Education Action: Toronto

by John Mighton
JUMP Math’s founder

Introduction

JUMP Math believes that all children can be led to think mathematically, and that with even a modest amount of attention every child will flourish. By demonstrating that even children who are failing math or are labelled as slow learners can excel at math, we hope to dispel the myths that currently prevail. It offers educators and parents complete and balanced materials as well as training to help them reach all students.

JUMP Math is primarily intended to be used by teachers in the classroom. It offers a complete package of resources intended to cover the curricula for grades 1 to 8. These are used in the delivery of the JUMP Math program. Professional development is also offered to teachers wishing to add to their teaching credentials.
While JUMP Math has developed into a mainstream set of curriculum-based resources, it is intended to be flexible and can be used as a support in after-school tutoring by schools and community organizations, as well as by parents at home.

JUMP Math can be reached at http://jumpmath.org/program

For a teacher’s perspective on JUMP Math, see Jon Cowan’s article in the Ontario Secondary Teachers’ magazine Forum (Winter 2009) entitled
“The Myth of Ability: Careful work and persistent effort lead students to success.”:http://www.osstf.on.ca/themythofability

John Mighton is a mathematician, author, playwright, and the founder of JUMP Math. He volunteers his time and expertise at JUMP as the lead curriculum developer for the JUMP Math Student Workbooks and Teacher’s Manuals. He also donates all proceeds from publications to JUMP

John Mighton completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Toronto and was awarded an NSERC fellowship for postdoctoral research in knot and graph theory. He is currently a Fellow of the Fields Institute for Mathematical Research and an Adjunct Professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto. He has also lectured in philosophy at McMaster University, where he received a Masters in philosophy.

John almost failed first-year Calculus in university, but his love of math and his belief that everyone has great mathematical potential led him to found JUMP as a kitchen-table tutoring group in 1998. His national best-selling book, The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child, describes his successes with JUMP, and how anyone can learn and teach math. In May of 2007 John released a follow-up book to The Myth of Ability called The End of Ignorance.

John is also a playwright: his plays have been performed across Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States. He has won several national awards including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the Dora Award, the Chalmers Award and the Siminovitch Prize. His play Possible Worlds was made into a full-length feature film directed by Robert Lepage. John is currently adapting Brian Greene’s book, The Elegant Universe, for a production with Robert Lepage.
As a mathematician and a playwright, John believes that there are more connections between the arts and the sciences than people generally think, and that scientists and mathematicians are often led by a sense of beauty or elegance, and describe their work in artistic terms. He has made the statement, “If the two worlds communicated more, we’d have much richer art and science as a result.”