PURE MATHEMATICS-is it still on the Syllabus?
PURE MATHEMATICS-is it still on the Syllabus?
True mathematics is the ultimate pattern and web of life- knowingly and unknowingly! For both the human race and other creatures! In the race for survival, even the fittest must weigh the cons and pros of hunting and targeting, always calculating whether it’s safe to attack or wait. Every miss could easily push the hunter to fall off the planet!
When you take the calculus, yes, mathematics, it’s almost in every sphere of our daily lives:-transactions, expectations, experiences and dealings! Life is mathematically poised, each and everyone one of us lives a mathematically diametric dispensation – taking journeys, going to the market, tithing in church, working, raising our families, investing, trading, politics and politicking, lawyering, medical and its components, employing your workers, farming or even such simple things as taking your daily walks- it’s all mathematical!
Life is a matrix of additions and deductions; multiplications and divisions! You cede here, you gain there- it’s give and take- it has even become worse to the extent of first considering the benefit cost of “what and where do I gain from!” This has been accelerated by reduced resources against the exponential increase in numbers of consumers competing for limited resources. Life has become atrociously mathematical that even corrupt dealings and thievings entail very serious mathematical connotations! Frauds first weigh the opportunity cost vis-a-vis the elements of law and its balancing scales and the fruits of great escape!
As our population has astronomically multiplied, yet the resources to meet our needs have stayed the same or in fact diminished or decreased, we find ourselves in the equation and circle that need to know and understand mathematics more in order to further our plans, estimates, demands, our needs and transactions in order to fit in this competitive world.
It therefore becomes fallacious, illogical and almost stupid to conclude that “pure mathematics became too hard for our learners that it was removed from the syllabus!”- you mean we are training pupils and students who can no longer think, prove , probe, or be critical to the problems at hand?
It’s true that “pure mathematics” is not for every Jerry, Tom and Harry! And it has never been! Even in the days of Euclid, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Copernicus or Johannes Kepler, mathematicians were fewer than the broad lot of society! – was it surprising that Galilei was gagged by the unmathematical church of the day!
Imagine the world without mathematicians! Where would we be today! Look at the glittering and dazzling work of mathematicians and their brethren- astronomy, mechanics, Electricals, artificial intelligence, chemistry, biological and medicine, transport, Architectural Design and construction, radio and communication-tell me what sphere of life is devoid of mathematical wisdom and input! Even beggars have become mathematically alert because they know that the coins’s worth have been depleted by inflation!
Isn’t it a shock to hear that pure mathematics has been proscribed and eliminated from the syllabus because it is “too hard” for the students! May be it is too hard for the teachers to teach it! In any case, when was it that subjects were easy- because we learn and study what we don’t know so that we may know!
So where is the twinkling dazzling, or yes, glittering admiration students had for the mathematics aces in their class or entire school, the sort of spellbinding actors as they held the chalk and solved the mathematical problems as most of us the “penguins” looked on as hypnotized and shocked because we couldn’t imagine what and where the mathematics geniuses picked the sequence and answers to the question? By their deeds we also humbly dedicated ourselves to do better in the “easier” subjects to catch up… could we even catch up! It is possible that learning/studying today may be boring because everything has been made to appear “beautiful and easy!”- on the computer and is more accessible!
Isn’t it scientifically tragic that pure mathematics is eradicated from our syllabi or curricula?!! Even if it may have been merged- it may be taught in bits and pieces not to espouse the sharpened esteem, flavor, glory and spirit it was taught in our days- recall the pride of the students taking it! Backhouse!
How then can pure mathematics be scrapped off that it is hard for the students when recently students are frequently and numerously getting distinctions of 8 in 8 or 9 in 8 or 10 in 10! These grades were very rare 25 years ago. Very few got them. How can these Distinctions be relevant without the dose of pure mathematics? Are we encouraging eggheads, weaklings, breastfed learners? Are we surprised to have the type of graduates who are short on enterprise, research, discipline, perseverance and patience in their work ethics?
Every student needs a dose of pure mathematics- however distressing! It is a kick start and refreshing spur as it drills the mind into overdrive to think and ask. It matters not whether you get the wrong answers- you can’t fail what you have not attempted or started!
Our education system and those in charge of curriculum should rethink their behavior and conduct on “Pure Mathematics 🧮 “- it is the nursery growth of the most eminent engineers, doctors, statisticians, economists, tax-consultants and even lawyers! Yes- lawyers know how to count money and how to recover it! They know interest, damages and compound interest- “the greatest force in the world”- as stated by Albert Einstein! No worthy society can do without mathematics- but to discard pure mathematics is societal suicide!
We cannot do without and we cannot be heard as a country to talk and think that in our education systems we removed pure mathematics because it was hard for the pupils and students! Is there an invention without mathematics? The wheel, fire, name them! Mathematics is the bloodline of every scientific innovation and technological discovery- mathematics is the “thought basis” for societal economic and material transactions and transformations- how are we going to sell our recently discovered oil without mathematicians- unless we want to throw it away! Those auditors and accountants are mathematicians and we want the best to calculate our profits; etc.
Maybe, pure mathematics is still taught in our secondary schools…
Could we conclude that there is mediocrity instead of meritocracy!
Davis Ndyomugabe of Qacheqis
