1. A third conception of an ethnomathematical curriculum can be appropriate to
children of kindergarten age, the Israeli kindergarten kids for example. Days
of the week, 12 month, change of seasons- all of these are concepts which
emerge and have a special meaning in children life at this age. The customs of
"Kabbalat Shabbat", "Rosh Chodesh"- are deeply rooted in Jewish tradition
and also are associated with numbers and patterns. Here "mathematics
should start with where the students are, then make connections with
mathematics in their culture, and then link it to world mathematics."
(p.51). When we celebrate Shabbat and aggregate 7 days to form a week and
"Rosh Chodesh" when 4 weeks form a month we create a possibility to
further mathematics activities, connected to the concept of aggregation, as a
decimal number structure for example.
2. The ethnomathematical curriculum model for Maldivian classroom has an
influence on students' awareness of how people mathematize or think
mathematically in Maldivian culture. Here are some examples of students'
utterances which support this claim:
S1: " Before the measurement topic was taught, I did not think of mathematics
outside school. Now I see mathematics everywhere. On the street ... Mum
also uses measurement in cooking--to measure the rice. At the fish market to
sell the fish." (p.62)
S4: People use area and perimeter when building houses and tiling the floor.
Volume is used when dad builds water tanks ... when we grow up we have to
know how to measure, so it is important to learn these things ... without
mathematics we cannot do anything in life.
S10: I see mathematics outside school especially the mathematics in the
activities that people do. (p.63)
We can suggest from the provided data that the students also use this new awareness
to learn about formal mathematics:
"... I know how to use formulae and things better after seeing how people do things in
[for example] construction of houses." (p.64).
However, if we ask ourselves about students' ability to mathematize in any context in
the future, we have to be careful and modest. The author reports that the students'
performance in measurement test was better in comparison to other mathematics
assessments that they had done. Yet, connection between culturally embedded topics
and further development of more abstract mathematical concept wasn't the focus of
the current study.
3. Possible reasons of Maldivian students not to appreciate the
ethnomathematical approach:
a. I am an expatriate student, and I am not used to these cultural practices
even though I have heard about these things.
b. I hate fishing, and I hate all this old stuff, I love computers and
videogames.
c. We should be more open to the world, how do they learn math? Also
with fish and corals?
d. I love it as abstract as possible; it is math, pure numbers!
4. Teachers' positive feelings about ethnomathematics would be long lasting if
they will receive ongoing support and guidance. Special syllabus has to be
developed; teacher training program has to be designed to encourage use of
ethnonathematics by teachers. From other hand there is no one possible way to
teach
mathematics.
In
my
view
this
approach
has
been successful primarily due to the fact that it was markedly different
from the traditional method of teaching. The author notes that both teachers
and students were interested, motivation increased. Overemphasizing of
ethnomathematics approach can lead to the opposite effect. As I said before, it
is necessary to pay attention to the transition from problems directly related to
the cultural background of students for more abstract mathematical problems.