INTRODUCTION : The other day I overheard 6-year-old Ahmed explaining to his older sister about why swallowing the seeds of an orange is harmful. He said, "The seed will become a plant in your tummy and then a big tree, and then you'll burst. So be careful!"
Well! Well! Doesn't this raise questions like how often do we adults make assumptions about the ways in which children think?
And then, how many of us think about questions like how a primary school child learns? Do most children follow a similar learning path from preschool through the primary years of education? Do they go through the same stages of development? In this unit, we shall examine these questions.
We will explore the qualitatively different ways in which children think and learn, as well as the general nature of young children. We will also examine how the adult-child gap shapes our attitudes towards children. We begin with the generally accepted fact that a child starts learning from the time she is born.
Therefore, she already knows quite a bit when she joins school. In this theory we outline the major developmental stages that children go through from the preschool through the primary years of education. Although these stages are characteristic of children's general cognitive development, we have discussed them with particular reference to Mathematics learning. We make a case for viewing the teaching of preschool and primary school mathematics from the perspective of the child, and not from the viewpoint of pure subject content and pedagogy. We bring you instances to show you that as children explore the world around them, mathematical experiences present themselves alongside others.
Through this unit we also hope to sensitise you to issues raised by the following questions: what factors influence a child's attitude towards mathematics? Why does a child start being afraid of, and feel disinterested in, mathematics? How does classroom teaching influence or cause these attitudes?
Thus, the thrust of the unit is that a teacher of primary school children must be sensitive to issues that determine a child's ability to learn mathematics, as well as issues that influence a child's attitudes towards mathematics. We will reinforce what we say in this unit through the examples that we'll discuss in the rest of the course.
One point that we'd like to mention about the unit is that we have tried to present arguments to support our understanding. Please feel free to disagree with us. But make sure that you too have sound arguments to back your opinions.