Gizachew Atnaf is a lecturer at Kotebe Metropolitan University. He has a second degree in mathematics education and another second degree in Information Communication Technology. He has been teaching Mathematics courses and Information technology since 30 years, of which two thirds of his engagement was mainly on mathematics teaching.
Herald: What are your accomplishments and achievements in enrolling in teaching profession?
Gizachew: Actually my great achievement is the contribution I made in producing competent mathematics teachers teaching at various levels of education starting from primary to tertiary. Basically, Kotebe College of Teacher Education and Bahir Dar Teachers College were the outshining teacher training institutions who have contributed the dominant share of producing the country’s qualified teachers.
When I think of myself as one of the senior educators who has participated in equipping would be teachers the necessary knowledge and skills they needed in their career and life. And when I see their success both in the teaching profession and in other areas of life,that always makes me feel that I have contributed something on my own part.
I do not know whether it is considered as an achievement or not, but I have also participated in authoring and editing different teaching materials both in mathematics and mathematics methodology for few private universities. In addition to writing few supplementary materials of school mathematics, I am also one of the authors of the current grade 10 mathematics textbook. Herald: What are the significances of mathematics in the day to day activities of human society?
Herald: What are the significances of mathematics in the day to day activities of human society?
Gizachew: when you look at mathematics in its broadest sense, it is beyond a mere counting, measuring and describing of shapes and quantitative calculation. Mathematics has something to do on the development of logical reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving skills. Of course, it is originated from the very practical needs of human beings.
Ancient men need to represent the amount of something like the number of children in a family, the number of eyes, legs hands, fingers, animals or any property they had, necessitated the invention of numbers.
The need to divide and have a reasonable share of agricultural land among themselves, and the need to make shelters, necessitated the invention of measurement and geometry. Whenever ancient people involved in various agricultural and trade activities to satisfy their basic needs, they were forced to use numbers and quantitative calculations.
As time goes by and the society became complex, their mathematical needs also became complex. They needed little more than the ability to count, calculate and measure. They were using their mathematical knowledge to calculate sophisticated issues like the position of the sun and the stars.
Let us just come back to this century and look at our environment. We easily see that math is all around us, in everything we do. Whether at home and work places, during travel from home to school to work and places in between, at school and work, in market places during buying and selling, in managing our money, in preparing food, figuring out distances, time and cost for travel, in home decorating, sewing, gardening and landscaping, in learning school subjects, in literature and writing, in social study fields like geography and history, in language, in arts and music, in science and technology and among others., math is everywhere.
Mathematics is significantly connected to science, especially with fields like physics, chemistry and astronomy. Students who cannot master basic arithmetic skills will face problems in reading scientific charts and graphs. On the other hand, students’ sound knowledge of more complex math, like geometry, algebra and calculus, can help them solve chemistry and physics problems, understand the movements of the planets and analyze scientific studies.
Math is also important in practical sciences like engineering and computer science. Students may be forced to solve mathematical equations when writing computer programs and figuring out algorithms. Medicine and pharmacology need mathematics including, statistics and probability to determine the effectiveness of new drugs or medical procedures before they are approved. The significances of mathematics are immense.
We cannot think of modern computers and Hi TEC medical equipment like CT scan, MRI and Ultra sound, function without the knowledge of mathematics invested in them. Even at this defining moment where the whole world is struggling against COVID-19, researchers are applying math to develop new treatment and vaccine.
Herald: How do you evaluate this generation’s commitment to grab knowledge and wisdoms?
Gizachew: to my generation, books or the traditional library was the richest information treasure where we can grab knowledge. This has now changed to the internet and digital media. The internet has become a great tool for learning.
Students especially in major cities of the country, can Google any information they need rather than spend time in the library. Platforms like YouTube are wonderful sources of knowledge if used wisely.
Though there are few committed students who use the internet effectively, most of them are misusing it for non-educational purposes and wasting their golden time on life’s irrelevant issues. Instead of reading and doing home works and assignments using the internet, they are frequently seen using social media like Facebook and playing on, off line games.
A considerable number of university students also tend to read only short handouts and modules given by their respective teachers instead of referring to other related sources from the library and or the internet to widen their knowledge on a particular topic.
Herald: many students are heard of saying Math is difficult. What do you comment in this regard?
Gizachew: It is true. Researches done in our country and abroad clearly indicate that mathematics is found to be the most difficult subject to many students. If we look at the grade10 and 12 national examination results of the last five years, we easily see that most students achievement in mathematics is below average. So what is the reason? Why are students achieving the lowest in math? Why are they heard of saying I hate Math; It is not as such for me?
Of the many reasons, presenting math dissociated from students’ life is the dominant one. Children in the primary level are not heard of saying I hate Math; It is not as such for me until they complete grade four. Most students are comfortable in learning math even until they pass from grade six to seven. The problem begins when arithmetic dominant mathematics is changing its nature to algebraic form. The boring x and ys come here frequently to substitute or represent quantities.
But these quantities represented by x and y are not mostly presented in such a way that they represent quantities they knew in life. For example, a teacher introducing linear functions may give y = 10x just as an instance and may continue discussing a lot of related issues like property of the function (increasing or decreasing), domain and range and graph of the function.
Students may do the routine exercises given by their teacher without understanding what x and y are representing in the equation. However, a school teacher may present the issue in the following way: Suppose a student buys an exercise book for birr 10, two, three, four etc. exercise books for birr 20, 30, 40 etc., then the relationship between, the number of exercise book a student buys (x) and the amount of money in birr s/he is paying (y) is represented by y = 10x.
Here they can also easily learn that fractions can’ be members of the domain because x (number of exercise book) can’t be a fraction number, and the range is a multiple of ten.
Things in life are not only related in linear form. There are also so many relationships which can be expressed in quadratic or exponential form. The relationship between the two dimensions of square shapes and its area is quadratic, whereas the relationship between the number of amoeba cells(y) reproduced at a given time (t) is exponential (y = 2t). So it is always advisable to bring such realities in to class room at least for the first few classes before going to its abstraction.
Mathematics is all around us, in everything we do. If a teacher looks at her/his class room, s/he can see a lot of things that resemble geometric shapes. The window, the door, the blackboard, the ceiling, the bricks on the floor can be inputs to the teaching of shapes and their properties.
Water Tankers at the top of many roofs are cylindrical or prismatic in shape, the globe, foot and basket balls are spherical, cans and water pipes of different diameter are cylindrical in shape. So not using such real objects in geometry class would be teaching mathematics divorced from the reality which in turn contributes to hate the subject.
The other reason that students might hate math or think that it is difficult is Poor foundation. Math becomes challenging to students not because they are naturally poor but it is simply because they don’t have the proper foundation needed for success.
These students may have lagged behind in a unit or moved on to advanced topics before they were ready to the previous unit. Since mathematics is a cumulative subject, a topic builds itself on what came before. A student needs to know the basics before s/he can move on to new topics.
If a student falls behind in one area, it can be very difficult to make sense of advanced concepts she or he learns without that foundational knowledge. So teachers and parents should make sure that the child is learning math in connection to everyday lives and she or he is having the necessary mathematical knowledge and skill meant to that particular grade level before going to the next. It is only in this way that the love of mathematics develops.
Herald: What ups and down you faced so far?
Gizachew: by the will of almighty God, my life has no any significant ups and downs. It is flat just like the graph of y = k. of course k is a positive number.
The Ethiopian herald June 7,2020
BY MEHARI BEYENE
