Week 9: Mathematics & traditional and contemporary practices of making and doing

 

The Activity: Braiding

I chose the braiding activity this week because I have a lot of colored thread bought from awhile back, thinking I could teach students to make friendship bracelets, but it never happened because of time constraints.

While watching the Bachelor, I took the 2 hours to do my braiding.  Yes, I had my laptop playing the braiding instructions while watching the Bachelor on my iPad. Here are photos of the various braids. 

I tackled the 7-strand braid first because it was the first video on the list.

 

Then the 3-strand braid.

 

Then the 5-strand braid.

 

And ended with the 4-strand braid.

 

As I braided my threads, I kept thinking counting the numbers, saying under/over, to keep the rhythm and pattern in place. Unfortunately for me, I did get lost at times, and I did not have the keen eye that Sandra has, and when I lost my rhythm, I could not figure out how to continue, and had to unravel and start again.  Perhaps the excitement of the Bachelor drama, distracted my mind to keep focus on my braiding, and if the distraction was not there, I may have had the patience to correct. This raises the questions, I have in my classes, “Should students be allowed to listen to music while doing seat work?” I always wonder how productive they are and how much they can focus while doing the math.

While I was braiding, I just thought of the videos I watched from making the ropes. I’ve used heavy rope during a fitness class, but never have I ever thought how much time, math, effort, and skill is taken to make the rope by the ropemaker in Denmark.  How the ropemaker was an apprentice of ropemaking and then decided to continue with this as a profession. There are apprenticeship courses that the VSB career education program offers students as a grade 12 option, where they can start a career in the trades (Ex. Mechanics, Hair cutting, Culinary Arts), where some students may benefit from if they are interested in pursuing a career in the trades. When I ask my current students about looking into a career path in the trades, the interest was lack thereof, where parental pressures have deemed these career paths as not as good as pursuing an academic degree. Whereas in my last school, students embraced opportunities to go into the trades and showed their passion and love for it because of teachers who shared their passion and experiences and passed down to the students the benefits of working in this industry. Which made realize how parental pressures does have a huge influence on a student’s decision when it comes to picking courses, joining extra-curricular activities and possible choices for their own future career paths.  But positive role models from the teachers, counsellors, coaches, peers, and mentors can also leave a huge imprint on students.   

 

Common Threads: Weaving Community Through Collaborative Eco-Art (Sharon Kallis)

In the reading from Sharon Kallis’s Common Threads, she challenges us to think “Can we build our cities in such a way as to support production as well as consumption?” producing our own “food, clothes and shelter” within our own communities?

I have seen an increase of community gardens throughout Vancouver, within our communities and at our schools, where at my past school, the cafeteria teacher, used the crops grown as ingredients for the school lunches, prepped by the students. I even saw my aunt picked up gardening in our back garden as a retired hobby, and how her face lights up when the tomatoes are ripe, the green onions are grown, or the how large the bitter melon has grown. Somehow, my aunt claims her cooking tastes even better because of her home-grown vegetables.  Even Sandra has her proud moments when her green beans or tomatoes are grown and explains with pure joy how much better her crops are because it was from her own garden. 

Kallis ponders on the idea of “what if we began to make some of the things, we need for ourselves again as a cultural and social norm?” Through conversations on the phone with Sandra, I agree with her thoughts regarding as busy working people, going to school, taking care of family, the time required to make something of our own (ex. Sewing clothes, weaving baskets, spinning yarn, knotting nets) is not a reality. The accessibility to shop online for any items now-a-days for me is because of personal convenience.  Mind you, I do enjoy cooking cultural meals at home, rather than going to restaurants, which bonds me with my dad and my aunt embracing the cuisines from my own culture. 

Which raises a question to myself if my thoughts and habit be can change?  And I think that is dependent on what the ideas are and what change is required from me.  I have seen change recently, where people are now bringing their own shopping basket or fabric bags to go grocery shopping as plastic bags are phasing out. I have seen how plastic straws are now substituted with paper straws or lids with a wider drinking hole for people to drink from. The shift in habit with throwing garbage a decade ago, compared to now, where we put in thought to separate what should be recycled, what can be compost, and what needs to be thrown.  These are evidence that changes within a community is possible.