Points to be made -
- What is the purpose of learning mathematics at school level.
- How the designing of curriculum done in school
- Who does the designing?
Yesterday while teaching my son who is in class 4 in CBSE Board, I realised how the designers of curriculum are short sighted (which is quite obvious since they are only teaching not more than class 10 in school) and have lost it big time. Rather the designing of curriculum should be from the perspective of inculcating interest and saving lot of time for the students for their all round development including academics, which has taken a back seat big time.
As a faculty of Mathematics, coaching students for Mathematical Olympiad training towards (INMO) Indian National Math Olympiad and also train students for JEE Advanced preparation, I see the following spiral which gets created which is a major concern for students not getting interested in Mathematics and Sciences or rather they go to other subject since they don't like the Science and Mathematics.
THE SPIRAL OF CURRICULUM CREATION
- He designs say for example a chapter on fraction
- He teaches how to create fraction addition, and other operations, the perspective of how to see fractions in real sense, he teaches equivalent fractions - all this is required for further understanding of mathematics and interest
- BUT HERE IS WHAT goes wrong! He starts defining new terms in order to explain equivalent fractions, for example, first equivalent fraction, second and so on (i.e multiply a fraction by 2 in Nr. and Denominator and gets first equivalent fraction (that is stupid), since you are extending and utilising the resources of a child by overusing a simple concept and making a huge thing out of it and setting questions on it.
- Its like to explain a concept A - I define concepts A1 to A10 and then teach him A, by the time the child of class 4 grasps it, its a hell lot for him. I should have made him understand A with examples than to extend his understanding by making it so big in size.
- So essentially we are burning all the oil of the child for making him understand such timid concepts and keep pushing him to the edge.
- And in the overall picture where does all this stand? its a minuscule of what is required for future mathematical understanding.
- So something which was so small has been extended to a big fat content, when there was no need for it.
- Reducing the overall content
- Students not interested in Math or allied areas can spend more time into other areas
- Students interested can take up more areas and cover more areas in Mathematics. Given the amount of research done till now in Mathematics, every generation has to cover more area in school. This will help get there faster.
