On a June Sunday in New York City, a small group of dedicated professionals gathered to discuss a new way to educate America’s middle school children about mathematics. The setting was a cozy neighborhood restaurant in Greenwich Village, and the meeting consisted of a plethora of people, most with very different educational backgrounds and professions. But all shared one goal: to reinvent the way American children learn math.

What’s wrong with the way math is being taught now? Well, that was the first topic addressed at this meeting of math educators and math enthusiasts. The meeting’s organizer was Glen Whitney, a mathematician, former math teacher, and former hedge fund manager who is founder and executive director of Momath, or the Museum of Mathematics, a new interactive math museum that will be located in Manhattan. Whitney and Momath’s team had discovered that there was no museum of mathematics in the U.S., and yet there is incredible demand among teachers and students for hands-on math activities.

Whitney explained that today’s students are not being captured by math in the classroom or taught about its fascinating potential; rather, they are subjected to boring equations and told to memorize them. Many math teachers present the subject strictly to be sure that their students will pass their next exam.

This system of education is not working. In the United States, children’s math scores have been declining, compared to those of their peers in other industrialized countries. (For more information on math education in America, see Public Agenda: math). Whitney suggested that if we continue our ineffective math education, our children will suffer when they grow older and begin to seek jobs.

How can we change our approach to this exceedingly important part of education? One way is to make math more visual and more interactive, so that children can see, relate to, and get excited about the physical, three-dimensional results of what they are learning in the classroom.

The answer, Whitney suggested, was to take children outside the classroom, and into the Museum of Mathematics, where they can be excited and entertained while being educated about math. Until Momath moves into its new Manhattan building, Whitney, dressed as a carnival barker, travels around the country with the Math Midway, a colorful exhibition of carnival games, displays, and rides like a tricycle with triangular wheels – all of which drive home various aspects of mathematics in unforgettable ways. Anyone can volunteer at the Math Midway. Momath also offers tools and programs for teachers and parents in order to make sure that classrooms keep math engaging

Unfortunately, educators like Glen Whitney and the Momath team are few and far between. According to Whitney, Momath is the only museum of its kind in the country. It’s hard to avoid concluding that math education is not a pressing concern for most Americans. Please support Momath now so that it can support our future.

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