Mathematics is one of the languages of human life and undoubtedly no more spectacular languages were ever produced by the mind of man. By making use of traditional methods, educational innovations and technological advancements in the classrooms Mathematics can fulfill the educational values such as practical, disciplinary, cultural, intellectual, aesthetic, social vocational, inter-disciplinary etc. for realizing the educational values and instructional objectives of mathematics. Many people consider mathematics as a complicated and inexplicable subject. If children try to do something different with it, the teacher asks them to do it as he has told them to do so. Consequently, most of the students are repressed from thinking of themselves. Real curiosity of the students has been suppressed and they are supposed to figure out what routine they are supposed to learn and it makes the mathematical classrooms boring and threatening because the students do not get the chance to enhance their creative learning for mathematics.
Our famous leader Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru has expressed his view related to mathematical aspects as: “mathematics is supposed to be a dull subject, but is increasingly recognized that it is of high importance in scientific developments today. Indeed, mathematical research has evidenced the horizon of the human mind tenuously and has helped in the understanding, to some extent, of nature and the physical world. It is a vehicle of exact scientific thought”.
To remove the boredom and to improve the performance in mathematical classroom folk mathematics has come into existence. As it is said that “Old is Gold”, following this saying folk mathematics is just doing the same thing. Mathematics is not much related with culture as social and natural sciences. To overcome the boredom of mathematics, the best solution is to bring every component of mathematics into classroom by using mathematical task that closely connect with children routine activities. Folk mathematics is doing exactly the same in the present era as it used to do in the past. The traces of Folk mathematics had been seen in the Bakhshali manuscript (300 AD), the Patana manuscript (775 AD), Mahavira’s Ganita-sara-samgraha (850 AD) and in other works of mathematics.
Folk mathematics develops outlook such as inquisitiveness, imagination, resourcefulness and perseverance that enhance child’s success in mathematics. It is also making associations between mathematics and everyday thinking and develops a constructive attitude. Teachers can use one of the best resources i.e. Folk mathematics to make him enjoy mathematics in classrooms and to develop child’s ability to do Math.
Folk mathematics may be regarded as a tinge to the main mathematics; it cultivates the mathematics, and simultaneously, is get nurture by it. Being practical in nature it helps people to fulfill their daily needs of every aspect of life, when shopping, bartering, or in any other activities that require measurement.
Folk mathematics is the way people deal with math-related problems occurring in everyday life. Folk math is consisting a broad and perhaps an inestimable variety of problem-solving strategies and calculation techniques that people use. The main objective of mathematics education is to assist students to nurture and enhance their intrinsic similarities and aptitude for folk math. Folk mathematics means theorems, proofs, definitions or mathematical facts or techniques that circulate among people verbally but do not come into sight, either in book or in journals. Folk mathematics can also means informal mathematical practices, as used in daily life or by indigenous or archaic people. While in modern mathematics formal and strict proof of all statements from given axioms, practices in folk mathematics are usually understood instinctively and justified by these kinds of interesting examples. Below is the example of folk mathematics for making them to learn the value of Pi through rhyming pattern.
The Pi Song (sung to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree”)
Oh Number pi, oh number pi,
Your digits are unending.
Oh number pi, oh number pi,
No pattern are you sending.
You’re three point one four one five nine
And even more if we had time.
Through this rhyming example we can say that folk mathematics is an interesting tool to learn basic mathematics calculation in play way method.
