MATHEMATICS AND HUMOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 232, 1 October 1929, Page 6

MATHEMATICS AND HUMOUR.

A plea to "humanise" mathematics has been outlined by Dr. C. O. Davis, of the School of Education, University of Michigan (says . the "Christian Science Monitor"). Dr. Davis Avould give a sense of humour to equations and provide dramatic climaxes for quotients and sums, thus doirig away with the sombre mechanics of addition and subtraction and their ramifications. . Mathematics, Dr. Davis told a session of junior high school training teachers, is responsible for untold numbers of pupils leaving school, discouraged by the rigours Avhich only a handful of fellow pupils seemed capable of meeting. Its sole opportunity to regain its once cherished place as a cultural subject is to put its human side foremost, he declared. Although based primarily on the idea of linking colourless studies Avith daily experiences and play, Dr. Davis goes further by the injection of humour, dramatisation and picturisation through graphs and figures. First of all, Dr. Davis - said, the old notion of teaching children mathematical details at the outset, and then introducing them gradually to the entire field must b? rejected. The study should begin by building upon the pupils' concrete experiences, leading thence to qualitative questions arising on the- playground, i Processes involved should be illustrated in tasks performed in the classroom, utilising measurements of familiar objects. The saving grace of mathematics is humour, Dr. Davis declared. Opportunities to inject even the slightest tinge of merriment into, the study should not be lost.