MAHONING VALLEY Preparing for sum battle

The contest will air on ESPN on May 29.
BY JOANNE VIVIANOVINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- If roughly 200 pupils from across the United States compete in a national math contest, what's the probability that a seventh-grader from Canfield will come out on top?
Not bad, he says -- as long as officials don't ask him very many questions involving probabilities.
Jonathan Proch, a pupil at the Montessori School of the Mahoning Valley, placed first among 255 middle and junior high school pupils at the Ohio Math Counts Competition. On Friday, he heads to the University of Chicago to battle it out against pupils from across the nation.
"Jon's gonna come away with first at nationals," said friend Mike Smith, at school Tuesday.
"No, I'm not," Jonathan answered.
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Oh yeah, Jon's only good when he's a pessimist," Mike said.
Or is he humble?
"Jon doesn't show off at all," Mike said.
Confidence in numbers
Jonathan said he just has more confidence in his Montessori team than in himself as an individual.
Jonathan's team is Mike, an eighth-grader, along with eighth-grader Ted Cart and seventh-grader Jake Mauch. Their teacher is Julia Catchpole. Coach is parent volunteer Elizabeth Goldthwait.
Together, the team placed third in the team competition at the Ohio Math Counts competition. Jonathan's first place was in the individual race.
At nationals, Jonathan has a different team -- two boys from Cincinnati and a third from Columbus. They've met and worked together on past Math Counts problems. At the competition they'll compete on their own and as a team. Montessori Administrator Diane Gonda said the national competition will air on ESPN on May 29.
On his own, Jonathan will have to solve 30 problems in 40 minutes. As a team, they race against those from other states.
"As long as they're not all probability problems, it'll be OK," Jonathan said. He gives an example of such a problem: If you roll a six-sided die, weighted on one side, what's the probability that it will show a prime number?
Likes formulas
He's most confident when it comes to problems that require solvers to come up with a formula. For that, the boys have another example.
Find three numbers that add up to 100 and also meet the following criteria: If you subtract nine from the first number, add nine to the second number and multiply the third number by five, they all equal the same number.
Jonathan also has practiced at home, where his parents, Jeff and Margie, want to get copies of the local and state Math Counts tests to see if they can score higher than their son.
"They think they can," he said. "I think they can't. ... They have a tendency to take too long on problems." Jonathan also has a sister, Katie, a fifth-grader.
Jonathan has "no idea" why he's so good at math.
Tools of the trade
He and his friends show off the Montessori tools he's used since kindergarten to learn math concepts. Triangular red puzzle pieces fit into circles to show fractions; beads that fold into cubes teach squaring. Red, yellow, blue and white pieces that fit into squares and triangles are "proof of the Pythagorean theorem," Mike explains. On Tuesday, the boys were working with mirrors, a laser pointer and a protractor.
Gonda said these are reasons Jonathan's math skills are so strong.
"The Montessori philosophy allows students to follow their interest and work at their own pace," she said. "So students who are mathematically inclined are able to whet that interest and really develop mathematics.
"... We provide the learning environment here and they take off with their enthusiasm and quest for knowledge."