Lack of interest in mathematics Essay

This paper explores the behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of primary school pupils towards mathematics in the classroom and the impact that this may have on their mathematical ability. The study focused on year 3 pupils from a local school, some of whom took part in focus groups towards the end of the project. The children completed short worksheets, which were used to stimulate a guided discussion on what aspects of mathematics the children liked and disliked. The aim of this project was to isolate possible causes of negative attitudes towards mathematics and to discuss what their implications might be. Keywords: Primary, Attitudes, Purpose, Anxiety, Confidence, Language, Reflection Introduction Mathematicians have long held a high level of respect amongst their academic peers. Yet the subject of mathematics, although revered, remains a source of anxiety and trepidation for a large number of people. Widespread negativity towards mathematics appears in many forms, from misrepresentation in the media to the social stigma that seems to surround those who are mathematically gifted. Children often set mathematics aside as a cause for concern, despite their limited exposure to it (Hoyles 1982). It is a subject unlike most others, since it requires a considerable amount of perseverance from the individual in order to succeed. A negative attitude towards mathematics could considerably reduce a person’s willingness to persist with a problem. Without the ability to persevere, mathematical development is likely to be difficult. The purpose of this project is to determine the possible root causes of these negative attitudes towards mathematics. The study focused on Year 3 pupils from a local school, some of whom took part in focus groups. Three focus groups were carried out, each consisting of four children with similar abilities. Children were selected based on observations from previous visits. Subjects were chosen if they displayed strong feelings for or against mathematics, or if they were at the extremes of the ability range. The focus groups lasted for approximately 30 minutes and were broken into two parts. Firstly, the children were given 10 minutes to attempt four questions tailored to their ability range. The questions involved symmetry, arithmetic, a word problem and a problem solving exercise. The remaining time was used to discuss what the children felt about mathematics, using the worksheet as a focal point. It is hoped that this project will provide significant insights into why many children have a pessimistic outlook on mathematics and indicate where future research is needed. Mathematics and its apparent lack of purpose Children may find the nature of mathematics difficult to cope with as its wider reaching implications can be hard to see. Experiments are carried out for the physical sciences, From Informal Proceedings 29-1 (BSRLM) available at bsrlm.org.uk  © the author – 7 Joubert, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics 29(1) March 2009 pictures are drawn in art class and language skills are used in everyday interactions with other people. However, mathematics has a very formal written sense about it, where activities remain intangible to the child. From the remarks I witnessed in the focus groups, it seems that children find it difficult to make a connection between the work they do on paper and its practical applications. The following transcript is taken from the high-ability focus group: Charlie: You need to be good with numeracy, say when you’re say, shopping for something – You need to work out how much you’re paying. You don’t have to be a genius at it, but you have to be quite good at it. f you’re a shopkeeper, and someone gave you like about  £20, and something was like  £15 and they didn’t know much how much to give them back. And if you didn’t know, you should learn more in your maths. It was rather surprising to see pupils across the entire ability range unable to make connections between mathematics and its many practical uses. Counting money was the only association that they were able to make, even though it had not been covered in recent work. It is interesting that the high achievers, although mathematically gifted, could not establish any more real world applications than the low achievers. However, the low achievers present more of a concern, as motivation to improve their mathematical understanding cannot be aided by their innate ability. Certainly, the children cannot be expected to make these connections without assistance from a teacher. In fact, some believe that the most effective teachers are connectionists (Askew et al. 1997), although perhaps there is currently insufficient emphasis on the practical uses of mathematics in the curriculum. Human nature does not favour futile endeavours; if a difficult task appears to have no purpose, then few will continue to follow it through. If low achievers are unable to see the wider benefits of having strong mathematical skills, then they may lack motivation, which is vital in a difficult subject such as mathematics. Understanding the purpose of mathematics should not only help to improve motivation, but could help in the actual formulation of concepts. In 1991, Harel and Tall discussed the importance of what they called ‘the necessity principle’: From Informal Proceedings 29-1 (BSRLM) available at bsrlm.org.uk  © the author – 8 Joubert, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics 29(1) March 2009 This principle states that