The Struggles With Math
Growing up as a child I was never good at math. I struggled wrapping my head around the concepts and terms that we learned in math. My brain did not work in that sense and I have always been stronger in subjects such as english, and the arts. However a subject I was also strong at was science. Stereotypically students tend to fall under a branch of being good at math and science or english and arts. As a result of me excelling in science and not math, I always confused my teachers and would often refer to my lack of math skills as that “I was just not putting the work in, and I could do it if I really just applied myself”. The fact that I was only good in one and not the other confused my teachers and thought I was just not putting in the work to do well in math. However growing up I always had a math tutor and would spend hours with my parents doing math homework so that I could do better but math is just not my thing. This really frustrated me as a child because I was trying my hardest and they were constantly telling me I was not. I also remember an experience from when I was growing up as a child of one of my peers who struggled in reading. By the time I was in school we had textbooks with word problems. With word problems there would be a sentence up to a paragraph explaining a math question that they wanted students to figure out what the question was asking and what math to use to solve the problem. My peer who struggled with reading also struggled with math because half of our math was word problems. This puts the student at a disadvantage because of them being a little behind in reading. However I think this is unfair. When the teacher or someone else would read the problem out to them, they would know exactly what to do and were really good at math. However her grades did not reflect this because of all the reading we had to do in math. Our math textbooks that are being used should really be changed for this is not fair for the students who are good at math but struggle in reading. Our system is using peoples weakness against them for them not to excel in other subjects. Which is really not okay and is oppressing students.
When reading Poirier’s article “ Teaching Mathematics and the Inuit Community” I noticed some ways that Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas. The first one I noticed was “Inuit children learn mathematics in their mother tongue during the first three years of schooling” (Poirier p.54). I really liked this concept because math is a subject that a lot of students struggle with in school. With math already being known as a subject that is harder this would be even harder for students who do not speak the language that it is being taught to them in. With Inuit children being taught math in their mother tongue would be a huge advantage to them for they would be able to learn the basic stepping stones for math, and be able to fully understand it for it would be in their mother tongue. This would give students a better start of them doing well in math. Another point the article states is that “Inuit children develop spatial representations that are different from those of children who live in a city like Montreal” (Poirier p.55). As a result of this they use different ways to teach math that would adapt to the students’ lives more. The article gives an example of how a 12-year-old student raised by a traditionalist grandfather who did not send him to school. He was now attending school but was failing dramatically. When I taught the class how to play a strategy game, ‘Nine Men’s Morris,’ he was the first to understand the rules and how to move the pawns on the board. He also won every single game he played. But sadly enough, the current curriculum does not put much emphasis on these strengths.” (Poirier p.55). With an Eurocentric outlook on math every student is given the same information and taught the same way no matter what their background looks like. This is a huge problem because not every student is the same and everyone learns differently. With Inuit mathematics they take the math that is being needed to learn and teach it in a way for every student to understand and see how it fits in their own life. The third thing I notice about Inuit mathematics that is different from Eurocentric mathematics is the idea of a pen and pencil. With a Eurocentric viewpoint of math all math is done with a pencil and a piece of paper and is written down to show one’s work. “Traditional Inuit teaching is based on observing an elder or listening to enigmas. These enigmas can be clues for problem solving in mathematics” (Poirier p.55). They use more listening and adapting so the math can apply to the students’ lives. With this tool the teacher can really find out what the students know by listening to what the student is saying. They are using everyday experiences that the students would live through and applying it to a subject so that they can understand better. I think that the Inuit style of math is a much better way of teaching math and should be more applied in math in the rest of Canada. If it was, I think students would do much better in math and math would not be seen as such a hard subject.
Sources: Poirier, L. (2007). Teaching mathematics and the Inuit community, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 7(1), p. 53-67.
