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Here, there is an absence of any sense of personal relevance for the students as far as mathematics is concerned For such students, mathematics doesn't represent anything. If it is done at all, it is because it is compulsory; the student is so, uninvolved that it feels mechanical. All drive towards mathernatics is missing. 1 propose the conjecture that in fact all such drive is repressed. There is no longer anything positive for these students, but rather "indifference". It even happens that if they are forced into mathematics, it becomes negative (or absurd) for them |
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<<the x's and the y's, they represent nothing, it's completely abstract.>> <<you you have to copy out theorems that are completely idiotic.>> Another asserts: <<1 don't know what is really concrete. You calculate figures, you do anything! In the end, anything ... to me that seems nonsensical. For me, figures, even when 1 wasn't particularly good with them at primary school, 1 still found them. pleasing because they were something concrete, something that was plain for all to see, you calculated weights, measures. But here, now, we do calculations with letters. We have never learnt to say a times b makes c; I don't know if it is that! I don't know, in the end it seems absurd to me ... I don't remember anything, it is precisely because it is absurd that 1 don't remember anything.>> So completely absurd that you ask yourself whether teachers believe in it all themselves. <<You, seeing as you are a maths teacher, do you really believe in all these theorems?>>
If all mathematical signs become meaningless (or absurd), it is because they no longer have any apparent personal. relevance. Repression permits a retreat from all investment of energy, for reasons which can be diverse but which are most often used as a way of assessing - sometimes in rather doubtfül. fashion - the personality of the student. This poses the question of whether it is justifiable that mathematics be compulsory for all. Is it not, at times, even rather dangerous to demand success in this subject "at any price"? It should be noted here that mathematical reeducation is not a return. to apprenticeship; the whole personality is involved. |
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