Lia: You are listening to the Sparky Life Podcast with your host, Lia Lamela. Here we discuss women in the trades and how to construct your career. Today's episode is gonna focus on certain skills that you need in order to work in the trades. Construction careers, math comes into play quite often, and I know a lot of people struggle with math, so I really wanna introduce you to Jing Sims and Mathnasium. I just also wanna let you guys know that I'm not being sponsored by Mathnasium in any way. I'm not getting any kind of financial benefit from this. I had an experience with this program and I highly recommend it and wanted to share it with you all. Jing Sims, who had a lengthy career in computer network security and software engineering in the federal government and private sector became passionate about enriching the community and increasing mathematical competency, which all stemmed from her love and interest in her own child's education.
Jing explains when her child was learning math through the Kumon program, which focuses on studying math at your own pace using worksheets, she felt there must be a better way to help her daughter really grasp mathematical concepts. This is when she came across Mathnasium. The Mathnasium program focuses on distributive learning, which drives innovation, creativity, and has the ability to expand the reach of curriculum beyond the classroom into the real world. Mathnasium starts off with an assessment to get a guideline of what level of mathematical understanding the student is currently at. Then they customize the learning path for the student. The Mathnasium program focuses on teaching math concepts and understanding. It does not focus on memorization. Jing and instructors like Jing at Mathnasium understand the key to success in math is learning what numbers mean and how they work together. Please welcome with me a woman who holds a special place in my heart, center director at Mathnasium in Purcellville, Virginia, Jing Sims,
Jing: How are you?
Lia: Good, I'm very good, thank you. How are you?
Jing: Very good.
Lia: I am so happy that I have the foundation that I have with Mathnasium because so much of what we do involves math, and I told you like, I wanna come back for more.
Jing: Yeah, we were thinking about that, but I know you're so busy.
Lia: I wanna come for more lessons. I wanna come for more learning.
Jing: Yeah, you're such a wonderful learner. We just like, use your example all time. Hope you don't mind, to encourage the kids.
Lia: That's fine.That's fine. What would you tell someone who is struggling with math?
Jing: So I think if anybody's struggling with the math, don't, don't worry. Just whenever their age is, event if they are elementary school or a younger student, don't worry at all. And if they are older, don't worry. So the first is, if they realize they are struggling and thought about improving, that's already a success. So, yeah. Uh, people behind the mask, they are really feel intimidated. They think they are not smart. So from all this years of practice, I just be honest, I say everybody can improve. Even student with learning difficulty or learning disability, they can improve. So it is just, um, set your own goal. Don't, don't compare with anybody else. So don't worry. Then you start learning. Find a resource, a parent, self online and uh, uh, mathnasium. Find the programs suitable for you. Um, then find people care about you. Then you can really excel from there. You can hit your goal and don't compare with anybody else. Some, some student like you, excel, uh, exponentially. Some student take time, put a time in, put an effort and trust yourself. Everybody can learn. It's really not a no matter how smart you are or how, um, slow the person is. We see slow, uh, the person in the beginning, not as quick receiving as in others, but the person's determined, I gotta learn this eventually go much further than the student or quick, but doesn't care. And then eventually they have fell behind. That's very, very true.
Lia: Yes. Yes. I wanna give all the listeners a little background on how I know Jing. I needed to take an apprenticeship standardized test in order to get into the electrician program. And I'm dyslexic. I'm severely dyslexic. I have an informational retrieval issue, and math has always been extremely challenging for me. So when I found out I needed to take the standardized tests and it would involve math without a calculator and math concepts. So it's not just about doing addition, multiplication, algebra, it's actually understanding what's happening within mathematical formulas, understanding mathematical concepts, so that I can elevate to higher, you know, levels of math throughout my electrical engineering career. And I was lucky enough to come across Mathnasium, to come across Jing through her tutoring and excellent teaching and wonderful support, I was very successful in taking my test. I want everyone to know that if someone like me who can do it, okay, I'm 37 years old. I have a horrible math background and experience. I was successful. You can be successful too. It's about having the right people in your corner, having mentors and teachers like Jing, having programs like Mathnasium and like you said, to your credit, really wanting it, being dedicated to it. A lot of our listeners, some might have some idea about what Mathnasium is and some might not. Can you tell us all what Mathnasium is? What does it bring to the table?
