NEW YORK – Dyker Heights’ Madeline Scotto is an inspiration to her students.

Madeline Scotto (DNAinfo.com)

Her pupils at St. Ephrem’s elementary school give up their lunch hour to study with the popular math tutor, and the school principal told DNAinfo.com she “lights up the place” when she makes her way from her home across the street to the school to help out three days a week.

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“She’s amazing,” principal Annamarie Bartone said.

She’s also 100 years old and still going strong.

“Last year I thought, ‘This can’t be, that I’m going to be 100,’” Scotto told the new site. “I sat down and did the math actually. I thought, I could not trust my mind. This id had to put paper to pencil – I couldn’t believe it myself.

“It just kind of happened,” she said. “I guess I’m very lucky.”

Later this month, Scotto’s students will celebrate her birthday with an assembly at the private St. Ephrem’s school, where she was among the first graduating class in 1928.

Scotto attended St. Joseph’s College for Women to study French, but became a teacher by accident in 1954 when a bus of sisters headed to teach at the elementary school got into an wreck, and a pastor asked for volunteers to step in.

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School administrators quickly recognized mother of five “had something to offer,” Scotto told DNAinfo, and eventually assigned her to a permanent position teaching math.

“I came over and then they wouldn’t let me go,” she joked.

Scotto, who “dresses impeccably, always matching her jewelry to her outfit and foregoing a cane,” reduced her workload about 10 years ago, but continues to trudge up the school’s stairs to her classroom, where she now coaches students on multiplying and dividing in their heads for the math bee, according to the news site.

“I can’t carry my bookcase with a cane and a bookcase is more important,” she said.

And while her pupils have excelled, making it to the regional bee last year, Scotto is more focused on helping students do their best than on accolades or accomplishments.

“I never think of a child as, ‘He was a winner, he was a loser,’” Scotto told DNAinfo. “I never baby anybody – I never babied my own – but I think they know I’m sincerely interested in them doing their best.”

The centenarian said her secret to long life is pretty basic. She eats well, stays active and frugal, and doesn’t worry about much.

“I pray hard, I really work hard and I’m happy,” she said. “That’s not my fault. All the people around me make me happy.”

Scotto said she plans to celebrate her 100-year milestone with those close to her, including her children, nine grandchildren, and sixteen grandchildren. They’re taking her to somewhere “fancy” in the city over the weekend, which was her only birthday wish, according to the news site.

“I don’t need anything, really,” she said.