Innovative Teacher Gives Calculus a Boost at South Hills High School 

For many high school students, the idea of taking Calculus is intimidating, but an inventive teacher at Fort Worth ISD’s South Hills High School is turning the tide and getting students excited about the subject.  

Forrest Adams, a former design engineer at Lockheed Martin, decided to become a teacher in 2006, and is using his career experience to interest students in mathematics. 

“I’ve always believed that one reason students find mathematics difficult is because they don’t understand how it is used to solve ‘real world’ problems, and thereby become disinterested,” says Adams. “My hope was that my experiences designing military aircraft would provide me with many examples that could be used in the classroom to generate student interest in learning high school mathematics.”  

Apparently, his teaching method has done exactly as he had hoped. From a first-year enrollment of five students in his AP Calculus class, the second-year enrollment jumped to 38 students. Adams credits his colleagues at South Hills for creating a “team” that is helping make the program a success.  

“An effective teacher depends on many other team members for support,” he says. “I think the theme on our yearbook, ‘We Are One’ says it best – it takes everyone working together as a team to be successful and I’ve seen much evidence of that at South Hills High School this year.” 

And true to his unique approach, Adams decided to take the unexpected step of offering a non-credit Calculus Camp this summer to help prep students for next year’s AP Calculus course. 

 “I created the registration form and announced the opportunity in class last week,” says Adams, noting that his friends warned him that most kids aren’t going to jump at the opportunity to spend part of their summer doing mathematics when it isn’t a requirement.  

“This may be the biggest surprise of my teaching experience. As of Friday, I’ve received 21 registration forms. I think this is truly amazing… These kids are the best!”

- FWISD -