Jing: So I think Mathnasium is a valuable program, not so many program on the market like this. So I think for a student, Mathnasium is a, meet where student is. I think that's a goal to apply to most of students. Sometimes a little bit special for a high school student or a student with a specific goal, like you, I have a test in my career I want to pass. Meaning if a student, if in, uh, third grade level, um, then put them there, start them from there and that to, to have the tools. So only by putting in the, uh, in the place, meet their, um, math ability is already solved half of the problem. The student anxiety start diminishing. They say, “oh, this thing I can't handle, I can, I can do it. I don't feel like I have no clue anymore.” With careful design assessment to, to find out already student what they already know. We do not need to introduce those anymore because they better probably think, oh, I already know that. Why I keep applying this. Right? Wasting my time and money. Absolutely not. We find things they don't know, start building from there. So yeah. So I would say the first thing is they told me where, where a student is and then to building on to make, start making sense. You have enough challenge, but not to the challenges student have no clue to feel like so clueless, so lost and they will self-doubting. It's like just to say self-doubting, just to say, I'm not good with that. Everybody's good.
Lia: Yeah, that, that's a hundred percent hit the nail on the head with that. Because with me, from my personal experience, I always hated math because I just constantly got left behind, left behind, left behind. As you said, math builds upon itself. So if you don't have that foundation, it doesn't matter how bad you want to go to that next level. Without that foundation, you cannot move to the next level. Math is set up a certain way in which you have to have the, the, the bottom pieces to get to the top. And now that I understand that about math, I, I love math. I never thought I'd say that in my life. I'm never gonna be, you know, a mathematical genius. I know that, but I love math. I enjoy learning math now and I never enjoyed math before. And math is so much a part of our life, our everyday life. It's involved in everything that we do. I know so many people dear to my heart, friends, family, that hate math. And I really think it comes from the way that math is delivered in school as opposed to how I experienced it delivered at Mathnasium. You guys did this assessment, just like you spoke about. You saw the level that I was at. So you started me there and I was a little bit more confident because I was like, oh, okay, I kind of understand this. And then as we started to build, whenever I would get stuck on a subject or frustrated, you guys would approach it from different directions. You were all very patient with me. You tried to bring up any way you could think of that you could possibly get me to connect the dots. You did that. I just remember being in school and just kind of like a rote memory thing, and just to memorize and not really understanding why I was memorizing what I was memorizing. It's so important to understand what the numbers are doing, how they're related.
Jing: Exactly.
Lia: That's what keeps it in your head. That's what, what makes it matter. What got you involved in Mathnasium? Why did you want to follow this passionate path through teaching others math?
Jing: Oh, yes. I was trained as a software engineer. My major was, uh, computer science. And then I, in this field for many years in flight simulation form, worked and then come to a patent and trademark office in Alexandria. Worked for seven, eight years. And then, uh, I have young child, uh, you know, she is was really young, elementary school. She, she went to Kumon and then to learn this, but, uh, not like a, not a teaching, not, not a teaching. They have great worksheet. The students supposed to go there. So the original was the Kumon was like, uh, the this, uh, this a great gentleman and he, and he want to teach his son. He every day leave his, his son a sheet to a sheet of a paper math, let him to practice. Then he gave this sheet, sheet and then they have all this sheets. And then they said, “oh, why don't you benefit?” And his son doing really, really well. And neighbors sees that in Japan, said, “why don't you give the sheet to us?” So they give the sheet to kids. All kids are practicing and excel. So, but their concept is not teaching, just go through by practicing on this sheets. So, and uh, and she can do it just you said, but the sheet doesn't understand why math is, well Mathnasium teaching the instruction probably is the strongest. Our part is not the student know the algorithm, know how to do it, adding, subtracting, dividing, exponent, all these things, but know why we are doing that, right? So, um, she, she can do it very well, just like a roadmap, remember how to do it. But if you ask her a little bit deeper, she doesn't understand and then doesn't stay with her. So I said, um, is there any other program? I was interested to enroll in another program. I, I find the Mathnasium, it's math only teaching center. I said, oh, that's interesting. And I found all the concept a bit, bit after. And then, uh, I was really far from far away from my job. I said, maybe I want to do that. This is a fantastical program. I want to get involved. So that's what always start to have, uh, my own center, uh, in Purcellville. And then, uh, yeah, that's the where does story start.
