Benjamin Franklin Elementary’s Math By: Sarah Mervosh MERIDEN, Conn. — It’s just after lunchtime, and Dori Montano’s fifth-grade math class is running on a firm schedule. In one corner of the classroom, Ms. Montano huddles with a small group of students, working through a lesson about place value: Is 23.4 or 2.34 the bigger number? Nearby, other students collaborate to…
Math anxiety is a real thing. In fact, women struggle with a fear of math more than their male counterparts. According to the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, that fear begins to show up in young girls as early as the second grade. In turn, the urge to avoid numbers often impacts the professional and financial decisions…
There’s a famous photo of Annie Easley. She’s standing next to a huge control panel with dials, lights, buttons from floor to ceiling. She looks like a character in a movie, commanding a fearless space mission. But it’s real: it was taken in 1981 in the Central Control Room of NASA’s Lewis Engine Research Building in Cleveland, Ohio, as part…
