The article confronts a widespread prejudice about mathematical knowledge that mathematics is ''culture free''. This is proved by demonstrating alternative construction of geometrical shapes developed from traditional culture of human kind.
In most cases in the third world countries ,post independence education has not succeed in appeasing thirst for knowledge of its people.Although there have been a drastic increase in the number of students population in schools,the current over crowded classes brought by millennium goal of free universal primary education,shortage of teachers and lack of teaching/learning materials have always contributed to the low level of concept attainment in mathematics education. The post colonial government practically planted mathematics curriculum from industrialised countries, thus ending up mathematics being taken as an entry point to the university education.
Mathematics is therefore structured in the interest of the social elite, leaving out the indigenous mathematical skills which was rich in very many aspects.Mathematics education is so far referred to as the most effective filter as put by El Tom.
Mathematics education is used as a barrier to social access, no any other subject in school serves so well this filtering purpose of reinforcement of power structure as does mathematics. In African culture, a girl child was taken as a source of acquiring wealth through payment of dowry by the suitor, to the few who managed to access education early days, were discouraged in performing well in mathematics and termed as a boy oriented subject.This trend is still visible in schools especially Kenya and Uganda where I have experienced.
A case study in Mozambique which is a replica to many of third world countries, mathematics is mainly taught by teachers who are a bully with harsh punishments and as a result most learners don't like the subject. The curriculum formulators have been forced to make mathematics a compulsory subject, the methods used is rote memory whereby learners are forced to recite mathemathecal tables and other formulae.
Experiment showed that a native adult African Kpellen tribe in the remote part of Mozambique performed better than an adult North American when solving problems like approximation of number of rice fullcups in a container.This definetly belongs to indigenous mathematics,serious douts about the effectiveness of school mathematics teaching are also raised by Latin American researcher Eduado Luna of Dominican Republic, who posed a question if it is possible, but this happens frequently as shown by the Brasillian Carraher and Schlienmann,children,who knew before they went to school ,how to solve creatively arithmetical problems which they encountered in daily life eg at the market place, could later in the school, not solve the same problem ,they can not solve it with the method taught in the arithmetic class.This concludes that learned matheracy eliminates the so called spontaneous matheracy. An individual who manages perfectly well numbers, options, geometric forms, and notions, when facing completely new and formal approach to the same facts and needs, creates a psychological blockade which grows as a barrier between the different modes of numerical and geometrical thought.How can this psychological blockade be avoided ?
Gay and Cole became convinced that it is neccessary to investigate first the indigenous mathematics in order to build effective bridges from indigenous mathematics to the new mathematics to be introduced in schools.The teacher should begin with materials of the indigenous culture leading the learner to the use them in creative way and from there advance to the new school mathematics.
The incoporation of ethnomathematics into the curriculum in order to avoid a psychological blockade should be embressed by teachers also elimination of related culture. Traditional form of education reflects accumulated experience and wisdom. It constitute not only biological and physical knowledge about the materials that are used, but also mathematical knowledge about properties and relation of circles, angles, rectangles, squares, polygons, cones, pyramids, cylinders and etc as displayed in WEAVING and BUILDING techniques.
QUESTION
How would you use ethnomathematic education as an introductory to a new mathematic lesson ?
James, I resonated with a few of the points that you highlighted from this article. First, when I have students referred to my program there are always more boys than girls in grades 3 through 7. I also see the psychological blockade that happens as students spend more time in school. For example, a color soduko is an introductory activity that I have done with both grade 3 and 7 learners; often the grade 3 students do it more quickly. I wonder if this is because they study patterns more readily, if they show more flexibility in their thinking and because they use physical manipulatives more.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to your question, the textiles field trip reminded me of how we can use fabric to teach patterns to K-1 students. I worked with teacher who was having a very hard time teaching ABAB pattern but I think the barrier for students were the symbols. Punjabi suits are quite ornate and so I wonder if relating to something students see their mothers wearing would help students to relate their knowledge base to new information.
I find that as I help students when they are having difficulty with a mathematical concepts, in my effort to relate to them I sometimes find commonalities when I draw from my Indian (the country) background. For instance, one student was having difficulty with her hand as a reference point for estimation and I asked if her parents ever count according to the segments on their fingers. She told me about how her mom measures rice with the tip of her finger in a pot in order to see how deep the water is and I realized my mom does the same thing. Also, my mom measures fabric with arm lengths at the store. I have started with the fabric example in order to teach the concept of ratio with different body parts. Is our arm span the same as our height? Can we prove or disprove the golden rectangle? and so on.
If the teacher has the indigenous background, she or he might be able to lead ethnomathematics to the new mathematics by themselves. However, if she or he were not, it would be difficult for them to build the bridge. What I have read is about an Australian project that non-indigenous teachers cooperate with indigenous people who belong their community to build mathematics lessons for the indigenous children. One of remarkable point in this project is that the participated indigenous people not only gave opinions about indigenous culture, but also worked with mathematics teachers from the developing the whole class plan to the activities in the class. (See, “Make it Count” project, https://mic.aamt.edu.au/)
ReplyDeleteBecause it might be tough for most of the teachers to teach ethnomathematics, they should work together with the expertise in the community to help to build a whole mathematics class that involves both ethnomathematics and the new mathematics.