It is a popular belief that, when it comes to learning and skills, people tend to favour one aspect whether that be the logical, scientific subjects or the expressively creative ones. One person may be a wonderful painter who loves to play instruments and dance while the next loves to experiment with science and learn about astronomy. However, I feel that this is a myth. It is a myth I used to believe as I always felt I had a more mathematical mind than that of a creative one, but a myth nonetheless. Through my time on the ‘Discovering Mathematics’ module, my eyes have been opened to the fact that maths crosses over a vast amount of curricular content and is prominent pretty much everywhere. The lines connecting a subject like maths to that of the expressive arts were previously blurred but now I can see the strong direct links showing how they can be taught together.

There are many creative ways to promote Ma’s (1999) fundamental mathematical skills, one of which being through art. Last week, I attended the ‘Math and Art’ input of the module and had such an enjoyable time, despite my aversion of the arts so I was inspired to write this post about it. The lecture had us actively engaged in a range of art based mathematical activities that were easily accessible to and understood by all. An example that I found to be extremely interesting was the activity entitled ‘Who is the most beautiful?’. This activity highlighted the links between maths, art and history which established the principle of connectedness as a key concept on fundamental mathematics (Ma, 1999). Ma talks of connectedness as an awareness of the direct links that mathematics has with other curricular areas, something that was evident to me during this part of the input. In this activity, we related the golden ratio of Fibonacci to medieval stereotypes of beauty. Pairing this with mathematical measuring skills, we had an activity where we could actually mathematically calculate who at our table was the most beautiful.

After a thorough measurement and the careful calculations that followed, we discovered that each of us has a certain body area in which our ratios were mathematically perfect (mine was my waist to head ratio!). This activity  was exciting and we became active and energized as a result, This has made me realize that there are very creative ways to implement math learning in the classroom in a way that will actively engage students without them truly realizing that they are studying maths. It is almost the equivalent of slipping vegetables into a sauce so that kids don’t know they are eating them. It is a fantastic concept that I truly enjoyed, it may have even encouraged me to invent my own ways on incorporating maths into fun activities. I also found a video relating to art and mathematics found in nature which provides a range of ideas for lessons that may be interesting to watch! –

Overall, I think that this input has helped me overcome my art aversion which I hope to implement in my future lessons as a teacher. This will hopefully help me to prevent cases of possible maths anxiety and make mathematical learning more enjoyable for my future students.