McGee details what's coming at IMSA

In his first year at the helm of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Glenn "Max" McGee has gotten to know the strengths of his school and the students who live and learn there.

He's stayed in the dorms - talking with the 650 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors, learning to use Facebook and picking up new dances - and he's talked to IMSA graduates, discovering how their time at the school helped them succeed.

Now, heading into his second year as IMSA president, the former state superintendent is focusing on how innovations at the school can improve how math and science are taught throughout the state and how educators can ensure American students are able to compete globally.

He recently sat down with the Daily Herald to discuss his vision for IMSA and for education. This is the second part of an edited version of that conversation.

Q. You've seen education from a statewide level. Is there anything on a statewide scale teachers need to improve?

A. One thing you'll notice I didn't say I do is I don't help kids with homework. I'm really good in math but the way they learn math here takes them so far beyond even what I learned in college, it's just amazing. The way mathematics is taught here is the way students really need to learn math. How do we teach it here? I walk into a class and I won't leave because it's just like oh, wow. I'm learning these things when I sit in classes because they teach these concepts in depth. The students really learn what a calculus formula really means and how it was derived and what it does. They just don't learn a formula. We all learn imaginary numbers, the square root of negative one. They understand what a whole concept of an imaginary number is. The way the teachers teach they work with these teams of students and they really help them learn mathematics through discovery of these concepts.

So I will say our students probably do not cover a standard textbook in math to the extent that most high schools do but the math they learn they learn so deeply, they know it. these are bright students anyway but frankly, if mathematics were taught like this in every high school our students in Illinois, their ACT and Prairie State scores would jump immediately and significantly. And there's a lot of international research to back this up. This is not IMSA's biggest kept secret by any means, I'm just excited to see it apply. There are other schools that teach this but there it may be one teacher or a couple teachers but here it's everybody.

That fact that so much of their work is in teams I think is significant here. I had a chance to teach a couple science classes and the teacher said' here's the book, have at it but remember we do things here in teams and small groups.' What's nice about here is the students are all pretty bright, it's not like one student can carry a group. They really do the explorations together.

I had coffee with Steve Chen who founded YouTube ... and (Lt.) Alex Dietrich who was on this PBS show "Carrier." She's the one that flies fighter jets off the aircraft carrier. I talk to all of them and say 'tell me about your defining experience at IMSA.' They say two things. They say 'one, it's residential life and the other is we just learn things really deeply.' You could almost pick up the phone and call any alumni and they'll tell you that. They said the deep learning really prepared them for college, the residential life prepared them for life.

Q. What new things do you have in store for the school next year?

A. The IMSA Energy Center I'm very excited about. We are working with a lead physicist at Fermilab named G.P. Yeh and it's really a cross-campus piece that involves faculty and students so we're developing a center to study and research sustainable energy use and sustainable energy policies and we also have a couple alums helping out on this. We've already got about $25,000 grant money, we're putting up some solar panels, some equipment to study wind energy. We're going to power one of our computer labs on sustainable energy, we have a rain garden going in. I'm very excited about that.

Our partnership with the University of Illinois in Champaign has also been incredibly exciting. (People) said it couldn't be done but I actually have students of ours there this summer working in their nanotech lab in Champaign with researchers there. We're going to have some teacher exchanges, we're going to be working on some joint research projects with the University of Illinois Champaign. So many of our students go there. So we're very excited about that.

And the outreach. It's our hope to reach more schools. We're exploring the possibility of opening up a couple field offices so we can deliver after-school programs for students and teachers in the Metro East area and perhaps even Chicago. There's nothing concrete here but we're going to keep pursuing this and if not next year it'll be the year after. Again, what we're doing here we can't keep a secret. And we really need a presence in the field. We need to set up networks with other schools here and around the state.

Q. What is your long-term vision for the school?

A. The long-term vision is to really make a laboratory out of IMSA and to make this a hub in a network of schools and whether they're public schools or academies or residential but with the same kind of philosophy that we are igniting and nurturing minds that will advance the human condition and there are certainly new and exciting ways to teach it and the more we can share these with others in our network and outside the network the greater impact we'll have on education in Illinois and that's where our strategic plan is going to take us and that's where I'm going to take us.

I have no doubt that we'll continue to provide nothing but the highest quality of education here but when we can help other entities replicate even in some small way what we're doing here and help other teachers understand it is about deep conceptual understanding and it works and provides them that support. A lot of them know it anyway but we're going to have quite a different educational system in Illinois.

Q. For years now, we've heard about two problems related to studying math and science - a lack of interest from girls and the U.S. lagging behind other nations. Are we making any progress in these areas?

A. The girls being behind we've really fixed. Our enrollment here is 50/50 and we do that by design. The girls will be the first ones to tell you they're second to none and it's a healthy competition but even statewide, I actually track those statistics every year. I think the big issue is attending to the needs of minority girls in math and science. I think by and large the girls have caught up to the boys but it's not necessarily so for minority students, especially those in poverty which is yet another reason I think IMSA needs to support some of these schools in urban areas. As a statewide policy issue I think that still needs attention.

The second question is an incredibly serious issue and I really think it's going to be a national crisis. I just got back from China and if it's not yet it will certainly within the next decade be a national crisis (in the U.S). I know we have a lot of other problems but the fact of the matter is we're behind for a reason and you always here excuses - 'well they don't count special ed' or 'they don't this.'

I spent (a recent) afternoon in the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and their whole museum is set up like their whole educational system - learn a few topics in depth, hands-on. Kids were all over the place and there's these hands-on exhibits all over the place and their schools run like that too. They learn the basic facts, basic skills at a very young age and then they learn how to apply them to solve problems and they learn deep conceptual understanding. The statistics you read about them graduating engineers are true. And their government subsidizes engineering students over there. They subsidize science students.

I cannot see us catching up unless we change the way we teach. It's a truly serious problem. And that's the thing, we can. It's not like where can we go to find (the answers)? We have it here and there's some other schools. I think a lot of it is about connecting people at the schools and academies and teachers and leaders that are doing this well and helping find ways to replicate that first across the state and then across the country.

And this is the perfect place. A lot of my friends were retiring and I said, God I can't wait to have this job. It's a chance to change the world.

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