Reflections on teaching mathematics in Nepal.

Prescott, Anne

I stand in a stone-walled classroom in the middle of the hill country in Nepal, surrounded by the expectant faces of local school teachers. A space with no window glass, just shutters, a roof which leaks during the monsoon, and a floor which turns to mud during the same season.

The journey here takes seven to eight hours by 4-wheel drive from Kathmandu, followed by a trek up the 'hill' from Arughat to Bhairabi and Dharapani.

The most recent challenge for Nepal was the major earthquake on 25 April 2015. It was good fortune that this was a Saturday, the one day of the week that schools are closed, because the schools collapsed with the roof falling straight onto the floor. Any other day of the week, whole villages would have lost every child. It didn't matter for the second major earthquake on 12 May 2015, because all the children were under tarpaulins.

This geographical area is subsistence farming. After the earthquake, the people went back to farming. They scrounged metal sheets from what they had left of their houses, were given other sheets to build a house. One that lets all the cold in during winter but at least keeps them dry in the monsoon. They have no money for building a new house. The earthquake interrupted farming because it changed watercourses, so now some villages are dry.

The Rotary Club of Wahroonga has worked to supply these villages with water, and commenced other projects, such as the one I now describe.

We are all teachers, paying our own way, with porters to cart our equipment, staying in tents, and having a wonderful cook who prepares our meals. Local teachers have joined us so that, together, we can explore what mathematics and English teaching can become as they seek to improve their own knowledge and improve the education of their next generation. I realise how lucky I am to be in this position, and what an amazing opportunity we have to learn from each other.

In this remote area of Gorkha, primary teachers do not undertake pre-service teacher education. In many cases they have only a Year 8 education,

although more recently a Year 12 education has become the requirement. The teachers' enthusiasm for participating in the professional development means that many walk up to four hours each way to attend. In some cases the schools close, so the teachers can attend.

My first conversation with a group of secondary teachers in the village was about the irrationality of pi. In the middle of this discussion, I looked out the door to see the beautifully framed, snow-capped mountains across the valley. At that moment, I finally understood my new situation: a majestic vista and wonderful mathematics discussions all rolled into one.

Nepal is a young democratic country with ideals about improving education for all students at least through universal primary schooling. There is still a strong emphasis on boys' education, so we have encouraged the idea that if boys are to get a good education then their mothers need the same. Girls often stop attending secondary school because they cannot bear to use the toilets at the school. Therefore, they miss out on so much of their education that they simply stop attending. Rotary has therefore been involved in many projects to build toilets in schools.

We had sessions on lesson planning when the previous "best" lesson plan has been opening the textbook. We practised classroom management to avoid some of the shouting and thumping that often occurs. We learned about taking a class outside to find mathematics in the environment, to join hands to make polygons, or to learn dances and songs about mathematics. We learned about group work, so we could have peer teaching. We learned how to do mathematics using hands-on activities when there are no materials, or photocopier (or electricity for that matter), and we have to look about the environment to find resources.

It really stretches the imagination when we are used to walking to a photocopier to make a copy of a resource for everyone to use. There is no point in introducing worksheets--once students have used them, there is no way the teachers can use them again. And besides, we never know how many teachers will turn up--the first time we went we thought we would have 20 teachers from 10 schools. Fifty-three teachers from 23 schools turned up!

The professional development sessions are not without challenges due to different cultural norms and social interactions. A common activity in Australia is to find the height of a flagpole using scale diagrams or trigonometry, so I thought we would do that in the first session.

What I didn't realise is that measurement of distance is different in Nepal.

Question: "How far away is that village?"

Response: "About three hours".

No mention of kilometres. The whole process of taking the measurements and then drawing a scale diagram was a foreign experience, and I still wonder how students understand the trigonometry diagrams in textbooks. These experiences make me realise just how embedded our cultural context is within the way we teach.

I have yet to figure out how to work with the secondary teachers. The style of teaching is very direct with students learning to recognise a particular question, so they can learn exactly how to do that type of question. Students learn every question by rote.

Why am I telling you this? Because I know these teachers want more. I know they want decent classrooms, or even a classroom, because they still have to teach during the extremes of monsoons and Nepali winters. I know that they accept what has happened to them in the last 12 months, and just get on with what needs to be done. I know that each time they go to the local village the school teachers cart sand and gravel up the 'hill' from the river bed--in readiness for having enough to rebuild the school. They are a remarkable people.

The Nepali people whom I have come to know, are the most resilient people that I have ever met. As subsistence farmers they have very little, and then they lost everything in the 2015 earthquake. In the local area 90% of the houses and all but one of the schools was demolished during this natural disaster and it accidentally burned down two months ago! Nothing seems to faze these people. While in the country, we learn from each other and I have a chance to experience their wonderful, gentle society. I am not sure I have the level of resilience that they possess--although I know that I am more resilient each time I return from Nepal, and I am thankful to have that opportunity.

Anne Prescott

University of Technology Sydney

< Anne.Prescott@uts.edu.au>

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Please note: Some tables or figures were omitted from this article.