“You’re at the lighthouse one night. There is an emergency. A ship at sea is sinking and it’s up to you to save those on board. You need to send a rescue ship. At what speed should the ship sail in order to reach the passengers on time?” If a math teacher begins a chapter on trigonometry with such an example, wouldn’t students sit up straight and pay attention, asks N. Umathanu, 73, a retired mathematics teacher. He adds, “A lot of students fear mathematics. They think it’s complicated and don’t make an effort to study it with interest. But I would blame their teachers for this. They have to teach with involvement.”
With 35 years of teaching experience, Umathanu has devised ways to make maths easy for students. He has come up with a method to make factorisation, one of the most important chapters in math, simple. “If the sum and product of two numbers are given, and we are asked to find out the two numbers, my method will give you the answer within minutes,” he says.
However, Umathanu says that teachers do not encourage students to follow his method in school. “They are asked to follow a time-consuming method. They sit for hours together to find out the factors.” Even though his method is correct, students are not given marks for doing it his way, rues Umathanu. “It is very disappointing that students are not encouraged to think creatively,” he says. ‘Do what you are taught and don’t think out of the box’ seems to be the refrain of a lot of teachers, he says.
Even the most complicated math problem can be taught in a simple way, says Umathanu. He makes mensuration sound like a breeze. With charts and handmade models, he explains how the formulae for volume, curved surface area and total surface area for geometrical shapes are derived. “It took me just Rs.10 to make these. If teachers explain such abstract concepts using these models, there is no need for students to mug-up formulae. They will remember them for life.”
Umathanu is constantly thinking of ways to makes maths easy. “School students don’t use set-squares. But, they can be taught to form angles using them. It is much simpler than using the protractor and compass and will be useful if they take up engineering,” he says. Before starting a new chapter, explain its significance, he advises.
Umathanu recently wrote to the government of Tamil Nadu expressing his willingness to teach his methods to teachers. The Director of State Institute of Education and Training responded by inviting him to train over 150 teachers from government schools in Coimbatore district over two days. The teachers in turn will train their peers.
For someone who loves math so much, Umathanu says he began to study it only because he didn’t have a choice. “I was born into a poor family in the village of Anjugramam. I wanted to study Science. Since my father couldn’t afford lab fees, I had to opt for math. But I’m glad I did,” he smiles.
Umathanu can be contacted at: 93604-82003.
For a video, go to >http://thne.ws/LTKSfl .
