Math through an Aboriginal lens
- Angela Hill | June 13, 2015
Math outreach program looks to connect Aboriginal culture with numbers
It’s just after 10:45 on a Monday morning, and kids in a Grade 6/7 classroom at St. Frances in Saskatoon are cheering as their math teacher walks into the room.
“The kids look forward to 'Stavros day.' We call it 'Stavros day' when Stavros comes in to teach math,” said Bonnie Yew, the students’ everyday teacher.
Stavros Stravrou is the math outreach co-ordinator for the department of math and stats at the University of Saskatchewan. His position was created through funds from the Government of Saskatchewan and Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences in order to find new initiatives aimed at Aboriginal math education.
A year ago he started by looking at what was needed and where there was a demand for extra assistance with math.
“One thing that stood out everywhere was that there weren’t enough math lessons and math activities that connect the curriculum with First Nations perspectives,” he said.
The 27-year-old holds a Masters in math and is nearly completed an Education Masters, both he quickly put to use.
With funding from SIGA he began working in three schools, Whitecap Elementary, Oskayak and St. Frances.
On that Monday in St. Frances, Stavrou talked about fractal patterns, but that’s not where he started. He used a conversation about art to discuss oppression and racism, before moving into aboriginal artwork, where fractal patterns often are used.
“Fractals are patterns that occur in nature that repeat … Part of Aboriginal knowledge is understanding there is connection between yourself and nature, so if you are really connected to nature and you’re really seeing the patterns in nature then that will come out in the artwork,” he said.
“So I have the students describing patterns using numbers and using exponents.”
Before long the kids had their hands up to get to go to the board to draw their own pattern, triangles inside triangles, and lines dividing into pairs to make images that look like trees.
This is exactly what Stavrou wants to see happen.
Being math literate is usually defined as someone who can do math by writing and solving equations, he said, but adds that it’s not the only way of doing things.
“We can describe angles through storytelling, or through looking at skills like hunting skills. Indigenous people were applying angles and geometry all the time for survival through hunting, for example.”
It’s only been a year with the classes he has worked with, but Stavrou said he already sees a noticeable change in the kids.
“The students are always really excited when I come with activities, so just the fact that they are excited to do math is one way we can measure success because normally students have a math phobia,” he said.
When Stavrou told the students he’d be back three more times that week, more often than normal to do a few makeup classes before the end of the year, they were happy.
“So we only get one boring math class this week!” said one kid in the front row.
Yew, the teacher who does the math teaching when Stavrou is not around, the so-called boring class, takes it in stride. She teaches math according to the lessons that are set out in the textbooks that the school division uses and sees how her teaching is enhanced by having the expertise of the math outreach co-ordinator.
“I’m glad I met him, that he’s able to come into my classroom, and relate to my kids and they respond to him,” she said.
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