Math

The Mathematics Department is a strong proponent of critical and creative thinking. As the department struggled to come up with a suitable definition, we realized that what we did every day in class exemplified higher order thinking skills and problem solving. George Polya, noted mathematics professor at Stanford University, believed that the main point in math teaching was to develop the tactics of problem solving. He identified two types of reasoning – demonstrative and plausible. Demonstrative reasoning is illustrated by the mathematical proof – it doesn’t yield new knowledge about the world, it is not controversial. Plausible, on the other hand, supports our conjectures through inductive, circumstantial, documentary, and statistical evidence. In order for a student to produce a proof or show how he arrived at a solution, he must first have an idea about a topic and eventually guess a possible theorem or concept supporting that idea. The result of mathematicians’ creative work is demonstrative reasoning. Our high school has structured its math courses and designed its curriculum to support these principles. Students, throughout their four years, have the opportunity on all grade and all ability levels to foster their creative and critical thinking through collaboration and independent work.