Blog Entry Six - First Journal Reading

Daire, S. A. (2010). Celebrating mathematics all year 'round. Mathematics Teacher, 103(7), 509-513.


Having passed the date 3.14.10 many of us realize that this is Pi Day, and weather we celebrated or not, some emotion was felt about this day. Daire writes about how this day is a day for celebrating and getting excited about Mathematics. Her article was more than this though, she goes on to explain how she made math a reason to celebrate all year round. She clearly emphasized and explained how she successfully got her entire school involved and excited about math year round. Each month that has a holiday - there is a math activity centered around that holiday. Examples, February had the title "Love of Mathematics" and they solved equations using hearts and did activities centered around hearts. In the months where there were no major holidays, the school still celebrated math, learning how to do things like Rubik's Cubes and there was even a Monopoly tournament. Daire had the entire school involved, not just those in her math class. Her descriptions of each month portrayed her hard work she put into each celebration, and the success that followed each activity.


Daire's year round celebrations seemed to me like a great idea in theory, they would just take a lot of work. Clearly she was able to accomplish these in her own school, but with a lot of continued and persistent effort. There are a few reasons why I think this task is doable, but would be difficult. From my own junior high and high school experience, and simply being part of student organizations, I realize how extremely difficult it is to get people excited about activities, especially school related ones. Daire's activities varied, some of them allowing many students to get involved, such as posting a problem outside the door, and some were more time consuming, like the Monopoly competition. Doing this she was able to get a wide variety of students. From this I feel like teachers would have to adapt to their own individual schools, to know how to get the most people involved. The next thing that I think would be difficult is getting the administration and faculty on board. Daire had the support of her colleagues. This is key in accomplishing a year round task like this. I know I would have a hard time using my class time for another subject. She was able to convince those around her, so it is possible, again, just difficult. Lastly, I think it would be very time consuming, but rewarding. Daire was able to get the community involved by getting them to give donations as prizes. This extra time allowed the community to see the importance of the celebrations, and the prizes helped the kids be more excited in participating. Overall, I think her ideas were marvelous. It is such a creative way to help math seem less intimidating and more exciting. I commend her on her effort as I notice the extreme amounts it took and I think this is the only way a task like this could be accomplished.