math-historian-teacher-appu-thomas

For my Math History for Teachers assignment 3, I will be choosing the topic:  "Exploring an artistic expression of mathematical ideas that you might be teaching   during your practicum or at another time. This may lead to a project idea, performance or resource for your class." The topic that I will be covering for assignment 3 is the Mathematics in Kolam.  The South Indian art of Kolam (also know as Rangoli in North India), is a traditional decorative art that is usually drawn by using rice flour. It's origins are from the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India, but spread to the other southern states.  I would like to present the art form as a photo of a Kolam design that I did, since I will be doing the design at home and it will not be possible to transport it. I am also thinking of taking a video of me doing the design (but this is not confirmed). Below is just an example of what a design looks like (not done by me, I found an image online from https://style...

  These are the three quotes from the article (Shrader, 1967, pp . 264-278) that made me stop and think, or surprised me:   - “ The Greeks were concerned with the education of free men as future citizens. Plato, whose plan was a theoretical one probably never put into actual practice but nevertheless reflecting the spirit and ideal of his period, conceived of such education as the sole occupation of the first thirty-five years of a man's life. He would have the first twenty years spent on gym nastics, music, and grammar, the next ten on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony, and the next five on philoso phy. Only then would a man be equipped to take his rightful place as a useful member of society” (Shrader, 1967, p g. 264) .   - “ In the first ages of the Church, when Christianity was struggling for its exis tence in a pagan world, the seven liberal arts were denounced by such Christian writers as Origen, Tertullian, and St. Jerome, not because the arts were e...

  As I read through Millay’s poem, I realize that she claims that only Euclid has seen Beauty in her fullness and has represented Beauty t hrough his work. This is shown i n the following lines of the poem: “Euclid alone h as looked on beauty bare” (line 1) and “... intricately drawn nowhere in shapes of shifting lineage...” (lines 6-7). From this description I believe that Millay is saying  that Euclid’s work is immensely valuable by   proclaiming  that his work is the embodiment of beauty itself. I also noticed that Millay refers to sight by listing out  things that are pleasing to the eye to describe what is beautiful. Examples are “looked on Beauty” (line 1 ), “stare... shapes of shifting lineage” (lines 4-6), “luminous air” (line 8), an d “the shaft into his vision shone of light anatomized” (lines 10-11). Millay’s constant reference to the use of the sense of sight in her poem makes the reader purposefully mindful that Euclid’s work is b...

  From my most recent  two-week practicum , one of the issues  that has put me in deep thought i s finding ways for my students to move around in my math class . This though t started mainly because during my time teaching, I found that students were incredibly unmotivated and were becoming restless, especi ally during longer class times that lasted for 75 minutes. So, while I was watching the video on Dancing Euclidean Proofs (Gerofsky, 2018) , one thing that made me stop and think was that this could be a great idea for me to incorporate in my own math classroom. Finding ways to  connect math and dance or other art forms could be a great way for my students to engage with math . It would be a new and refreshing way to engage with mathematical concepts. Another thought that made me stop and think was the fact that developing the dance steps to reflect each step in the proof must have taken a lot of time and thought which required a lot of patience. Th...