To test your mental agility, try this simple problem (Listen | Read). Did you get that? If you did, congratulations. You might be able to keep up with the fifth graders in Brainerd. Most adults can only hang on for dear life. But with daily practice and a little enthusiasm, Dan Bzdok's class of 10-year-olds learns to track him every step of the way. What's more, these kids in central Minnesota can't fathom how legions of students, before and after, could ever claim to hate math class. The answer to the problem, by the way, is seven.

	Wide-eyed students grip their desks until Bzdok calls for an answer, when hands shoot in the air. Want to listen to more? Listen to the class work through a series of problems. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

It's 10:00 in the morning, and the fifth-graders are silent. That seems like a small miracle in itself to anyone familiar with fifth graders. They are waiting for their teacher Dan Bzdok, known around here as Mr. B, who is perched on a stool at the front of the room.

There are no pencils, no paper, no calculators in sight. The numbers fly too fast for that.

The mental math drills are a daily ritual for 10 minutes at the beginning of math period. The school year is still young, and these kids have been at it for less than two months. But they're good enough already to make you wonder who's slipping them the answers.

Parents are amazed. Fellow teachers are amazed. Bzdok himself has been doing this five years, and he's still amazed.

"In my opinion, young kids are sponges," Bzdok says. "Their minds are sponges. They do stuff that I can't do. By the time the year is over, the stuff that I give them mentally I couldn't do if someone were to do it back to me."

	Every student in the class does their best to keep up and get better each week. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

Every week a little faster, a little harder. By the end of the year, the kids will be correcting him. There are no gimmicks, and none of those techniques hawked on late-night mental math infomercials. Just practice.

"They want it, they actually ask for it," Bzdok says. "Even at noontime they want me to do some problems before they go to lunch. That's the beauty of it. It's not so much that we're getting better at math. They want math. And I think that's the key to it all.

"They like it, so they enjoy doing it, they ask for it. Yesterday I skipped it, because we had to get a test taken care of or something. They were kind of upset with me that we didn't take our 10 minutes to do the mental math."

They say it's better than reading and social studies. That raises the obvious question. Is it better... than recess? The kids say they like them both about the same.

	Fifth-grade teacher Dan Bzdok (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

These fifth graders prepare for mental math like they're heading into a track meet. They say they need a good night's sleep and a good breakfast beforehand. Taylor Satre says friends can tell she's ready when she's jumping up and down. And she's not the only student in the class who says she practices after-hours.

"My mom makes me practice 20 minutes before I go to bed so I can get it," Satre says. "I call my cousin on the phone. He's like a math freak. He gives me problems that are way faster, so I can do it better in class."

For Bzdok the drills are not about teaching kids a new parlor trick. He's managed to convince everyone in the room that math can be fun. Michael Monda looks at things the way Mr. B would want him to: A competition against himself. Monda sizes up his performance by saying he did OK today, and adds that he managed by and large to block out the pressure of having a reporter in the room.

	Dan Bzdok's view. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

Monda's not the fastest in the class, and that's fine with him. He knows he's getting better. Still, every now and then a legend is born. Monda breathlessly relates the tale:

"There was a kid named Rob Veith, and he was the fastest kid in the class last year and Mr. B did a turbotime that was like five minutes long and the answer was 36 and right when he said answer Rob's hand just shot right up. It was cool."

For fifth grade teacher, that just may be the ultimate compliment: Math is cool.