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    Devlin 2012 Street Smarts

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    {thin bothexamplesare reasonable cay generation math ed video games lt the seen images in Figure 2 remind me ofthe orithopter In Figure (Though obec unlke the omithoptes those video games da manage to get of the ground) Let's facet, nea ite you are rather unlkey to find yourself face to {aceitha person ora monster who hs math problem writen on thei chest or a situation in which amath formula suddenly appears bofore your eyes, hovering, Inthe air Symbolic expressions are the way people do math when they are work ing wth pape and pene They look out of place in a gam werk And the reason they lookout of place tn that environment berause they ret nf Video yame worlds are not paperand:pencilsymbolle representations: they sreimapinary worlds They are meant belived inand experienced. (Natali video ‘somes have worlds. But any games played in an envionmiet,in part ereated by ‘the game, that affects the ation It yo don believe this pay particular attention ‘ext ime you see someone playing casual game ike Bejeweled on asmartphone liscuss the special ease o thse kinds of ames in the final chapter}, Putting symbolic expressions na math ed game environment sto confuse ‘mathematical thinking ith is static symbole representation on ashes of paper ust asthe eathy aviators confused fying with the one particular representation of ‘ying which they had observed. To build eralysuccessul mathed videogames, we have to separate the activity form of thinking fom its falar representa tionin terms of symbolic expressions Mathematical symbols wee introduced to do mathematic stn the sand, ‘en on parchment and slate. and stil lateron paper and Backboards Video ames rove an entire diferent repesentational medium. Asadynamic medium, video ‘ames are far beter suitetin many ways eepresenting and doing mide scho} ‘mathematics than are symbolic expressions on a page We need to pet beyond thinking of vdeo games aan environment that delivers traditional pedagogy new cantas.on which pour sjmbols~and se them san entirely hew median to represent mathematics, Thats in my ew the single mest important message ofthis book Now that | have provided you witha rough road map of where we are heading, explain to you why video games ae the way ogo. The story begins ‘weeny ears ago inthe streets of South Ameria eee Street Smarts "Trezemevaman vt ups leigh th coo tad stands young boy of around 12 yeas of ae, whois aking care a the stall while his fens have stepped avay fora moment Ie’ hot an there salt of nosy acti {ym the market one of several inthe razlian cy of Rect How much is one coconit™ the woman aks, ~Tniry-ve the boy replies with ase take ten Hove much is that™ The boy pauses fora moment before replying, Thinking out loud he says: te wil be 105; with thrve more, that wil be 210, (Pause) ned four more nat (pause) 315... thinkst is 350" ‘Though the boy gets the answer righ, the woman cant elp but wonder ye did not use the simple rule that to multiply by 10 you just ald, 0 ten cont at 35 Cruzeiro each will cast CeS350, ‘short while later at anather stl, gain stated by a young boy, this one stout 14 years old, the woman makes a purchase that requtes he cl to sub {eae Cr675 from Cr6243- The boy eaeulates outloud “You jst give me the two hundred. give you twenty-sWe back Ps the orey-three that you have, the hundred and forty-three, thats one hundred ad sieht” you were the shopper faced with a young child at tll noisy, busy South American stoet market who calculated your change im that fashin, you sight suspect thatthe young salesman was trying to pl fst one nt, his snswer is perfectly coset. Ina moment examine what he s dong 8 Chapter? Incidental, you may think it strange that 3 book about wsing video games in eduction begins the pedagogy’ sect with a dscussion abou stoet markets. You may even be tempted to skip the rest ofthis chapter and look for the "new Sul” abou videogames Hoveever at ou al ind in this chapter ier for the entire remainder ofthe book, and sts te stage for everything else Returning to those two marketplace exchanges, lam not making therm up. They are taken verbatim fom a report writen some years ago by thece researchers, Teresina Nunes (the “young woman” in my story), then atthe UUniorsity af Landon: Englands now at Oxford University, and Anas ioe Scleman and David Wiliam Crraer of he Federal University of Pernambuco In Recie, Bran! The thre researchers went out into