“A focus on real-world issues can alter the entire culture of a school or school system.  It enables students and teachers to experience the “meatiness” of the direct study of reality.  It’s unfailingly relevant.  It shows respect for students, who become more than mere candidates for the next higher grade.  It levels the playing field by not privileging those with superior symbol manipulation skills. It disregards the arbitrary, artificial boundaries of the academic disciplines.  It’s easily applicable to the wider world.  And it shifts the emphasis from cover-the-material memory work to a full range of thinking skills” (Marion Brady, “Cover the Material-Or Teach Students to think”, Educational Leadership, 2008)

Did you realize that if you lived in Sierra Leone that you would make $700 per year?  That is only $1.92 per day.  That wouldn’t buy you much, right? Of course that IS only an average.  Does that mean there are people who make less?  Are there rich people there too?

Did you realize that in Swaziland there are 220,000 people living with HIV/AIDS?  That’s a lot right?  Hang on…in the States there are 950,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.  Who has the bigger problem?  What if I told you that Swaziland has an AIDS prevalence rate of 38.8%?  The States has a prevalence rate of 0.6%…

While we’re on this topic, what if I told you that Sub Saharan Africa has 22,000,000 people living with AIDS and that North Africa and the Middle East have 380,000 people living with AIDS combined?  Why would there be such a huge difference between Sub-Saharan and North Africa?  And why would they lump North Africa in with the Middle East?

Lets Look at some numbers from a recent article entitled “The Dangers of Teaching Girls in Afghanistan” (guardian.co.uk)

According to the United Nations, the country now has a record 5.7 million children in education, but only 35% of these are girls and the figure is not increasing. An estimated 1.2 million girls are missing out on schooling. In some provinces, girls’ enrolment may be as low as 1%. A third of state schools are reserved for boys, and there are not enough female teachers. In a country where the literacy rate for women aged 15–24 years is only 14%, compared with a rate of 51% for men in the same age group, this is a desperate situation.

What kind of numeracy skills does it take to understand this paragraph?  What kinds of interesting problems and issues could be researched, figured out and argued about?

And why is this stuff worth figuring out?

Certainly these are real world issues.  As an adult I find these issues not only intriguing, but shocking.  I react with great emotion when I am faced with them.  I feel compelled to tell others about them, to see what they think, to gauge their reactions…

But what about kids?  They don’t have enough math or enough world experience to really get these issues…but what if they had a reason to face them, to figure them out, to connect with them?  What if they were faced with making a decision that could really make a difference in this world if only they were equiped with the right skills?  What if they were to meet a person or make contact with a person who actually lived through these problems?  What if they built connections to people and places outside of the four classroom walls?  Would they have a reason for understanding the stories that numbers tell then?  Would they find this stuff compelling too?

Yes!

I have witnessed this phenomenon first hand over the course of this and the past school year.  It is the first time that I have ever felt like I have understood what it means to turn my students into numerate individuals.  They have had many reasons to learn these complex, interesting numbers in many contexts.  They have individually made loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world through Kiva.org and had to justify their decisions.  They corresponded with and met individuals who have worked with people in Africa and even on the streets of our own cities.  They have engaged in fund raising projects of their own design.  They have even had reason to work with statistics from the First and Second World War.  Homelessness.  Internet Safety.

The Numbers Are Out There…and so is the opportunity for kids to make deep, emotional connections.

Over the next few weeks, I will be chronicling projects and problems that serve as natural media for understanding stories that numbers tell.  This understanding represents numeracy in its truest form.  Plus, a range of curricular objectives, particularly those related to Number, Number Operations, and Statistics and Probability from grades 4 to 8 are explicitly covered.  It has been amazing to feel such purpose in my math program.  I hope that, by sharing these experiences, you will feel inspired try some ideas of your own.

Jen