Calculus, exciting? “But it can be!”

Math professor Candice Dance reflected on a past conversation with a student, “I had a student once who went to Florida and said, ‘I was looking at all the destruction from the hurricanes and I was thinking if those buildings were built with golden ratio they would've been sturdier,’ and I was thinking, ‘Yes! She's looking at it from a mathematical point of view!” exclaimed Dance.

Dance, who began working at OCC as an adjunct for 17 years and was hired full-time around seven years ago, was inspired to become a math teacher by a former teacher of her own. “She taught us for no credit, last period of the day. She was interested enough to stay and teach it so it was just a wonderful experience. She made a difference in my life and she made me excited about learning, above and beyond what was in the regular class room. So I was kind of inspired by her,” Dance explained.

She stated that math was not particularly her favorite class, “(It) was a subject I thought I was best at. I had a lot of favorite things that I wasn't particularly good at a lot of my favorite things. So you become really good at the thing that you're really good at and it becomes your favorite,” said Dance. Describing her least favorite subject, she said, “My worst subject by the time I went to college where the subjects I had to write long papers for because writing papers is not my strength. It gives me the creeps even now!”

According to nytimes.com, math scores for New York have risen to 72.7 percent in 2007, up from 65.1 percent in 2006, but math still gives chills among most students. Dance further explained, “I think in our society it is okay to be bad at math. You can say, ‘I’m bad at math,’ and no one looks down at you for that. Whereas you say, ‘I can't read,’ someone says, ‘Oh, let me help you!’ You say I can't do math, they'll say, ‘Oh, okay that's fine, I can't do it either!’ So I think we enable our society to be bad at math. We allow it to be okay. I think society accepts being poor at math as being okay and it really shouldn't be okay.”

When it comes to people who believe boys are better than girls when it comes to math, Dance noted, “It's completely false, I think girls are. In my liberal arts classes the ratio is 50/50 but I have to tell you in my calculus classes I have more men and I can’t tell you why that is.” She further went on to state, “I think women are just as talented as men in all sorts of different academics. Some of the best students I ever taught have been women,” Dance remarked, “But I think typically some math seems to be tailored for the male population. I think that’s a societal issue rather then an intellectual issue. Women are able to fill any field at all these days. I see more of them entering fields that they didn’t use to take at all, but I think they are still shying away from the engineering, computer science fields though I wish they weren’t!” She finished her thought saying, “I see no difference academically between the work that’s turned in by the women or the men.”

Professor Dance believes that someone who is passionate for their subject makes a greater impact on the student. She explained, “I want to make it that way, to make it exciting for them and to make it fresh for them! I know people will say, ‘Calculus, exciting?’, but it can be!” She also said, “It can be exciting when you have those ‘a-ha’ moments where they (the students) will say, ‘Oh my Gosh, I actually understand this – it’s kind of scaring me!’”

Need more help getting through those math classes? Onondaga Community College can provide the extra assistance you need through the math lab and math diagnostic lab.

Visit the Math Lab Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. and Friday at 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or stop by the Math Diagnostic Center Monday through Friday from 8:30a.m. to 4:30 p.m.