Former students of Menengai High School have formed a volunteer mathematics club to assists students from poor backgrounds appreciate the importance of science subjects for their future success and development of the country.
The coordinator of the Astute Mathematics Club, Timothy Aleko said their sole purpose was to demystify and change the negative attitude which pupils and students tend to have towards the subject yet it is applied on daily basis.
Speaking Friday during a teaching session at Nakuru national library where they hold their lessons, Aleko said society in general tends to complicate mathematics by their continued emphasis on how complicated and intricate the subject was which makes young children to start avoiding it even before they reach class three.
He urged parents, uncles, aunties, neighbors and even teachers to desist from perplexing learners by emphasizing on how difficult the subject was adding when well taught, Maths become an uncomplicated, undemanding and unproblematic subject.
The coordinator said the aim of their mathematics club was to demonstrate to the leaner’s the pleasure of solving sums and how it assists people to build machines, roads and houses and everything which requires measurements.
He urged teachers to desist from referring to the subject as impossible because it was not claiming students who understand the subject tend to also perform well in all their exams because the subject instills discipline among learners.
Aleko who is a physical planner in the town said volunteering and giving back to society was a prerequisite and an obligation of each and every patriotic citizen because countries are built and developed by their own citizens.
He gave an example of USA, which has been developed by the volunteering spirit of its people.
Aleko urged unemployed youth to volunteer their skills since there was no single person who has not been assisted in one way or another by the society and “we have all drunk water from wells we didn’t build and eaten foods which we didn’t grow.”
Most students commended the mathematics club, saying it has changed their negative attitude towards mathematics and that they now find it pleasurable and gratifying solving sums.
By Veronica Bosibori