the stret markets of Recta ‘with concealed tape recorders, posing as ordinary marke shoppers. They Sought ‘ut stalls being stated by young children between 8 and years of age. At ‘ich sal they presented the young stallholder with «transition designed to testa particular arithmetical sk. The purpose af the research was to compare tratonal instruction which all the young market traders had received in school since te age of six) with learned practices in context. How well dd ourtwo youngselersdo?Le'star with the cacont sel, who sid pot appear o know the rue that to multiply by 10 you simply adda 0~so 35 bocomes 350, turns out that this simple tricks the only mathematical fat he Aid aot nove. Despite spending xyes in school he had almost no mathematic leowtedge at alln the traditional sense. When given school-ype task ina schoa- ‘ypesettinghe performed badly What arithmetical hls hehad were sel¢aught at his mace Here ts how be soe the problem, Because he oe fund hime selling coconuts n groups af two othe, Ine needed to be able to compute the cost of two or thre coconuts that i he needed to know the ves 2 36 = 70nd 3 +35» 105 Faced with highly un tual equest for ten caconuts—how was the woman going tarry ten coconuts and what was she gong wo do with them. bythe way?—the young boy proceoded lke this First e split the 10 into groups he could handle, namely 3 +3 +31 ‘Arihmetaly he was now face eth he determining the sum 205 » 105 + 105 135. tle did his in tages. Witha te efor, he tit alulated 105+ 105 =210 ‘Then he computed 210 + 105 = 15 Finally he worked out 315 +35 = 350. A together quite an inpressive performance fra twelve year-old who supposedly ln do at T.Nubes. Selena, aD Cates, Set Mathemats and Soa! Mathematics Came Oar sty Press, Cab UK 1993. 1 sim sty Tl mem Lter wa described Le, Cage Paste Mind Ment and Clare ta Bverydy Life, Cambridge Univesity Pes, Camb, UK, 188 More generally se. row, Cols, nd Dug. "tasted Cogito aoa th Car of esring Eduction Resereer 1 (1,988 pp. 32:81 Siret Smarts ® What abou the second boy he one with the whi-bang answer to 243-75? Ft it’ loar fom what he went oto say that his ist sentence was meant 10 be "Yow ist give me the one hundred” For what he was doing was splicing up the 243 Into 100 + 100 + 43. He put the 43 and one ofthe 100s to one se and Saltrace the 75 fom the remsining 100. Thats something he could do easily 100--75 = 25. (Presumably ia rest he had seen so often that he knew It by heart) Then he added back the 43 andthe 1D0-To do this, heist computed 100+ 43-143 andthen calculated 25 + 143 = 168. That last step wast challenging ‘Nitin, ofcourse and he boy sirup wih it Hut nthe ond he got the right essence, what is eral method di was change the challenging sutras tion problem 243 ~75 int the aduion problem 143 + 25, by subtracting 100 ftom 248 and adn 100 to 78. The inal addition was not an easy ene, but his ‘method worked because, ke most people, he found aditon much easier than sxbraction Preity remarkable, do you lak? But there's more Posing as customers ‘vas just the fst stage of the sty Nunes and her colleagues carved out About ‘hweck ater they had tested” the cildren at theirs they went ick to the Subjects and asked each of them to take a penet-and-paper test that included tracy the sane arithmetic prablems that had! been presented to them inthe onext of purchases the week before ‘The investigators were cafefult give this second testinas non-threatening ‘way as possi. twas administered i-aone-on-ane sting ether ath-orignal location or in the subject's ome, and included both straightforward arithmetic ‘questions presented in ritten form and verbally presented word problems inthe form of salestransactions of th same kin the children carried out at heir stall. ‘The subjects were provided with paper and pene and were asked wo wte thei answer an whatevec working they wished to put down Thy were als asked to Speak thir reasoning loi s they went along ‘Although the chien’ arhmetic had boon clase to Naess when they vere at their market stalls—just over 989% corret—they averaged only 74% shen presented with marke tall word problems requiring te same arithmetic nuda tagerinly lw 379 when the sane problems were presented to them the form ofa straightforward symbolic arithmetic test. "The performance of our young caconut seller was typical One of the questions he had boon asked at his markt stall, when he was selling evsonus sting C535 each, wasn ging take four coconuts Hoss muel is that” The boy replied: “There wil be one hundred ive, pls