Remember memorizing multiplication tables? Forgetting whether you flipped the numerator or the denominator in dividing fractions? Getting a knot in your stomach at the mention of math class?

Shannon VanderMale, the new math specialist at Essex Elementary School, wants to make sure those worries are a thing of the past. Shannon, who has been the school’s math coach for six years, has recently taken on the additional role of math specialist, a position funded by the Essex Elementary School Foundation. The math specialist grant is for one year, at which point the program will be revisited to determine its strengths and areas for further development.

The emphasis for the math specialist, Shannon says, is to develop a variety of innovative strategies to encourage critical thinking and problem solving using a variety of math skills. She works with classroom teachers and says that some of the approaches she uses will ultimately be incorporated into ongoing classroom lessons.

“In the real world, people don’t tell you this is a multiplication problem or a division problem. You have to use your math skills,” she explains.

Shannon visits all classrooms and creates activities and problems for students to tackle. To approach math from a different perspective, she uses what is called math manipulatives — colored blocks, popsicle sticks, even poppit sheets — to visualize the number combinations and available solutions in math problems.

“Some kids need a visual strategy,” she says.

Creative imagination on Shannon’s part is vital as she develops lessons.

“We are competing with video games, with YouTube,” she says. “They are used to immediate gratification. We need to excite them.”

Sixth graders, for example, did a water bottle flipping exercise to see which bottles landed upright as a way to learn about shape, circumference, area, and probability.

On a recent afternoon, while Shannon was talking to a reporter, two students came into her room, waving their math papers to show her their solutions.

She says that at different grade levels, the same problem can be approached with different strategies.

Sixth graders could use multiplication in a solution that younger students would approach by addition.

Shannon links her math activities to STEM concepts that are part of the science curriculum. STEM is the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math.

Shannon says that before COVID, some 60 percent of fourth to sixth graders participated in the Math Olympiad program, arriving at school at 7:45 a.m. to do competitive math problems. Since COVID, that number has dropped but is now climbing back.

“Kids didn’t see their older brothers and sisters doing it,” she explains. There are no individual prizes in the competition, but according to Shannon, the students want to beat other grades. “You can’t imagine the pride. It is awesome,” she says.

Shannon started out at Essex Elementary teaching fifth and sixth grades for eight years, but at that point she was looking for a change.

“I probably would have been happy if I had gone to second and third grade, but the position of math coach opened up, and I wanted to try something new,” she recalls.

Shannon, who grew up in Enfield, started out at the University of Connecticut as a cell biology major but switched to education. For her, it was a move from her father’s career to her mother’s. Both are now retired, but he was a scientist working at Hartford Hospital; her mother was a school principal in West Hartford.

Three years ago, Shannon and her husband Brett moved from Colchester to Essex.

“We wanted our children to go to the Region 4 schools,” she says.

The couple has two children, Eliza, a kindergartner at Essex Elementary, and Brooks, a two-year-old.

Region 4 is very much a part of their lives. Brett teaches fifth grade math and science at Deep River Elementary School. The pair actually met at a Region 4 staff Wellness Wednesday program, which emphasizes both fitness and fun. On this occasion, the activity was a volleyball game. As she looks back on it, Shannon finds one thing puzzling.

“I hate volleyball,” she confesses.

To combine family, work, and her athletic regimen, Shannon gets up at 4:15 in the morning. Three days a week, she runs, but in spite of the dark, she is visible. She runs with a vest that has a light that changes colors on it. The other mornings, she spins or lifts weights.

She has run both marathons and ultra-marathons, races longer than the standard marathon length of 26 miles 385 yards. She prefers the ultra-marathons. Marathons, she says, are extremely competitive, but ultramarathons have a different feeling.

“People are supportive. It’s wonderful,” she says.

Her favorite ultra-marathon was a 120-mile contest in New Jersey, all run around a one-mile track. There was support; runners could get something to eat, have a shower, even take a nap. It took Shannon 24 hours to complete the race.

“I definitely took breaks,” she reports.

Shannon says that she, too, has learned from the math specialist position.

“I think I am much better at learning new ways to solve problems, asking what other ways there are to solve this,” she says. And that is a lesson, she emphasizes, that goes well beyond math skills. “If one thing doesn’t work, you look for other approaches to take for a solution.”