When math teachers Katy White and Steve Blakley discuss equations and numbers, things can get a little confusing. It was not because they do a poor job explaining. It’s got more to do with comprehension.
For these two Rolla Junior High teachers, math problems are their professional lives. It’s not mundane classroom discussion that excites them, it’s the competitions they oversee. “We have some tough competition,” Blakley said of Mathcounts, an Olympics-like contest.
Mathcounts is the most recent competition math students — known as mathletes — competed at Missouri S&T. White’s Middle School students took first-place of three teams, and Blakley’s Junior High School students took second place.

These competitions are serious, as serious as any competition.
“One school pulls their students out for a whole week, and all they do is study for the competition,” White said. White and Blakley do not have that luxury, though. They have doughnuts to entice students. Instead, the pair rely on the time-tested tradition of the after-school program. Any student may come to a lesson after-school and become a part of the group. Students who come to the lessons must adapt to a different environment, as opposed to the teacher lecturing: They are more likely to find students learning from each other. “We just facilitate,” Blakley said.
It’s all in preparation for the competition.

How intense can competitions get? Well, there is the individual sprint competition, 30 questions, 45 minutes and no calculator. There can be what seems like the lightning round: Two questions, six minutes, with a calculator. And then there is the team round.\

“Part of the preparation is giving them things they can’t use and getting used to the idea they won’t be able to solve every problem,” White said.
Students can move on from the frustration they inevitably feel when they cannot solve the problems to being able recognize the patterns and learn how to solve the problems at hand. “So when they get to the test, they say, ‘I remember this, I remember this, I don’t remember this, but I will come back to it,’” Blakley said.

The teachers wanted to thank a few individuals and groups: Champion of Rolla Education, a community education support group, have helped the mathletes get funding to get to competitions. Parents have been extremely helpful, encouraging children to be in the club, according to Blakley.