The competition. The analysis. The glory that goes with victory. The agony of defeat. These are all reasons why people play fantasy sports (and more specifically, fantasy football). But it also makes for good teaching lessons in math classes for kids. Some middle school students in Ashland, Mass. are apparently picking up on the phenomenon. You would think they would get in trouble for drafting and picking up players during class, but it’s being supported by teachers at the school.

According to the story:

In the online computer game, students drafted players from different NFL clubs and managed their own fantasy dream teams, tracking and earning points based on how their players performed on the real-life field. In the process, the students learned valuable math skills, said teacher Kristen Lamothe, who runs the after-school group.

In drafting their teams, students had to work within a budget and coordinate real-life player schedules so they had enough athletes for each game. Each Wednesday, they met to track statistics and use multiplication, division and other skills to calculate how many points they had earned, depending on each player’s performance.

It makes a lot of sense, bringing something fun and tangible that uses math skills. In the process the students compete with one another and it turns into a running project, running the length of the pro season just like regular fantasy football leagues.

This is not a new phenomenon, and there’s actually a website for this movement, called Fantasy Sports and Mathematics. The founder of the site, Dan Flockhart has been featured before on ESPN and other news outlets. I think what is significant is the increasing acceptance with which schools are adopting fantasy sports as a legitimate way to teach math in schools. They have websites and sell instructional packages and books from major retailers like Borders and Amazon.

That’s some serious math and learning going on in the schools, I have to say. But where was this when I was a sixth grader?