“The function of the school is to teach children what the world is like and not to instruct them in the art of living.” Hannah Arendt, 1954
When a small child begins her journey through state funded education, she carries many different aspirations. My hope is, that this journey provides some key experiences: to be part of a community, build confidence in asking questions, find intellectual challenge and satisfaction and begin to form an understanding of her world. I would like her to leave feeling sufficiently enriched and empowered to be able to make her own decisions about how to live purposefully and peacefully.
Many teachers hope to find ways to make compelling connections between the curriculum and the world outside the classroom but despite being convinced of the beauty, power and applications of maths they struggle to do this.
Teachers across the disciplines have opportunities to open her eyes to the history of human culture and to help her to make connections with the world around her. Teachers reading this article would want to ensure that she engages with thinking about gender, race, equity, sustainability and many other social justice themes.
Understanding the world
We do not know when our infants enter school exactly what the world will be like when they leave, and I doubt whether anyone predicted that last year’s school leavers would be facing a global pandemic that cancelled their exams and curtailed their next steps. As a maths teacher and teacher educator, I have been asking how did the years of maths lessons these young people had, contribute to their understanding of this unexpected new world?
Many teachers hope to find ways to make compelling connections between the curriculum and the world outside the classroom but despite being convinced of the beauty, power and applications of maths they struggle to do this.
Perhaps most challenging of all though are demands to make maths inclusive and rights respecting against a culture of quiet classrooms set by attainment.
Starting points
Maths teachers juggle many expectations. There is always a pressure to raise attainment whilst making maths accessible, and enjoyable. Perhaps most challenging of all though are demands to make maths inclusive and rights respecting against a culture of quiet classrooms set by attainment, and to address the LfS theme of global citizenship. Scotdec have just published a set of Issue to Action resources, including Mathematics which demonstrates different ways in which maths teachers might begin to address some of these issues.
Maths is used to measure the world, and to notice trends and changes. At the start of the pandemic there was much public confusion caused by the fact that different countries gather, categorise and report information such as causes of death in different ways. People devise measuring systems because maths is a human construction. In the Issue to Action resources we look at tracking gender equality looking in parliamentary representation and school enrolment.
Data, modelling and probability
Maths is used to model the world and a wider public has come to realise that models are human constructions using chosen variables and calibrated by incomplete data. The outputs need to be interpreted and the notion that they produce one right answer like those found at the back of the book is deeply misguided. In the Issue to Action resources we consider modelling carbon footprints in the by asking the question what would have most impact on your CO2e – changing your diet or reducing the number of journeys you take?
Maths is used to communicate pattern and connection and we have seen all manner of graphs and infographics some of which are misleading, and some are meaningless. They have demanded a strong conceptual understanding of rates of change and exponential growth which is very different from learning by rote how to present a solution that gets every mark in the marking instructions. In the Issue to Action resources we look critically at migration data to help unpack some myths and misconceptions around the refugee crisis.
Bring the world into your classroom and send global mathematicians back out.
Maths is used to predict the world and quantify risk using probability theory. Over time we have seen how the reliability of tests, treatments and vaccines feed into public heath policy. In the Issue to Action materials pupils consider how to plan a refugee camp.
Real world maths
Most of the curriculum themes I have mentioned; large numbers, multiplicative reasoning, probability and rates of change are difficult topics to understand and as teachers we often settle for performance of rote learned processes. I believe that when learners grapple with mathematics in contexts that they care about and that connect to their lives they can construct conceptual and critical understanding. I hope the Scotdec issue to Action maths resources will be of use to teachers who want to bring the world into their classroom and send global mathematicians back out.
“And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” Hannah Arendt 1954