the subject matter has to be presented in such a way that learners can see its necessity. For if students do not see the rationale for an idea (e.g., a definition of an operation, or a symbolization for a concept), the idea would seem to them as being evoked arbitrarily; it does not become a concept of the students. (Harel and Tall, 1991 41) They believed that a notion is more likely to be abstracted successfully if the learner can acknowledge the necessity of the concept. In the context of this project, the learner needs to be aware of the purpose behind their work. For young learners, understanding the practical uses of mathematics could be sufficient to both motivate them and allow the necessity principle to be satisfied. Further research is required on this issue, as its scope may be greater than previously thought. As with all the findings in this project, the data was collected from a small sample group, and so it may be difficult to generalise to a larger population. However, based on the remarkable similarities between responses in this particular classroom and the general attitude towards mathematics in our society, I would suggest that the apparent lack of purpose in mathematics is a sentiment felt by many. Self-belief and mathematical ability Nothing was more evident during the focus groups than the lack of self-belief  shown by many of the children. Low and middle achievers quickly resigned themselves to failure, without truly attempting all of the questions on their worksheet. There was a consistent association of mathematics with ‘cleverness’, as many of the children felt not only that numeracy was harder than literacy, but that to be clever you had to be good at numeracy. In effect the children were implying that someone who excels in literacy will not be perceived as being clever unless they can display a similar exemplary ability in numeracy. As a result, children who perceived themselves to be weak felt that they would be incapable of solving harder mathematical problems. A girl from the middle-ability group remarked: Faye: I’m just going to do a simple answer, which is probably wrong. While some would say that any answer is better than no answer, Faye’s decision to give up and guess occurred before she had given any real consideration to the question. This example was typical of her low confidence in mathematics; an attitude which I believe greatly misrepresents her ability. Many of the children showed signs of anxiety whilst attempting the worksheets, shuffling awkwardly in their seats, glancing at their peers with worried expressions and making negative comments about the difficulty of the current task. Previous research into anxiety and mathematics (Hoyles, 1982) indicates that a connection may lie between an individual’s perceived ability and their level of success. The absolute nature of mathematics, where there is normally only one right answer, could add considerably to a negative attitude towards mathematics. Overall, girls expressed much lower confidence than boys, even among the high achievers. They frequently attributed success and failure to external factors, such as luck and the perceived difficulty of a question. In comparison, most boys recognised that success was due to their own ability, and that failure was caused by either a lack of effort or understanding on their part. Whilst this distinction was not absolute it did apply to the vast majority of pupils that took part in the focus groups. The difference  in attitudes towards mathematics between genders has been researched in depth by many, notably Stipek and Gralinski (1991). Although girls and boys are roughly equal in the league tables at GCSE level, there is a remarkable difference in A-level and University uptake. It is quite possible that primary school experiences are alienating girls from the subject, to the detriment of their long term mathematical development. The reason for this is currently unclear and warrants further From Informal Proceedings 29-1 (BSRLM) available at bsrlm.org.uk  © the author – 9 Joubert, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics 29(1) March 2009 Undoubtedly, the teacher faces an uphill struggle trying to balance a diverse range of abilities and attitudes, an ever changing curriculum and strict time constraints. However, there are several outcomes of this project that should be considered by the education community. For example, it may be worth exploring how the children perceive mathematics and its uses outside of school. By improving the understanding of the uses of mathematics, pupils will hopefully see the benefits of developing strong mathematical skills for more than just academic purposes. Likewise, low self-belief is an issue that all teachers can attempt to address. We need to dispel the notion that mathematics is a subject limited to geniuses and that children of all abilities can be successful in the subject. The structure of the lesson and the time constraints of the school day should also be up for revision, as the current lesson format may not be the most efficient. The school curriculum is often subject to repetition, some of which may be avoidable with a subtle shift in lesson structure. Conclusion It is clear that children’s attitudes towards mathematics can be influenced by a wide variety of factors. This project has gone some way to identifying what a few of these factors might be, but there is still plenty of scope for future research. In particular, children’s views on practical uses of mathematics and the difference in attitudes between genders require further study. Additionally, the importance of reflection in primary education needs to be discussed in much greater detail. References Beth, E. and J. Piaget. 