Mathematic For All

Mathematics was born from the idealism that everyone had in their own mind. That idealism came from the reality problem that had to be solved. That is why mathematics is used to solve some problem with its unique method. Mathematics was taught for a long time, generation by generation. It is a precious science for life, because it’s needed for human life.

          In my class, Professor Marsigit told us about his experience with his granddaughter. He taught his granddaughter about the concept of “sebentar” and “lama”.  It’s a simple concept, and it’s the beginning way to have experience about mathematics. We can’t learn well mathematics when we have not any experience about it. We have to remember that experience strengthen our intuition. That is why experience became one important thing in learning mathematics.

             Mathematics need to be learned for all people, not only for university student, but also the secondary school. It is learned to give experiences for the student. By having those experiences, the student can understand many concept of mathematics. Moreover, the student has a capability to implement that concept to the real life. That is useful because mathematics become the basic skill to solve most problems in the world.

             In an opportunity at my class, my other lecturer, Mr. Ilham, told his opinion about mathematics for younger learner. He said that to learn any concept of mathematics, we should have an experience about it first. Students have to learn from what they have already known. It is impossible to learn something that has no relation to our life. So, the duty for us is to looking for what they have already learn that related to their life. Usually, we can use game as the media to learn some concept of mathematics. The younger learner is near with game, so they usually do not find it difficult. The game can be their experience to understand the concept of mathematics.

             Learning activity such as I written above, usually called contextual learning. It means every learning activity related (to) and ready (for). Everything that we learn always has the aspect of relation and readiness. It has to relate in order to ready, Professor Marsigit said. Readiness is an important thing for us to face the new challenge. If we are ready for something, we will do it well. From readiness, we can reach our goal, to be success.