Thursday, October 10, 2013

[Yasmin_discussions] the root of all evil

yasminers

I never imagine that my referring to the web site
on the need to contextual mathematics would launch
this discussion on the root of all evil but paul and simon's
responses have focused the discussion on the basic argument
that the root bernstein's are making about the evidence that
scientists and engineers work as better as scientists and
engineers if they are also involve in arts and crafts in
their early education

this is the basic argument in the stem to steam argument

the way we have organised education we put art and
science in separate streams as if they were not
fundamentally linked in human curiosity and imagination


anecdote: in a discussion with someone responsible
for programming in Marseille as the european city
of culture- i got a response that " science is not part
of culture'

wow

what he meant was that the minister of culture in france
which was the lead ministry for the city of culture did
not fund " science outreach or education"

science is part of culture and children dont care
which agency is funding what

paul : of course there is a rational for
pure math= but thats not the issue here=the
issue is how in primary and secondary education
we create a context=driven by student interest
and imagination- we teaching in a way that motivates
and captures the motivation of young children

anecdote: in my undergraduate education i had
the pleasure of taking a class on statistics and
probability from the celebrated mathematician

we certainly learned pure math -but what i remember
is that all the math was continously contextualised
in social contexts and applications ( gambling at las
vegas. sociology. politics etc) i did great in that course
but the next semester i took a course in mathematical
logic and i got the first C grade as a student- it just
didnt connect

the arts and crafts are one way to powerfully
contextualise science and mathematics and
motivate students= and in addition the evidence
that root bernsteins show is that the children that
learn that way make better scientists and engineers

roger

The term "naked math" refers to mathematics without context. Mathematics
> "within a context" usually refers to mathematical modeling -- that the
> mathematics models or represents something in the real world. My point
> was simply to rephrase this in terms of something that the Yasmin group
> might find equally appalling (or not?): what is the art analogy of naked
> math? It would probably fall into the general area of abstract art -- something
> performed and executed that is not representational of the world, and so
> is equally as "naked".

--
Roger F Malina
Is in Dallas right now
please contact me by email but
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