St. Croix middle school students flexed their mental muscles at the district Mathcounts competition Thursday, and a team of 10 champions was named to compete against St. Thomas-St. John students in the territorial competition.
Juanita Boneque, district mathematics coordinator for the V.I. Department of Education, said that turning math into a competitive sport was a way of getting children excited about the subject.
Many students do not realize how much mathematics is required for jobs in the medical and scientific fields, she said, and participation in Mathcounts is a way to open their eyes.
Eight schools sent teams of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders to the competition: Ricardo Richards Elementary, the Good Hope School, Elena L. Christian Junior High, Country Day School, Eulalie R. Rivera Elementary, Church of God Holiness Academy, St. Patrick’s Catholic School and IQRA Academy.
Cesar Guerra, coach of the Country Day School team, admitted that Mathcounts wasn’t the easiest elective to recruit for, especially when you’re competing against robotics and steal pan classes. Still, Guerra said, he gets enough volunteers.
“There’s some people who love problem solving,” he explained.
Guerra said he believes the true benefit of the competition is increasing children’s critical thinking skills. He said he was happy to see his students’ math scores improve, but the skill that will stick with them through life is the ability to analyze and overcome difficult situations.
“When you approach a problem, you might not know how to solve it immediately. And that’s okay,” he said. “You kind of have to find an angle into the problem, whether it’s drawing a picture or focusing on what you know.”
“That ability to persevere through something that’s challenging and difficult, I look at that as a life lesson,” he continued.
For eighth-grader Kalahari Bryan, the thrill of competing at the national level in something he’s good at was motivation enough for him to join Guerra’s team.
“I did Mathcounts last year and I didn’t get to the nationals, which was at Disney,” he said. “So I wanted to do it his year. I thought if I join Mathcounts, I’ll get better.”
Spectators did not have much to see during the majority of the competition. The teams sat silently at folding tables set up in the Good Hope School gymnasium and scribbled away at their tests.
The competition was split into four sections, beginning with a 40-minute “sprint” round that challenged students with 30 short questions they had to complete without the use of a calculator.
A second, 30-minute, “target” round offered eight multistep problems, which challenged their critical thinking skills. A third, 20-minute, round allowed teams to work together to solve 10 additional problems.
The final round is when things got exciting. The eight students who scored highest in the first two rounds were pitted against each other in a rapid-fire oral competition. Students competed head to head in a best-of-three scenario with the winner moving on to the next round.
In the final round, Habeeba O’Neill of Elena Christian edged out Ali Boucenna of Church of God to win the competition.
The final question required the competitors to subtract the squares of two large numbers. O’Neill said her coach, Vicmund Regachuelo, had taught her an easy shortcut for those types of equations, and when she saw the question pop up on the screen, she knew she could win.
“I was wondering when I’d get to use that trick,” she said.
Elena Christian also took top honors in the team competition, with Country Day School placing second and the Good Hope School taking third.
The Elena Christian team will square off against the top team from the St. Thomas-St. John district for the right to represent the territory at the national finals.
Regachuelo was visibly proud of his team. He said his kids volunteered their lunch period several times a week to practice because it is the only time they can meet.
He said he thought it had been several years since a public school got into the territorial finals.
Awards were also handed out for individual high scores throughout the competition.
Ali Boucenna of Church of God placed first, followed by Kalahari Bryan from Country Day, Habeeba O’Neill from Elena Christian, Elise Stanper from Country Day and Trianah Jackson from St. Patrick’s School.
Boucenna, Bryan, Stanper and Jackson along with Zhania Deterville and Caroline Flavia of Country Day will join the Elena Christian team, comprised of Habeeba O’Neill, Ameena Mustafa, Yirakmeal Henry and Kervin Mathurin, at the territorial finals on St. Thomas on March 14.
Winning students at the territorial competition will move on to the Raytheon Mathcounts National Competition in Washington, D.C., on May 10.
