-24-
18.
Howard Eves,
A Purvey
of
Geometry,
Revised Edition, Allyn and Bacon,
1972, pp. 58, 390.
19, K. R. S. Sastry, Problem
862, Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 46, 1973, p. 103.
20.
Mordechai Lewin, On the Steiner-Lehmus Theorem,
Mathematics Magazine.
Vol.
47, 1974, pp. 87 -
89.
21.
Lawrence A. Ringenberg, Solution II to Problem
862, Mathematics Magazine,
Vol,
47, 1974, p.
53.
22. Charles W. Trigg, Solution I to Problem
862, ibid., pp. 52- 53.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear editor:
Your remarks in the November issue on the mathematical illiteracy of many high school
graduates invites comment. An increase in mathematical competence among high school teachers is
not, I feel, an answer to the problem.
An improvement in quality of high school graduates will not occur as more teachers earn their
type-A certificates. An incompetent teacher will still be incompetent after taking reams of
courses in mathematics. This is not to belittle the esoteric, but it has little place in the mass
production of graduates that is practiced in Canada in the name of public education.
Your point regarding the
doing of
mathematics was important. Any teacher who has had the
satisfaction of working at such problems as are published in EUREKA should attempt to analyze that
satisfaction and to realize that students need to have similar feelings.
Half the job is teaching mathematics; the other half is selling it. Aspects of salesmanship are
as varied as the personalities of teachers themselves. One thing that cries out to be told (and sold)
is that mathematics is beautiful, that it is creatively satisfying, that it can be fun. It should be
possible to find joy in doing mathematics. Genuine enthusiasm, judicially communicated, does wonders
for motivation.
And once the problem of motivation is solved, the teacher's hardest work is done. The teacher, textbooks,
and the students' own minds are then simply sources of the knowledge sought; -if then truly sought, remembered.
SHEILA GRIBBLE,
Picton, Ont.
., iu I
MATHEMATIQUES. Dessechent le coeur.
MECANIQUE. Partie inferieure des mathematiques.
ORTHOGRAPHE. Y croire comme aux mathematiques. Nest pas necessaire quand on
a du style. j
QUADRATURE DU CERCLE. On ne sait pas ce que c'est, mais il faut lever les epaules
quand on en pane.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT,
Dictionnaire des idees revues.