thirty. that's one thiry-tise ome coconuts thity-ive... that one forty Lets take a Wok at this solution, Just as he had inthe transaction | described ist the hoy began by breaking the problem up ito simpler ones: ths case three coconuts plus one coconut. This wo captive? ‘enabled him to start out with the fact he kine, namely that three coconuts cst (rS105. Then, to addon the cost ofthe fourth coconut he frst rounded the costo ‘coconut to CeS30 and added that amount to ive CrS135, While not verbaiing ‘he net step precisely he noted thatthe “corection factor” for the rounding ws (185, and added in that correction factnr to give the cormect answer of CrS140, (On the formal arithmetic test, the boy was asked to clelate 35 «4, He worked mentally, vocalizing each step as the researcher had vequested, but the ‘only hing he wrote down was the answer. Her is what he sid: "Four tines ve {is twenty. cary the ror twa ps thee ie, ms four a tvnty He then ‘wrote down 200s his answer Despite the at that numerically waste same problem he had answered correctly at his market stall he go it wrong. I you follow whathe sad’ clear what he was doing and why he went wrong. In tying to carry ut the standard right-to-etsehol method for multiplication, headed the atryfrom theunitscolumn multiplication (5 » 4) before performing the ts ‘column multiplication rather than afterwards, which isthe corsect way Hedi however koep tack the postions the various digs should occupy, writing the {correct 0 from the hist multiplication ater the (ncoret) 20 from the second. to ive his answer 200, ‘The same thing happened with another ehld staat, thls tne a ge ‘fine. When a researcher approached the child at her coconut stall and asked I take thee coconuts. Mow much is that” the young seller eeplied, “Forty, ghty, one twenty” With one coconut costing CrS40, her technique was to ep auding 40 unt she reached the correct number of additions. On the school ike “arithmetic test he same il was presented with the mulipliaton 40» 3, Her answer was 70, Her explanation of how she aries at that answer was “Lower the zero; four and three i seven: Despite the fact that head no trouble operatinga stalin anoisy busy street ‘market. the young it's recolectons ofthe standard arithmetial procedutes she ‘had been taught in schoo! were mized in conusion, How bad washer confusion? ‘The same gir. upon being asked for 12 lemons price at CFS each, separated {hem out two ata time, saying as shed so, “en, twenty try forty iy sty” But when she was presented with the problem 12S on the test—numerily ‘the very se computatin~she fist lowered the 2 then the 5, ad then the ving the answer 152 ‘A similar degree of confusion about school arithmetic was exhibited by another child street-seller who ad trouble with a subtraction task when ad arisen atthe market sal, but went badly awry when presented with the equivalent ation onthe schole written test. the market tall where the bay had been selling coconuts for Cr$40 each, the ester paid with a C8500 bil and sald, “i take two coconuts. What do get back?” “Eighty, ninety, one hundred, four twenty the boy epi ‘on he tet the hid was prsented with the ation $20 +80 Hee the answer 130, apparently proceeding a follows: ad 8802 t give 10;caty the $d (the cry), 4, to give 3; wrt dow he fina in he units colar {ogre 130. ental, with some prodding by the researcher, the boy ws ble {ereach the right answer—by ignoring the pene nd paper and ing outing onmethod ‘smi outcome rosein another case afer subject fale to soe the ivson problem: 100/4, She at riedto divide 1y then td divide 6 Teplled “Seen my ead I can do five hy two that iy, Then dive by ‘vo that wen five'In other words, she ued the act that diy ea be achieved by diving by 2 twice In succession together with hr abit to habe the numbers 100 and 30. Incase alter case, Nunes and her colleagues obtained the same results The «dilren were able numer wizard when they weet their mark stalls it witual dances when resented with he same arthntc problems preseted in "Typical schol format. The searchers were so mpressed-—and inti —by thecilre's market stall performances that they gave It a speci nae: they called sree mathematics ‘Street Mathematics Street mathematics isthe mathematics that people velop fr themselves when they need I IC isnot restieted to young marker waders in Baal, and you can find tn other locations besides the streets. For istance, you ean find ithe United States a5 schookeacer lames Herndon described in his 1971 book How to Surv Your Native Land” Herndon