To educate in the teaching of mathematics under another way of thinking that motivates students to learn

Image source

We educators have in our multiple variants of teaching an arsenal of thoughts that can be tested to improve the way students learn mathematics.

In order to do this, the mathematics teacher must express his or her knowledge through a teaching philosophy whose philosophy deciphers in the one who teaches mathematics the passion that one must have, so that students can feel the teachings of mathematics by a teacher who lives mathematics in an environment that goes beyond the classroom.

When we imagine this environment, where we think that there may be mathematics teachers who go beyond the barriers of traditional teaching, I know that we can ask ourselves the following questions:

Do mathematics teachers have a different way of thinking?

Personally, I think so, because if a mathematics teacher believes that he/she does not have a way of thinking different from the traditional way of thinking, it is because perhaps he/she has not dared to teach something different to his/her students.

For this case I will explain my personal case, when I explain mathematics I tell my students one of the ways of thinking and whose philosophy reflects a broad vision of mathematics, for this case I tell them that I do not care if they do not remember the memorization of a formula, or if they do not remember a specific procedure of algebra, Rather, what I am really going to value is that they learn to think with mathematical logic, that is, that they can reason with the characteristics of already learned knowledge, especially where there is a logical consistency that triggers consequences that open up innovative solutions.

Image source

Can this particular way of thinking be transferred to other spheres of life?

Learning mathematics with reflective thinking and logical consistency makes this thinking expand to all spheres of daily life, since mathematics is spread in all areas of life, nature, social, economic, and although there are aspects where mathematics is looking for new solutions, we are completely sure that once mathematics develops more and more, it will reach the point where there will not be a field of life where mathematics is not expressed and where it cannot provide solutions.

Once students have a perspective of mathematics more in the philosophical than in the memorization, they will get a more sustainable way of learning, since the important thing can become, not only what is learned, but the contributions that can continue to be given in mathematics.

Image source

In order for new contributions in mathematics to continue to emerge, it is necessary that our students have a critical and reflective sense of mathematics, since it is useless for them to continue learning what has already been discovered, but from a perspective of reflective broadening, many students will be able to pose common problems and their possible mathematical solutions, which are innovative and creative.

Let us, then, with our teaching skills, make mathematics seek to be expanded by those who teach it and learn it by a way of life, where we look, we see mathematics, where we touch, we see mathematics, until we reach the point where there is no human being in this world who still sees the learning of mathematics as unnecessary.

Recommended reference

The philosophy of mathematics and mathematics education