Public school teacher ends students' "trauma".
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Source: Zero Hour
Cardboard boxes, markers, and a cell phone are the main tools of Professor Luiz Felipe Lins's work. The educator transformed the Francis Hime Municipal School, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, into one of the most awarded public institutions in Brazil in mathematics olympiads. The formula? Doing what he considers most elementary: transforming numbers into something that makes sense in the lives of children and teenagers.
To teach mathematics to students from the 6th grade onwards, Lins uses cardboard and pens to create games, such as board games, memory games, and dominoes. Students also need to decipher proposed riddles, write a text about how they arrived at the result, and record the entire process on video to later share with their classmates. The goal, according to the teacher, is to develop skills that go beyond mathematics, such as written and verbal expression and teamwork.
Cardboard boxes are also used to form a model representing the area of the house they plan to build. The students calculate the materials needed for the construction and go to stores to get quotes on how much money is needed to complete the building. The brand-new house exists in theory, but the teenagers learn concepts of area, perimeter, ratio, and proportion in practice.
"The mathematics I learned in school, and that many still learn today, is traumatizing because it prioritizes formulas and gives no importance whatsoever to logical reasoning or problem-solving strategies. I decided I would do things differently: teach mathematics connected to reality, that makes sense to children," says the 45-year-old educator, 22 of whom have dedicated themselves to teaching.
To read the full article, visit the Zero Hora website:
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