One of the most interesting news stories of the past year regarded a study in France that analyzed a gap in the school learning of girls and boys. According to the results of the study, young boys generally surpassed young girls in math skills at the onset of school. Within four months of schooling, the disparity increased as the math skills of boys “surged ahead” those of girls; by second grade, “the gap [between girls and boys in math] was four times as wide.”
Even more fascinating than the study’s data and statistics were some of the possible explanations for the skill disparity among school children. In an article titled “Do Sports Explain the ‘Math Gender Gap,’ author J.T. Young offers an explanation. “I can’t speak for France,” Young writes. “But in the U.S., the solution is simple: sports.”
Indeed, as Young explains, many young boys around the United States play sports, and those sports introduce boys to all sorts of numbers, arithmetic, and computation. “A football team requires 11 players…Possession depends on gaining 10 yards. Points are scored in increments of 6, 3, and 1, and occasionally 2.” etc. And, of course, other sports—basketball, baseball, soccer—have their own numerology. “Everywhere there are boys, there are sports, and everywhere there are sports there are numbers,” Young says.
The point of Young’s article is not to make any sort of judgment on the reality or even dissect the French study in any great detail. And, of course, more young girls than ever now play sports too, which will likely impact data and analysis in the future. (“Perhaps the way we teach mathematics is somehow biased against girls,” Young states. “That’s something to be studied and rectified.”) Simply, Young’s article aptly highlights that many young boys learn numerology through sports—and that’s a wonderful thing. As Young points out, “The better one understands a sport, the greater one’s appreciation of its numbers.”
Naturally, the article makes me think about camp and the young boys who enroll as campers. Indeed, campers at Camp Voyageur benefit from learning some unique numerology as well—not only through sports, but also through paddling, portaging, and the overall CV experience. Think about it. The cabins at Camp are numbered, 1–9. A “rod” is 16.5 feet, and a portage’s length is specified by a sum of rods: 10 rods, 13 rods…100 rods. (The Angleworm Lake portage is 640 rods, and Grand Portage is 2,720 rods!) Furthermore, Island Swims at CV are measured in miles (or fraction of miles); plaque-worthy fish are chronicled by their length (in inches) and weight (in pounds and ounces), and firewood is generally gathered numerically (“I need you to bring me five more big logs, and about a dozen smaller twigs.”) That’s to say nothing of food portions at camp, whether those take the form of one handful of GORP per camper, or two spoonfuls of spaghetti at the campsite dinner, or five donuts at the Mess Hall breakfast.
You see, numbers are everywhere at Camp Voyageur, even if we don’t realize it. Computation becomes part of the greater camp experience for everyone. Thus, we can borrow and alter author J.T. Young’s great phrase and instead frame it as: “The better one understands Camp Voyageur, the greater one’s appreciation of its numbers.”
You might also like:
- A True Well-Rounded Education by Alex Kvanli
- Take A Break From Organized Youth Sports This Summer by Alex Kvanli
- How Wilderness Adventures Foster Lifelong Success by Alex Kvanli