My name is Joe Youcha. I’m the Founder and Director of Building To Teach, a train-the-trainer program for hands-on math instructors, and a proud community collaborator of Maritime High School. Building To Teach reintroduces the building process as a context for math instruction, and I’m excited about the opportunity to utilize my experience to support instructors in teaching project-based math to the students at Maritime High School.
How does a history major who trained as an architectural restoration carpenter end up designing hands-on math curriculum and training math instructors? I’m glad you asked… When I was five, my dad brought home an eight-foot wooden sailing pram. By the time I was eight, we had taken it apart and put it back together. The experience hooked me on wooden boats and they’ve never been far from my life. I’ve spent the last 30 years building and running programs that use wooden boats and carpentry as “the hook” to get young people engaged and on their path towards a successful life. It’s been a progression from working directly with young people to training and connecting others to do that work.
For 18 years, I ran the Alexandria Seaport Foundation (VA) where we developed community, family, and educational boat building programs. We also developed a boat building “apprenticeship” program for youth in the community who were furthest from resources that evolved into a hands-on, contextual, job-based GED program as well as a certified pre-apprenticeship for the Carpenters’ Union. Twelve years ago, I launched Building To Teach and, today, over 1,000 instructors use these materials—teaching everywhere from Union Apprenticeship programs to middle schools. 
I’m now using my expertise to help support the strategy around the maritime industry Project Design Work Groups, as well as provide content support to teachers and develop materials to teach project-based math curriculum to the students of Maritime High School.
We teach math not because we love it, but because it’s a necessary tool for so much good, rewarding work. The lack of math skills can be a real boundary to future success when pursuing higher education or a career in the building trades. No one should be held back by not being able to learn (and use!) basic arithmetic, fractions, practical geometry, right angle trigonometry, and simple algebra. I’ve come to believe that the key is having good instructors teaching in a hands-on environment to demonstrate the usefulness of the knowledge. To quote the Training Within Industries program from World War II (remember, I like history), “If the student hasn’t learned, the instructor hasn’t taught.”
If I can help Maritime High School instructors teach practical math, help MHS students remove boundaries in their paths towards success, and get those students turned on to small boats, I’m all in!
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