Without a foundational understanding of the relationship between numbers and quantities, Gaffney says, some students begin school 鈥渂elieving that math is almost a foreign language where they need to memorize answers to equations they鈥檙e seeing on the board.鈥�

But to her, memorization is the wrong approach. Instead, she believes games and activities can help students recognize that the numbers in their lessons exist in real life. Once they make those connections, Gaffney thinks students will gain the understanding and confidence necessary to 鈥渇igure out鈥� basic math problems.

This way of thinking is what led her to help launch Heart Math Tutoring in 2013, which trains volunteer tutors to use toys and games to help students comprehend math.

Heart Math works with first through fifth graders in Charlotte, North Carolina, but has recently expanded to other nearby districts, including adding three South Carolina schools to its roster. This year, Heart is working with 26 schools in Charlotte.

Earlier this year, Heart received a $250,000 grant from the tutoring nonprofit Accelerate to expand their program. Accelerate previously told 社区黑料 that Heart Math was selected for its use of volunteers, which can be a way to expand tutoring access. 

Gaffney said 鈥渢he Charlotte community has been extremely generous to fund the program鈥� and donated 鈥渙ver $5 million鈥� to public schools through Heart Math Tutoring.

To sign up, schools need to identify at least 50 students who are in need of math intervention. Heart Math Tutoring offers a year-long program, which costs about $75,000 per school to deliver, according to Gaffney. But Gaffney said that through agreements with partners, who offset those costs, some schools pay only 5% to 15 % of that amount.

When schools sign up for the year, Heart Math sends a dedicated staff member to their buildings four days a week for two hours a day. The program also brings a team of volunteers, who each come once a week for one of those hours. Heart鈥檚 staff member supervises and oversees all tutoring sessions, while tutors work one-on-one with students. Each student gets 30 minutes with a tutor twice per week.

Prior to starting the interventions, there is a month-long period of onboarding where the Heart Math employee assesses students鈥� math skills to figure out where they need help. Then, tutoring lasts for eight months. Afterwards, Heart Math reports back data and progress to schools. 

Since officially launching 10 years ago, Heart Math Tutoring has served over 5,000 students. The program鈥檚 states that 97% have met its target for academic growth. According to Heart鈥檚 from September, last school year Heart served 1,072 students across 28 schools. Of those, 96% 鈥渟howed growth on pre/post assessments.鈥�

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is one of Heart Math Tutoring鈥檚 oldest clients and has been working with the group for 13 years, prior to Heart establishing its own nonprofit in 2013. The district鈥檚 math specialists helped design the pilot version of Heart Math Tutoring in 2010, according to executive director of communications Susan Vernon-Devlin.

Vernon-Devlin said the 26 Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools that use Heart Math Tutoring 鈥渧alue both the academics and the one-on-one relationships that tutors build with our students.鈥�

鈥淥ur schools consistently report positively about Heart Math Tutoring鈥檚 work with our students,鈥� she wrote in an email. 鈥淢any teachers report that students return to class more confident, ready to help their peers, answer questions, and explain their thinking in math.鈥�

Gaffney says Heart Math is 鈥渃hanging students’ beliefs about math, going from thinking that it’s something that has to be memorized to it’s something that they can figure out.鈥�

From basic counting to multiplication and division, Heart Math puts students in charge of their own learning, Gaffney said. 

鈥淲e train our tutors instructionally to make sure the student is the one doing the work, meaning the student is the one touching the materials, the student is the one doing most of the talking,鈥� Gaffney said.

This year is Elizabeth Darden鈥檚 fourth volunteering for Heart. As a communications professional, Darden doesn鈥檛 consider herself a math expert, but she said that the training from Heart Math and the guidance from its on-site staff prepared her to get the job done. 

鈥淸Heart Math] makes it really easy for tutors because I mean, I think I’m decent at math, but definitely not in the math field or anything like that,鈥� Darden said. 

