An enthusiastic teacher can inspire students

The student, for example, would provide a perfectly good answer to a math question -- such as how many shirts one could buy with $50 -- and then note he also could just buy one shirt and tell the store clerk to keep the change.

It’s those kinds of stories that bring joy to a teacher. “That’s one of the reasons why I love being a math teacher,” Kamras told the audience at a Focus on Education lecture.

With a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s from Harvard, Kamras had many career options but chose a career in teaching.

“I absolutely love being a math teacher,” he says. “I love it because of the challenge to take a subject that children originally have some trepidation about -- and make it engaging and exciting.”

His enthusiasm and dedication certainly have made a difference at John Philip Sousa Middle School in Washington, D.C., a high-poverty, high-minority school where some students arrive two to four grade levels behind in their math skills.

Kamras convinced the principal to add a second 50-minute period of math to the school day, helped redesign the math curriculum, and worked to make greater use of technology to engage students in learning.

Sousa provides remedial help and tutoring during the school day, as well as an after-school program that also offers opportunities for students with advanced math skills.

Another important ingredient in the school’s success is making math instruction relevant to the real world, he says. For example, students work with city maps of Washington, D.C. -- the city’s streets are organized in a grid -- to study geometry.

These efforts have paid off: The number of seventh-grade students scoring at or above the basic level on the Stanford 9 test rose from 21 percent to 59 percent after the changes were put in place.

Kamras also spoke about the importance of positive reinforcement, such as awarding certificates for good work -- or even telephoning parents from the classroom to praise a student’s efforts. Also useful is developing good communications with parents, including timing home visits and teacher conferences to accommodate the schedules of working parents.

That said, working in a high-poverty school isn’t always perfect, and discipline is a problem at Sousa. During Kamras’ first year, he was unsure how to help a struggling student. He started playing chess with the student, and the boy beat him five times in a row.

That started a relationship that lasted for years. Kamras eventually helped the student get into a magnet high school and study for the SAT. Now that young man is studying to be an electrical engineer at a university.

“Now, I know I was a small part of the process,” Kamras says, “but that relationship enabled me to help him be successful.” And when Kamras received his Teacher of the Year award at the White House, he was delighted to find that his once-struggling student had flown to Washington just to attend the ceremony.