"I succeed as an educator when students stay in school, when they continue to take challenging academic classes and when they appreciate the love of learning," says Jo Ann Schuette, who teachers eighth grade mathematics at Curtis Middle School in Wichita. In a sustained effort to make the rewards of studying mathematics more accessible, Mrs. Schuette has pursued numerous innovative curriculum ideas. For example, to familiarize her students with concepts of volume, area and mass, she has her class design a container in which to mail a single potato chip to another school in another state. Mrs. Schuette also developed the Family Math Night program, and for the last three years, student/adult teams have learned together in this setting. In 1993, Mrs. Schuette received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Math from the National Science Foundation.