Logan Henderson, who has volunteered with Heart for 10 years and is also a 鈥渇inancial supporter,鈥� agreed that 鈥測ou don鈥檛 have to be a math expert鈥� to be successful.

Darden said most of the activities she does during tutoring are 鈥渇un, interactive games,鈥� which she says excites her students.

鈥淚t’s kind of a treat when a student gets called for Heart,鈥� Darden said. 鈥淣one of them see it as something negative or embarrassing, and they always jump right up and come in to play.鈥�

Darden said the games build confidence in her students and help them visualize math concepts. Two years ago, one of her students started 鈥渞eally struggling鈥� and fell behind his grade level, but by the end, he won an award in his class for 鈥渕ost improved.鈥�

Henderson, who works in finance, said that Heart鈥檚 approach to teaching math is different from how he remembered learning math when he was in school, where the focus was on memorizing math facts like multiplication tables.

鈥淲hen I was a kid, it seemed like the focus was on memorization,鈥� Henderson said. 鈥淭here’s been a recognition, I think, that, 鈥楬ey, there’s visual learners,鈥� right, some learn better visually.鈥�

Gaffney said that some of Heart鈥檚 older students are 鈥渢wo-three years behind in elementary math.鈥� These students often 鈥渓ack a concrete understanding鈥� of 鈥渨hat numerals really stand for,鈥� which is why making visual connections is important..

鈥淏y the time they’ve gotten to us, someone has already told them before many times that three plus four equals seven, but when you show them a pile of seven cubes, and you cover up three cubes and they’re seeing four, they don’t know how many are hiding,鈥� Gaffney said. 鈥淪o telling them that three plus four is seven again is not going to fix it.鈥�

To gain that understanding, students need activities that can help them visualize and comprehend math problems, including counting and arithmetic with objects, according to Gaffney. 

鈥淭he important part is that they鈥檙e connecting numerals, abstract numerals, to concrete, hands-on things in the world,鈥� Gaffney said.

The approach is supported by research. 

Dionne Cross Francis, a professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in math education, said most students enter kindergarten with 鈥渟ome concept of quantity鈥� and 鈥渁 desire to quantify things,鈥� but that there is wide variation in their levels of understanding. If these problems are left unaddressed, students can have difficulty learning other concepts, as well, she said. 

Cross Francis believes Heart Math has the right idea by emphasizing concrete activities early.

鈥淩esearch would suggest that that’s where you start with children: that they actually have to be able to see one item and label it with the number-word one, and then continue to add additional items and label them with the appropriate number-word,鈥� Cross Francis said. 鈥淲e want to engage kids in really rich worthwhile experiences where they’re developing concepts from engagement with activities.鈥�

Jo Boaler, an education professor at Stanford University and one of the author鈥檚 of California鈥檚 new math education framework, said that for too many students, learning math is a 鈥渃ompletely abstract experience.鈥� 

Boaler thinks students should 鈥渃onnect more with numbers in the world鈥� to build understanding, which she says is supported by research.

鈥淲hat separates the high achievers is that they are able to look at numbers in different ways, break them apart, see numbers inside numbers,鈥� Boaler said. 鈥淭he low-achieving students are just trying to remember memorized facts.鈥�

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to Accelerate and 社区黑料.

It found more than half of unvaccinated American adults who reported strong hesitancy to the vaccine had a high school education or less. Five of the top 10 reasons for bypassing inoculation included lack of knowledge about its benefits and the risks of remaining unvaccinated. 

A lack of confidence in the shot itself followed by concerns about side effects and distrust in government were listed as the greatest concerns among the vaccine hesitant, according to a draft version of , which will be published in an upcoming issue of the

鈥淰accine hesitancy is a complex problem across the U.S.,鈥� said Saif Khairat, associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the study鈥檚 principal author. 鈥淎nd the root cause of that problem is different for different people.鈥�

The study considered a number of variables, including the percent of households with no access to a vehicle; those who were unemployed; had less than a high school education; had trouble speaking English; identified as a member of a minority group; lived in poverty; were over 65 or were single parents with children under 18. 

