Our aim is, naturally, to achieve the goals set out in the founding document of the Foundation, which are as follows:
- Finding talented students within and outside the borders of our country (including those referred to us by their teachers, parents or themselves, as well as those we reach via our own initiatives.) Talent development for our students via mathematical camps, extracurricular classes, and individual or small group activities.
- Providing existential (sometimes financial) support to our students within the scope of our abilities.
- Devoting special attention and techniques to finding and training materially deprived students.
- Popularizing our methods (and discovery-based teaching of mathematics in particular) among teachers.
- Providing training for university students and teacher graduates to be successful at applying our methodology.
The Foundation wishes to help students get the most out of their talents, achieving their goals and being of help to others. It also supports those helping students towards the same aims.
Our current area of activity
Our main objectives are to maintain the weekend camp program, initiated by Lajos Pósa in 1988, at its current quality standards, as well as ensuring that MaMuT camps, held annually since 2004, run smoothly.
We find it very important to “expand” both programs, in the sense that we want to make them known and available for as many students as possible. We also seek to get more teachers involved, so that they may organize similar camps with or without our support. Apart from these, we run university courses on certain aspects of our methodology (at ELTE and BSM), and we hold extracurricular classes in schools.
Further goals and activities
These are also mentioned in the founding document.
We must consider the possibility of expanding our field of activities, should additional support become available. In this case, our primary goals could be:
- To expand the range of talented students we work with so that it may include everyone interested.
- With the aim of a complete reform of mathematics teaching, we could launch experimental classes in schools, and develop, test and distribute a discovery-based curriculum.
- Bringing together students of various talents in camps, extracurricular classes or elsewhere, in order to put their knowledge and skills to use, becoming more engaged in sharing them with others.
- Organizing and supporting non-mathematical camps by working with qualified teachers from other disciplines.
- Building connections with foreign experts of talent development and management. Organizing foreign-language camps for international students in Hungary or abroad.
Long-term goals
Our long-term goals include the following points:
- Strengthening the connection between mathematical and computer science knowledge, developing these two areas simultaneously with the help of extracurricular classes, camps and individual or small-group programs.
- Documenting and distributing our activities and concepts in written form or by videos.
- Helping talented university students with their career choices.
- Initiating and supporting competitions.
- Setting up grants for the development of mathematics teaching.
- Providing funding or scholarships for research.
- Communicating and cooperating with talent management organizations in Hungary and abroad.
- Editing and publishing problem sets of various mathematics competitions.
- Conducting research in mathematics, mathematics education and pedagogy.
- Supporting the publication of mathematical textbooks, monographs and journals both on a national and international level.
- Supporting the translation and distribution of foreign mathematical instructional materials for all types of schools.
- Providing support for participating in national and international conferences, seminars and study visits.