More than numbers

Suzie Harrison

It’s usually a love or hate relationship when it comes to math. The

scales seemed to be tipping toward the positive in Andy Crisp’s

sixth-grade math concepts class at Thurston Middle School.

“We’re going over topics, the next topic on the test is solving

proportions,” Crisp said. “All of you should be experts because we’ve

done it so much before.”

He was right, a sea of hands flew up when he asked the students to

go to the board and solve a problem.

These students weren’t just proficient -- they were “mathletes”

answering question after question with the support of Crisp who made

sure everyone was on the same page.

“He’s a really good teacher,” Carrie Doff, 12, said. “We’re learning math, ratios and averaging, he teaches everything. Math is

my favorite subject -- it’s fun the way he teaches it.”

The next topic was writing proportions -- how to term a word

problem.

“In January you spent $12.75 for 85 minutes of long distance

calls,” Crisp said. “What is the cost of 120 minutes long distance

calls made in February?”

They knew right away that they would have to line up minutes with

minutes and dollars with dollars to solve the equation and came up

with $18.

Scale drawings were the last to review. With that they figured out

the dimensions of a park, figuring out its scale both width and

length.

To close out the rest of the lesson it was game time -- the room

buzzed with excitement the girls vied with the boys in a Jeopardy

type format. Last time the girls won and the boys wanted revenge. The

students chose a 100, 200, or 300 point question from one of the four

categories studied.

It was neck and neck until the very end when the boys squeaked by

with a 100 point advantage to claim the victory.

“The game we played was Jeopardy,” Nicole Zimmerman, 12, said.

“It’s really fun because you can learn and have fun at the same

time.”