Mathematics

The fourth of the eight required core courses in the new General Education Curriculum (GEC) is “Mathematics in the Modern World / Matematika sa Makabagong Daigdig.”

The course is described in this way: “Nature of mathematics, appreciation of its practical, intellectual, and aesthetic dimensions, and application of mathematical tools in daily life. / Mga elemento ng matematika, pagpapahalaga sa mga praktikal, intelektuwal, at estetikong dimensiyon nito; at gamit ng matematika sa araw araw na buhay.”

Note that the focus is not on the mathematical tools, but on their application. The course will not repeat the computations, derivations, and equations that characterize the mathematics subjects in basic education, such as algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and statistics.

After all, the College Readiness Standards (CRS), which will determine if a student should be admitted to tertiary studies, specifies that every Grade 12 graduate should already be able to handle inverse functions, basic financial management, linear programming, logic, Poisson distributions, and other such mathematical topics. In addition, senior high school graduates who are going into math-intensive courses such as Engineering and IT are even expected to know calculus.

What, then, will be learned in the GEC course on mathematics?

Appendix A of the CHED Memorandum Order gives a bit more detail: “The course begins with an introduction to the nature of mathematics as an exploration of patterns (in nature and the environment) and as an application of inductive and deductive reasoning. By exploring these topics, students are encouraged to go beyond the typical understanding of mathematics as merely a bunch of formulas, but as a source of aesthetics in patterns of nature, for example, and a rich language in itself (and of science) governed by logic and reasoning.

“The course then proceeds to survey ways in which mathematics provides a tool for understanding and dealing with various aspects of present day living, such as managing personal finances, making social choices, appreciating geometric designs, understanding codes used in data transmission and security, and dividing limited resources fairly. These aspects will provide opportunities for actually doing mathematics in a broad range of exercises that bring out the various dimensions of mathematics as a way of knowing and testing the students’ understanding and capacity.”

A teacher who majored in mathematics will obviously be better prepared to teach this course than someone who majored in something else. The mathematics major, however, must not be adept only at deriving formulas or solving the word problems commonly found in textbooks. The world is rapidly changing, particularly from the point of view of the student. The teacher has to be aware of the world in which the student lives, where young people may not realize how crucial mathematics is to their continued existence.

I give, for example, the issue of zero carbon. Just about everybody concerned about the environment advocates zero carbon. The mathematics seem simple: zero carbon is very simply, zero. The students in the GE mathematics course, however, could very well tackle the question of costs. Which is more costly in the short run – fossil fuel or solar power? Clearly, solar power. How many years from now does solar power become less costly and therefore more desirable? That requires mathematics.

Similarly, a Filipino student could find the mathematical correlation in a specified period of time between the Dow Jones and the Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index. (Maybe some student might even strike it rich.)

A much simpler idea is to calculate the odds of winning the lotto. (This should stop students from buying lotto tickets.) If the teacher does not gamble but just likes to have fun, s/he could ask students to guess how many students in the school have the same birthday as they have (hint: it is not one out of every 365).

What I am trying to emphasize is that the college course on mathematics, unlike the previous GE courses on algebra and statistics, focuses on real problems in the world today.

Even the objective of appreciating geometric designs is not as easy as it looks. Jungians once showed that the designs of freeways today curiously copy designs found on ancient religious works of art. Such an observation leads naturally to students discussing the collective unconscious, something mathematics teachers may not be comfortable teaching (except for Queena N. Lee-Chua, who is both a mathematician and a psychologist).

Like teachers of the other GE courses, teachers of the new GE mathematics course have to be generalists, or put another way, should not be mere mathematicians. They should be more like Bertrand Russell and Blaise Pascal, mathematicians who made major contributions to philosophy and other fields of knowledge.

I imagine that a typical college GE mathematics course would have students marvelling at how two numbers (1 and 0) have built our modern computers, can play music, and cheat at elections. A gender-sensitive teacher might dwell on what mathematician Alan Turing’s homosexuality had to do with computers eventually replacing call centers. And what in the world is a fractal, without which we would not have our smart phones? (To be continued)