Mathematics and Citizenship Education

The article "Citizenship Education in the Context of School Mathematics," by Elaine Simmt, states that mathematics has a role in citizenship education and is crucial in the development of informed, active and critical citizens in our society. "Mathematics will help us understand ourselves... [and] understand the world in which we participate." Mathematics is embedded into our world from business, economics, time, space, communication, transport and war and our youth must be educated to understand and critique the 'formatting power' of mathematics.

So, how to we teach math to accomplish this. Right now, math is usually taught as:
1) a set of facts, skills and processes - creating consumers who know how to leave a tip.
2) as facts and fact - pushing around numbers and writing them in different ways suiting the teacher.
3) as right or wrong - reinforcing the notion that mathematics must not be questioned and creating no confidence in individuals.

Elaine gives possible methods such as:
1) focusing on problems and questions arising from student interaction with math using a strategy called 'posing variable-entry prompts'.
2) having the students explain their reasoning attempting to prove their assertions. The necessity of student contribution.

The example in this article about making rectangles using 36 square tiles reminds me of the recent video we saw in class about solving two challenging exponential/logarithmic problems using 2 or more methods.

These types of questions would likely take up a lot of time and therefore I would probably limit each unit to one, possibly two activities of this nature. It would depend on the unit and how much worth I see the students actually getting out of the activities.

These activities encourage group work and negotiation, forcing the students to pose questions and hypothesis on how to approach open ended questions. I like the idea of groups of students writing down their solutions on poster paper and then having to present their results. I completely agree that it is important for students to present their results explaining their reasoning's and approaches to the problems. Also, being in groups will provide them more confidence when discussing the results.