1966. Mathematical Epistemology and Psychology, Dordrecht: Riedel. Hoyles, C. 1982. The Pupil’s View of Mathematics Learning. Educational Studies in Mathematics 13 (4): 349-372. Dubinsky, E. 1991 Reflective Abstraction in Advanced Mathematical Thinking. In Advanced Mathematical Thinking, ed. D. Tall, 95-102. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Harel, G., and D. Tall. 1991. The general, the abstract and the generic in advanced mathematical thinking. For the Learning of Mathematics 11 (1): 38-42. Stipek, D. and H. Gralinski. 1991. Gender Differences in Children’s Achievement-Related Beliefs and Emotional Responses to Success and Failure in Mathematics. Journal of Educational Psychology 83 (3): 361-371. Askew, M., M. Brown, V. Rhodes, D. Johnson, and D. William. 1997. Effective Teachers of Numeracy: Final Report. London: Kings College. From Informal Proceedings 29-1 (BSRLM) available at bsrlm.org.uk  © the author – 12

English Registered Land Law (problem Q'n) Essay

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Grapes of Wrath and Migration Experience Essay Example for Free

Grapes of Wrath and Migration Experience Essay The novel, â€Å"The Grapes of Wrath† by John Steinbeck, takes you on a chronicle of one family’s migration, from Oklahoma to California as a result of exodus. The family is forced to migrate west in search of a livelihood during the great depression of the 1930’s. The structure of the chapters in this book alternate between narrating the journey of the Joad family with descriptions of the westward movement of migrant farmers in the 1930s as they flee drought and industry. Steinbeck, a native of California, draws from first hand experiences to guide the reader not only along the journey of one family in particular, the Joad’s but, to also expose the desperate conditions of migrant farming-families faced during the great depression in America. The Joad family was a part of a migration of people called â€Å"okies† which were farmers from the southwest that migrated westward in search of opportunity. The Okies were farmers whose topsoil blew away due to dust storms and were forced to migrate along Route 66 to California in search of work. The Okies were resented for migrating in large numbers to areas in the West where work was already hard to find and the sudden multitude of workers caused wages to be lowered. The Joads reside in Oklahoma, referred to as the Dust Bowl of the U. S . because of its lack of rain. The Joads’ were sharecroppers evicted from their homes because they failed to pay the bank their loan payments to the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company. The entire area was being evicted by the land owners, forcing sharecroppers’ to leave all that they have ever know and cared for behind in search of a sustained life elsewhere. The novel opens up by introducing the main characters and painting a picture of a dried up withering Oklahoma farming region. Released from an Oklahoma state prison after serving four years of a manslaughter conviction, Tom Joad makes his way back to his familys farm amid the desolation of the Dust Bowl. He meets Jim Casy, a former preacher and the man who baptized Tom as a child. Tom gives the old preacher a drink from his flask of liquor, and Casy tells Tom how he decided to stop preaching. He admits that he had a habit of taking girls â€Å"out in the grass† after prayer meetings and tells Tom that he was conflicted for some time, not knowing how to reconcile his sexual appetite with his responsibility for these young women’s souls. Eventually, however, he came to the decision that â€Å"there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. † No longer convinced that human pleasures run counter to a divine plan, Casy believes that the human spirit is the Holy Spirit. Jim accompanies Tom to his family’s farm; when they find it deserted, fronted by withered crops, they find Muley in that house. Muley is an old family friend that stayed behinde while his family leaves for California to tend to his rightful land. He explains haltingly that a large company has bought all the land in the area and evicted the tenant farmers in order to cut labor costs. The three men proceed forward traveling to Toms Uncle Johns house, where they find the Joads preparing for a long trip to California in search of work. The entire family has gone to work picking cotton in hopes of earning enough money to buy a car and make the journey to California. Large California landowners have poster announcement for employment throughout western Oklahoma, and Ma and Pa Joad have decided to move their family their; evicted from their farm by the bank that owned it, they feel as though they have no choice. Once Tom has been reunited with his family, in the following chapters, the narrator assumes the voice of generic tenant farmers, expressing what their possessions and memories of their homes mean to them. The farmers are forced to pawn most of their belongings, both to raise money for the trip and simply because they cannot take them on the road. Steinbeck makes it apparent during this section of the novel that he believes that the economic system makes everyone a victim—rich and poor, privileged and disenfranchised. All are caught â€Å"in something larger than themselves. † This is used to give reference to the bigger picture of society and how