At Spence Elementary School, math is a little different in the fourth grade class.
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WXOW) – At Spence Elementary School, math is a little different in the fourth grade class.
“Math isn’t always an easy subject for kids, and he makes everyone love math and that’s the cool part.”
Greg Markworth is the teacher and every Monday, he has a special guest, Dr. Larry Krajewski, or Dr. K.
“It’s really fun when Dr. K comes,” said one student.
Dr. K is the man who makes math fun for kids. “I think he’s really helping everybody think through a lot more problems because they sometimes come up with an answer that’s wrong…you have to think through to come up with the right answer,” said 4th grader Oliver.
Solving problems and finding solutions is nothing new to Larry, who spent his career teaching math at Viterbo University. For the past 30 years, he’s been volunteering his time and talents to help students not only learn but possibly like math.
“I love mathematics and I love to get students excited about mathematics and show them that it’s not a difficult subject, it has a lot of interesting parts to it and it’s enjoyable,” said Krajewski.
“He literally is someone who will bring joy of math into every child,” added Mr. Markworth, who nominated Larry for the Jefferson Award.
Dr. K takes a difficult problem and comes up with what he calls a brain teaser to help challenge students to use their imagination to come up with the right answer.
4th grader Olive said, “he’s really challenged me to learn new things”.
Math has always been an easy and enjoyable subject for Dr. K, and something he excelled at. “When I was in high school, when they gave a math test they always put me in the back row so no one would copy from me”.
But Dr. K’s math talent could be seen way before that, “when I was in 3rd grade it was a split classroom half the class was 3rd grade half the class was 4th. and when i was in 3rd grade I listened to what they were doing in 4th grade so I skipped over to 4th grade”.
You could say Dr. K’s life has come full circle, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
