Math everywhere, students told

Persons who gathered for Sunday’s Math graduation ceremony. (LG) Students who participated in this year’s Jaycees Barbados Math Fanatics have been urged to see maths in their everyday lives, with the former Jaycee president insisting that students are already using it in their daily lives. Speaking at the graduation ceremony on Sunday at the Courtyard by Marriot, former president Sheldon Marshall challenged the students to rethink their idea of mathematics, telling them that the subject extends far beyond numbers and equations. “Math is not just numbers. Math is not just equations. Math is not just something your teacher puts on your board or the chalkboard and then somehow expects you to understand what it is you need to do,” he explained that mathematics involves patterns, logic, planning, measurement and figuring things out. He demonstrated his point by using everyday situations familiar to the students, including shopping, video games, social media and cricket. Marshall asked a student to imagine being given $20 to purchase an item costing $13, explaining that knowing how much change should be received was mathematics. “We are all checking our receipts. We are all counting the change,” he said. You Might Be Interested In He also pointed to video games, where children constantly calculate coins, health points, scores, percentages and the number of points needed to reach a particular level. “Trying to level up, tracking points, points, percentages, time, scores. That is all math,” said Marshall, “Everybody in that moment recalculates.”. Math Fanatics project chairperson Rashaunda Cave-Brathwaite highlighted the transformation she said took place among students during the programme. She said the programme was about more than test scores, percentages and equations. She credited the programme’s volunteer tutors for helping to drive that change, noting that they spent their Saturdays preparing lessons, solving questions, reviewing assignments and finding ways to make mathematics more engaging and accessible. Cave-Brathwaite said the programme’s success could be seen not only in the exercises completed and questions answered correctly, but also in students’ personal growth. “We saw students becoming more confident. We saw students becoming more comfortable with challenges. We saw students discovering that they were capable of more than they had originally believed,” she said. By the end of the programme, students were participating more freely and approaching problems with greater confidence, she said. “And perhaps most importantly, many of them no longer saw mathematics as something to fear.” The programme was held at seven locations, with volunteer tutors giving their time on Saturdays for more than 12 weeks. A representative of the Massy Foundation, which has partnered with the Jaycees on Math Fanatics for four consecutive years, said the programme had demonstrated the positive results that targeted educational support could have on young people. The programme helped students strengthen their mathematical skills and build confidence in their abilities, while also pointing to improved mathematics scores, the representative said. (LG)