Classes & Workshops:

• new - Winter-Spring '07
• Female Physics
• Female Math
• LPN Workshop Agenda
• Female Math
• Week of Basic Math Review
• GMAT/GRE prep
• Business Math
• LPN prep for Nursing Aides & Home Health Care Workers
• Mothers as Math Mentors, M³
• Microsoft Excel

Upcoming Workshops:

• GED Math Prep
• Basic Bookkeeping with applications in Microsoft Excel
• Female Physics (mother/daughter basic science concepts)
• Have an idea for a workshop—make a suggestion!

Welcome to the web site of Helicon, Inc., the Mathematics Resource and Support Center for Females, dedicated to the idea that we females, in significant numbers, can and must learn to do mathematics.

When Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers suggested, in January 2005, that innate differences in ability between men and women might be one of the reasons fewer females succeed in science and math careers, there was an uproar. While Helicon, Inc. disagrees vehemently with Dr. Summers’s supposition, there’s no question that it pretty much reflects the conventional wisdom: females aren’t supposed to be able to do math. Dr. Summer’s remarks—and the ensuring public discussions—focused on the “high” end of the females-and-math/science continuum and why we aren’t good enough. At Helicon, Inc. we’re concentrating on the “low” end, believing that we can’t possibly be that bad:

• Females who have struggled for years to pass the math section of the GED—long after they’ve passed the other four sections of the exam. (Since the 2002-series GED Tests was introduced until July 2005, 24,278 females who took the GED 35,829 times had a 50% failure rate on the Math section, compared with 30% on the Writing section and 24% on the Social Studies section and 21% on the Science Section and 16% on the Reading section.)
• Females who are Nurses’ Aides or Home Health Care Workers and long to be nurses, but in studying for the qualifying exam for an LPN training program have their hopes and dreams dashed by the inability to do the math.
• Females who work well with their hands and have been fixing stuff around their homes for years realize that they can become carpenters or plumbers or even electricians—if only they could pass the qualifying math test to get into the union apprenticeship program
• Females who want to start their own business and breeze through the “verbal” part of a business plan but be utterly stymied by the “math” (market research, marketing plan, fiscal analyses, etc.) part.

That this concentration on the “low” end will eventually reap rewards at the “high” end is not in doubt. It is proverbial: invest in a woman improves and her family and community benefit. Our students have already begun to pass their newly-acquired mathematics proficiency to their daughters—many of whom will surely go on to be the mathematicians, scientists and engineers of the future.

The United States Department of Labor defines nontraditional employment [for women] as jobs in fields where there are 25% or fewer women. Most of these jobs are high-paying, the work is interesting, and there are opportunities for life-long advancement in the fields. Surprise: most of these jobs are related in varying degrees with mathematical proficiency! Competition for these jobs took place among only 50% of the population—coincidently, the same 50% of the population that controls mathematics education. It is illogical to expect that this self-contained and self-interested percentage of the population is in anyway motivated to change the status quo.

Nothing is going to change unless and until we take direct control and complete charge of our own math education.

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Would you like us to conduct a workshop at your site? You may either fill out our Assessment form or contact us via our online form. Thank you!