As I’ve been looking into the application of mathematics in our lives I have also been looking into how this differs for people in different cultures and lifestyles.
It is important to ensure that numeracy or mathematics that is taught in schools are relevant to a students life and the skills learnt are able to be transferred into different learning areas. Siemon, Beswick, Brady, Clark, Faragher & Warren (2015, p.171) give an example of students investigating mortgage rates to provide a ‘real life’ example of how mathematics is used in everyday life. The example then describes that although this may suit some students it provide little, if any, real life use to students of economically disadvantaged students.
Examples such as this are important in ensuring teacher consider a range of cultures and student backgrounds when planning lessons. As a teacher it is very easy to think that your own background, opinions and beliefs are the way that everyone has been brought up.
Some other examples of how a students background and culture can affect numeracy:
*working out distances for a student who has never ventured outside of their home town.
*using something large such as car purchase to teach about budgeting, when students are from financially disadvantaged families.
*Expecting students to be able to utilize and consistently use technology when they might not have access outside of school.
These are just a few examples. I am not saying that these are not relevant ways to teach numeracy, but teachers just need to make considerations about a students understanding and everyday life, in comparison to what the teacher considers the ‘norm’.
References:
Siemon, D., Beswick, K., Brady, K., Clark, J., Faragher, R. & Warren, E. (2015). Teaching Mathematics: Foundation to middle years. 2nd edition. Melbourne: Oxford.
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Hi Amber,
I really recommend having a quick look into ethnomathematics- although that’s not your topic, I believe it links strongly to the points you were making here! I pasted a few readings you might like below, even if you just skim through them!
I think you are also making really good point about the importance of transferrable knowledge/ skills- which is what we really should be teaching our students! They need to be able to use skills in a number of different circumstances by problem solving and thinking critically/ creatively. I also liked that you gave examples of how different backgrounds (both cultural and economical) can impact a child’s perceptions of mathematics in school- really important things for us as teachers to keep in mind!
Ethnomathematics: the cultural aspects of mathematics (Rosa & Orey, 2011)
Click to access Rosa2011Ethnomathematics.pdf
Critical Numeracy? (Johnston, 1995)
Click to access ER09678.pdf
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Thanks Charlie for all of your input. After reading other peoples blogs i will definitely make sure that ethnomathematics is included into my blog. Until it had read other peoples, I had never heard of the term, but now i believe it all links into every area of mathematics and is an integral part of teaching as well as learning mathematics.
Thanks for all of the readings, they will definitely help me to improve the blog.
Thanks
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