Winnipeg student places among top 20 in worldwide math contest

A nine-year-old Winnipeg math whizcan count himself among the 20 best mathematicians his age in the world.

Winnipeg Mennonite Elementary & Middle Schools' Grade 4 student Joshua Friesen placed 18th in the world in a recent Caribou Math Contest.

The online contest, run by Brock University, was held Oct. 18 and saw Friesen pitted against 5,753 other participants from 305 schools worldwide.

Joshua says he wasn't too surprised by hisfinish, because he loves math and has done well in the competition in the past.He came in 33rdin the world just last year.

"On the next test, I'm going to do even better," said Joshua, who answered quickly when asked why he loves math so much. "I'm good at it."

Being good at math is something that runs in the Friesen family.His dad Todd is an actuaryand it's something the whole family bonds over, said his mom, Ruth.

"We do math games at home," said Ruth, who laughedwhen she admittedthe family even does math problems in the carto pass the time. "I guess we're kind of a nerdy math family."

Ruth says her son has always shown an aptitude for math.

"In Grade 1 when his teacher would have the kids do addition and subtraction, they would chart how many questions they were getting right and he was off the charts," she says. "So by the end of Grade 1, she had bumped him into multiplication already."

Now Josh is workingon math books that are at a Grade 7 level when he's at home doing problems with his dad.

Like Josh, Todd says he's always loved mathand decided to practice outside of class because he can remember not feeling challenged by the subject in school himself.

"I always thought with Josh that if I pushed him a little bit, maybe I could bring him up to his level and see what he's capable of doing," he said. "And he has fun doing it, so it's been great."

Ruth says making sure a gifted child is encouraged without feeling they're being pushed can be challenging at times.

"Sometimes, if I see that Josh is getting a little bored with the math that my husband's doing with him, I'll suggest that it's time to move on to something else," she said. "We don't try to make it a big deal we try to make it fun and not topush it too hard."

The Caribou Math Contest has five more online math tests this school yearand Friesenis looking forward to trying to improve on his ranking throughout the year.