recounts how, on one occasion, he was teaching a junior high school ass of children who hada essential fled in the school system, Aone Point, he discovered that one of the students hada well-pod, repuljb scoring fora local bowling league, a task that required fst, accurate, nd compleated arithmetic (Have you ever seen the scoring system in bowling?) Seeing a golden ‘opportunity to motivate this studat to do wel nclas, Herndon created a et ot “Dowling scare problems" and gave them othe boy The tempt was a complete failure. During evenings inthe bowling alley, the boy could keep accurate track of elght dierent bowling scores at ance. But he could not answer the siemplest Scoring question shen i was presented to him inthe classroom In Herndon ‘wn words, "The rillant league carer couldnt deide whether two strikes ant thir frame of eight amounted to eighteen or twenty clght or whether it was one hundred eight and halt ‘Merndon observed similar flare when he ret reach other students in ‘the class by presenting them with problems ofthe very kind they saved with fesse outside the classroom, Fr example, 0a gil who admited she never had any trouble shopping fr clothes, he gave the problem l you buy a al of shoes eosting $1095, how mach change ela you get om a twenty” The irl answered "$400,15" and wanted Herndon to ell ee i ight Since both the Recife children and Herndon’ students demonstrated hat they could handle arithmetic inthe appropriate conte, when the numbers ‘et something thes an we the nmeuences matcred them, Weems ‘lear that meaningand motivation play ajo roles in our aby todo athe. {These may not be the only fators a work. Socal and cultural cicumstances ‘nay also ply an important attudinal le and discuss these and other ss ues fetng performance due course) Achievement level was not the nly dference between street mathematics and school mathemates The wanscriptions of the verbal mathe stall exchanges also showed thatthe cikirens street methods of computation were diferent from those taught at school Yet the school methods are taught in part because ‘hy are supposed t be ease! Indeed, fo anyone who masters both methods, ‘those taught in school are easier—just empare the method our fist subject used to compute 10s 35 withthe scholroom method fr solving the same problem, Mareaver te school methods are much more general than some of the "gui {vicks” phe! up on the job, and therefore can be applied mich more widely, Seeking powerful efcent and mare general methods is an important part of mathematics Why did the people who used street mathematics seem to ignore the sandard methods? Inigued by this question, Nunes and her colleagues set out to examine de methods sed by the cid stallholders. The researchers approach was to determine the diterence between the chilies ables in ental (or ora) anthmetic and writen arighmeti, when both were measured nde test ‘conditions. The children never performed as well ring formal testing 4 they {id when at work at hee stalls. Nunes and her colleagues wanted to know i there was a measurable diterence betwen the B90 ways of doing arithmetic on stand sought to explore how the methods of sret mathematics an schol aithmeti dere, ‘The group of tldren that Nunes and her esleagues ested consisted of 16 students, ncuding boys and gs. Allwerc inthe third rode at school where they had been aught the stn procedures or addition, subtraction, muiplcation and division. Because many children i Brazil have to rept the same grade level avo oF more times the ages ofthe chides ranged from 9to 15. The older children had not only more years striction a school artnet they had also "spent longer working in the street market. The subjects were give tree kinds of problems: simulated sles transactions ofthe inl they were falar within the ‘market word (or story} problems, and straightiorwar computational arithmetic problems. tn all but one eatery, the cidven performed etter at mental ithmetle than they did with pene! and paper In most cases he differences Inthe cave of ation, forthe simulated sales questions, the children aver= aged 67% correct orally and 75% correct on the wren test This was the ony ‘ise where their penc-and-paper results were better than thir oral asters {le the answers hey obtained hy working met Heads without ald pa ‘land paper. Fr the ado word problems they averaged 13% corres orally nd just 62% written: Fr the straightforward computation questions, they got 2 perfect 100% orally compared witha significant loeer 79% in writing, or subtraction, the