The paper centered on data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of May 9, 2021. It examined statistics from nearly every county in America 鈥� Texas did not provide vaccination data 鈥� in an effort to help policymakers better understand the characteristics of vaccine holdouts.

While the study focused on information gleaned more than eight months ago, the issue remains: Just as of Jan. 20, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Vaccination rates vary widely by age. More than 84 percent of U.S. adults age 65 and older are fully inoculated, according to . The figure drops dramatically for children ages 5 to 11: It tops out at 48.4 percent of young children in Vermont and just 5.3 percent in Alabama. The CDC for this age group in November. 

continue to feel the strain 鈥� some at record levels 鈥� as COVID-related beds are filled mostly by patients who have not been inoculated. Some countries, buckling under the Omicron variant, are considering a . 

Former President Donald Trump, who once famously said he loves 鈥渢he poorly educated,鈥� downplayed the severity of the virus, though he was vaccinated. The notion has a stubborn hold on his most ardent followers who at a recent event when he said he received a vaccine booster. 

Khairat and his co-authors said public outreach targeting the undereducated should address the shot鈥檚 safety and effectiveness and include statistics on the percentage of people within their local community who have received the inoculation. Vaccine promotion efforts should incorporate discussion of a path back to normalcy through herd immunity 鈥� information, they said, best delivered by a trusted, locally recognized figure.

of American adults ages 25 and older had not earned their high school diploma as of 2017, according to the American Council on Education. Another 29 percent graduated high school but did not further their education.

Anthony DiMaggio, associate professor of political science at Lehigh University, said his recent analysis shows that age is the strongest predictor of vaccination rates 鈥� but that education also plays a major role. 

鈥淲hat is not in question is that both factors are significant in accounting for whether people are vaccinated or not, with less educated Americans and those under 60 being less likely to have gotten at least two shots by mid-2021,鈥� he said. 

John A. Romley, associate professor at the University of Southern California, helped conduct earlier this year. He and his colleagues discovered that U.S. counties that scored high on both hesitancy and 鈥渟ocial vulnerability鈥� were 鈥渆specially likely鈥� to have lower COVID-19 vaccination rates than the rest of the nation.

Romley and his team have more recently begun to focus on children. Preliminary results from their latest efforts show socioeconomic disadvantage plays a larger role in vaccination rates for kids than it does for adults.

鈥淧arents think about vaccinations for themselves differently than they think about vaccinations for their kids,鈥� Romley said. 

Some adults are required by their employers to take the vaccine. They also might realize they are more vulnerable to a more severe illness than their children, he said. Other unknowns, including the shot鈥檚 long-term impact, might also contribute to their hesitancy. 

鈥淭alking to people with respect and trying to persuade them is the only way to make progress,鈥� Romley said. 鈥淏ut in these polarized times, the conversations we have are pretty heated and I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 helping.鈥�

Time has shown that not recommendations, are more effective in boosting vaccination rates. 

to push for a vaccine mandate for students back in October: The requirement would go into effect in July. states have followed suit. 

Individual school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, that tried the same tactic were met with immediate backlash and by the threat that additional students would go remote. New York City schools have so far not required students be vaccinated, with Mayor Eric Adams promising a decision on a mandate . 

But at least one New York City educator said mandates are not the answer, even in the face of the Omicron variant. Patrick Sprinkle, a high school social studies teacher at the N.Y.C. Lab School for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan, said he鈥檚 worried about inoculation rates and the spread of the virus, but doesn鈥檛 believe families should be forced to take the shot. 

鈥淭his remains a pressing concern for me,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t is of the utmost importance that we encourage families to have their children vaccinated, however, a mandate is an unwise policy decision as it will push more students into ineffective remote learning and deny students the highest quality education possible.鈥