Page 42 - Ramanujan Yatra

Mathematical Explorations: An opportunity for discovering the beauty of doing Mathematics
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Jonaki B Ghosh
For centuries, mathematics has been the common language for classification, representation and analysis in almost every civilisation and every human endeavour. Indeed, learning mathematics forms an integral part of a child’s education, and a child’s intelligence is often
measured by her facility with numbers and reasoning skills. Ironically, however, mathematics is also the subject, which has traditionally been perceived as difficult and is the cause of many school tears. There is a lot of fear and phobia around the subject. This is primarily because at every stage of the school, mathematics is largely taught as an abstract subject without any connection to real life. This is even more so at the higher secondary stage, where teaching mathematics is driven by preparation for the school leaving examinations. The emphasis is mostly on the development of manipulative skills rather than exploring applications of the subject in real life.
Historically, India has made great contribution to mathematics. After all, Srinivasa Ramanujan is one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever seen. The great mathematician, G.H. Hardy, who had been Ramanujan’s mentor and collaborator, had commented that his greatest contribution to mathematics was his discovery of Ramanujan. Historical greatness notwithstanding, mathematics continues to be the most feared subject in the school curriculum. The Position paper on teaching of mathematics of the National Curriculum Framework (National Council for Educational Research and Training, 2006) [1] has pointed out that a large number of children drop out of school primarily because of failure in mathematics.
Ramanujan
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