SEVENTH GRADERS PUT AWAY MATH TEXTBOOKS

Math class will be different for seventh graders at L.J. Schultz Middle School next year.

Students will be told to leave their textbooks in their lockers until further notice.

Cape Girardeau is one of 40 school districts participating in a special math project designed to demonstrate new ways of teaching math to junior high school students.

Other area schools joining the project are Thomas Kelly School at Benton and Marquand-Zion School.

The pilot for this math program took place last year in 12 Missouri schools. The results of the pilot project were so favorable that the program was expanded for the 1991-92 school year, said Missouri Commissioner of Education Robert E. Bartman.

He said, "Too often, the junior high school math curriculum just `recycles' the math that most students have already learned.

"The result is that too many kids get bored. They develop negative attitudes about math in general, and they don't learn advanced math skills. The recent national test results show that American students at the middle school level just aren't getting the math skills they need to be competitive," Bartman said.

The seventh-grade project, he said, is the first step in a statewide effort by Missouri educators to promote changes in teaching methods and to push for higher math achievement by students.

The seventh-grade project emphasizes "doing" mathematics. Instead of working sheets of problem, the students focus on problem solving and the application of math skills to real-life situations. Calculators are used heavily.

Educators from the participating schools attended a workshop last week to learn how it works.

Debbie Mummert, a math teacher at Jefferson City junior high school who participated in the program last year, said her students used their textbooks only about two weeks during the past year. Even so, she feels that her classes covered more material than in previous years.

The new approach to math also reached beyond her classroom. Parents of her students some of whom were skeptical at the outset began asking for copies of the problems that their students were working on in class.

Results of the seventh-grade pilot project are very encouraging, according to Vena Long, math specialist with the Department of Education and director of the pilot program.

Long said: "The students' computation skills are as good or better than those of students taught by traditional methods. In addition, their attitudes about math are more positive, their problem-solving skills are more advanced, and they showed more persistence in working on complex problems. In short, they had more fun and learned more math."