‘Winnie Cooper’ writes a book… about math
In the process of researching a previous blog post — I call it “researching”; you’d probably call it “Googling” — I uncovered the name of a TV actor that sounded vaguely familar: Danica McKellar.
Who is Danica McKellar? She played “Winnie” on the old Wonder Years TV show, from 1988 to 1993.
Danica McKellar as “Winnie
Cooper” on “The Wonder Years.”
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She dropped off the face of the Earth, seemingly, and then resurfaced, years later, on The West Wing and, more recently, How I Met Your Mother. She also provides voices for cartoon shows such as Justice League, King of the Hill and as the Fantastic Four’s Invisible woman in the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video game.
In the meantime, she had graduated summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics from UCLA. While there, she and a couple of other folks developed and published a proof of a complicated mathematical theorem.
When she resurfaced, she began offering math tutoring to kids via her web site.
Then, last August, McKellar, 33, published Math Doesn’t Suck, a book teaching math — specifically, to girls of middle-school age.
McKellar’s math textbook.
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We have no apparent need of this book at our house. At 14, Elizabeth is a little older than this book’s target audience. And from the look of her last two report cards, she seems to be doing quite well in 9th grade math.
However, I plan to order a copy anyway ($16.29 at Amazon), just on general principle. I mean, a child actor grows up, discovers a gift for mathematics — traditionally, a subject which which young girls struggle — and then devotes this much time and energy to educating kids?
Now, that’s a real hero. As opposed to folks like Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears.
I want to be like Danica when I grow up.