I always found math to be a difficult subject to learn at school. I put most of my failing down to the fact I sat too close to an old fashioned pot-bellied stove. This provided a great source of warmth but also destroyed my concentration. At least I learnt to spell soporific in a written defence during a subsequent detention, but the absence of maths sense slowed the learning curve for some years. Maths was always a struggle; the pot bellied stove inflicted collateral damage but I believe the real culprit was the boring way maths was taught.
Mathematics can be described as a series of fantastic codes. Once they are broken the maths games that can be played are endless and enjoyable. The modern technique of using educational games as the base makes life far more interesting and pays dividends in the attention paid by the average child. It also allows parents to repeat say a maths game at home
Like many things in life once a code is understood the task becomes far easier. This is the case when we come across a new computer program. Initially it is hard work and intuition fights with or against the operating manual. Once mastered a host of shortcuts and shortcomings are revealed and in no time our learning curve overtakes the computer and we start to identify areas where the program could be improved.
A recent example of breaking a mathematics code appeared in the form of the crop circle in the south of England. The intricate pattern that was pressed into a wheat field at first sight appeared as just another artistic pattern in a crop circle. In reality it was a complex diagram that an astrophysicist decoded to reveal its meaning as a fantastic way to represent the value of pi to the first 10 significant places. Guaranteed 99% of us who looked at the crop circle failed to understand that it was a mathematics code rather than a decorative pattern. Obviously the perpetrator knew what he was doing and set this elaborate game to challenge mathematicians. Once the code was broken the answer was obvious.
Leonardo Da Vinci was artist and a great mathematician who used codes to set out his theories. Used by subsequent generations of scholars even today they provide educational games that require ingenuity to crack the code. Some areas of maths have a number of different ways of expressing the same information. Fractions and decimals express similar information in slightly different form. This feature allows us to mask the details by expressing facts in a form of code.
Recently Ed balls, the schools Secretary in the UK, announced that two fifths of all secondary schools are underperforming. He could of course have said that 40 per cent of all schools are failing which conjures up a much bigger image. Expressing the number of schools as a fraction is code to mask the actual hard fact. He could have just also revealed the actual number, but to say that 638 schools are failing would come as quite a shock to parents of the children involved. More startling perhaps would be an announcement that there are around 1,215,000 children at these 638 schools many of whom are potentially failing at maths. That’s a much bigger number than we might associate with two fifths! Codes are designed to initially hide or abbreviate the facts. Mr Balls could be said to be masking the facts, but he has only been in the job for a few months. Let’s hope he can quickly crack the code to improve the educational performance of future generations of children in the UK.
Alistair Owens writes for www.keen2learn.co.uk an online educational games website
There are many maths games designed to provide a fun way to learn mathematics. You can see some by following these links.
http://www.keen2learn.co.uk/l/158/Maths_&_Numeracy_Games.php
http://www.keen2learn.co.uk/c/294/Fraction_Games.php
http://www.keen2learn.co.uk/c/337/Percentage_Games.php
Having initially struggled at school many years ago, I recently came across the modern interactive educational games that now make learning fun.
I write articles on the many ways parents and grandparents can join in the schooling process by using these fun games at home and help their children back in school.