situations dictate undesired behavior. In a sense it was a way of taking some hatred off the people hired to kick people off their lands because these people too lost their livelihood. When the time comes to leave, Muley Graves bids the family good-bye, but Grampa suddenly wants to stay. He claims that he aims to live off the land like Muley and continues to protest loudly until the Joads lace his coffee with sleeping medicine. Once the old man is asleep, the family loads him onto the truck and begins the long journey west. When the families leave the farms, the land if left vacant, and is worked by people with no connection to the land. This is used to drive home a theme of man and his relationship to the land as a symbol of ownership. Such a separation between work and life causes men to lose wonder for their work and for the land. As the Joads make their way down highway 66, it is described as being backed-up and filled with broken down poor farmers getting ripped off by auto repair shops selling parts. Steinbeck suggests that the hardships the families face stem from more than harsh weather conditions or simple misfortune. Human beings, acting with calculated greed, are responsible for much of their sorrow. Such selfishness separates people from one another, disabling the kind of unity and brotherhood that Casy deems holy. It creates an ugly animosity that pits man against man, as is clear in Chapter 12, when a gas station attendant suggests that California is becoming overcrowded with migrants†. Steinbeck uses Pa Joad to embody the desire to be connected with the land, this is displayed by his willingness to stay back from his family to tend and live off his native soils. Conversely Jim Casy represents the focus of the family and it’s the most important aspect is to stay together. Ma Joad also represents the glu holding the family together and the backbone of the family unit. The family reaches Oklahoma City, while here they suffer the loss of their dog, and Grandpa Joad, and are forced to give them informal funerals due to a lack of money. After suffering such a major loss, the family picks up new passenger the Wilson’s a family they met broke- down on the side of the road. A few days down the road the family gets told by a car salesman that implications of open jobs in California are false. This brings a large sense of worry among the family because there survival depends on the opportunities waiting in California. At this point of the novel the many amilies traveling along the road have come together as one family creating a sense of comfort and belonging. The people have created rules and enforcement of law; this is a drastic change in identity and life. They are no longer farmers but migrant men. The family reaches California, marking a major shift in the journey. Once in California, the family is warned by Ma that the family is falling apart, as a result of the passing Grandma and the separation from the Wilson’s. Coming after two sets of dire warnings from ruined migrant workers, Granma’s death bodes especially ill for the Joads. They now seem fated to live out the cautionary tales of the men they have met in Chapters 16 and 18, who now seem like predictors of the future. Before the Joads even set foot on its soil, California proves to be a land of vicious hostility rather than of opportunity. The unwelcoming attitudes of the police officers and border guards seem to testify to the harsh reception that awaits the family. Once in California the family is forced to move north by authority, which do not take a liking for the okies. The family reaches a camp where they stay for a little while. This camp was a squatter settlement of okies with no food or work to speak of. This is an unsettling feeling for the Joads and a sense of anguish settles over the family. A man come into the came looking for people to work, but he does not have the proper papers and will not disclose the wages to the workers. This creates skepticism by for the okies and a scuffle breaks out. Which results in Jim Casy taking the blame for Tom knocking out a police officer. The men take Jim Casy away and the Joads flee in search of safety and work. The family finds work in a peach orchard where they get paid 5 cents a basket. That evening, Al goes looking for girls, and Tom, curious about the trouble on the roadside, goes to investigate. Guards turn him away at the orchard gate, but Tom sneaks under the gate and starts down the road. He comes upon a tent and discovers that one of the men inside is Jim Casy. Jim tells Tom about his experience in prison and reports that he now works to organize the migrant farmers. He explains that the owner of the peach orchards cut wages to two-and-a-half cents a box, so the men went on strike. Now the owner has hired a new group of men in hopes of breaking the strike. Casy predicts that by tomorrow, even the strike-breakers will be making only two-and-a-half cents per box. Tom and Casy see flashlight beams, and two policemen approach them, recognizing Casy as the workers’ leader and referring to him as a communist. As Casy protests that the men are only helping to starve children, one of them crushes his skull with a pick handle. Tom flies into a rage and wields the pick handle on Casy’s murderer, killing him before receiving a blow to his own head. He manages to run away and makes it back to his family. In the morning, when they discover his wounds and hear his story, Tom offers to leave so as not to bring any trouble to them. Ma, however, insists that he stay. They leave