Now, the writer and founder of JUMP Math can add another feather to his improbable cap. He’s this year’s recipient of the Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award, an honour given to an individual who demonstrates innovation and excellence in promoting mathematics education at the elementary, secondary, college or university level. 

Over the past 20 years, Mighton has set out to prove that anyone is capable of high achievement in mathematics. He formalized this hypothesis through JUMP Math, a charitable organization he started in his apartment living room. The program, which has now grown to reach 1.5 million students around the world, helps children overcome “math anxiety” by building their confidence and resilience through tackling incrementally more challenging concepts at each stage of learning. For his dedication to the community, he was singled out among a competitive group of fellow nominees.

“True to the spirit of Dr. Sinclair, the successful candidate for this esteemed recognition will have served their community with kindness, generosity, selflessness, and inclusivity. This is clearly evident in the legacy work of Dr. Mighton – particularly with his efforts with JUMP Math,” says Donna Kotsopoulos, Chair of the Organizing Committee.

No write way to do it

The path from creative writer to math Ph.D. is hardly linear, but like all good stories, you can find a bit of foreshadowing in the details. Approximately no one will be surprised to learn that you can stage successful plays and still need a job to pay the bills. Even after one of his plays was optioned into a movie, Mighton tutored math to make rent. Math was something he enjoyed in school, even though he didn’t consider himself to be exceptionally skilled at it. In fact, he hit the common math-teacher milestone of almost failing first-year calculus. 

But numbers interested him and that was enough. Then something really interesting happened: During tutoring sessions, Mighton noticed that many of his students had high learning potential, but low expectations of their abilities. This discovery fueled his research when he eventually went back to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics. 

Chicken + egg = ?

Math is often taught to students in a way that leaves them feeling that it’s hard and something they’ll never be good at. If you introduce this feeling early enough in a child’s associative process, it can crystallize into a belief. Crystals are very difficult to break. The inevitable fallout places anxiety on elementary educators, and the two groups pass math anxiety back and forth to each other.

JUMP’s approach is based on the notion that students face five main barriers to learning math: math anxiety makes them lose focus, and low confidence occurs when students compare themselves to other students and find themselves lacking. They may also hold a belief there’s such thing as natural ability in math gives some students low expectations about themselves. Finally, information overload to students who are still novices can short-circuit the brain, which causes them to miss concepts that would provide the tools to solve problems. 

Through JUMP, Mighton has conducted multiple case studies and controlled trials in partnership with educational institutions around the world. In each trial, students who participated in the studies saw year-over-year gains in their numeracy, problem solving and conceptual understanding. He now works with school boards to implement teaching strategies in the classroom and provides low cost materials through JUMP’s non-profit publishing outfit.

A moment for math

There’s a timely aspect to Mighton’s win. A shift in the pedagogical winds has created a moment for educators who have been working to eradicate the dangerous myth of the “math person.” 

Of course, the belief that any student can be good at math with the right supports has been around for decades. Bob Moses blazed trails with his Algebra Project, a multi-chapter organization that creates quality education opportunities for Black and underserved children. Many of the Project’s graduates are eventually able to tackle college-level math.

More recently, mainstream audiences have discovered Carol Dweck’s writing on the “growth mindset,” putting pressure on school boards to adapt their math curricula in favour of exploring these new strategies and techniques. The more visibility these ideas receive, the likelier they are to be integrated into standard teaching practices. 

Accessibility is also a key factor in our outreach efforts at the Fields Institute and it’s a privilege to be able to spotlight the work being done in this area through initiatives like the Margaret Sinclair Award. We are thrilled to honour Mighton’s work and look forward to the lecture he will deliver next February at the MathEd Forum. He’s pretty chuffed, too.

“I am very happy and proud to receive an award that honours the legacy of Margaret Sinclair, who dedicated her life to helping learners of all ages and who created innovative partnerships between mathematicians and educators to make the beauty of math-- which was a source of great joy and inspiration for her-- accessible to every student,” he says.