It all started when Helen was an elementary school student…
Helen has always been interested in mathematics and competition math as well, but when she was a student she did not have many resources to help her prepare for these math competitions. She wants to make the challenges she faced in elementary school disappear for future generations.
Now, Helen is 16 years old and started a company named Mathlings to help elementary school students prepare for math competitions. What’s even more impressive is that Helen is a high school student who is able to balance her company and her school work at the same time. Even though high school can be stressful at times, she works at her company every day and is constantly coming up with new ideas for the program.
Helen’s favorite part about her company is that she can interact with students and help them as much as she can.
A typical day at Mathlings would be a one-hour class, and this l happens once every week. The students and teachers meet and start learning together. The teachers interact with each other and make sure that everyone is engaged and willing to learn. Then afterward, there is a manageable homework load assigned after the class is finished.
The student-to-teacher ratio is about 3-4 teachers to a wide range of 20-40 students.
After about a year since founding her company, Helen believes that Mathlings has grown a lot. Helen says that “the teachers have all grown closer to each other and have gotten to know each other better.” She also believes that the “community has gotten larger since the start” and the “students have all gotten more interested in the math competition subject and are enjoying it.”
Her company offers many different opportunities and courses for elementary school students of all ages and skill levels to participate. She says that “Competition math is different from regular school math” which is why she decided to start Mathlings to help those elementary school students to teach them about competition math. She states that “Mathlings offers many different courses based on age and skill level. There are two levels, Level 1 and Level 2, and students are separated into those levels based on skill.”
Helen’s company also offers different courses in competition math. For example, she says that “Level 2 has different sections that it is split into. Some of those sections include geometry and algebra.” Her company provides a lot of flexibility in what courses students want to learn about and can improve in specific areas they are not very strong in. She later stated that “over the summer, we plan on expanding our program, adding new curriculums and preparing students for the Kangaroo Math Competition.”
Not only is Mathlings only for students in elementary school, but it also provides an opportunity for middle school students and older to show off their leadership skills and teach to younger students as well. “Middle school students are able to participate and help teach the elementary school students to practice their leadership skills and will gain experience by teaching younger students.”
When asked where her goals for her company were, Helen said that she “wants to help as many students as possible.” Helen knows that a lot of elementary school students don’t like math or find that it is annoying or difficult to do, but she wants to show them that it is actually very enjoyable and fun.
Helen started Mathlings with a dream to make the lives of elementary school students easier by providing them with a free, math tutoring program for the competition math subject. Helen was not able to find such a great opportunity like Mathlings when she was in elementary school, which is why she decided to help and impact the community by creating this company. Mathlings has been doing a great job of helping students and bringing the community together for about a year now, and it is will only grow stronger from here on out
Report by Steven Miall
Steven is a 9 grader in Boston Latin School and a member of GYP Outreach Team