By Elijah Stringer Bulldog News
Loyola High School is a place where the mission is to mold boys into men who will be successful in the world they live in today.
One of the goals at Loyola, as with most schools, is to teach students to be intellectually competent. One way they are doing this is through the Loyola High School Math League. The Math League is a club created by math teacher Jamel Hence.
Hence describes the Math League as, “a team of students that compete against each other by doing math problems at varying skill levels.”
Any student interested in the program is accepted regardless of grade or skill level, because Hence wanted to create a program that showcases the students who show an interest in math.
“I felt that this would be a positive way to change Loyola’s label as the ‘football school,” he said.
So far the club has been very successful and the students are showing excellent progress in their ability to critically think to solve problems by using different ways of thinking.”
There are also scholarship opportunities that will become available throughout the duration of the program.
Students in the program seem excited and want to share how they feel about being in the Loyola Math League.
Sophomore Brandon Zuniga, one of the first students to join the Math League said: “I joined the math league to help keep my math skills sharp. He [Hence] has taught me many new ways to solve problems by looking for the possible answers to the problem before actually attempting the problem. I am very glad that I joined the math league because, I felt that it would be a very positive experience and I was correct and glad I did not let this opportunity pass by.”
“I joined the math league because I thought that it would help me not to struggle when working on future topics in my own math class,” Sophomore Cameron Benford said. “I enjoy learning new things by playing math games and fun activities that can not always be practiced in the traditional math environment.
“This has been very successful as it has taught me new properties and ways to solve equations. It has also taught me how to study correctly in math topics for tests and quizzes.”
When Math League students were asked as a group how the math league was, their response was: “There is never a dull moment in the Math League.”
