Why we need a sidewalk math movement
Memorising math is a crime. It's a disease with no cure. Often, students stuck with bad teachers and bad systems are the victims of this crime. This is especially true for poverty-stricken countries like Bangladesh. It's also true for poorer cities like Bronx where I live. We from Bari Science Lab, a 100 percent hands-on school, recently launched "Math4Bronx" in our neighbourhood to eradicate this disease and create a culture of math appreciation in the Bronx. I was inspired by Dr Flint, one of my professors, who asked me to involve my sons, Soborno Isaac and Refath Aporbo, in this sidewalk math movement.
Over the past few months, we have solved hundreds of math problems on every single street, wall and brick we could find. Every day, at eight in the morning, we set out to solve math problems on the streets and walls of the Bronx. We watch as people do gallery walks to witness the sidewalk math. In fact, I feel proud to say that my sons have become the defining faces of the "Memorisation is a Crime" movement here. Crowds gather, pondering over the problems and looking at the solutions, and parents take out their kids just to see the math unfold in front of their own eyes. Teachers were initially sceptical but now they praise our endeavour.
I was attacked the other day, or so I thought. I was erasing a wall of math problems near Lehman College so that my sons had more space to solve math. "Hey! Excuse me!" someone shouted. It was across the street. I ignored it. Then he started clapping. "Excuse me! Look. At. Me!" I dared not look his way. "Put your hands up!" Oh crap. The police must have come for us, I thought, mistaking the math for graffiti. But as it turned out, it was not a police offer. It was just a concerned citizen, a dog's leash in one hand, and the other hand pointing at us. "Why are you erasing the math? It looks beautiful," he said. He turned out to be a teacher at Bronx Science, concerned that we were erasing beauty from the sidewalk!
But why just Bronx? This sort of movement is needed in any community that is afflicted by a hatred of math and the disease of memorisation. From Bronx to Bangladesh, memorisation is the name of the game when it comes to math. It's a pandemic worse than Covid-19, as it doesn't sicken the body for two weeks—it sickens the mind for an entire lifetime, with profound consequences.
How do we change this mind-set? I think the best way to do it is by making people fall in love with math, by filling every street, mall, and park with chalkboards. The idea is, make every chalkboard beautiful and a source of wonder so that even those most resistant to change start to believe in understanding—not memorising—the inner workings of mathematics.
Once a believer, always a believer. That is as true of mathematics or any other subject as it is of religion. A young mind infected by the disease of memorisation will exhibit the symptoms of rote behaviour for the rest of their life. On the contrary, a young mind that appreciates the beauty of math will fall in love with it. This is the change that we need—a change that will help Bangladesh to move up the ladder of socioeconomic development—but it can only happen if math is made ubiquitous, on the walls of every street, mall and park. Street math is a powerful idea. We from Bari Science Lab have a plan to place a chalkboard in every park in New York City, and maintain janitors to clean them every day. The same model can be employed in Bangladesh, too. The result will be beautiful.
Let me share an experience about using such innovative methods. At the Bronx Community College where I teach, I wrote the musical notes of Mozart's Symphony No. 42 on the board and instructed my students to read and enjoy them. I hoped to see some reaction from them, but there was none! I was met with blank faces. Then I played the symphony. And so some of the students started humming along. In just a matter of seconds, the whole class was moving to the beat. It was wonderful to see their transformation. But I did nothing different, really. I just did it differently. The moral of the story is: when you present mathematics in a manner that is difficult and boring and makes students subject to memorisation, no one will see its beauty. But when you present it in a hands-on way, you unlock the beauty of math for them. And they start to see Mozart in the math.
Math is like music. You can't enjoy it by memorising it. Since math is the language of science, you can't be a scientist by memorising math. I know from my interactions with the people that they love the idea of sidewalk math because it encourages them to think deeply about simple things: Why do odd numbers sum to squares? Why do even numbers sum to multiples of triangular numbers? Why do Pythagorean theorem and E= MC^2 both have C^2 in it?
Equally, sidewalk math inspires children to think deeply about simple math problems. It inspires them to be creative. I'm sure a similar movement will do the same in Bangladesh.
Rashidul Bari is a doctoral student at Columbia University. He teaches math at Bronx Community College and physics at Brooklyn Tech.
Email: RB3080@columbia.edu