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About the Organization
Strength in Numbers Tutoring is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Mark Anderson in 2015. (Read more about our founding here.)
About Mark, Tutor & Founder
I have taught high school math and have tutored elementary students, college students, and everyone in between. I love numbers and I love teaching. Students have immediate academic needs in their math classes and long-term financial needs (by this I mean a need for knowledge) in their lives beyond high school. It is my mission to help them move from weakness in math to strength in numbers. It is from anxiety, frustration or even apathy It is my hope that all high school kids develop an appreciation for what strength in numbers can do for them.
But there is a greater problem - many high school students actually hate math. Author Andrew Smith has said, "People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer." I agree. By the way, Jimmy Buffett and I agree that when you don't get numbers, math suks!.
Kids hate math and fear math class because they don't understand it and haven't conquered it. The antidote for that hate and fear is to help kids see that math is actually interesting, fascinating and even fun. That may be hard to believe, but it is possible. If we can just get kids curious about math, turned "on" to it with a puzzle or a math magic trick (yes, these exist), then we've already won the battle. That sums up my professional mission statement.
Lastly, and most importantly, math and money are fascinating subjects to learn because I personally believe that God created numbers and our vastly complex number systems; I believe God gave us the insight and creativity to construct monetary and financial systems that we have in place. Trust me when I say that you and I both know so very little of the vastness of numbers. Check out Wolfram MathWorld if you don't believe me. Watch one video of 3Blue1Brown and your mind will be sufficiently blown. Peruse even a little of Investopedia to see the immense complexity of all things related to money.
It is my personal mission to share my own fascination and wonder of numbers with my students. Galileo said it best, "Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe."
Mark earned his Bachelors and Masters, both in Mathematics Education from North Carolina State University (2001, 2003). He has tutored for 20 years, from starting a tutoring program at a local elementary school while president of the 200+ member student Key Club at Cary High School, to tutoring student athletes in the football program at NC State and basketball program at UNCW. Mark has taught at New Hanover High School in Wilmington for 9 years including Pre-Algebra, Math 1, Algebra 1, Honors Algebra 2, Math 2, Honors Math 2, Math 3, Honors Math 3, Honors Precalculus, Honors Discrete Math, Advanced Functions and Modeling and Advanced Placement Calculus AB, with 2 years in its rigorous Lyceum Academy.
Mark has also been a landlord for 15+ years, leveraging many of the financial principles we believe are so important. He has invested in stocks and mutual funds. He says, "I have so much to learn about money! And yet I have been blessed to find myself in opportunities to teach others crucial knowledge of handling money. It is humbling to teach others when I don't consider myself an expert." He has led the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace and the Crown Financial bible studies at his church and other churches numerous times.
About the Organization
Strength in Numbers Tutoring is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Mark Anderson in 2015. (Read more about our founding here.)
About Mark, Tutor & Founder
I have taught high school math and have tutored elementary students, college students, and everyone in between. I love numbers and I love teaching. Students have immediate academic needs in their math classes and long-term financial needs (by this I mean a need for knowledge) in their lives beyond high school. It is my mission to help them move from weakness in math to strength in numbers. It is from anxiety, frustration or even apathy It is my hope that all high school kids develop an appreciation for what strength in numbers can do for them.
But there is a greater problem - many high school students actually hate math. Author Andrew Smith has said, "People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer." I agree. By the way, Jimmy Buffett and I agree that when you don't get numbers, math suks!.
Kids hate math and fear math class because they don't understand it and haven't conquered it. The antidote for that hate and fear is to help kids see that math is actually interesting, fascinating and even fun. That may be hard to believe, but it is possible. If we can just get kids curious about math, turned "on" to it with a puzzle or a math magic trick (yes, these exist), then we've already won the battle. That sums up my professional mission statement.
Lastly, and most importantly, math and money are fascinating subjects to learn because I personally believe that God created numbers and our vastly complex number systems; I believe God gave us the insight and creativity to construct monetary and financial systems that we have in place. Trust me when I say that you and I both know so very little of the vastness of numbers. Check out Wolfram MathWorld if you don't believe me. Watch one video of 3Blue1Brown and your mind will be sufficiently blown. Peruse even a little of Investopedia to see the immense complexity of all things related to money.
It is my personal mission to share my own fascination and wonder of numbers with my students. Galileo said it best, "Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe."
Mark earned his Bachelors and Masters, both in Mathematics Education from North Carolina State University (2001, 2003). He has tutored for 20 years, from starting a tutoring program at a local elementary school while president of the 200+ member student Key Club at Cary High School, to tutoring student athletes in the football program at NC State and basketball program at UNCW. Mark has taught at New Hanover High School in Wilmington for 9 years including Pre-Algebra, Math 1, Algebra 1, Honors Algebra 2, Math 2, Honors Math 2, Math 3, Honors Math 3, Honors Precalculus, Honors Discrete Math, Advanced Functions and Modeling and Advanced Placement Calculus AB, with 2 years in its rigorous Lyceum Academy.
