Development of Mathematics Education Based on Ethnomathematics (4) : Analysis of Kenyan Syllabus for Primary Education in terms of Verbs

Abstract

Ethnomathematics reveals that mathematical activity exists everywhere in the society. Children practice ethnomathematics even before they learn mathematics in school. Thus they feel implicitly strain between two types of mathematics. Besides this conflict in mathematics, there is another type of conflict, which is related to the educational objective. Kenyan society has been tackling this problem of cultural conflicts since independence, and development of verb-based curriculum is in line with this effort. The essence of verb-based curriculum is a structured list of children's mathematical activities. Since this curriculum has focus on activity itself, the context in which the activity develops, is important and ethnomathematics, therefore, is required for the curriculum. And ethnomathematics necessitates a structure, which ensure the mathematical development in the classroom. Both aspects of context and structure are important factors in this curriculum. To apply this principle of verb-based curriculum to the Kenyan education, the author, in this paper, listed up and analyzed all verbs in the present Kenyan syllabus for primary education. 53 verbs have been identified and analyzed for children's learning activities in mathematics education. Comparing this result with the analysis of Japanese syllabus in the previous study (Baba, 1999), their universality and specificity in mathematical activities have been found out. While the universality is that more than 30 verbs of Japanese and Kenyan syllabuses correspond with each other, the specificity is that the former has more inclination towards children's internal activities and the latter has more inclination towards economic and procedural activities.