When schools closed their doors all over Missouri, most academic competitions shut down with them. But seven Republic students got an opportunity to compete in the state math competition when organizers took the contest online.
Senior Kurt Goddard tied for fifth place among seniors in the Target Round, which consisted of eight questions to be solved over about 40 minutes. Claire Johnson, a freshman, finished fourth in the Target Round and ninth overall in her class. That finish qualified her for nationals in June.
Math team coach Camry Cowan said he’s glad organizers found a way to hold the competition online, but it wasn’t a simple process.
“Honestly, most of the preparation focused on making sure they were ready technologically for the day of the contest,” Cowan said. “We couldn’t communicate with each other during the stay-at-home order other than via text (and) email, so we didn’t even really have a way to practice their mathematics skills. We mainly relied on the preparation we’d done during the school year when school was in person.”
Cowan said the students had to find a way to connect to the online meetings where the contest was held. Students competing in team events also had to figure out a way to communicate with each other while the contest was happening.
“Logistically, it was a bit of a mess, but we problem-solved and figured it out,” Cowan said.
Given the way Goddard’s senior year has ended, he called the opportunity to compete “very meaningful… It’s felt as if life has slowed to a halt over the last few weeks, certainly not the senior year I had in mind,” he said. “This competition was almost something to look forward to, the first event I had had in weeks! I’m really glad that the Math League decided to still have a state competition.”
Johnson said after her initial disappointment when she assumed the competition would be canceled, ” I was excited I was going to get the opportunity to compete.
The online process was a little overwhelming and more complicated than I thought, but I am extremely grateful that they figured out a way for us to still compete online,” she said.
Johnson said she missed the usual weekly math team meetings that would have helped her and her teammates prepare, but “Mr. Cowan did a phenomenal job prepping our team for competitions this season.”
Johnson added that she likes the black-and-white nature of math, and the opportunity to be competitive in that area. “There’s usually only one right answer and I like the challenge of trying to figure it out,” Johnson said. ” motivates me to do my best, and I have a competitive personality. I enjoy the competitions and meeting new people who have similar interests.”
For Goddard, participating in academic events of all kinds is always surprising and educational.
“My biggest takeaway from every academic event or competitions I go to is how much stuff there is to learn. I see some questions on the tests we take to compete and I think to myself, ‘How would you ever know how to do that?’
“After the competition, I ask Mr. Cowan or I look it up myself, hoping to find something new to learn. Often, it’s math I’m not sure I’d ever be taught in school since it has such limited applications, but it feels so good to find something you’ve never seen before and try to puzzle out how it works.
“Not all math is boring, nor is English or science or history,” Goddard said. “There’s interesting stuff everywhere, sometimes you just have to be curious enough to search it out.”