Lia: It's wonderful. I'm so glad that you got involved in Mathnasium. I've had many, many teachers learning programs, uh, special education, uh, systems that I've been in throughout, throughout my life because of my learning disability. And I can honestly say that Mathnasium has been one of the best experiences I have had learning. And I really think it has to do with how compassionate you guys are, how patient you are, your approach, that resonates with me so much about actually understanding what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. I remember being in school asking the teacher why, and the teacher almost getting frustrated with me because they're like, this is how it's done. That's why; just do it. Like on in algebra, you balance both sides of the equation. Just do what I'm telling you to do. And for, for someone like me, memorization doesn't work like that with dyslexia. Just it, it doesn't work like that. I have to see a picture, I have to understand the pieces of the picture and I'm the, the best at understanding the big picture, the overall view. And then once we start to take things apart, I need to understand how they're connected in order to maintain that in my mind, I've never excelled at math before, my 37 years on this earth, like I have with Mathnasium. And I'm just so appreciative. I'm so appreciative. It's a, it's a big deal. I want other people to fall in love with math the way that I have, because like I said, it's so much a part of your life. And I, I ran away from math. I, I ran away from it because I was terrible at it. And no matter how hard I tried, no matter what program I was in, it just, it wasn't sinking in. And especially going back to what you said, if you keep on trying at something and you feel like you're spinning your wheels and there's no win, you feel stupid. You feel like, “okay, I'm, I'm never gonna understand this. It's just not for me.” And you turn away from it. And with math, I'm sorry, you cannot turn away from math in life. It is detrimental. It's in everything we do. You must learn to love it. And it's a beautiful thing. There's so much about math that's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I, I love it so much. And, and with what I do with electrical work, it, it makes electrical work so fascinating and, and stimulating and interesting. If you had to help guide someone who's older per se, like within my age group, what would you recommend for them regarding reaching out to Mathnasium? Do you think that they should approach it kind of the same way that I did? If they have a task or even if they're in college, because if I would've known about Mathnasium in college, I would've signed right up. Do you guys have programs for older adults? Because I know when I was there, there's, there's lots of younger children up until the age of high school. But I think Mathnasium should have programs for older adults as well because you guys are so fantastic.
Jing: Especially adults, have a specific goal. I want to, um, pass a math and help my career, right? My electrician engineering pass. So we have a goal, so that's better then we know how to organize around your goal. Coming to see us one or two or three times per week. You already regular program two, three times per week every time, 60 minutes. Then we work with the instructor. Another thing for Mathnasium is, uh, do not have a big classroom, but in Mathnasium, I think for one instructor, teach with a two or three student this small setting, you can gonna get a, taking care of, you know, after assessment to design a learning plan is a custom for the students level. And then during the teaching, we always finding out we overlook something. We have a little meeting every day to talk about our student. Something we overlooked, we add in to make short those gap is thing in, you did one thing in uh, hour too boring. I have a couple things. Do this, uh, 15, 20 minutes. This 15, 20 minutes. The distributive learning is, is approved. Distributive learning. You do, uh, do something and you overdo it. Again, that's scientific approved, you're gonna be a better effect. So we've been doing this for, for, uh, for Mathnasium and we definitely see that, uh, just like progressing more effectively and it is better for student and the interest as well.
Lia: Well, I can definitely attest to that from my personal experience with Mathnasium. My listeners are gonna want all this information. What is the best way for them to get into contact with you? May I give your email for them to ask you questions directly? What's the best way for them to reach out to you?
Jing: I think probably as give us a call or give us emails.
Lia: Okay, great. I will definitely post all of your contact information in the show notes.
Jing: Yeah.
Lia: Thank you so much, Jing. Thank you so much for being here and giving all this wonderful information about Mathnasium. I really appreciate, it means the world to me.
Jing: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Lia: It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. I think everyone should be going to Mathnasium, because you guys are literally fantastic. Changed my life, improved my career. I would not be where I am today without your help and assistance. So I'm forever grateful. And anyone who's struggling in math, just know you can do it. There are programs out there like Mathnasium. There are people out there like Jing who care, who are committed to their students, who love what they do, and it's shown through their students. So thank you again. Jing.
Jing: Best reward to hear from the real test, from people that's just encourage us so much. Thank you so much.
Lia: It was such a pleasure to have Jing with us today. Whatever your weakness, struggle, or academic challenge, you can learn, you can improve. The worst advice I ever got was to only focus on my strengths and disregard my weakness. This statement basically gave me the excuse to run away from my struggles, weaknesses, and what really develops you in this world is meeting challenges. It is the struggle and tackling it head on. When you figure out what your weaknesses are, you either need to learn how to improve upon them or figure out a way to use that weakness as an advantage. This is what sets you up in life to meet challenges in a positive way. There are tons of programs out there, all different types of learning styles. Find out what works for you and go with it. Thank you for joining us. If you felt a Spark in today’s episode, I invite you to write a review. I'd love to hear what lit you up. Take what resonates with you. And if you'd like to hear more of the Sparky Life, please subscribe, like, follow and share. Until next time, create the sparks in your life.