‘Human Calculator’ Preps Schools for World Math Day

What better way to celebrate the upcoming World Math Day then to have the man known as “The Human Calculator” challenged by students of local schools.

As one of the largest educational event in the world, World Math Day, a global competition for students worldwide that began in 2007, has 2.5 million students from 55,000 schools in 235 countries compete against each other in real time on the World Math Day’s website.

This year the competition will be taking place on Tuesday, March 1, and St. Lucy’s School on 830 Mace Avenue and Santa Maria School on 1510 Zerega Avenue felt that the best way to prepare their students for the competition was to bring in the man known for being able to calculate any math equation without using a calculator or pen and paper.

Scott Flansburg, who was given the nickname “The Human Calculator” by television icon Regis Philbin, has been teaching math and travelling across the country to show his outstanding math skills for over 20 years and took he his talent to the Bronx on Thursday, February 10 to have the students of St. Lucy’s and Santa Maria challenge him with any math problems that they can think of.

The presentation, which was held in the schools auditoriums, entertained students from the third through eighth grades for about 45 minutes, with Flansburg amazing the children, faculty and other school staff with his incredible mathematical talents.

“The students were extremely excited and I couldn’t believe my eyes as to how interested in math they were,” said St. Lucy’s principal Jane Stefanini. “Scott really kept the kids on the edge of their seats and after he was done with his presentation, many of our students went home to learn more about him and practice their math.”

Principal Stefanini said that Flansburg was able to answer every single question without getting one wrong, having an assistant punch in every equation on a calculator that projected its answers on a screen for all of the students to see that he was in fact telling the truth.

Santa Maria School principal Sr. Diane Mastroianni could not believe that Flansburg had the students excited to be part of math, who she says is one of the weaker overall subjects in the school.

“He really reached out to the kids and made them understand how important mathematics really are,” Mastroianni said. “At the same time, we was so entertaining for the entire school and for once it looked like the students were very entertained with math, which I think is hard to do with any child.”

The third through eighth grade students of St. Lucy’s and Santa Maria are strongly preparing for World Math Day, working hard with teachers and other faculty assistants every day until the worldwide event on March 1.