Pakistan does not produce its fair share of scientists because we don’t teach children the language of science during their early years. As a matter of fact, most teachers in Pakistan don’t even know that Mathematics is the language of science. To change that, we will have to add PBL to the primary math syllabus of Pakistan.
Go to a science research laboratory, and you will see researchers collecting data, analyzing the data, and then communicating their results through Mathematics. Attend an international conference, a symposium, or a lecture around any field of science, and the medium of communication you will notice will be mathematics.
Science is the study of the nature of things. Mathematics helps us quantify everything that is nature (and more). Science is exact knowledge. There is no room for desired estimations. Mathematics helps us reach the exact quantity and then allows us to come up with new ideas based on those quantities.
Drilling is all we do
There is plenty of drill in Pakistani school mathematics books; lots of exercises and practice. But without any practical application of the mathematics skills, children are left with an ability that they find no use for. It’s like a person cutting wood after learning how to use a saw but has no idea that a table can be made of the wood he has cut.
This mindset can be observed in most schools in our country. You will see class three children who have done over 100 practices of division, have their tables memorized up to ten, and can do ten divisions in two minutes. But give them 12 pencils and ask them to divide those pencils among three students, and they will go, “One for you, one him, and one for me.”
The difference between learning the application of math skills and just learning to do math sums is the difference between a scientist and a lab technician. Scientists have learned to apply mathematics. They use it to make discoveries and to do scientific innovations. But the technicians need guidance to perform a mathematical function they had practiced so much during the school years.
PBL makes practical
One way to make mathematics practical is to offer practical problems after children have learned to use a mathematical function. For example, children should add the money they had received during the Eid festival. Or subtract the number of apples eaten by their family over a period of two days.
But why tell children about the benefits of a mathematical function after going through the drilling and practice sessions. Why not introduce children to PBL: problem-based learning.
It means that we put a certain situation in front of children that demands a solution, and then we introduce them to a mathematical function that can help them solve that problem.
Science makes a nation stronger and more prosperous. To create that environment, we need to teach children the language of science: Mathematics. If we introduce PBL in our primary school mathematics books, that can be done. Butterfly and Friend Math Series are based on PBL.
very nice..