When I started teaching high school math in the mid-1960s, the teaching pedagogue was what was called “chalk and talk.” There have been few attempts by traditional mathematics teachers to use any other teaching approach. I must admit that I was trained primarily by learning to teach the full range of subjects to my class. This continued with my transfer to a secondary school. There I taught a number of general subjects: English, science, history and geography, as well as mathematics. So my range of teaching strategies was wide.
Mathematics in high school is normally a compulsory subject. Many students can’t see its relevance to their life or see it as too difficult, especially when the “bogeyman”, Algebra, comes on the scene. So, to get the attention of my entire class, I used a variety of approaches, including contests, radio and television, as well as movies. This brings me to the Walt Disney movie, “Donald in Mathmagic Land.”
I discovered it by chance while looking at a catalog of films available to use in your Mathematics classes. I decided to borrow it from the state film library to use with my freshman classes. I didn’t quite know what to expect. It was a nice surprise and exactly what I needed to show my classes the relevance of Mathematics in their life and how much Mathematics contributed to life as they knew it. Here is a summary of the film that can be found on YouTube.
Donald’s embarks on an adventure that explains how math can be useful in real life. Through this journey he shows how numbers are more than graphs and tables, they are geometry, music and magical living beings.
There are so many ideas in the movie that you miss a lot of them when you first see it. Very often, when I could borrow the film, I would show it a second time telling my classes what they needed to see. The film was excellent as a motivating force. So I encouraged my fellow teachers to show it to their classes at the beginning of the school year. When I became the head of a Math department in the mid-1980s, I located the film and was able to purchase a cassette tape of the film to add to my school’s Math resource center.
The film demonstrates many ideas pictorially that the teacher can only explain verbally, making it easier for students to understand the concepts and see their relevance to everyday life.
The most interesting development for me as a teacher was that it motivated me to make teaching Mathematics as exciting as possible and broadened my understanding of the contribution that Mathematics makes to our human society. He also showed my students and me the beauty of Mathematics. In fact, when a problem I did on the board came up that the students weren’t expecting, especially in Algebra, my comment to the class was “Math is beautiful.”
I used this film in my secondary classes from year eight to year ten. I’m sure it could be used in earlier years when students’ interest in math starts to wane. I think every school should have a copy of this movie and make sure every student sees it at least once in their school career.