Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Mathlete

Warning: Indulgent brag-post ahead!

Everyone knows that athletes get all the glory. Even on this blog, we spend a disproportional number of column inches on the family's soccer exploits. Fortunately, those who love other fields of endeavor have their ways of shining, too.

Jacob, for instance, has become quite the Mathlete. Now, I don't entirely understand the allure of this extra-curricular activity. For me, doing math problems under time constraints in competition with others sounds like a hot little corner of hell. But Jacob loves it. And the good teachers at his school happily give extra time and energy to help their students excel.

So last Friday while Deb and I were driving to Chicago, Jacob was doing slide-rule calisthenics in the city-wide "Math Counts" competition. And of all the kids from the 23 competing schools, Jake snagged a 5th place individual score and an invitation to the state competition next week. We were pretty proud when the "Home Bulletin" from GRCMS arrived yesterday and we saw the write up on Jacob's achievement. Especially since last week's Home Bulletin also included a top-left write-up on another area of Jacob's scholastic achievement.

So here's to the normally unsung exploits of math and English lovers, the decathaletes of the calculator and the word processor.

2 comments:

Bob K said...

Congrats to Jacob! Next time you're in Holland, remind me to show Jacob my MathCounts trophy from my days as a coach in Denver. We can be geeks together!

Mary said...

"For me, doing math problems under time constraints in competition with others sounds like a hot little corner of hell."

Yeh-ESS. Uh-HUH. Ay-MEN.

I laughed aloud at this line, even as I rejoiced in Jacob's delight and good results. Sounds like the boy knows how to use both halves of his brain! Kudos!!