A dangerous question I know, but really, how do you feel about it? Now, think back to when those feelings began - and I'll tell you my math history. I did fine in math through grade school and the beginning of my time at Lincoln Park High School, but didn't particularly enjoy it. My passion was reading books and doing theatre, and math was just one of those classes you had to take. All that changed in my AP Calculus class in my senior year. And why? Well, part of it was the incredible feeling of finally understanding the point of learning all of the algebra, geometry and trigonometry of the first three years - it was so you could do calculus. And the beauty of the math itself made a big impression on me. But the main reason I began to love math back in 1999 was because I had an amazing teacher, Mr. Dave Goodrich. This motorcycle-riding man with a long ponytail and an incredibly caustic wit (that he rarely reined in) had a willingness to go above and beyond for students like me who had gotten inspired by math. He taught calculus in a way that I understood it, and underneath his daily sarcasm you could feel his respect and enthusiasm for math. Now, if you love math, is it because of one or more awesome teachers?
When I was thinking about which 12 nonprofits I wanted to support in this project, I immediately thought about how cool it would be to give a scholarship to one of the seniors in the AP Calculus program at Lake View High School. Lake View, one of our Chicago Public Schools, is fairly diverse - while just over 60% of the student body is Hispanic, the other 40% is split nearly evenly between black, white and Asian. About 80% of the student body is considered low-income, and from the relationships I've had with students over the years, I knew that even a small scholarship could make a big difference. I taught for 5 years at LV, but I never taught calculus - the Calculus program was the baby of our math department chairperson, Steve Starr. Steve was my mentor teacher back when I did my student teaching, and he just retired this year, so I need to give a shout out to this man who has nurtured, strengthened and challenged the math skills of hundreds and hundreds of students. Steve has a heart for public education and every day lives as a quintessential example of a self-sacrificing, hard-working teacher who honed each of the (nearly infinite number of) skills that are required to teach well.
So, last Wednesday, thanks to so many of your generous donations, I had the amazing opportunity to present a $1,000 check to a very cool, newly minted Lake View High School graduate named Olena.
Olena is planning on attending DePaul University in the fall; she's thinking about doing medicine or maybe computer science. Through her years at Lake View, she participated on the math team and was president of the Slavic Club. She told me that she had a great experience in math at LV, and that she always appreciated Mr. Starr's silly stuff - for example, if he ever forgets to put π in front of his integral when doing the volume of a solid of revolution, he brings pie to class for everyone the next day. It's the little things. :)
Thank you all for making this possible! I know it means a lot to Olena and her family to have these funds as she begins her first year of college.
If you'd like to see my (extremely ad hoc) presentation of the award, it is right here! By the way, that's the esteemed Mr. Starr in the pink shirt next to Olena.
One more thing: The AP Calculus program at Lake View is really something special – LV is a general high school, and students coming in often have not been accelerated through math in 7th/8th grade, which means they begin with Algebra 1. This makes it difficult for them to be really prepared for the rigor of Calc, and at most general high schools, that’s why there’s only a tiny, tiny percentage of senior students in the one AP Calc section, if there even is one offered. And that’s a shame, because while Calculus is the pinnacle of high school math, it’s the basic level of college math, and you can’t be a successful business, science, engineering, computer science, or architecture major without passing it (just to name a few). So at Lake View, there’s a mission to get as many kids as possible to take Calculus. Even if they can’t score a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, years of experience have shown that LV grads with calc experience do so much better in their college calculus class than those with no prior calculus experience. But it isn’t easy! Kids have to give up 6 weeks of their summer before senior year to take a pre-calculus course that meets 4 hours a day (does that strike fear into your heart?) and then during the school year, the class is either a period and a half or two periods long. But that amount of time, plus the cooperative learning techniques that Steve Starr uses, creates a true community amongst the students that’s really something special, at the risk of sounding hokey. But it isn’t hokey, when you consider the stories of LV calculus program graduates who come back for the yearly Calculus family awards potluck dinner (I know, you’re like, how can I get an invite?).
ReplyDeleteThis is so awesome! I think it's really great that you're directly giving back to youth things that helped you as a youth. You're inspiring me and I might look into some of my HS programs. I was the opposite of you. I really liked math in school up to but NOT including Calculus. There I found the limits of my mathematical brain and only limped through it using the part of my brain that's good at recognizing patterns. Word problems were out of the question but I could manage to complete other problems by following examples. I am very glad, though, that there are people in the world who love and are good at calculus. You do important work! --Renee M.
ReplyDeleteFantastic! I agree about the importance of calculus. It always seemed to me that calculus was the first math class where you could really apply math to a non-ideal situation. You really started to model the real world and solve realistic problems.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, Danika!