Explain this
Human rights in the curriculum: Mathematics
How the publisher describes it:
“With this book secondary school teachers can teach Mathematics and Citizenship at the same time. The book addresses all the human rights challenges of Citizenship education withing the context of the secondary mathematics classroom. Its 30 thought-provoking, entertaining and multicultural activities have been developed by teachers and fully trialled in a range of schools. Each activity is accompanied by comprehensive teachers' notes and a resource sheet for photocopying.”
Review by Adam Creen
In brief:
This new book from Amnesty International is an excellent way to start to cover some issues. Developed and improved over the last 5 years, the latest incarnation of this resource joins humanities, MFL and RE in a series of glossy books covering human rights in different subject areas.
“Bringing ethical and world issues into Maths is something that teachers feel uncertain about, and desperately in need of resourcing”
There are many things being spread ‘across the curriculum’ these days, and after literacy and numeracy, the other major one that is statutory is citizenship. But often bringing ethical and world issues into Maths is something that teachers feel uncertain about, and desperately in need of resourcing.
This new book from Amnesty International is an excellent way to start to cover some issues. Developed and improved over the last 5 years, the latest incarnation of this resource joins humanities, MFL and RE in a series of glossy books covering human rights in different subject areas. The resources were trialled in a variety of schools, including a special school, and have been improved with well-designed worksheets and clear instructions for the teacher.
A table at the front shows how each activity links to the national vurriculum, not only for England & Wales, but also Scotland and Northern Ireland. It also shows to which Article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (included in the back of the book) the worksheet relates.
Some activities are illustrative of other cultures, for example the Yoruba method of counting from West Africa, and Russian and Egyptian multiplication. Sometimes the activities can be a little ‘thin’, for example designing an Amish quilt, with basic symmetry work but no reason to study the issues of the Amish life.
Two successful worksheets that I tried were on Fair Trade coffee and chocolate. The explanation of how Fair Trade works is very clear, and students can be asked to find similar products in the supermarket and investigate their cost and popularity. The maths involved includes pie charts, time-series line graphs and percentages, and it is very easy to explain from the notes why trade needs to be made fairer.
A pair of longer activities that look more complicated are the Election and Gerrymandering worksheets, where students vote and see what the result would be under different electoral systems, and then look at how the division of constituencies affects the overall majority. Some other activities also appear difficult to relate to maths and would require a lot more preparation.
Overall this book has clear examples of all sorts of multicultural issues and is very clearly signposted to age, level and attainment target. It is certainly a book that would be a valuable addition to a departmental library, but would need to be pushed heavily into the work scheme to ensure the topics were covered properly.
A similar resource that is equally good is the Charis Mathematics series. Published by the Stapleford Centre (www.stapleford-centre.org), this addresses the spiritual dimension of maths as well as the moral and ethical. There are three books in the series, covering Key Stages 3 and 4. These books are particularly useful in faith schools, where the spiritual ethos needs to be demonstrated across the curriculum.
Adam Creen • Head of Maths, Salesian School, Chertsey
Paperback: 84 pages
Publisher: Amnesty International UK (1 Sep 2004)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1873328494
ISBN-13: 978-1873328491
Product Dimensions: 29.4 x 20.6 x 0.8 cm
