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What Works in Public Education

Jason Kamras: Making Connections in Math, Part 1

by Milton Chen

A year ago at the White House, Jason Kamras, a mathematics teacher at John Philip Sousa Middle School, in Washington, DC, was named our nation's fifty-fifth National Teacher of the Year.

A project of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the award is the oldest and most prestigious honor given to an educator. Each year, a panel of representatives from national education associations selects the National Teacher of the Year from the State Teachers of the Year. The winner is provided a year to travel and speak out on the importance of teachers and teaching. Kamras's term officially began June 1, 2005.

At thirty-two, Kamras is one of the three youngest honorees in the history of the program and the first from the District of Columbia, where he has taught for eight years.

A graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he views education as a civil rights issue and has remained committed to providing equal educational opportunity for his students, who include a high proportion of African Americans from low-income families. For his achievements, Kamras was named one of Edutopia's Daring Dozen in its March 2006 issue.

In the first installment of this two-part interview, Kamras describes how he has dramatically improved mathematics learning by connecting math to photography, to digital art using Photoshop, and to the street map of Washington, DC. In 2002 alone, achievement in math at Sousa increased from only 20 percent of students working at grade level to 60 percent.

He is an advocate for teachers being given the tools to teach in the digital age, such as a laptop, an LCD projector, Internet access, an interactive whiteboard, and real-time student-response devices that measure how well students understand lessons while class is in progress.

Kamras advises fellow teachers to emphasize the positive accomplishments of their students, rather than focusing classroom energy on disciplinary problems. Also, how many teachers realize the cell phone in their purse or pocket could be a real aid in classroom management? In part one of this interview, Kamras reveals how. In part two, he discusses his views of national education issues, based on his travels to numerous urban, suburban, and rural schools.

Jason Kamras: Making Connections in Math, Part 2

Part 1: Download a PDF of the interview transcript.

This article originally published on 4/4/2006