The author grew up in Staunton, Illinois, a small town in the middle of the state about an hour northeast of St. Louis. Staunton is a rural community like many others in the midwest, populated by hardworking, down-to-earth people who value friends, family, and tradition. Staunton was not an easy place for someone like him to grow up and flourish.…

The author was born and raised in rural, northern Mississippi. He went to a local school, the North Pontotoc Attendance Center, from first grade on. The author was always interested in math and science, but, then, he was interested in most all subjects. The expected path that his friends and siblings had followed was clear: attend a junior college…

Success begets success and opportunity begets opportunity. This principle is something that the author sees at work in his own life. One example of opportunities begetting opportunities is the experience he had at the Academy of Science and Technology to practice his programming skills. The Academy served as a great training ground for what would…

In life, each person is offered opportunities, one after the other, until life ceases. For the author, one of those opportunities was to attend the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC), an NCSSSMST school. While attending KAMSC as a member of its inaugural class required a bit of imagination regarding the opportunity at hand, and…

In this article, the author cites the unusual attributes of his school. In his school, a focus on mathematics, science, and technology never equated to an absence of other disciplines. In his school, admission came with a price--not a financial debt, but a moral obligation. Ethical leadership and service was engrained in students' hearts, their…

High school is, in many ways, an experience many would rather not relive, even in memory. As the author reflects on her experiences at the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center (KAMSC), she is struck by how positive her memories are. For her and many of her classmates, their educational experiences up to that point had not been especially…

The author has never been good at math. When he was in 9th grade, he found gripping joy in Shakespeare, the wives of Henry VIII, the psychosis of Poe, the heroes of various revolutions, the perpetual pillaging of Alsace and Lorraine. However, his interests changed when he enrolled in the Central Virginia Governor's School (CVGS) for Science and…

In this article, the author, a pediatrician, reflects upon his formal education and describes how being educated at the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC) during his high school years provided him with the best educational experience. Unlike the typical high school, KAMSC provided an environment that was the perfect fit for him…

As the author prepares to head back to Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) for homecoming, she finds the analogy of Hogwarts for IMSA to be apropos. Going to IMSA opened doors for her that she hadn't even known were closed. Yet it's not easy to pin down what made her IMSA experience magical. Certainly there are some elements that are…

This essay is an open letter to despairing magnet school students. In this essay, the author describes how she attended the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC) and realized that she was just not into math and science. For her, KAMSC was not part of a continuation along a straight line, but instead marked a sharp right turn away…

Previous work on fish, frogs, and salamanders, showed the ability for estrogen (EE2) and anthropogenic endocrine disruptors to skew sex ratios and cause hermaphrodism. This study addressed the effects of estrogens on growth and development rates of African clawed frog tadpoles ("Xenopus laevis") during their gender determination stages. The…

The author remembers back to freshmen year when NCSSSMST was considered a jumbled acronym and a pain to utter. But now, two years down the line, and their conference debut in only a few months, she remembers the NCSSSMST motto, "foster, support, and advance the creative efforts of those specialized schools whose primary purpose is to attract…

Mathematical knowledge can be categorized in different ways. One commonly used way is to distinguish between procedural mathematical knowledge and conceptual mathematical knowledge. Procedural knowledge of mathematics refers to formal language, symbols, algorithms, and rules. Conceptual knowledge is essential for meaningful understanding of…

This issue's humanities reflection presents a student's argument for attention to the humanities in a math, science, and technology program. Everett Brokaw, a senior at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, recognizes that his specialized school experience has been enriched by personal journeys through literature and through encounters…

If teachers were to reflect about their most difficult teachable moments in their careers, the author is sure the Virginia Tech tragedy would be extremely taxing on their minds. For those teachers teaching high school seniors, who were in the process of sending deposits to Virginia Tech, it was particularly agonizing. In this article, the author…