Your bank sends you a letter offering you a chance to enrol in its “points” programme. For an annual fee of R180, you will earn one point for every R6 you spend on your credit card. For every 2 400 points you accumulate, you will receive a R100 gift voucher. You can also use your points to buy air miles: three points buys one mile; 20 000 miles buys a domestic flight. Do you join the programme?
Your municipality allows you to choose between two fee structures. With the “helping hand” option, you get 50kWh of electricity free, after which you pay 39,32c per kWh. With the “stand alone” option, you pay a basic monthly fee of R63,50 and 22,63c per kWh. Which option is best for you?
A newspaper reports that research has revealed that almost one-fifth of South African men have raped a woman, and that most of them did so before they were 17. On what basis do you decide to believe the report?
The three scenarios are real. Mathematical literacy – a subject offered in the grades 10 to 12 school programme since last year – aims to develop the skills that will enable individuals to respond to them.
Students who started grade 10 in 2006 were the first to have to take either mathematics or mathematical literacy as one of their National Senior Certificate subjects.
Mathematics equips students with the skills required by those who use mathematics as the tool of their trade – engineers, chemists, physicists, economists and, of course, mathematicians. Mathematical literacy develops in students the confidence to use elementary mathematics to solve problems that characterise the lives they lead as individuals, workers and critical citizens.
In the first year of implementation, the challenge for educators has been to find a balance between teaching the elementary mathematics that is needed to solve problems and solving the very real problems that are both interesting and releÂvant to the lives of their students.
Do teachers focus on developing mathematical skills before tackling the problems or do they use the problems as a vehicle for developing confidence in using and understanding the mathematics needed to solve the problems?
In my work, which is in training educators to teach the subject, I use problems such as those posed earlier to give meaning to the mathematics that is needed to solve the problems – an approach that has encouraged teachers to see the potential of the subject.
The challenge for students has been to make a choice between the subjects. For students who want to study at institutions of higher education, the question is which programmes will require/accept students with mathematics and which will require/accept students with mathematical literacy.
Institutions of higher education have been slow in declaring their preferences. My advice to students is to think about the career path they are most likely to follow. If they want to be mathematicians, engineers, physicists, chemists or economists, they would be well advised to take mathematics – a subject for which they would naturally have both an interest and aptitude, given their intended career choice.
Mathematical literacy would probably be more interesting and valuable to those embarking on other careers. Indeed, had the author of the newspaper article mentioned earlier been more mathematically literate, he/she would have realised that the study involved a small sample of men from a narrow age band and in a rural part of South Africa – an unrepresentative sample, one from which it is not possible to generalise about all South African men.
It goes without saying that men raping women is a crisis; the question is: when can you generalise about the results of a study and when can you not do so? – a skill developed by mathematical literacy.
Another issue that has plagued the introduction of mathematical literacy is the perception that it is for those who “cannot do mathematics” – the alternative “weaker students”.
Mathematical literacy is not a soft option for those who do not like or cannot do mathematics. It is a different subject that is as demanding. The nature of the demand is different. Mathematical literacy focuses on solving problems, that are sophisticated, relevant and important and are contextually based. To be mathematically literate is to be empowered to make sense of and take control over the world in which you live.
One of the most rewarding moments in my work with teachers of mathematical literacy is the teacher who planned to speak to the mayor of his town after realising that the municipal tariffs were significantly higher than for many others – something that is not at all obvious from the tariff tables.
And then there was the teacher working with ECD practitioners who reported that one of those students had changed their phoning habits as a result of one of the activities we developed and had in so doing reduced their monthly phone bill by more than R300.
Mathematical literacy made a difference in the lives of these people and it can do the same for all those who take it.