Math is Mental

This is something I see commonly in many of my students: their unanimous perception of Mathematics. And what I mean isn’t the sort of prejudiced view of the discipline or the idea that it takes a geek to be good at the subject.

Inculcating international curricula – and the kind of practices schools might think this entails for students – has definitely made an impact on the studying methodology of kids these days. Please, note that I’m not using ‘had its toll’ or ‘done a number.’ Because, while it graciously handed them a space of freedom to reinvent their own personal, customised wheel to study, along with it, they’ve also come out entitled to a sort of passport to accept whatever the outcome of this new routine might be.

Writing this does not necessarily mean that I’m advocating for a brutal quantity of practice after rote memorisation of formulae. Or that I don’t side with exploring and rediscovering the beauty of these concepts. What I’m trying to acknowledge is simply the element of Math that demands a degree of familiarity through mistakes. And perhaps the rising generation has risen to adopt a culture of labeling?- wherein it’s successfully hindering itself from the opportunity to consider anything easy as soon as it has failed at it once!

First off, there is an absolute boon in the form of technology for aspiring High School Mathematicians these days. The International Mathematics course allows for and even pushes its candidates to graphically visualise a lot of their syllabus. And the set of three papers they are given does not compromise on difficulty levels in any way, either (whilst extracting substantial usage of these Graphical Calculators.) This bridges the insight of a student with the actual phenomena they study like never before.

Secondly, even with the rising popularity of peculiar and liberal combinations of subjects, Math at the Grade 10 level is not demanded lesser by these universities. While I know this does not surprise you, one of the major advantages of finishing these international courses is the recognition it commands over colleges abroad. And to avoid a credit like this would be to cut off a fraction of the student’s prospects ranging right from Architecture to even some Literature courses.

And to conclude, I have to plead with the truth that depriving young minds of these mathematical understandings – at least for most of them – leaves a lot of potential doors unknocked. And these doors need not even represent careers or marks. They could just represent some appreciation this student would develop for Math, and that in itself suffices as a reason good enough to let one try their might with these courses.