New year yields drastic changes for math club

September 9, 2011 — by Jackie Gu and Brandon Judoprasetijo

It was a sad day for the math club last June when its three leading seniors, often called the “Three Musketeers,” graduated together in one fell swoop. Besides just helping the club to improve mathematically, alumni Albert Gu, David Zeng and Amol Aggarwal added irreplaceable character to the group with their one-of-a-kind camaraderie.

It was a sad day for the math club last June when its three leading seniors, often called the “Three Musketeers,” graduated together in one fell swoop. Besides just helping the club to improve mathematically, alumni Albert Gu, David Zeng and Amol Aggarwal added irreplaceable character to the group with their one-of-a-kind camaraderie.

“This is our first year without the Three Musketeers, and now that they aren’t here, it’s almost too quiet,” Yim said. “The noise level has gone down from rock concert to monastery. Before had kind of a loud energy, but now it’s more meditative.”

The new leaders of the club, however, seniors Brian Wai and Alissa Zhang, have filled the shoes of last year’s legends to an impressive degree. They hope to shape this year’s practices into a format more welcoming for newcomers unfamiliar with competitive math.

“We’re going to try to make the club more accessible to people and let members tackle problems at their own level,” Zhang said. “There’s a stigma that if you join math club, you have to be really good at math, but you might be better than you think.”

In the past, all members were given the same problem sets regardless of their skill. While some members were able to simply glance at the problems and figure out the solutions, others found getting past the first problem to be an ordeal in itself. Now, material will be provided for students according to their level.
“I think the way we approach it has to be a little different. We didn’t challenge everybody appropriately,” Yim said. “I think the idea of math club is so that the members can be more self-reliant.”

By turning the club sessions into a format more easily accessible to new members, the club hopes to draw more interest in math from the school.

“We’re aware that math can be very discouraging,” Yim said. “The nature of the topic is so esoteric that it’s a mystery to most people, and I think that’s part of the reason that math club has always been small.”

With this strategy, Yim hopes that results will prove to be on par with last year’s success. Saratoga ranked first in California on the prestigious American Math Competition, outscoring all other public high schools in the state. This result is especially impressive given how “scary good” neighboring schools such as Lynbrook, Mission San Jose and Gunn consistently perform, according to Yim.

“We’re not a private school where we take the creme of the crop,” Yim said. “It just happens that we have this many of those kids in the same area.”

Yim hopes this talent will carry onto the next generation of “mathletes,” as there are currently several middle-school students who show serious potential. Their dedication to math, Yim thinks, is caused in part by the high school students who go to Redwood every Tuesday to teach them.

High school involvement in the middle school program started two years ago — when Gu, Zeng, and Aggarwal stepped up as leaders of the club — and dramatically changed many aspects of Redwood’s math club, including its class size, teaching methods, and lecture format.

“I do praise Albert, Amol, and David for their brilliance, but that’s not why I’m impressed with them,” Yim said. “They started this program, and the current high school students who have the sense of altruism to teach at Redwood have certainly helped the middle-schoolers grow.”

So far, the middle school program seems to have proven successful in developing interest in math. Not only are the high school students willing to dedicate themselves to teaching the budding mathletes, but the middle schoolers themselves are motivated.

“I feel like there are three parts of success at Redwood: the high school mentors, the willing students, and the parents,” Yim said. “It’s as they say, you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

Yim has such hopes for the potential of growth in the middle-school program that he thinks perhaps, one day, the math club could even begin helping at elementary schools within the Saratoga district.

“We can’t talk about the high school math club without talking about our middle school,” Yim said. “Maybe if we have people who are brave enough, in one or two years, we could find people who are willing to help out at the elementary level. If we can start doing that, maybe we can truly see a dynasty.”

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