teaching mathematics
Tracking an
email address from a subscribers’ list to the local news bulletin
of a tiny village somewhere in the French mountains, I ended up at the
Maths department of Wellington
College. There I found the following partial explanation as to why I find it increasingly
difficult to convey mathematics to students (needless to say I got my
math-education in the abstract seventies…)
“Teaching Maths in 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of
lumber for £ 100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What
is his profit? Teaching Maths in 1960:
A logger
sells a truckload of lumber for £ 100. His cost of production is 4/5
of the price, or £80. What is his profit? Teaching Maths in
1970:
A logger exchanges a set ‘L’ of lumber for a set
‘M’ of money. The cardinality of set ‘M’ is 100. Each
element is worth one dollar. The set ‘C’, the cost of
production, contains 20 fewer elements than set ‘M’. What is
the cardinality of the set ‘P’ of profits? Teaching
Maths in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £
100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your
assignment: Underline the number 20. Teaching Maths in
1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes
£20. What do you think of this way of making a living? How did
the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the
trees? (There are no wrong answers.) Teaching Maths in
2000
Employer X is at loggerheads with his work force. He gives
in to union pressure and awards a pay increase of 5% above inflation
for the next five years.
Employer Y is at loggerheads with
his work force. He refuses to negotiate and insists that salaries be
governed by productivity and market forces.
Is there a third
way to tackle this problem? (Yes or No).”