Math makes students shine at Washington Middle School

MOILIILI—It’s that time of year, again. Students are back to school, getting to know their new teachers, becoming reacquainted with their peers, and juggling heaps of homework assignments.

Between last year’s furlough debacle, the current debate over how the Board of Education should be appointed, and our continual concern about our national ranking and low test scores, it often seems like all we hear about our public schools is how they are failing. 

It has become de rigueur to malign the system, but despite the obvious problems, there are many success stories as well. One of these bright spots in our educational landscape comes from a seemingly unlikely source: a public middle school math team. Yes, Washington Middle School is competing with the cream of the crop to become the Hawaii State champions. In fact, the school has boasted the top individual high scorer in three out of the last four years.

Last year, as a seventh grader, Ethan Vo took first place in the Mathcounts State Finals. Now, as an eighth grader, the pressure is on to maintain his dominance, as well as to lead his team to glory. 

David Chang, a seventh grader, proved himself to be a top contender as a sixth grader and hopes to take the number two spot on the team this year.

There are many other talented kids who will be vying for the number three and four spots on the team, and participating in the many math-related activities offered throughout the year. 

For the uninitiated like myself, an introduction to the world of math competitions might be in order. To keep things simple, it can be broken into three basic levels of competition: regional, state, and national. Within those three levels, students compete both collaboratively as teams and as individuals. 

In 2007, Washington Middle School stunned their Punahou and Iolani rivals by claiming the state trophy, the first time a school besides those two had done that since Mathcounts came to Hawaii in 1984. In the years that followed, the school has enjoyed consistently strong outcomes in various regional (Oahu) tournaments throughout the year.  For example, they nearly always win the McKinley tournament and they also won St. Louis Papahana for the first time this year. 

Now, with their proven track record, regional tournaments have become training grounds to breed new Washington Middle champions, while the top performers such as Vo and Chang have their sights set on national recognition. 

According to Principal Michael Harano, who won an award himself this year as a National Distinguished Principal for the State of Hawaii 2010 and will be headed to Washington D.C. this fall for the awards ceremony, the now thriving math team has come a long way. 

Harano, now in his eighth year as principal, recalls in his early days at the school when the team would essentially concede to the private schools before the competition even started—their perspective being “they [Punahou and Iolani] always win.” 

Over the years, however, with everyone from the math coach, to the teachers, parents, and principal believing in them, they have finally started to believe in themselves. In other words, this complete 180 in their expectations is a result of their dramatic transformation in attitude. 

While speaking about the math team, Harano got visibly emotional; it was hard not to be moved by this brilliant tale of the underdog.  Harano’s motivational question has consistently been: “How hard have you worked?” He continually reassured the team that their hard work would pay off, challenging the deeply seated fear on the part of the kids that they were somehow less worthy than their private school counterparts. 

Similarly, math team coach Sung Park has a banner in his classroom that states: “Practice. It does make a difference.”

Park practices what he preaches, too, giving up his prep period to start an invitation-only Mathcounts class for the top ten or so math students,  in addition to their regular math class. He also hosts the Math Team in his classroom after school, and has created an environment where a wide variety of students feel at home, where it’s “cool” to like math and to be competitive. 

Students spend countless hours with their math-loving peers, racing through abstract word problems that I, for one, could not begin to solve. Together, Harano, Park, and now retired math teacher and coach Cynthia Ching have created a culture where kids want to succeed in a place that has long had the reputation of being a “rough” school.

The success of the math team has thus had a ripple effect on the school as whole. Test scores have improved over the last few years.  In 2008, it was awarded “Most Improved Middle School” by Honolulu Magazine and has proven to be a model for other schools.

Programs such as a winning math team can create a demand for higher academic standards. For example, Washington Middle has more than doubled the amount of students who complete Algebra and last year they started a special Algebra I class in which students can get high school credit. It has been shown that the high level of achievement in middle and high school math is the best indicator for college success, so building this foundation has broad implications.

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak with math stars Vo and Chang during their lunch period.  After hearing about their impressive achievements, I kind of forgot they were 12 (though Vo turns 13 next month), and when they walked into the conference room I was a bit taken aback by their ... well, adolescence. When I asked Vo what he liked best about Math Team, he said “going to Orlando,” the site of last year’s Nationals (this year it is D.C., which he fears might be “boring”). 

Last year, Vo was #121 in the nation; this year, as an eighth grader, he is gunning for the top 12. Anyone who is invited to Nationals represents the top 0.2 percent of middle school math students in the nation, which is an extraordinarily elite group. 

Like Vo, Chang also thinks going on trips and “having fun with the team” are the highlights of Math Team. He also has aspirations to make it to Nationals, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Richard, who helped Washington win the State Mathcounts championship.

Although they were clearly exceptionally bright, the boys were still middle schoolers who would happily choose the competition and excitement of the math team over standard homework. 

Coach Park and Harano also pointed out that Iolani and Punahou have now become allies as well as rivals. They are pooling their resources to strategize on how to get a team to Nationals and “to fight a common enemy, the ‘mainland,’” where the landscape is dominated by larger states such as California, Texas, and Virginia. 

By proving that they can be as potent of a force as the best private schools in the state, Washington Middle School has made great strides towards changing people’s impressions and instilling pride in a way that all kids benefit. 

To Harano, that’s the “power of education.”