Success as an adult is built in childhood, through math and reading. It is said by specialists and renowned university professors, who explain how the deepening of these two disciplines develops reasoning and decisively shapes the future of young people.
Mathematics is one of the most important sciences, a fundamental scientific field that underlies the development of many areas of everyday life. It trains the brain to analyze complex situations, identify patterns and find step-by-step solutions, and it has lots of practical applications, from managing a personal budget to cooking or planning trips. Actually, Mathematics is part of our daily life. Not to mention that it is the backbone of all modern innovations, including computing, encryption, artificial intelligence, and engineering.
In Romania, Mathematics is taught in school, being one of the subjects for which the most hours are allocated in the didactic scheme, especially in primary and secondary school. That is, four hours a week for secondary school students. Over the generations, Mathematics has become a kind of chore, a source of nightmares and a real scare for many students. Precisely for that reason, there were enough schoolchildren who looked for, in high school, where a little Mathematics was done and, above all, where they did not have to have it as a compulsory test for the Baccalaureate. There were even critical voices in society who contested the supremacy of Mathematics in the educational curriculum in Romania. Questions like “Why would a child need so much Math?” or “What do we want, make everyone a mathematician?” were often stated. Not to mention challenging the practical utility in everyday life.
Well, we tried to solve this dilemma and find answers to these questions with the help of a short interview conducted, on the occasion of the “Dimitrie Pompeiu” national competition, together with the great Romanian mathematician Radu Gologan, university professor, researcher and, at the same time, the coordinator of the Mathematics Olympiads and “leader” at the international Olympiads since 2002.
“Mathematics is a sport of correct thinking”
The Truth: What, in your opinion, is the role of Mathematics in a child’s education?
Radu Gologan: Mathematics is first and foremost a sport of correct thinking. The first reason why Mathematics is taught in school, along with other subjects that contribute to the development of thinking and, above all, logical thinking and correct brain activity, is precisely this. It has probably been misunderstood for a long time that Mathematics is learned in school primarily for its practical applications in life. Of course, this is a great advantage of it, because a correct thinking helps you to do well in life, but it must be insisted on its formative essence.
Three international Olympians in mathematics will turn on the festive lighting at the Christmas Fair in Piata Constituetiei
How important is the connection between school mathematics and practical applications?
Of course, Applied Mathematics is taught later, in technical faculties and universities all over the world. I strongly argue that this essence of school mathematics should be understood as an exercise in right thinking. Of course, and an integral, and a repeated exercise, and a decomposition into factors are exercises that, repeated over time, help you in life. Because there are similarities or, as we mathematicians say, isomorphisms. There are things that initially seem different, but which, in essence, in logic, are the same. For example, when driving a car, there are times when logical thinking helps you to react correctly, to avoid an accident, a pedestrian or any other borderline situation.
“In Mathematics, 90% means work”
Are there kids who just can’t learn Maths?
Of course there are children who have an inclination towards mathematical thinking, towards mathematical exercise and, implicitly, towards the pleasure of working. There are also children who do not approve of this, but it cannot be said that there are people who cannot learn the essentials of school mathematics.
What does a student’s success in Mathematics depend on?
It depends a lot on the family atmosphere when it comes to learning math. The teacher, the teacher, the one who brings the child into contact with school mathematics for the first time matters enormously. And, of course, talent, perseverance, desire to succeed and ambition. In math, 90% is work. Maths done patiently throughout school is enough for a student to succeed in national exams.
“Good literature prepares you for the future”
At the same time, another formative activity, essential, in the view of specialists, for the development of a child into a successful adult is also reading. Writer and university professor Dan Lungu talks about its role.
The truth: How important is reading, literature in the development of an individual?
Dan Lungu: Good literature prepares you for the future. Because it prepares you to react well, appropriately, in a certain context. It helps you collaborate better in a team. It helps you to guess, to better understand the other’s intentions. In a way, a social career is built through the information you have, but also through the way you know how to communicate with others. And literature helps you a lot in this sense, because there are characters there. They are very different, so you have very different experiences empathizing with the characters. And this, which you learn by reading, afterwards you apply it around you.
Are there certain areas of work where reading helps?
No matter what you want to do in life, reading will help you have a better career, better than if you hadn’t read. If you observe families where both parents and children read, you will see that they are families that communicate better between generations.
