News13th March 2015
鈥淢补迟丑蝉 can be fun,鈥 says Ian Davies, holding an empty pint glass. Ian is the Director of Curriculum for the programme. He鈥檚 on a mission to change the way people learn about maths. 鈥淨uite often people think maths is a scary, horrible subject, because they鈥檝e haven鈥檛 been given a good understanding of it. Pi day is a chance to celebrate some of the fun things about maths.鈥
Tomorrow, the 14th of March, will be World Pi Day and Ian will be busier than usual. In addition to his regular workload, he’ll be active on Twitter- posting Pi facts and visual 鈥榙ingbat鈥 maths puzzles. He鈥檚 not above sharing a Pi-related joke: 鈥淲hich of King Arthur鈥檚 Knights created the round table?鈥 he asks. 鈥淪ir Cumference.鈥
But it鈥檚 the pint glass that he carries with him that best illustrates how Ian approaches teaching maths. He asks: 鈥淗ow tall would you estimate this glass to be?鈥 He uses a tape measure to show that it鈥檚 18 centimetres high. 鈥淣ow can you guess how long it is around the top of the glass?鈥 Again, his tape measure comes out, but this time the answer is surprising. The circumference of the top of the glass is 25 centimetres- far longer than the height of the glass.
鈥淎lthough I鈥檝e won many a pint pointing this out, this isn鈥檛 an illusion,鈥 he says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 maths.鈥 He explains that you can figure out the circumference of any circle, including pint glasses by measuring the distance across a circles widest point and multiplying by Pi, a constant value of 3.14. 鈥淧i is simply the ratio of the distance across the top of the pint glass compared to the circumference. It鈥檚 always going to be 3.1415 et cetera.鈥
Ian has been teaching maths for nearly 30 years, and during that time he has become an evangelist for finding new and interesting ways to share mathematical knowledge. 鈥淚n countries like Singapore that excel at maths, nobody walks around saying, 鈥業鈥檓 terrible at maths,鈥 the way people quite proudly will in the UK. And I think that鈥檚 because here we鈥檝e often been taught maths in an unpractical and very abstract way.鈥
Ian illustrates his point again, this time with pen and paper. 鈥淔or example, look at the symbol we use for the number five鈥hy should 鈥5鈥 mean five? In Roman times a 鈥淰鈥 symbol meant five and if you look at the Punjabi symbol for five, it looks like our symbol for number four. These are just abstract symbols. But five cubes or five dots on a piece of paper actually mean something to people. Maths is all about making connections. When you first learn to count, you don鈥檛 count with abstract numbers, you count your steps or your fingers. 黑料情报站鈥檚 Maths Mastery programme takes that concrete approach into the classroom, not just in primary schools, but secondary as well. It鈥檚 not just a curriculum, it鈥檚 also training for teachers and collaboration tools and exercises.鈥
Mathematics Mastery is open to Pi-loving primary and secondary schools in the UK. .
University graduates or career switchers interested in teaching maths (or other subjects) can apply to join the programme.