July 22, 2018 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Mathematics in Education
As I was saying last night, in the modern
world any decent mathematician can expect to make a fairly comfortable living
by virtue of his mathematical knowledge/skills thanks to the exponential rise
in the need of strong mathematical problem-solving skills to get through
competitive exams.
Eventually it is the outcome of such
extremely competitive exams that determines how well a child will do in his or
her future life.
It is also interesting to know that all the
great civilizations that ever came to be on this planet, including Ancient
Greece, the Roman Empire, the Hindu Vedic Civilization and the ancient Egypt,
made elementary mathematics compulsory part of education system.
It is a different story that most of these
civilizations reserved such formal education to only male children of their
society, and even within that subgroup confined imparting to those belonging to
affluent or higher socio-economic status.
It is strange that in Europe during the
early Renaissance there was a decline in the status of mathematical education
for it was seen related to trade and commerce and hence deemed un-Christian.
You would be surprised to know that the
first printed English textbook on arithmetic was published only as late as in
1543 titled ‘The Ground of Arts’ written by the Welsh doctor and mathematician
Robert Recorde.
It was this Welsh doctor who invented the
equals sign (=) as we know now and introduced the plus sign (+) to the island
nation of England.
After the industrial revolution starting
from 18th century there was no looking back.
Why so?
The answer is urban population boom!
Suddenly the human apes were crawling all
over the crowded filthy cities counting money and working for each other at
fixed times that demanded a working knowledge of basic arithmetic and elementary
numeracy skills.
The first Chair in a department of
mathematics was made only as late as in 1893 in the University of Göttingen under
the administration of Felix Klein about whom I intend to do a story in future
if I do not end up dead before that.
In today’s world, basic practical
mathematics that is essential to follow any professional career or trade and
craft includes arithmetic, elementary algebra, plane and solid geometry and of
course, trigonometry.
All these branches are no more alien to any
human ape ‘sufficiently educated’ and perhaps in some way needed for a
fulfilling life though seeing the apes around us in high positions of power and
affluence, it would not be incorrect for you to disagree with me.
Euclidian geometry ideally must be
introduced to young minds as an ideal model of axiomatic system and to develop
their deductive reasoning.
Perhaps it can be introduced also as a
system of mathematical logic though truly speaking mathematical logic is hardly
taught at all at ‘junior levels’ which I find very surprising.
We shall continue with our story on
mathematical learning in the nights to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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