This week I read a very interesting
article by Carraher, Carraher, and Schliemann titled "Mathematics in the
Streets and in Schools." This article explains how street vendors in
Brazil do mental arithmetic to calculate the prices of goods, and to calculate
change. The catch is, is that these street vendors are children, who's
average age is around 11. The researchers set out to determine the
children's abilities to do similar calculations that they would on the streets
but in a formal setting. The researchers found that, across the board,
these children were able to do calculations better in the informal setting of
street vending than they were when the same or similar questions were posed to
them in formal settings.
These are very
interesting results, and they give rise to several interesting discussions
surrounding the topic. In North America
we tend to heavily favor first learning procedures in abstract settings before
applying them. One motive for this is
that there are fewer factors to take into consideration when solving a problem;
they are streamlined for a particular task.
This research, however, shows that this may not be the best method.
Having never been taught in this particular way, these Brazilian children are
now able to solve problems in a variety of methods depending on the context.
In the end, I am not surprised with the
results from this study. Children
practicing to do math in a specific context will inevitably do better than
their peers who practice in a different context. The flexibility with which the Brazilian
children answer problems, however, is something that I think that we should
strive to teach to our pupils.
It is not surprising to learn that the Brazilian children were computationally good at solving mathematical problems within their real-life context. They have to be good at this task for their and their family's survival. My assumption is that these children would have a very limited number of alternatives for survival. At least, this is the case for the most part in an Indian context.
ReplyDeleteThese children's mathematical prowess is very limited and inflexible. They were shown to have difficulties in transferring their contextual knowledge to other situations. I think that this limitation will have consequences in a mathematics classroom setting. Don't we want our students to not only understand and solve contextualized mathematical problems, but also to extend the underlying abstract concepts to other situations? I think that this is where the beauty of mathematics can be seen.
I agree with Murugan that this is a situation of survival and necessity in a given situation! I believe the children probably lack the feeling of relevance when the tasks are moved from the streets to the classrooms; perhaps they do not see the immediate need to answer the problems and therefore do not apply their full attention to it. I believe that to engage the students they need to see the applicable nature of the task, or the progression of the skill and its application. I feel it is a very tricky scenario to try and navigate. I wonder if the student's don't enjoy the work and the connection to work and math is so strong they are hesitant to engage. This brings me back to the article Victoire sur les Maths by Dick Tahta where the students' association to a certain number or kind of operation inhibited their learning. I feel this could be a similar resistance to mathematics.
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