Mathematics And Its Problems

Katerina Holmes
Mathematics And Its Problems

There are so many students out there who have the habit of not listening in mathematics class despite the fact that the teacher involved has explained the solution to them. They have the habit of knowing every other thing but coming to the aspect of mathematics, they are seen as Zero.

In my school, I'm a mathematics teacher and I know what I'm facing right there. Just today, I was teaching my students Saturday lesson where the topic of discussion is logarithms. It was so pathetic that I kept on explaining it even to the last level and yet some students were not able to get it.

Now, I had to search for questions in the past Questions and answer series just to make them understand since they are preparing for WAEC (West African Examination Council). I saw a question where the question states that:
Without using table evaluate. Do you know what happened that made me so confused? One of the students asked me that:

Are we not going to use tables?

I answered him, NO. We will not use tables and will not use calculators as well.

He replied to me that:

But where are we going to drop our books? Are we sitting on the floor or placing our books on the floor?

Everyone in the class bursted into uncontrollable laughter.

I was teaching them another topic one fateful day where the whole of them were following me. I gave them so much class work to solve. They were so happy solving the questions and it got to a point where one of them had to raise an alarm saying:

Mr Agaga, please can you tell me the person that invented mathematics? Who brought it to life and why must we offer it in schools?

It was a serious question that all other students supported.

Now the next
The next morning, I had the Senior class one (1). They were so happy as usual where they had to ask so many questions being their first time in the Senior class. Now, there are so many teachers teaching mathematics and with different manners of approach. To Me, I use something different from others. While solving, I do call any question I write on the board problem. This is how I was taught and how I have been teaching my students. I have not taught these ones and so I decided to write a question on the board. I ask them that:

Who can successfully solve this problem for us? They were all not comfortable with the statement. They were looking at me just like someone who has not eaten for the last two days. One of them rose up and replied to my statement that:
Mr Agaga, I don't have a problem and I don't think any of us here has a problem.
They all nodded in agreement to what their mate just said.

They all said in unison, we don't have a problem Sir.

I was teaching a topic in further mathematics related to probability distribution. Their are three subtopics in it. Now, it got to where I wrote the next subtopic ok the board. My students shouted:

Master what is poison doing with mathematics?

I told them to calm down that this isn't poison instead poisson. I explained it to them that it is a French word.

They said that hope mathematics will not kill us one day just because of the countless words related to mathematics. There is trouble or there are troubles in mathematics