Today was the AMC 10/12 B contest. Another teacher and I in the department organized it … and we got 123 kids to take it!

This is a t-shirt that the math club leaders designed and ordered. The math clubbers all wore them today! SOLIDARITY!

If you recall, my school isn’t really a math contest-y school. I have been working slowly behind the scenes to make a culture change. I figure culture change of this level takes at least 3 years before it takes effect. I brought in the New York Math League two years ago. That year I also did a ton of work to push for kids to take the AMC 10/12. And from a dozen kids two years ago, we went up to 116 kids last year. And this year we had 123 kids. (It would have been higher, but there were mandatory sports and musical practices.)

More than anything, I love the fact that 123 kids thought about math for 75 minutes after school. My favorite moment from today was watching kids discuss problems after the contest ended. I mean: if they did that, then they cared.

Going through this AMC push a second year in a row also reminds me how hard it is to organize something well. I’d say that I spent between 10 and 20 hours making sure that this one contest was successful.