Trouble With Math? He Really Understands

University High School teacher Brian Schmidt remembers what it’s like to fall behind in math.

“I was the kid in the back row who wanted to be left alone,” says Schmidt. Ninth-grade algebra at Central Valley High School was the donnybrook for him.

So when Schmidt faces nearly 32 students in his third-period applied geometry class at U-Hi, he empathizes with them.

Many of these kids have had trouble with algebra or traditional geometry. Some failed their math, last year. And it’s no secret.

“We’re in the dumb math class,” says one student.

Early in the class, one day this week, Schmidt was going over homework problems that the kids had had trouble with. One problem concerned measuring the path and angle for a new sidewalk that has to be built. As Schmidt worked through the problem, he asked questions.

“How is a protractor going to help me out?”

Silence.

“What does a protractor measure?”

Silence. No hands up.

The teacher who once sat in the back row himself is unfazed. He just keeps on rolling out question after question, breaking down the problem into ever simpler pieces. Pretty quickly, he’s found a question that several of the kids can answer and within a few minutes, the whole problem is solved.

“I never embarrass a kid by calling on him when I know he doesn’t know the answer,” Schmidt says. Instead, he’ll find time somewhere in the school day to help the students who are clearly in need of help.

The theory behind this applied geometry class is that kids who struggled in regular math will relate better to problems that have some meaning in the real world.

Here’s an example. As the kids ease their way into the basics of geometry - lines and angles - Schmidt tells them to draw a map showing how to get from U-Hi to the Spokane Valley Mall. First, they’re to do a sketch. Then, a map drawn to scale, one inch equaling one mile. Then, they’re to write directions, as well. Finally, they must determine what angle they would travel from school to the mall, if they were traveling as the crow flies.

See? You can sneak geometry into all sorts of places if you try.

The students work in pairs. Gary Heine teams up with Tara Hall, a young lady who favors the color black for her wardrobe and chains for jewelry. They have both had Schmidt before.

Gary and plenty of other students say he’s a good teacher, patient and clear in his explanations.

“He doesn’t get aggravated when people ask the same questions over and over,” says Brandon Frost.

But Tara fusses over the slow pace of the work. She wants to move faster and she wants to dispense with the story problems.

“What does this have to do with geometry, anyway?” she frets. Tara took regular geometry last year.

“A lot of times I get asked ‘When am I ever going to use this?’,” Schmidt says. This program is designed to teach kids math in ways that they just might run into down the road.

How many of these students will stay up with the work in this math class? Several of the students say that most kids will keep up.

“The only way you won’t get a good grade in this class is if you just don’t try,” offers Jeremy Bright.

But Schmidt, clear-eyed in his seventh year of teaching at U-Hi, estimates that 10 to 15 percent of these students will really work hard all trimester. Many of his middle students will learn enough to understand some of the fundamentals of geometry. And of those, many will retake the same math classes at a community college level that they’re taking now.

At the end of the class, most of the kids pack up their backpacks and talk for a few minutes before they’re dismissed.

Tara, alone, plunges into that night’s homework assignment. She starts one problem about triangles and angles. But the wording in the book throws her. Her patience leaves in a flash.

“Oh, I’ll just guess,” she says. “I do that a lot.”

Odds are that, the next day, Schmidt will draw the problem out, break it down into simple parts. And life in third-period applied geometry will go on.

Welcome back, everyone

Principals at Central Valley’s elementary schools recently were comparing notes on their open house and back-to-school nights.

More and more have given up the traditional open house that pops up a few weeks into the school year. Instead, several CV grade schools have used some form of a welcoming event on the evening before school starts.

But at Chester Elementary School, things are a little different. There, the back-to-school event included a sunset dance on the blacktop. Parents, students and teachers all boogied down, together. The event didn’t leave much room for formal discussion of the school mission or discipline policies, but it was clearly a good time.

And then there are the inevitable oopses.

At Opportunity Elementary School, too much left-over ice cream was packed into the deep freeze after the back-to-school ice cream social.

The result? Melted ice cream oozing all over the floor the next morning, said Principal Lyle Krislock.

“And we still have plenty left over. Anyone who wants to buy ice cream for any upcoming events, just let me know,” Krislock said.