OUTSIDE SCHOOL REAL LIFE PROBLEMS EDUCATION ESSAY

3223 WORDS

Outside school, real-life problems and situations for which mathematical knowledge may be useful often do not present themselves in such familiar forms. The individual must translate the situation or problem into a form that exposes the relevance and usefulness of mathematics. If students are unpracticed at such a process, the potential power of mathematics to help deal with the situations and problems of their life may not be fully realized and may also result to problems.

Researches have shown that majority of students are experiencing problems in mathematics. The importance of mathematics is likely neglected because of students’ performance over the subject (Kulak,1993).

Globally, almost all students are complaining about failure in mathematics because of fear over the subject. (Betz, 1978; cited by Zakaria, 2010) thus, resulting to negative attitude about the subject. This condition is known mathematics anxiety (Fleming; 2010) which is one attitude that could be present to students. According to a research conducted in Florida, the percentage of students who failed in math increases (http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/oct/21/college-students-need-help-required-math-classes/news-breaking/).

According to Tobias (1993; cited by Philips, 2010), millions of adults are blocked from professional and personal opportunities because they fear or perform poorly in mathematics, these negative experiences remain throughout their adult lives.

Math apprehension can cause tears of frustrations (Sollesta, 2007). A student who has anxiety over math gets upset whenever there is an assignment. They are having no know-how about their math lesson. This could result to ignorance of numbers which could lead to struggles in simple subtraction and addition.

In the Philippines, Filipino students are having problems when it comes to math proficiency ( Malipot, 2009). In fact, only a few percent crossed the 75-percent level in math in the 2006 National Achievement Test (http://www.undp.org.ph/?link=news&news_id=231&fa=1). In addition, A number of students are dropping mathematics aside from science courses usually before and even after examination (E. Senajon et al; in www.philjol.info/index.php/EACRB/article/viewPDFIntersritial/…1286.). This is an indication of an existing perennial problem because of math anxiety that has been overlooked by concerned offices and department.

The problem of mathematics attitude leads to the formulation of different strategies to induce the interest of the students to study mathematics. In fact, the Department of Education (Ronda, 2009) created a strategy to encourage public school children to read as well as appreciate mathematics.

On the other hand, negative perception on mathematics can lead to lack of self-confidence to most Filipino students (Chua, 2006), which is perhaps a greatest obstacle to learning because beliefs govern a person. The belief that they cannot do something may push students unable to perform a task of which they are truly capable.