My first couple of weeks here in Bukoba have been incredibly rewarding. It’s hectic, but I am learning so much. When I’m not visiting schools I am sitting at my laptop, reading all I can about teaching maths in Tanzania.
Discussing potential ways of teaching maths.
Primary Education in Tanzania
As far as I can tell the Tanzanian Education system has been improving steadily over the past decade. Children aged seven to thirteen attend primary school, after which they need to pass a national exam in order to enter secondary education. Unfortunately, the pass rate in many schools is around 30%, which is far too low, meaning for many students, education ends at 13.
Since VSO began their partnership with Tanzanian schools, their pass rates have improved to 50%. But this still means that one in two pupils are unable to attend secondary school. Therefore, as I aim to help as many children as possible get a full education I have a busy couple of months ahead of me.
Putting maths in the everyday
In all the schools I visit I keep seeing the same issue; teachers showing maths as an abstract process. To engage and understand, kids need to be able to relate what they are learning to their everyday life. By simply connecting the teaching to practical day-to-day issues they will see a real improvement.
For instance, do you remember as a kid using small blocks or coins to see how sums work? Such activities as these are the best way to make maths an easier subject to learn.
Maths is fun
The other struggle is the overuse of rote learning. Many pupils are able to memorise methods and formulas without any idea of how they work or how to use them. A clear sign that a system has failed is a small kid who can recite maths like a poem yet is confused by the simplest question. To be able to pass a maths exam you need to understand what you are doing.
Learning is a social experience and children learn by having fun and being together. Using group work is very productive because it allows pupils to interact, whilst also helping the teacher deal with different abilities and support slower pupils.
Counting the bottle caps
I thought I’d share with you a method of teaching multiplication that I have been using here. Please do let me know what you think.
Researching and trying out new maths exercises
In groups of three and four, the children will use 12 bottle caps to make as many combinations as possible, e.g. three groups of four caps. They don’t need to use all the caps for each combination, so for example they could have two groups of five caps leaving two caps spare.
The students are asked to write out each combination alongside the total number of caps used and explain how they figured out this total. The expected answer would be ‘We counted the caps’.
We will then focus on one of their combinations and think of another way to work out the total caps. We will start by looking at addition e.g. three + three + three + three =12.
This makes it easy to then show how multiplying four and three is the easiest way to work out the total number of caps in this combination. By asking the kids to look at how multiplication is linked to addition, this method both shows how different types of maths are all linked together, and also how the pupils might use this learning in their life moving forward.
As you can see I am going to be kept quite busy, but I am so excited to be putting my ideas into practice. I really am so grateful for your support, I wouldn’t be here without you.
Stay tuned,
Andrea
