Have no fear: Math can be a good friend

Wednesday, June 11, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.

An orientation for the Fear of Math class will be held 7 p.m. Thursday and July 17 at UNLV's Paradise Campus, 851 E. Tropicana Ave. For more information, call 895-3394.

Ranel Erickson uses a ruler, a plastic water bottle, a wheeled toy and a simple gauge to demystify mathematics for people petrified of numbers.

"I've had people with graduate degrees who are terrified of the subject," Erickson said.

Yet everyone uses numbers, he said. Carpenters and plumbers have to measure things accurately to complete their work.

As a computer consultant, Erickson used math to teach the National Nuclear Security Administration how to schedule guards at the Nevada Test Site, schedule Economic Opportunity Board buses and help hotels, casinos and even funeral homes do the math needed in their lines of work.

Now he's reaching out to average formula-phobes who clutch calculators and freeze when they face mathematical word problems with classes he calls Fear of Math.

He is offering two free outreach sessions this summer through the Division of Educational Outreach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The two sessions are at 7 p.m. Thursday and July 17. Both sessions will be held at UNLV's Paradise Campus, 851 E. Tropicana Ave.

Erickson starts his patented learning process with basic building block concepts such as a meter, a kilogram and a second.

Using a liter water bottle, he teaches students how to relate abstract numbers to real-world situations.

The problem with traditional math classes is the dependence on memorization and the failure to teach students what the numbers mean, Erickson said.

"We teach math as if it were a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle turned upside down," he said. "Try putting 1,000 pieces of a puzzle together without visual clues except the edges of the pieces."

Erickson has some experience in unraveling the mysteries. With a doctorate from Stanford University in operations research -- "that's solving word problems in business" -- Erickson worked at Bell Laboratories, now Lucent, in Holmdel, N.J., and taught math at UNLV.

He is a longtime resident of Henderson and returned to Nevada in the mid-1980s. In 1985 Erickson taught the first desktop computer classes at UNLV, Ann Tate, director of UNLV's Professional Development Center, said.

"He was the first recipient of the outstanding teacher award in continuing education," Tate said.

The main reason for fearing mathematics, Erickson believes, is that people don't attach meaning to numbers.

For students to get excited about math, they have to be able to explore problems and find relationships between measuring cups and energy, he said.

If students, teachers and working people enjoy the introduction, Erickson has designed five two-hour sessions in the mathematics program using games and props that help teach students how to attach meaning to numbers.

Then when they plug numbers into equations, they will make common sense to the students while performing the math function that is intended, he said.