How many times do you see people apologise for using mathematics in a television programme, book, discussion group etc? They apologise for using equations or mathematical terms as though they were talking Martian. Everyone these days has attended countless maths lessons at school and many have studied the subject to a higher level, so there really is no reason to avoid these terms and concepts.
Even Professor Hawking of Cambridge University, in his book ‘A Brief History of Time’ said he had been told to keep the number of equations to a minimum as every equation he included halved his potential readership.
What a crazy world we live in. You never hear a reviewer of a drama or fictional book apologising for using big words to describe the characters or the genre of the piece. Why do we do this in mathematics and why do we mathematicians put up with it?
Children love to learn and use new, often difficult, words. Watch them trying to get their tongues around words such as ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’, ‘Diplodocus’ or the name of some Italian or Lithuanian football player. They love it!
So, listen out for mathematical language and make sure you are introducing it into your conversations with your youngsters whenever appropriate, just as you would any other term.
You can begin when they are very young and I should like to use the concept of multiplication as an example.
How many ways can we describe a simple sum such as ’12 x 6′?
All of the following statements involve this problem:
What is 12 times 6?
What is 12 multiplied by 6?
Find the product of 12 and 6?
What is 12 times more than 6?
What is 12 lots of 6?
What number is 12 times greater than 6?
What is 12 groups of 6?
What is the 12th multiple of 6?
Commutative Law (the law that says that 12 x 6 is the same as 6 x 12)
There are similar words and phrases for the other three processes:
Addition – total, sum, all together, plus, how many in all…
Subtraction – difference, how much more, subtract, take away, how many are left, how much less than, how many more to make…
Division – divided by, divided into, quotient, shared between, halve, one third of, how many 5s make 35?…
Once you introduce these terms into your everyday conversation, other mathematical terms such as ‘equilateral triangle’, ‘isosceles’, ‘quadrilateral’, ‘hexagonal’, ‘perimeter’, ‘millimetre’ and ‘enlargement’ will not scare the pants off them and will soon become part of their everyday language too.
Children’s brains are designed to learn new words quickly and they love trying, so please use this to your (and their) advantage.
