Descartes Learning Club

Founded by a Stanford alumna with a passion for providing world-class math and logic education to young minds, Descartes Learning Club is a boutique premium math enrichment program that offers world-class after-school math and logic enrichment classes and day camps.

Founding Story: As a picky parent looking for simply the best math education for my mathematically inclined child, I had my child try every existing offering in the market. However, I found them too rigid, too dry, and lacking the individualized, high-quality teaching I was looking for. Therefore, I left my executive career and started Descartes Learning Club to offer an extremely high-quality math learning experience that I would like my child to have because many more children deserve this to achieve greatness in life.

Our world-class advisors include Lexing Ying, a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, and Xiaomin Chen, a former coach of the Chinese IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) team, which currently ranks #1 worldwide.

While numerous math programs exist, we differentiate by offering the best quality through our tiny class size of 2-6 students, featuring lots of 1:1 guidance, our expertly trained instructors, who both have solid math backgrounds and received our rigorous training in math teaching best practices using the latest evidence-based research and our highly engaging and effective curriculum that teaches mathematical abstraction thinking, conceptual understanding, and calculation fluency. 

Below please find our differences in more detail:

1. Our tiny class size of 2-6 students, enabling both individualized teaching at each student’s optimal math level and collaborative social learning: We group students at similar math levels in classes of only 2-6 students. Their learning experience is fundamentally more productive and enjoyable than in larger classes of 12 or more students due to the 1:1 Socratic dialogs they enjoy investigating math while benefiting from individually calibrated challenges and collaborative peer learning. 
2. Math enrichment curriculums that develop problem-solving minds and a love for mathematics: We teach math abstraction and problem-solving strategies and foster a love for mathematics through a rich mix of problems, puzzles, and games. For example, we provide an exploration of Pascal’s Triangle and Fibonacci Sequence, investigate numbers as geometric shapes, introduce the art of combinatorics through intriguing puzzles, and explore other topics such as game theory and set theory either covered by the popular Berkeley Math Circle program or authored by our curriculum development experts. Students also develop calculation fluency by playing games and solving puzzles.
3. Compassionate and expertly trained instructors who bring solid mathematical backgrounds and use evidence-based and time-tested math teaching best practices: We interview over 50 candidates to hire each instructor. All our instructors have a background in math or related fields, a passion for educating children, and experience teaching math or STEM subjects. We further train them on the latest math teaching best practices using our rigorous proprietary training program and regularly coach all of our instructors to ensure the highest quality.​