Matthews, who has taught math and computer science at Siena College for 26 years and was recently inducted into the New York State Educators Hall of Fame, was one of the mentors who, on Friday morning, led an auditorium packed with Queens College prospective secondary school mathematics teachers through a series of interactive and fun exercises designed to show how numbers and formulas can be accessible to students.
   TIME 2000, or Teaching Improvement through Mathematics Education, is a national project with an undergraduate program at Queens College. Participating students are recruited out of high school and provided with scholarships in exchange for their pursuing careers as middle and high school math teachers for at least two years upon graduation. Throughout the program, the students work closely with TIME 2000 professors and peers, picking up techniques that include exploring mathematics patterns in Social Security numbers and ZIP codes, learning probability by playing a classroom version of “Deal or No Deal,” and using inverse functions to translate secret messages.
   For the many who cower at the very thought of x’s, y’s and pi’s, it may come as little surprise that some say it’s time to adjust the way math is taught in schools. According to a 2009 analysis by the National Center for Educational Statistics that compares United States high school freshmen with those in other countries, U.S. students ranked in the bottom quarter, behind countries including Australia, Sweden and Korea. The dire shortage of qualified math teachers in the country has only exacerbated the problem.
   “There’s no reason why young children can’t learn the foundations of math — but it needs to be taught in ways they can understand,” said Alice Artzt, the founder and director of TIME 2000. “This makes math very real to them, very exciting.”
   TIME 2000 student Misun Park, 18, said he was impressed with Matthews’ hands-on way of teaching math, but doesn’t recall learning the same way when he was in middle and high school. “I just memorized the formulas,” Park said.
   Farah Kamal, 18, also in the program, said she’s always been interested in math but that the TIME 2000 methods, as well as Matthews’ entertaining hijinks — at one point he asks two students to lay feet-to-feet on the stage so he can demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem — is only more encouraging.
   “He applies math to everyday things,” Kamal said. “He makes it seem interesting and important and not boring, the way everyone thinks.”
   For more information about TIME 2000 at Queens College visit qc.cuny. edu/time2000.