When I started teaching high school math in the mid-1960s, the teaching pedagogue was what was called “chalk and talk.” There were few attempts by traditional Mathematics teachers to use any other teaching approach. I must admit that I was trained primarily learning to teach a variety of subjects to my class. This continued with my transfer to a high school. There I taught a number of general subjects: English, science, history and geography, as well as math. So my range of teaching strategies was wide.
Mathematics in high school is normally a compulsory subject. Many students fail to see its relevance to their lives or see it as too difficult, especially when the “bogeyman” Algebra enters the picture. So, to get the attention of my entire class, I used a variety of approaches, including quizzes, radio and television, as well as movies. This brings me to the Walt Disney movie, “Donald in Mathmagic Land”.
I discovered it by chance looking at a catalog of movies available to use in your math classes. I decided to borrow it from the state film library to use with my freshman high school classes. I didn’t quite know what to expect. It was a pleasant surprise and exactly what I needed to show my classes the relevance of Mathematics in their lives 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 explaining how math can be useful in real life. Through this journey he shows how numbers are more than graphs and charts, 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 tracked down 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 the teaching of 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 “Mathematics is beautiful.”
I used this film in my high school classes from year eight to year ten. I’m sure it could be used in earlier years when students’ interest in math begins 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.
