National Mathematics Day 2024: Essential role of maths in shaping future innovators

There are few things within education systems around the world that evoke as much terror in the hearts and minds of students as Maths. According to a Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study of 15-year-old students from the 38 member countries of the OECD, 61% students worry about their Math grades, 59% reported feeling stressed at the thought of attending their Math classes, 33% fear their Math homework, and 30% feel helpless to do anything.

The most damning thing about this kind of crippling fear of Math is that it often creates a loop – the more a student fears Math, the less likely they are to understand it or score well in it, and poor performance will then further add to the fear… All of which ends in the student feeling powerless and desperate.

Also read: NBE DNB Counselling 2024 Round 2 seat allotment results released at natboard.edu.in, direct link here

It’s nothing short of tragic that a subject as fundamental to a child’s education as Mathematics should be the source of so much agony to young minds for large parts of their most important learning years. Ask any educator and they will recount stories of the shocking lengths helpless students will go to to eliminate any question of Math learning from their lives, as soon as they are able to.

The folly here is twofold: A lack of deep understanding of the role that Math plays in a student’s academic and future life; and equally, why is it that students are being taught in a way that is terrifying them and turning them off a very important academic and life skill? Something has not been working for a long time, and yet we continue doing it instead of fixing the problem. This approach simply does not make sense.

Also read: Appearing for UPPSC PCS Prelims Exams 2024 tomorrow? Make sure you follow these instructions, check list here

Math as a critical component for success… In every field!

Excelling at Mathematics goes far beyond tests, exams, and scores. Good scores in Math exams can help students gain an advantage while picking the colleges and universities they want to attend for higher studies, but that’s simply a short-term benefit. Math actually continues to play a role in a student’s life long after schooling ends.

It’s only through Mathematics that students can build new knowledge and understanding of the world using what is already known – because Math is, at its foundation, the craft of deduction and abstractions.

Also read: Kejriwal announces Ambedkar scholarship for free foreign education of Dalit students in Delhi

Math helps kids:

1. Build the habit of breaking down complex problems into smaller, solvable parts instead of getting overwhelmed by the complexity of what is in front of them as a whole.
2. Gain confidence in their decision-making, once they base their logic for doing or not doing something on analysis of data.
3. Develop sharp critical thinking skills because once students get comfortable with the numbers in front of them, they are able to synthesise, analyse, and recognise patterns to come up with interesting insights about the questions they are attempting to answer.
4. Become more imaginative, as they build creative hypotheses around the problems they are trying to solve based on the information they do have.
5. Seek accuracy and clarity in the things they do because numerical evidence leads to absolute conclusions.

But for students to truly benefit from all that Math has to offer even if they don’t intend to pursue STEM, we need to change the way we’re offering it to them.

There’s been some debate in recent years about the linearity of learning within Math. Generally speaking, kids around the first follow the path of: basic calculation (addition, subtraction) >> multiplication >> division >> algebra >> geometry >> trigonometry >> calculus (the pinnacle).

But one interesting school of thought posits, quite radically, that Maths would be a lot more joyful and interesting to kids if its learning trajectory followed the way human beings think and how kids otherwise grow and learn. If a child’s imagination is shining at its brightest while they are still discovering the universe around them, shouldn’t they be learning about Math concepts that deal with continuous change, pattern, and structure (calculus, basically)?

Proponents of this theory strongly believe that forcing kids to start their Mathematical journey through the rules of calculation is not only developmentally disadvantageous as it closes their neural pathways, but also makes the subject so tedious that most kids want to avoid it. And so starts the journey of disinterestedness that makes students fall increasingly behind at Math, resulting in them giving up on the subject altogether.

It is undeniable that radical changes in breaking the hierarchies of learning in Math are a long way off, especially within formal learning structures and systems.

But that does not mean we can’t make Math learning fun and engaging for children on an individual level. We need to make Math real and bring it close to life.

Show students how Math makes an appearance in the arrangements of notes in music; in the ratio of elements in art; in the movements of the planets and the galaxies in the universe in physics; in how the most minute fluctuations within our bodies can lead to drastic effects in our biology; in the form of microquantities in chemistry, in the particular arrangements of words and sounds in English that can evoke a desired response… Math is everywhere, and in the most beautiful ways possible.

What follows from this is that we need to accept that a one-size-fits-all approach to Math is not how we can encourage a sense of wonder for the subject in kids. While we can help kids become faster and more accurate with their calculations through a plethora of mental math tricks, practised through puzzles, we also need to supplement this learning through visual learning tools and simulations based on their particular interests, to make Math learning last a lifetime.

All of this is possible only when parents and teachers work together to rewrite the story of Mathematics in students’ minds by aspiring to deep understanding and innovativeness, not exam results. Since the biggest reason students fear Math is poor performance not poor understanding, what if we changed the end-goal by doubling down on helping children comprehend and not just memorise Math for a short-term goal?

Imagine a word where kids used Math as a lifelong tool to understand the world instead of a tedious must-do on their growing up checklist. It would be a world filled with inventors and creators.

(Ravi Bhushan is the Founder & CEO of BrightCHAMPS. The views expressed are personal.)