Do working children understand maths or just memorize it?
To find out whether working children use mental calculations to do calculations or have memorized the common prices of goods in their shops, the surveyors asked them to buy things whose prices are not easily remembered. Later, in an interview, the children were given two hypothetical market math problems that were as difficult as the market transactions, but had different things and prices. All the children were given the help of paper and pencil. This revealed whether the children really understood maths or just memorized it.
These results show that the maths that children learnt by working in the market was not limited to just memorizing things and their prices. They were also able to use that maths to solve new problems related to the market, although some children faced some difficulty. That is, if they had to sell a new thing or had to sell it at a different price, then they could do the calculation.
In both types of transactions, more than half of the children (52%) were able to solve the hypothetical transaction correctly in the first attempt or recognized their mistake and corrected it themselves. However, when unknown goods were placed in front of them, they had some difficulty in remembering the new information related to their prices and numbers. Most importantly, they did all this without anyone's help, without a calculator and without pen and paper. That is, they did all the calculations in their mind.
click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel