Welcome to the BEAM Blog!
BEAM College Prep Week
BEAM alumni, (clockwise from top left) Ana, Ariel, John, Crisleidy, and Quentin, speak with BEAM 11th and 12th graders about college admissions and college life.
During College Prep Week, BEAM alumni offered great advice for the gathered 11th and 12th graders about getting into and through college.
Here’s just a little bit of what they said:
Question — What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d had while you were applying to colleges?
Get someone who doesn’t know you to read your essay; it can be uncomfortable but it made my essay better.
Find a set time and dedicate it to college stuff (like Thursday office hours at BEAM).
The library is your best friend. Use it during free periods, after school, whenever you can.
Don’t apply to 18 colleges.
In a week of workshops, BEAM students learned about college admissions, financial aid, choosing the right college, standardized tests, and more. Twelfth graders worked on college essays.
Oh, and there was Jeopardy!
Vanessa said about College Prep Week, “I learned about FAFSA, CSS, TAP, QuestBridge, and how BEAM will help me. I feel more prepared to approach the college process."
What It's Like to Teach at BEAM
A faculty member from Summer Away at Bard College wrote to tell us about her amazing BEAM experience. Read about what it’s like to teach at BEAM.
Cecily Santiago, a first-year faculty member at BEAM Summer Away at Bard College, shared the following with her friends after her summer with BEAM (and we wanted to share it with you)!
This summer, I spent three weeks working as a math instructor at BEAM Summer Away. This has been one of the best experiences of my life, personally and pedagogically, and BEAM's mission is so much in line with my own values that it was a perfect fit.
Let me tell you about why I think BEAM is so awesome:
Last winter, I saw a post in a Facebook group about this job, teaching math at a three-week summer math camp. I clicked on it and immediately knew I wanted to apply for this. It didn’t pay as much as some other summer opportunities, and the application was long and daunting—they wanted a sample lesson plan! They wanted paragraphs about my pedagogical philosophy! They wanted to know how I would react in certain situations! But this didn’t deter me—their focus on excellent math education as a vehicle for social justice was right up my alley. My goal in life is to give the world a group hug using mathematics, and this was an opportunity to work on that goal.
BEAM finds their students from the most underfunded school districts in NYC and LA, testing their ability for abstract problem solving regardless of academic preparation. For those who shine, they run a day camp the summer after 6th grade and a sleep away camp the summer after 7th grade. Here, they teach math in a fun and accessible way, helping to strengthen the kids’ skills in school math, like fractions, but also giving them exploratory courses in math that few people who aren’t math majors ever get to see, working on their ability to reason, prove, and generalize. After these camps, students continue with Saturday Classes, with specialized support for getting into other math programs and competitive high schools. Throughout high school and even into college, the program supports these kids on their academic journeys, giving them the tools, resources, and information necessary for them to excel as students and preparing them to enter math-related careers if they choose to. I applied to be Junior Faculty at the summer camp.
BEAM students work on toppling sandpiles in Cecily’s class.
The next step was a TWO HOUR video interview. I emphasize the application and interview process so much because it indicates how much BEAM cares about finding excellent people to staff their camps. Even the counselors, who were not teaching, went through a similar process. It wasn’t just an interview—it was a conversation. This is also typical of BEAM—they are collaborative and appreciate feedback and input from students and staff alike. Nothing is ever a certain way “just because.” There is always a reason, usually a good one, and if things can be done better everyone works together to find a better way.
I was offered the position and enthusiastically accepted! I finally met some of the BEAM staff on a planning retreat in NYC in May, and it was so amazing to be around people who care so deeply about math education. In many ways, I felt like I’d found my people. The staff come from a wide variety of backgrounds, intellectually and socially, but they are all united in how much they care, how much good they want to do, and how humble they are as they do it. Everyone was working incredibly hard, with passion and joy, and no one was patting themselves on the back.
When I arrived at Bard College, the “Summer Away” site that hired me, I was nervous about working with 13 year olds and didn’t know what I should expect in the classroom. I knew that these kids had an affinity for math, but I also knew their math background was lacking. I knew I was supposed to plan fun, engaging, somewhat rigorous, and very inquiry-based courses, but I didn’t know if the students would want to be engaged. I had never planned a course like that—in fact, I had never planned a course about something I wanted to teach, or planned a course completely from scratch, or planned a course that was in line with how I believe math should be taught.
Turns out my fears were unfounded. The kids were AWESOME. They started off shy, but soon they were all shining with their vibrant and unique personalities, befriending each other and the staff alike. In the classroom, they were interested and engaged and insightful. Every single one of them pushed themself to grow and learn and come out stronger than they came in. They all started in different places and they all ended in different places—although these students are all strong mathematical thinkers, some had better preparation coming in and some had more intuition for certain aspects of math than others—but every single one of them ended as a better mathematician, and probably also better future-adult than they came in as.
Cecily works with a BEAM student.
Teaching was amazing. I taught a course on Sandpiles and another on Sets. I learned so much about how to run a classroom. I got to teach at the pace that was right for the students. I got to take the whole class down unplanned avenues that sparked their interest. I got to interact personally with every student. I got to create games and challenges that supported the course material. I got to make learning a truly fun adventure. I walked away from almost every class with a happy glow. I was given so much freedom, but also a lot of support and feedback. This isn’t just a place for students to grow—this is a place where adults grow too.
Discipline here was really interesting, and different in some significant ways than any other model I’ve experienced. While there were systems and consequences, there were only four rules. Honestly, the first three are now my personal rules for life.
Be here to grow
Be excellent to one another
Don’t do stupid stuff
Follow staff instructions
Pretty much any behavior that we would want to discourage falls into the first three rules. You called another student a mean name? You’re not being excellent. You slacked off during class? You’re not being here to grow. You jumped down a whole flight of stairs? You’re doing stupid stuff. And then number four is a catch all. You’re only eating fries for dinner? I’ll tell you to go back and get some veggies. You refuse? You’re not following staff instructions.
But moreover, the way we handle the kids when they break the rules is, to me, revolutionary. We don’t say “Hey, Dan, stop that! I’m reporting you!” We treat them as future adults rather than as just kids. We would say “Hey, Dan, do you know why I came over to talk to you? Do you think that you’re being excellent right now? Why or why not? Have we talked about this before? Why did you choose to take this action? What could you do better next time? Do you think that reporting you would be an appropriate punishment? What do you think would be appropriate?” We ask them to reflect and learn from their behaviors. When a kid is reported too many times, we have a serious discussion with them. There are ways to get reports taken off your record, if you behave well enough for long enough after something happened. There are more serious consequences if patterns of behavior don’t change, especially if they make the camp unpleasant for the other students, but we start by acknowledging that kids can reflect and make choices and decide how they want to act, and that kids will one day be adults who will need these skills in life.
There is so much more I could say about why I am completely in love with this program, but I just want to emphasize how utterly rare and amazing this organization is. As far as I know, nothing else like it exists. They get everything right, from selecting students to selecting staff, from pedagogy to discipline, from site leadership to overarching structure, from an individual class to a lifetime of support. The students and staff alike thrive here, and I am certainly planning to come back.
Thank you BEAM supporters!
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to BEAM!
Now that our summer programs are over, our students would like to tell you what they accomplished.
“I solved a lot of challenge problems with my friends.” —Ruth, BEAM Discovery
“I solved 12 problems in the 100 Problem Challenge.” — Vernon, BEAM Discovery
“I learned some coding and got WAY better at it. BEAM made me love math and realize my passion for it!” —Mia, BEAM Discovery
“This is my first ever program and I loved it! I’m glad that you helped support BEAM.” —Hayden, BEAM Discovery
“BEAM helped me see math in a whole different way. THANKS.” —Sanjana, BEAM Discovery
“BEAM is a glowing star.” (left) —Estefani, BEAM Discovery
“BEAM is out of this world.” (right) —Allison, BEAM Discovery
Exponents, Reciprocals, Expected Values, Oh My! Day 19...
Exponents. Reciprocals. Cubes. Relays. Career Day. Check out day 19 BEAM Discovery Downtown!
There was a lot going on at BEAM Discovery Downtown on Day 19! In Exponents: Super Powered Numbers, students tested their classmates’ laws about exponents. Students explored reciprocals in Fractions: Puzzles, Problems, and Games. And in Big Questions and Big Answers, students learned how to calculate expected values and played a dice game where they tried to beat the odds.
In Open Math Time, students worked on Problem Sets and the 100 Problem Challenge. Downtown students are getting close to claiming the prize for solving all 100 problems!
Relays! BEAM students can choose collaborative or competitive categories for Relays, where teams work to solve problems together.
During activities, students played chess, learned new knots in knitting, worked with Snap Circuits, and more.
“What’s it really like to work at Google?” “How do you know when something is fake news?” BEAM students asked great questions of STEM professionals from Google, Reuters, Harvard, MIT, and more as part of Career Day at BEAM Discovery Downtown.
BEAM Discovery Uptown Day 18!
Students were busy on Day 18 of BEAM Discovery Uptown!
Students were busy on Day 18 of BEAM Discovery Uptown. After breakfast, some students started the day in the class Playing with Logic, where they explored the Shuttle Puzzle by becoming the puzzle pieces. (Classes at BEAM are unlike anything most students see at school. Other classes this week include Math for Pirates and Learning from The Number Devil.)
During Open Math Time, when students get to choose what math they work on, some students completed problem sets from their classes. Students are often encouraged to work together to find the answers.
