sixth graders involved, said Lori Mains, mother of Pete and a volunteer and advocate for the program.
“This is not just mechanics of math,” she said. “And it is not math tutoring; this is a challenge for students who enjoy math and excel in it.”
Team member Ben, 13, said he enjoys the practice sessions.
“You can go further here,” he said. “It’s more challenging.”
Ben, who said he also plays soccer as a midfielder, practices jujitsu and plays piano and guitar, has been moved up a grade in math for the past three years, so now he takes 8th grade math.
“I used to always look at patterns, at puzzles, when I was little,” he said. “My parents told me that when I was 4 years old, I solved a mechanical math game that was meant for like 4th or 5th grade students.”
Mains said her hope is to get the two Morgan Hill School District middle schools – Britton and Martin Murphy – involved in the program.
“If we can get it started in the middle schools, get kids from both of them participating, that would be very exciting,” she said. “This is such a great program for the kids to be involved in. Possibly after we expand this, there will be an increased interest in some of the other math enrichment programs available at other grade levels, such as the Math Olympics and the Continental Math League.”
Conrey said he also would like to see Math Counts spread.
“We’d even like to see our own regional here,” he said. “We really want to build up the program, develop the talent we know is down here.”
Conrey said there is an $80 fee per school for entry into the competition, but AIM will pay the fee, even if more schools join on next year.
Pete said he would also like to see the program expand. He talked a friend, Ryan, whom he said he has known since kindergarten, into joining the team.
“It’s great,” he said. “It took a lot to convince Ryan to join, I mean some people say why would you want to do more math, but now that he’s doing it, I think he’s glad he joined.”
Mains said although Pete couldn’t compete last year because he was a fifth grader, he went to the competition and was really impressed.
The final round of the national competition, Conrey said, is broadcast on ESPN.
“It’s really a thrilling event, with the teams and their supporters, everyone’s excited,” he said.