diference between thei oral performance and thet ‘wetten performance was striking forall thre kinds of questions nthe smote ‘ales they averaged 50-30 57% covet orally (Kr lss tan when ealulating ‘change at thei stalls anda ere 22% correct in writing For the word probes the figures werea moderately good 69% orally and that ame low 22% in writing Forthe computation problems their performances were 6D% caret orlly—not too bad—but a miserable 14% in wring For multipliation,the corresponding figures were a comfortable B9¥ ca rect orally and a disappotatng 80% correct an writing forthe simulated sales, 649% ‘orl an 503% i writing or the word problems anda pees 100% orally aanst poor 3996 writing fo the computation problems ‘When i came to division, the rests were extremely poor The children averaged 50% correct orally om all thre kinds of problems, butte had ler fled to master the sehoolroom method of division, When asked to answer the ‘questions using pen and paper, they scored Ye correct onthe simulated sles nd the word problems and got just "correct onthe straightforward division ‘questions. In shor, the children could not do division wader any sort af test ondlans. ‘Cleary, the chien were much beter at mental arithmetic than they were at applying the paper-and-penell methods they had been taught at schoo (Presumably the same wil be tru of anyone who makes regular use of numbers an base arehmetc uy their lives) Hut there Is stl the question of how they ‘were achieving thir much greter sucess in oral arthmetie compared to writen thetic Sine they appeared unable to use the methods they had en taught in school, jst how were these dren solving the problems when they worked them in thei heads? ‘You get some idea ofthe children's methods—and hence ast indication that street mathemati Is something very diferent trom school arithmetie— when yo lok atthe transcripts of wht the ebldrem actualy sal a they were working out the problems mentally. Their words reveal ha they were sing some sophisticated manipulations of numbers. For example when faced with comput Ing 200 ~38, one child proceeded ike this: "iit ere thie, them the result would be seventy Butt’ thirty-five. So ts siayfive, One hundred sixty-five Here is what he was dong. First he split the 200 into 100 + 100 (Ne did ot vocaize this step, but i's ar from what came afer that this fs wat he tid) He put one 100 wo one side and set out to compute 109 ~ 35. Todo this he tit rounded off 35 to 30, and computed 100 ~ 40, This he could do easy ha ignored: 70~5 = 65. Finally he added the 100 he had put to ane side atthe beginning: 65 + 100 = 165. Nereis one more example, this tine ielving dssion, AS we sw earl, most ofthe children had significant diticulty with dst when working orally and failed completely when tyingto sete schoo aught procedure The problem was tocaeuate 75/5 asked as a question about sharing 75 marbles among 5 chen, (One hl said i'you give ten marbles to cach, hat ity There aetweut-fie elt ‘ve Toalstnbute to five bays, wenyfve, thats ad. -That tive more foreach, Feen exch” Absolutely right The Cl began by “rounding” 75to SO and solving the simpler problem 50/5, for which he had no trouble computing the answer 10. He appeared io how that 5 fit, which why he performed the nit rounding down rom 75 to 50. The rounding let 25 marbles slo dstbute He fund this Ault he id not know the answer to 25/5. Bu ater bi of thought he igure it ot 25/5 «5 Now al ela to dows ad that St hs pevius esl of 1049 vehi inal answer 15. Grown-Ups Too [Ws no just hildren that exhbiea huge disparity between the math they ae able to doin the everyday world and thei poor performance when presented with» ath tes describe one particular study of adults bocause illustrates well anaditional finding of such esearch that believe willbe important inthe design of any video game intended o develop mathematical hiking, In the early 1980s, the anthropologist Jean Lave carried out a study called the adule Math Project (AMP Garren faculty member nthe Department of uation athe Unversity of Calflora at Hereley, Lave we at the University of California at Ive at the time ofthis study. The subjects she studied were binary people in Southern California, shopping ina supermarket. Lave and he clleagues followed the shoppers—all selected because they ‘were price conscious—around the store, observing them, taking coplous note, TT ave Gagnon i Pract: Mind Mathomais and Cutie in Everday Life Cambridge Lier Press Combe UK, 1988

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