For their calculated efforts, the math team won second place at a competition hosted by Antioch High School on December 7.
The North Suburban Math League represents a constituency of Chicagoland schools that take part in five math tournaments throughout the year. As part of the NSML, Grayslake North sends a team of mathematicians to compete at a local school approximately every month, evaluating their math skills with specialized tests at each grade level.
“It’s five questions in half an hour, but they’re really difficult questions; they start easy and they get tougher as they go. We also have the oral competition which only one student does, and it’s a separate topic all by itself,” Math Team coach and teacher Alex de Groh said. “Last competition, we made up with second place with a kind of small team, so that was pretty powerful of us.”
The team’s success is the product of hard work and focused training.
“The key is that we’ve been trying a lot during our practices, and we’ve improved a lot since from where we started, and I would say I have learned a lot. I couldn’t say that from the years previous,” said math team vice president and senior Kevin Meyer.
As they approach their next meeting at Grant High School on February, the team continues to prepare and even seeks to bolster the basis of their operations.
“We have weekly meetings on Fridays after school. The only time we miss is for holidays or if we’ve had a competition during the week,” de Groh said. “Hopefully, as we get into more stuff, we’ll have a lot of student-led teaching as well as teaching from the coaches.”
Ambitions run high as the team looks even further toward the competition season’s springtime conclusion. The annual state meet includes an individual contest of 20 questions in 50 minutes and an eight-person match encouraging a synergistic approach to problem-solving without the use of a calculator.
“The team was able to make it to some sort of state competition last year. If we could go back to that, that would be pretty cool,” said math team recruit and junior James White.
Involvement in the program provides an array of benefits for participants not limited to enrichment in arithmetic.
“When I’m making financial decisions, I try and use some math,” said White. “It teaches you problem-solving skills and just thinking outside the box and not being afraid to back down from problems that might seem hard or difficult at first.”
The organization hopes to extend the bounds of its membership.
“It’s commonly mistaken that you need to be in love with the club or whatever, but honestly, it’s open arms for anyone, and there are no barriers to entry per se,” said Meyer. “So just come join. Have fun. It’s not meant to be hard; it’s meant to be fun.”