the peach farm and head off to find work picking cotton. Tom hides in a culvert close to the plantation—his crushed nose and bruised face would bring suspicion upon him—and the family sneaks food to him. Word gets out that Tom is a murder and is forced to leave his family. Before he leave he has a hear to heart with his mother, he speaks of Jim Casy and his way of spirituality for the greater good. As Tom leaves his family to fight for social justice, he completes the transformation that began several chapters earlier. Initially lacking the patience and energy to consider the future at all, he marches off to lead the struggle toward making that future a kinder and gentler one. The Joads are left to work on the farm but, then there is a six day flood that wipes away the families cars and settlement. This forces the family to set off on foot for higher ground. Al decides to stay with the Wainwrights and Agnes. Traveling on foot, the remaining Joads spot a barn and head toward it. There, they find a dying man and small boy. The boy tells them that his father has not eaten for six days, having given all available food to his son. The man’s health has deteriorated to such an extent that he cannot digest solid food; he needs soup or milk. Ma looks to Rose of Sharon, and the girl at once understands her unstated thoughts. Rose of Sharon asks everyone to leave the barn and, once alone, she approaches the starving man. Despite his protests, she holds him close and suckles him. This is the closing of the book, which for me is an amazing ending. It was symbol of family and the fight for the greater good of the common people. Analysis In the Grapes of Wrath, we are taken along side a family of okies, who are forced to migrate west. Through this journey we can use the insights of the suffering the migrants went though to better understand the immigrant experience. Throughout history outsiders have driven people off their native land. They fall victim to the physical and environmental forces that drive them off the land. Immigrants or in this case migrant workers are labeled as trash and are used as capital gain and cheap labor. This is due a lack of options and the people are forced to work for unfair pay and to be treated unjust. The Dust bowl was an ecological and human disaster in the Southwestern Great Plains regions of the United States in the 1930s. The areas affected were Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The poor handling of the land and years of drought caused this great disaster (Jones History). During this time the Okiesa name given to the migrants that traveled from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, or anywhere in the Southwest or the northern plains to Californiaencountered many hardships. These hardships are brilliantly shown in John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. Scholars agree, The most important fact about the dust storms was not scientific but human: their tragic effect upon people seeking livelihood on the stricken Midwestern farms (French 4). Steinbeck believed society was inhumane to the Okies and through his novel we can account for how the Okies were treated. By looking at Steinbecks own personal background and information from historical commentaries we are better able to grasp his reasoning for writing the novel because he understood what it was like to grow up as a farmer, and an outsider. More importantly, however, we are able to share in his compassion for the Okies. To fully understand Steinbecks reasoning for writing the novel it is important to look at his family and where he grew up. John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas California. His parents were middle-class people who played many roles in the community and cultural life. His father worked as a manager of a flourmill, and his mother taught in a one-room rural school (Swisher 13). Steinbecks compassion for the Okies is clearly seen in passages like, this: The Okies are resourceful, and intelligent Americans who have gone through the hell of the drought, have seen their lands wither and die and the topsoil blow away: and this, to a man who has owned his land, is a curious and terrible pain (French 56). The encounters Steinbeck had with the Okies inspired him to write The Grapes of Wrath (Swisher 20). The Okies were not only exposed to greed but also to the terrible feeling of an empty, deprived stomach. Steinbeck remarks, And in the South he [a homeless, hungry man] saw the golden oranges hanging on trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low (318). In conclusion Steinbeck wants his readers to feel the pain of the Okies. They were discriminated against because of a circumstance (The Dust bowl) they had no control over. Steinbeck can relate to this inhumane treatment because he too had suffered teasing and hatred based solely on his physical characteristics. Nature handed the Okies and Steinbeck a bad hand and he wanted society to grasp the reality of human unkindness. Steinbeck writes, If you [land owners] could separate causes (hunger in a stomach, hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and security) from results (growing labor unity, striking at new taxes, widening government), if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you can not know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into I, and cuts you off forever from the we (Steinbeck 206). So we can use Steinbeck’s life experiences and historical references to use the Joads journey west to better understand the immigrant experience.