Chapter 1 & 2 Reflections

Maths? That is the last subject I look forward to when I was in my schooling days. It was my most hated subject and that caused me to do poorly in this subject. However, as I enter the Early Childhood field, I started to realise how truly important this subject is. As I reflected upon why I hated this subject, it all boils down to the lack of motivation and the way how the subject was being taught which bore me. My role as a teacher in the classroom is so important that what I do or say will somewhat influence a child. So, I told myself that I didn't want my students to have the same negative mindset in mathematics as me thus I made myself to change and look at mathematics positively now. I was glad that this was being mentioned in the book, Elementary and Middle School Mathematics. In Chapter 1, under the sub-topic of Becoming a Teacher of Mathematics, it stated that you need these in order to succeed as a teacher of mathematics:

• Knowledge of Mathematics
• Persistence
• Positive Attitude
• Readiness for Change
• Reflective Disposition

As I read chapter 2, I remembered how mathematics was being taught during my school days. It was mainly rote learning and completing countless assessment books. I realized that I was not well-equiped with strategies to solve the problems and struggled once the question was being paraphrased. I totally agree with the book that,


"Mathematics is more than completing sets of exercises or mimicking processes the teacher explains. Doing mathematics means generating strategies for solving problems, applying those approaches, seeing if they lead to solutions, and checking to see whether your answers makes sense. Doing mathematics in classrooms should closely model the act of doing mathematics in the real world."


I realize how much we use mathematics in our daily lives without even us realizing it. When we wake up, read the time, estimate how long we need to rush to get ready for work, when we pour milk into our cup and make sure it doesn't spill, when we go shopping, constantly on the look out for sales and check on the discounts and making mental calculations in our head on the discounted price of an item. Almost everything that we know has to do with Maths, it might not be directly involved but maths helped create it.

That why when learning maths, children should be given hands-on and concrete experiences. A proper classroom environment should also be created and constantly using mathematical language with the children such as using words like compare, predict, solve etc. Using these words will lead to opportunities for children to use their higher-level thinking and encompass "making sense" and "figuring out". They will also be able to actively think about the mathematical ideas involved.