My Exploration of Culturally Embedded Mathematics

My Exploration of Culturally Embedded Mathematics

Amrit Bahadur Poudel
M.ed Mathemtics
Kathmandu University

While I was in high school, the image of mathematics was a subject of discoveries of the brilliant people around the world. Learning mathematics was to learn to take the challenges. I had no idea about the purpose of studying mathematics in school. Another motivating factor was that it is a subject which is compulsory to most of the good streams of studies. My teacher never told us that mathematics is a social and culture product. How people use mathematics and how it help people in their public life was not of any concern for me. I never imagined that the people around me in my village are also the inventors and the ones using the mathematical knowledge.

After taking the classes in the master’s degree in Kathmandu University, I came to know that mathematics is not a culture free subject. I still remember the moments of discussions in the class about the contextualization in curriculum. I was shocked with the wrong belief about the concepts and understanding in math I had.
Contextualizing a curriculum is a big issue. There is no exact measurement to measure the level of contextualization. As I learnt from the M.Ed classes, contextualization is a process of adapting the concepts of math in relation to the social and cultural values of the places where the learners live. This helps the learners to understand the value of learning math and find an appropriate use of mathematical ideas in their immediate life.
In the present context, the curriculum of our country is centrally prepared and has an imposed notion of teaching. The interest of the Nepalese students and their level of understanding, culture and social norms are not duly considered. Students in Jumla are expected to understand and solve the problems of electricity and taxes and service charges without any additional support in an equal proportion to the students of urban area. Even the students of urban area have knowledge of high level calculation but are confused when given simple problems of daily shopping and banking transactions. Thus the present curriculum and the textbooks are not fulfilling the present need of our nation.

Thus our curriculum and the teaching strategies are in a transition phase to be changed. In such a situation I have got the opportunity to involve in the "Developing culturally contextualized Mathematics Resource Materials: Capturing Practices of Woman and Disadvantaged Comminutes”. I have been guided to explore the cultural, social and individual activities through ethnographical research methods. I have been encouraged to search for various cultural, social and individual practices and pedagogical implications of a culture sensitive curriculum. To develop a culture sensitive curriculum, we observed the every day activities of the stakeholders such as students, parents, teachers and school management committee members.
In Taukhel, I tried to observe the mathematical implications in the local community. It was not so easy like collecting the stones out of the grains of rice to collect the mathematical applications in the local community like this where I never had been before and never had such research experience besides studying the philosophy of math in text books and in the class. The evidences were not readymade so that I could ask the people and dig the place where the objects were hidden. It was like diving into an Ocean to discover a pearl. Even I knew that the people were not ready to try to explain their practices because it was difficult for them to define their day to day works into a formula. Though they used different mathematical concepts invented by themselves and their ancestors, they had no idea what exact pattern or system they have been using. Even they had difficulty to recall the day to day activities and other social norms where they use certain mathematical rules and patterns. Since they used their knowledge instantly whenever they required, they never kept any account of the knowledge they used in their life. They didn’t have any system of collecting important skills or formulas they frequently required, their mind worked as the dictionary of everything. So I needed to plan and study their way of life and social and cultural reality before I actually could start my research.
For this, I chose one girl-student, her parents, her teacher and one of the women from the school management committee. My respondent student (Sarita) found mathematics very tough subject among the subjects she studied in her school. Math has always been her headache in her studies. Though she wanted and tried to be good in math, it has been a most difficult job to accomplish in her life. However as I observed her activities at home I found her using many mathematical concepts carefully and successfully without actually knowing the formula or any formal definition. She could make appropriate proportion of salt while she cooked the food for her guests. This demonstrated that she had a good idea of proportion. If her teacher would have given the examples of making appropriate proportion of salt or such other examples which occur in student’s day to day life while teaching Proportions, it would have bee very useful for students to understand the concept of Proportion.
She used a circular stone when she played with her friends; they played a game called chatti with one leg. She made different rectangular partitions of a big rectangle where she can stand and jump from one room to another. While she played, she jumped over alternate rectangles with one leg and sometimes she jumped over two rectangles. Her friends understood the rules of the game and the shapes of the geometrical figures for their game but not for their math in the school. They never wrote the rules in a formal format but they conveyed to each other whenever they gathered to play. They sometimes changed the patterns and made new rules according to their comfort or according to the number of members. Thus they had good idea about the patterns and geometrical figures but they never connected the activities while they studied the same patterns in the school.
Sarita and her mother normally kept the glasses of tea in a fixed pattern whenever they cleaned the glasses. They could exactly manage to place all the glasses on a small row of a rack which at the beginning was difficult for me to understand. They were very much used to with the sequence; I must say that the sequence they used in their home was purely invented by them. She easily understood the sequence she used while she arranged the glasses at home but I guess she will possibly fail in the test of the “sequence and series” chapter if she studied Additional mathematics in grade ten. There were lots of patterns and mathematical ideas the people used in their day to day life. It was a moment of joy when I found that the simple people with simple life in poverty in the remote corner of the earth use such interesting mathematical ideas. I enjoyed my journey and will be my pleasure to meet the people again and discover the inventions of the mathematicians living in the economically poor part of Nepal with the simple instruments of iron and wood in their hands and beautiful ladies with the with eye catching bamboo nets on their back. I remember the days in the following ways:

Oh! Beautiful lady,
You didn’t use any paste,
But your smiles with silver line of teeth,
gave a memorable taste.

Oh! Beautiful lady,
You don’t care what the hell mathematics is,
But I remember the math in your steps,
when you danced in the cool breeze.

Oh! Beautiful lady,
I am so sorry,
I enclosed all the beautiful patterns you made without the protractor,
But, but,
I am so sorry,
I forgot to take a single snap of the inventor.

Oh! Beautiful lady,
You are making me crazy.