In Applied Math, students talked about game strategies and how to win at games, like Nim. They asked the question, “Can strategies help you win even at a game like Rock, Paper, Scissors, that seems all about luck?” Yes, they decided, by doing things like looking for patterns in your opponent’s play. To test their theories, they squared off in a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament!
Students checked out the 100 Problem Challenge. As of today, only one problem remains! If the students solve all 100, they win a special prize.
A group of students discussed Problem 74 with Xavier, a veteran faculty member.
Are you up to the challenge? Here’s Problem 74:
In Problem 53, you found a way to link three rings so that if you cut just one of the three rings, the other two would come apart.
In this problem, your goal is to do the same thing but with four rings. Together, all four should be linked. But cut any one of the four rings, and the other three should come apart. (Hint: try using pipe cleaners, like the students above, to help visualize the problem.)
Activities at Beam Discovery
Activities at BEAM Discovery’s Downtown site is one of the ways we unwind and socialize with each other. During Week 3 we were able to take great pictures of students and staff having a great time.
Basketball
Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournament
Kickball
Friendship Bracelet Making
A Day at BEAM Discovery
So what exactly happens at BEAM Discovery? Here’s a look at a typical day, featuring photos from BEAM Discovery’s Downtown NYC campus!
The morning starts with breakfast, followed by morning classes. BEAM believes in choice, so students pick classes, which might be “Beating Sherlock” or “Fractions, Puzzles, and Games.”
After class, students have an hour of Open Math Time, time where they can work on any math they choose, individually or in groups. They make sure to complete required PSets (problem sets) from class, and they can then explore challenges (the Problem of the Week or the 100 Problem Challenge), math books, coding websites, the Art of Problem Solving, and more.
After class, it’s on to activities! BEAM students get their choice of sports, board games, arts and crafts, and other creative activities. Recent hits included how to solve a Rubik’s cube, origami, anime club, and relay tic-tac-toe.
After activities, it’s off to lunch. BEAM pays for catered lunch from local restaurants every day. These photos are from empanada Thursday!
Most days, the afternoon block features an exact repeat of the morning block: class, open math time, activities. But one day each week, we have special afternoons, which feature Relays, a team-based math competition where students solve math challenges with some silliness mixed in. A recent problem required students to hum a tune their judge would recognize before they gave their math answer!
When the day wraps up, students join their travel groups to take the subway home and relax and recharge so their brains are fresh for another day at BEAM!
BEAM Discovery Week 1 Survey Highlights
With Week 1 of BEAM Discovery finished here at the Downtown site, we’ve taken time to distribute and review surveys from students on how the program’s been going for them. These surveys are anonymous and ask about the classes they’re taking, Open Math Time, and other aspects of the program like activities and general concerns. It’s always great to hear straight from the students, so we’ve compiled ten excerpts from the Week 1 Surveys at BEAM Discovery Downtown.
What is good about the class?
”Ron clearly explains things about what we’re learning, and if we don’t understand he explains it to us.”
What would you like to change about the class?
“I won’t really change anything because I like the class just the way it is.”
What do you think of Open Math Time?
“Eat, Work, Talk”
Have you been able to get everything done that you want to get done?
“Yes I have. I had to perservere (persevere) for this.”
Have you been able to get everything done that you want to get done?
“Yea because I feel confident in myself.”
What do you think of Open Math Time?
“I think it’s great because you get to do more math.”
What do you think of Open Math Time?
“I really like open math time because it gives me time to do the 100 problem challenge.”
Any other comments on your logical reasoning course?
“It is confusing, making it exciting + (and) my favorite course.”
Do you have any other comments on the program?
“It is a very unique program.”
What is good about the class?
“This class is pretty interesting and also hard but easy”
What would you like to change about the class?
“Nothing”
What is good about the class?
“You get to see stuff you never see before.”
What would you like to change about the class?
“Nothing.”
What is good about the class?
“the way Manix he explains really good and he make sure everyone understands. Also he comes up with interesting problem.”
Do you have any other comments on the program?
“That BEAM is AMAZING”
BEAM Summer Away at Bard Week 1!
Week 1 at BEAM Summer Away at Bard!
Week 1 at Bard was great!
Tuesday through Saturday, students attended classes of their choice. First week classes included Geometry, Cryptography, Number Theory, Paper Folding, Solving Big Problems, and Math Team Strategies.
Adri and Zhixing work on problems involving triangles in Geometry.
Students also participated in a variety of activities, from basketball, to making a solar oven, to playing Ricochet Robots, to Billie Eilish appreciation. In addition, there was a five-mile hike and a trip to Zoom Flume Water Park!
Stay tuned for week 2 news!
Fun at the waterpark
Fieldtrip to the waterpark!
Students at BEAM Summer Away Union College enjoy a day at the waterpark!
