Issue 26(2)
Oral
Storytelling & Teaching Mathematics: Pedagogical and Multicultural
Perspectives. (2004).
Michael Stephen Schiro with Doris
Lawson. Thousand Oaks,
CA:
Sage Publications, Inc., 280 pp. $36.96.
ISBN # 0-7619-3010-8.
Review
by: Janice Lindsley
Academic
Advisor, Advising First
Florida
State
University
Interdisciplinary
studies and connections between different subject areas are of
increased importance in today's globalized world. Academic advisors
who work in college/university settings have almost certainly
witnessed a rise in the availability of interdisciplinary majors
offered by their respective institutions. Schiro's book is a testament
to the necessity of a diverse educational background.
The
author recounts two stories orally dictated to 4th and 6th graders
by a Boston-area schoolteacher, Doris Lawson. Lawson uses "A Wizard's
Tale" (fashioned after characters from The Lord of the Rings
) and "The Egypt Story" to draw connections between mathematics
and culture for her students. Children learn customs from different
cultures (such as names of Egyptian children or the typical age
for marriage) while they are taught to think creatively about
what many believe is a "boring" and difficult subject: mathematics.
Each
part of the book begins with the word-for-word rendition of the
stories as told by Lawson to her students (accompanying the book
is a CD of the stories). Consequent chapters describe what the
children should learn and what skills they should develop, such
as interpersonal relationships with the teacher, problem solving,
consequences of actions, math proofs, and how math plays a part
in everyday life around the world.
"Children
need to have the chance to work problems that ask them to behave
as mini-mathematical anthropologists if we want them to learn
multicultural mathematics. Asking students to uncover the links
between a culture's mathematical system and its social beliefs..
is an example of this type of problem" (p. 183). A table on p.
138 compares modern-day and ancient Egyptian multiplication methods.
Ancient Egyptian multiplication, for example, requires speaking
aloud while multiplying; our modern-day multiplication does not.
In comparing how early Egyptian and modern societies view math,
children learn value systems: math was a group activity in ancient
Egypt
as opposed to our modern focus on the individual.
Academic
advisors who specialize in education, anthropology/social science,
mathematics/statistics, or exploratory/undeclared majors will
find this book helpful in advising students. Often students do
not see why they must take math if they are anthropology majors,
or vice versa. This book will not only help students see how each
subject can be applied to the other, but also will help them realize
the value of a liberal arts education. Most importantly advisors
can use this book to prove connections between students' majors,
minors, electives, and career choices and reinforce why it is
vital to be well-rounded. (As a side note, as a college freshman,
I enrolled in a seminar called Math in Africa; that class helped
me to decide to major in anthropology and minor in math).
I recommend
this book to advisors, but caution against getting bogged down
in the actual stories (unless one is a former, current, or future
teacher who might find the pedagogical details interesting). The
stories can be skimmed, but the conclusions and lessons learned
are worth reading.
