Why study Math - when you don't use most of what you have learnt in real working lives?
Joseph Yeo, Dec 1999
This is a continuation of the discourse Why study? So please read that discourse first for better understanding.
I mentioned as an aside in the former discourse that pupils may not appreciate what they are studying now because they cannot see their relevance. So there is still the need to include in our teaching the following:
real-life examples
real-life applications.
(1) Real-life Examples
We usually use real life examples to introduce certain topics in Math. This is to make the topics less abstract and to enable pupils to see that they are studying things which are related to their daily lives. For example, we may use symmetry in objects around us to introduce the topic of symmetry. But this still does not answer the question why we want to study symmetry! What is the use of symmetry in our lives?
(2) Real-life Applications
So there is still the need to give examples of real life applications. Now this is not that easy because many of these applications are beyond their level. For example, complex numbers are essential in the study of Systems and Controls in engineering. But how are we going to give an actual example? Our pupils will not be able to understand it, not to mention that we ourselves do not even know about it unless we study engineering.
Nevertheless we should try, wherever possible, to give real life applications. For example, we can use trigonometry to measure the heights of mountains. But pupils may ask, "Why do we want to measure the heights of mountains?" Before the invention of aeroplanes, this might be a difficult question. But now we can answer, "So that planes will not crash into them." However our pupils may answer back, "But people have already measured the heights of all the mountains. So what are we studying this for? Moreover I don't want to measure the heights of mountains all my life!" So we are back to square one. Why are we studying this topic?
My point is that it is not easy to give real-life applications that are really useful and at their level of understanding. Nevertheless we must still try to give such applications wherever possible. But if it is not possible, to answer our pupils' queries, you may wish to read the discourse mentioned above: Why study?
Any suggestions for real-life applications at the level of our students? I am in the process of putting up some soon...
If you have any comments about the above discourse or any real life examples or applications, you can e-mail Joseph Yeo. Please indicate whether you allow your comments to be published in this website.