Indigenous math

[Andre Cramblit]

Check Out Chisenbop from Korea
http://www.cs.iupui.edu/~aharris/basicComputing/bc5a.html

On May 9, 2006, at 2:35 PM, Jennifer Henderson wrote:

As I continue to teach elementary Native students (on the rez) in a  
public school setting.  My students struggle with some of the basic  
westernized numeric operation.  Most of my students had a 20% chance  
of solving a double digit muliplication problem by traditional  
forms.  But this year we introduced an Egyptian method of solving  
multiplication.  And now most of my students have a 98% change of  
solving the problems correctly.

Pro:  alternative non-westernized methods do help native students as  
developing learners.

Con:  The No Child Left Behind Law has left little opportunity for  
experimentation with various methods of teaching curriculum.  NCLB  
states that curriculum must be "research based".  I am seeing less  
qualitative research backing our curriculum and most quantifiable  
data driven curriculum.  So the school are buying "packaged"  
curriculum developed by publishing companies with billion dollar  
marketing power.

Our school  (3,4,5,6 grades) tries to appliy the same reading, math,  
and writing curriculum programs to all the students.  Layer that with  
frequent computerized monitored assessments, then we are seeing some  
potentially bright native students falling through the cracks at an  
earlier age.


> From: Susan Penfield <susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM>
> Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology  
> <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Indigenous math
> Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 06:51:22 -0700
>
> Thanks Rudy, Jess and Mia
> This discussion is very interesting but, to me, what it underscores  
> is the
> need to have more fluent, trained Native teachers involved in  
> curriculum
> development. (an old refrain...)
>
> Years ago, I was heavily involved with training teachers for public  
> schools
> which served tribal communities. These cullturally-appropriate math  
> stories
> were shared, and may have served to raise awareness, but did little to
> really change the way math was taught overall. The only places  
> where real
> active involvement and inclusion of culturally grounded math  
> activities
> happened were in the rare classrooms where the teacher was a member  
> of the
> community.
>
> Although the numbers of certified Native American teachers have  
> increased
> since then, there are still not nearly enough and it is still such  
> an up
> hill battle for them to make substantial changes to established  
> and, now,
> standardized test-driven curricula of most schools.
>
> Certainly, the charter school movement offers more potential for the
> inclusion of culturally-appropriate and guided math activities and  
> certainly
> there are some such curricula developed for non-public schools serving
> reservation communities,  but it is still a difficult task to lay  
> out  more
> than a few isolated lessons, i.e.,  establish a complete  set of  
> lessons,
> which reflect a range of culturally-grounded math activities.
>
>
> Susan
>
>
> On 4/22/06, jess tauber <phonosemantics at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > With regard to Rudy's post and mine, just wondering whether  
> language TYPE
> > might also have any relevance as to what kind of mathematical  
> knowledge and
> > operations might be found, statistically, in a normal cultural  
> setting (that
> > is unmodified by formal Western-style or other imposed-from-outside
> > training)- how much does level of culture influence?
> >
> > Jess Tauber
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
>
> Faculty Affiliations:
>   Department of English (Primary)
>   American Indian Language
>         Development Institute
>   Department of Linguistics
>   Second Language Acquistion and
>         Teaching Ph.D. Program
>   Dept. of Language,Reading and Culture
>
> Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836