Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Fisher Middle School teacher Jan Blasberg helps 11-year-old Aileen Aranovsky with the construction of an origami disappearing star during math class.

Math class becomes magical when artwork is motivation

By John Pancharian

Math has never been this much fun. On Friday, March 27, Jan Blasberg's sixth-grade class at Fisher Middle School dazzled administrators with card tricks and bright origami while the administrators judged photo montages the students had prepared to demonstrate elements of geometry.

If this all sounds unusual in a math class, it is. In fact, there is little that is ordinary about Blasberg's teaching style or her students. The class consists entirely of sixth-graders who gripped No. 2 pencils during an exam prepared by Stanford University just to get into the class. Blasberg does not use a textbook but created her own curriculum based on the California math framework, which she teaches using lessons she compiled this past summer.

Entering the classroom, one's eye is struck by colored-paper polyhedrons glued to the walls and perched on desks; numerous posters created by students; pyramidal kites piled in a tissue paper Giza; and a proliferation of that curious creature known as a hexaflexagon. In short, Blasberg uses manipulatives galore. Every concept the kids can possibly build or draw becomes tangible in the classroom.

"If you just give them worksheet after worksheet," Blasberg said, "there is no connection to real life, and they don't get it. That shows them math is just in the class and not in real life. I believe just the opposite."

And the students take to it. They have created tessellations, mosaic patterns of small, square blocks, while learning geometry. They spent most of a class period in a spontaneous debate about probability. They are required to problem-solve and work sometimes at the high school level, but they seem to enjoy the challenge.

"This class seemed easier even though it was more advanced," said Jenna Bertocci, who turned 12 on April 4. Eleven-year-old Brandon Silberstein agreed. "It makes it easy with all the art," he said. The two of them heaped praise on Blasberg, and when asked whether she ever does anything wrong, Jenna answered "Nope, she's perfect."

Sixth-grader Lauren Skilken perhaps said it best: "I didn't hate it, but I didn't like math. Now I don't do just book stuff. I do art, and it's fun."

This is the first year a class of this type has ever been offered in the Los Gatos Union School District, and to listen to Superintendent Bert Pearlman, it definitely won't be the last.

"I think this is a wonderful class," Pearlman said. "It's one classroom where I'm not as fast as the kids. I see the learning they're doing, and it's inspiring to me."

Fisher Principal Cullen Hewitt agrees that the class does a fine job of meeting the students' needs, but also sees areas where screening might be improved.

"When we set this class up, we tried to select students with both an aptitude for math and an interest," he said, referring to the Stanford test used to select the students.

"The kids that did qualify are precocious math students," Hewitt said, though some were lacking a few arithmetic skills. Because they will be with Blasberg for three years, through their graduation from Fisher after the eighth grade, Hewitt thought there would be sufficient time to bring them up to speed.

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