Mission Statement:
The goal of this venture is to ensure that mathematically gifted students have the tools to further their education, and to promote interest in math by working with talented kids in an advanced learning setting.
In D.C. there are great disparities in educational opportunities. While some kids may be given brand new textbooks or top-notch, involved teachers, not all are so fortunate. One of the most devastating impacts of this discrepancy is the lack of interest in furthering one’s education that ensues. When not sufficient engaged, children have a lessened desire to learn. This problem is particularly prevalent, and particularly dangerous, in younger children. Lack of interest in education can be formed quite early, and to attack the problem of educational apathy, it is best to deal with the problem early, starting with elementary school students.
One of the ways in which distaste for learning evidences itself is in attitudes toward math. Many students dislike and even detest math because they find it boring or pointless. However, the problem is not personal tastes or lack of applications of math (there are many!), but ineffective math education. Teachers are not necessarily to blame, because they are often saddled with kids of highly varied skill levels and forced to compromise lessons to appeal to the majority of the class. However, this often leaves a large section ignored: those talented in math, yet understimulated by current curriculums. Such children, despite possessing a natural aptitude for math, are often left with only loathing for it, because the concepts confronted are simply too elementary. Because of this, the venture proposes to work with these gifted students to ensure that they are sufficiently stimulated and can rekindle their lost passion for math.
The world is filled with constantly evolving technological advancements, and, correctly applied, they can be used as very effective learning tools. In fact, technology is one of the most important aspects of education, because it allows students to work effectively independently, and does not constrain learning to a classroom environment. This is the reason for the main medium of the program, and its structure: Teaching children how to appropriately use technological tools allows them to advance their learning outside of the classroom. Technology affords another purpose as well—it allows students to work at their own pace, and thereby combats the discrepancies in attention to various degrees of talent and advancement in math that are the root of the problem.
In D.C. there are great disparities in educational opportunities. While some kids may be given brand new textbooks or top-notch, involved teachers, not all are so fortunate. One of the most devastating impacts of this discrepancy is the lack of interest in furthering one’s education that ensues. When not sufficient engaged, children have a lessened desire to learn. This problem is particularly prevalent, and particularly dangerous, in younger children. Lack of interest in education can be formed quite early, and to attack the problem of educational apathy, it is best to deal with the problem early, starting with elementary school students.
One of the ways in which distaste for learning evidences itself is in attitudes toward math. Many students dislike and even detest math because they find it boring or pointless. However, the problem is not personal tastes or lack of applications of math (there are many!), but ineffective math education. Teachers are not necessarily to blame, because they are often saddled with kids of highly varied skill levels and forced to compromise lessons to appeal to the majority of the class. However, this often leaves a large section ignored: those talented in math, yet understimulated by current curriculums. Such children, despite possessing a natural aptitude for math, are often left with only loathing for it, because the concepts confronted are simply too elementary. Because of this, the venture proposes to work with these gifted students to ensure that they are sufficiently stimulated and can rekindle their lost passion for math.
The world is filled with constantly evolving technological advancements, and, correctly applied, they can be used as very effective learning tools. In fact, technology is one of the most important aspects of education, because it allows students to work effectively independently, and does not constrain learning to a classroom environment. This is the reason for the main medium of the program, and its structure: Teaching children how to appropriately use technological tools allows them to advance their learning outside of the classroom. Technology affords another purpose as well—it allows students to work at their own pace, and thereby combats the discrepancies in attention to various degrees of talent and advancement in math that are the root of the problem.