Mark has also been a landlord for 15+ years, leveraging many of the financial principles we believe are so important. He has invested in stocks and mutual funds. He says, "I have so much to learn about money! And yet I have been blessed to find myself in opportunities to teach others crucial knowledge of handling money. It is humbling to teach others when I don't consider myself an expert." He has led the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace and the Crown Financial bible studies at his church and other churches numerous times.
Mission & Vision
Mission
To help all students develop their own strength in numbers by teaching them both number sense and money sense
Vision
Every student develops greater confidence, earns better grades with our help, and is better prepared for life after school because they have strength in numbers.
To help all students develop their own strength in numbers by teaching them both number sense and money sense
Vision
Every student develops greater confidence, earns better grades with our help, and is better prepared for life after school because they have strength in numbers.
That's the vision - that all high-school age students will obtain the power of a deep understanding of numbers and money. We believe that deeper understanding will earn the student better grades, better academic opportunities after graduation, better career opportunities, and better financial opportunities in life after school.
It is our mission to make that vision reality for students everywhere. Here are the nuts and bolts of how we will do it.
Our program will empower high school students from all walks of life to overcome academic and economic barriers.
We will do that by providing highly-qualified tutoring that enables them to achieve three things:
We believe that having strength in numbers will produce success in what we call "School Math" and "Money Math".
Learn more by reading What is Number Sense? and What is Money Sense?
It is our mission to make that vision reality for students everywhere. Here are the nuts and bolts of how we will do it.
Our program will empower high school students from all walks of life to overcome academic and economic barriers.
We will do that by providing highly-qualified tutoring that enables them to achieve three things:
- better grades in school
- more opportunities in their work careers
- foundational knowledge of personal finances for their lives after school
We believe that having strength in numbers will produce success in what we call "School Math" and "Money Math".
- The result of success in School Math is Number Sense - the ability to understand numbers and use them to our advantage. Having Number Sense increases students' potential for academic success and increases their career options (it did for our founder).
- The result of success in Money Math is Money Sense - the ability to understand money and use it to our advantage. Having Money Sense increases students' foundational base of knowledge and increases their opportunities for financial prosperity.
Learn more by reading What is Number Sense? and What is Money Sense?
PEDAGOGICAL VALUES
SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE
We encourage our students to fail. That sounds funny, but it’s true. No, we don’t want them to fail their entire course in school, but we do encourage them to fail at single problems they are working on. This simply means we encourage them to try even if they feel they will get it wrong. If and when they do get a problem wrong we are there for them. We assure them that it’s OK and we explore why it’s wrong. That’s when real learning happens.
GROWTH MINDSET
You don't have to be a "math person" to succeed in math, says Stanford professor Carol Dweck. Her research on "Growth Mindset" reveals that if you change your perspective on math from a fixed position to a growth mindset, then you increase your chance of success. We encourage our students to drop the words "I can't do math" from their vocabulary and say instead "in the past I haven’t been good at math” or “I’ll try” or “I can learn from my mistakes“. That’s a growth mindset.
PATTERN RECOGNITION
We design many of our own supplementary materials to encourage students to see and learn from the patterns in math. Instead of doing one problem after another, your student will, with our help, see patterns between problems. The light bulb will go on.
INTEREST CONNECTIVITY
Textbooks try to connect algebra to a teenager's life, but let's face it - it's a stretch. The missing link? The connections need to be made personal.
That's why we learn about your child's interests, so we can connect the subject material to those areas whenever possible.
That's why we learn about your child's interests, so we can connect the subject material to those areas whenever possible.
DISCOVERY LEARNING
Could the Quadratic Formula be any more painful to learn? Yes, we know it is unpleasant to most students. But we make even the most distasteful topics interesting by advancing students through a discovery process of new concepts that makes learning less painful - and even fun!
SOCRATIC QUESTIONING
While we value the Discovery Learning approach for advancing our students through new material, we also use Socratic Questioning in retreating to a student’s foundational understanding so we can then rebuild them back up stronger. This is especially helpful in reviewing homework and going over tests they’ve taken. Socratic-style questions lead students to a deeper understanding of math and help them develop self-confidence too.
STUDENT INITIATION
We tutor high school students and know that they must learn independence in order to succeed in the real-world after they leave our homes in just a few years. We push our students to take the initiative in their own learning. We expect them to bring their own materials and questions to every session.