An original speech on the current pedagogy, written by our student Aaradhyey Jain.

Aaradhyey is 10 years old young performer from Jaipur. He has written this speech as part of the Speech and Drama Curriculum under Not Just Tales. Drama and Sports are his passion. We are proud to have him as a student of the Speech and Drama Long Term Program, an Offline (Jaipur, Banipark Studio) Children Theatre & Speech Program under the mentorship of Trainer Khusshbo Chokhaani. We congratulate Aaradhyey for this exemplary true self-expression.

Maths! Maths! Maths! Do You Detest Maths?

Have you started detesting math till you reach grade 5 or 6? Well, I have! If you’re wondering that I have a low IQ, that’s not the case. If it was true then a whole 100 kids’ IQs would have been low because none of them understand it even the ones who top in every subject, and do well in extracurricular activities.

But do you expect me to learn this monstrous thing called math? Through the traditional rote learning modality where teachers wrote a sum on the board and asks students to copy and solve, not happening with me. I started detesting math because of this boring, uninteresting methodology of teaching. They just write the question on the board and explain how to do that particular sum and expect us to do all the 20 sums on our own.

Sometimes, I wonder, Why do they even teach these hard topics like Perimeter and Area, Operations on Whole Numbers, and Distributive Properties? Will they even help us in the future? Do you even think all 150 students in the same grade of a school will use this in the future? They portray that these terrible, horrendous, and tiring topics are a daily need or they will save our lives like swimming or cooking. Do all these sums have real-time applications? Not all 150 students will become engineers and scientists. Let’s make maths applicable in daily mundane lives at least.

This challenge associated with the methodologies and with the syllabus brings me to the solution that I as a student of Grade 5 and approximately 10 years old can offer to the problem. I feel the authorities should make the syllabus optional according to the child’s capacity. The other way could be to teach the sum through a story because storytelling is the best way to connect with humans that’s why you are listening to mine.  The third option is to play games. There is a popular snake and ladders games on the app store or play store to teach algebra in a fun and experiential manner. When fun ways to teach difficult concepts of maths exist then why don’t the teachers adopt them?

To sum up I will say make the syllabus flexible according to the aptitude of the students. Adopt a different methodology of teaching. Like storytelling or games. Please, Please, Please make classroom learning fun and experiential. So a capable, intelligent and terrific child like me doesn’t detest a subject like math. Let’s not mourn math but make it fun. What do you think?

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