This is the first in a series of entries I'll make in the next week or so about my experience at National MATHCOUNTS this year.

In past years at MATHCOUNTS, I spent a lot of time with students, parents, and MATHCOUNTS staff. This time around, I was able to spend a lot of time with MATHCOUNTS coaches. The conversations I had with these teachers and parents were probably the most interesting, inspiring, and thought-provoking discussions I had while at MATHCOUNTS.

These teachers are the ones out doing the hard work that those of us who complain about 'the state of education' should do more to promote and celebrate. There was at least one moment in which this dedication was honored. The longest, loudest applause (next to that granted National Countdown Champion Neal Wu), went not to an award recipient, but to a teacher who was introducing a speaker and announcing an award. The teacher is Bob Fischer from Indiana, who has coached the Indiana team at Nationals 20 times out of the 22 years of MATHCOUNTS. Lest you say, 'Oh, he just has a good school,' I'll note that he has won Indiana with three different schools.

Bob narrowly missed winning his second national team championship this year, but he did place 3 individuals in the countdown round, a feat I haven't seen in years. I was fortunate to spend a 45-minute bus ride sitting next to him on the way back from one of the events. Any aspiring educator should be so lucky - they'll learn more about teaching in those 45 minutes than they will in 2 years of ed school. Our discussion has inspired me to try a few different things in the San Diego Math Circle last year.

Bob has his students from 6th through 8th grade, which allows him to relax the regular curricular definitions and simply allow the students to proceed at their own pace. He noted that a single class will have students working in 5 different books - he allows that much freedom in his classroom. This is another example that the teacher who is willing to relinquish complete control is the most successful teacher of the eager student. (I'm unconvinced this approach would work for those who need more direct parenting, but for MATHCOUNTS students, I strongly believe this is the way to go.)

Bob's main tips to teachers: keep it competitive and keep it fun. He credits his success to being able to spot untapped potential. This makes me smile a little - I can spot untapped potential, too: I just walk into any strictly organized classroom and point at the top few students. 95% of the time there will be untapped potential there. (Come to think of it, I could probably point at the rest of the kids, too.) But I take Bob's point - his strength is being conscious of this untapped potential and making effective efforts to draw it out.

Bob wasn't the only hero I met at MATHCOUNTS - I spent a lot of time with a few other coaches as well. Alan Vraspir from New Mexico managed to juggle his MATHCOUNTS team, his high school math team, his top-10 in the country cross country team (a duty he was handed as a surprise at the start of the year but found he greatly enjoys), and helping his daughter by telephone to teach AP Statistics when she had to replace the former stats teacher in her school mid-year. And on top of that, he was able to take 1-2 AoPS classes. I suppose he occasionally slept.

I was particularly happy, and not at all surprised, to see Josh Frost's New Hampshire team win the team spirit award. Now his students will have to behave better, lest he tap them with his MATHCOUNTS spirit stick. I imagine Josh's class is an enormous amount of fun, and expect to be able to see him many more times at Nationals. Most of my readers know Josh already from our board as frost13, so you know the source of my enthusiasm for him - not only does he teach his students well enough to win Nationals and allow them to keep up with the students at Exeter when they go there for high school, but he also does a tremendous amount online for students and coaches all over the country. I thought that I would be the only 'remote coach' at Nationals, but Josh also had the joy of meeting a student he helped reach Nationals over email.

I can't do credit to all the coaches I met, both of state teams and those who helped individuals to Nationals, such as rcv. I also met the coach of the team that won the AMATYC contest (2-year colleges) with a score more than 10% higher than the second place team. I met many other coaches and visited a bit with the Alabama coach, who coached the high school team our school traveled with to a lot of contests I participated in during high school. I could blab about the various coaches for pages . . . My main regret is not getting to spend more time with some of them. I didn't get a chance to really talk to the Texas coach, nor to the Massachusetts coach, to whom I talked on the phone a month or two ago and hoped to meet at Nationals. I crossed paths with him several times at Nationals this year, but only at the final banquet (during which he took several trips to stage with Sergei Bernstein, National Test Champion and Masters Round Winner), did I realize who he was!

In closing, I'll note that top performers can become top performers without great coaches, but my experience at MATHCOUNTS this year made me more deeply understand what the effect of these coaches is and why they are successful. They may not be great mathematically - they may not even know as much as their students. But they create an environment in which the students can thrive and succeed. I've seen this before here in California at the impressive Miller Middle School program. Now I've learned more about it elsewhere. The keys I see are giving the students access to opportunities and materials, creating space and time in which the students can explore at their own pace, and maximize the amount of time top students can spend teaching and inspiring each other. An example of the importance of this last point has been the increased quality we are seeing on the midterms and finals in our own classes since we made open classroom time in which the students can work with each other without the instructors around.

This is the attitude I will approach the SDMC next year with, and one I'll try to convince other teachers to adopt.