"Please, these kids are finding it difficult to understand mathematical concepts. At the close of registration for the senior school certificate examination last week, nobody in SS 3 registered for Further Mathematics. I want you to do all you can to improve their interest in the subject," the principal gave me her expectations after handing me my appointment letter.
I was deployed to SS 2 class to take over as the mathematics and further mathematics teacher.
The senior secondary school was a story building built around a rectangular space. The space was developed into a lawn tennis court. The environment is green with different kinds of flowers.
As I walked behind the head of the mathematics department (HOD), who was taking me to my assigned class, the attention of the students was on me.
We got the SS 2 class and I was introduced to the class as their new further mathematics teacher.
"Good morning class, how are you?" The HOD had responded to the students' greeting while still maintaining their standing position.
"This is your new general mathematics and further mathematics teacher," he continued. "I want you to cooperate with him in order to have maximum learning experience."
The eyes of the students were on me, as if they were scanning my level of competence from my appearance. Looking around the class too, I loved the standard of the arrangement. The total number of students in the class was 14. A perfect number to make classroom control and management easier.
"The floor is yours to meet your students," the HOD said to me.
"My name is Ojo Adeku. You can call me Mr Ojo. As our HOD has said, I will be teaching you general mathematics and further mathematics. All I need from you is your attentiveness and cooperation so that the journey is made easier for you and I. I will know you by your names as we progress with our classroom interactions."
I moved to my seat behind the students.
Each class in the school is mounted by two teachers. The class teacher would sit in the front while the second teacher would sit behind the students.
I settled down quickly for the job. I collected the scheme of work and the students notebooks in order to ascertain the level of work done before I took over. From my findings, I realized that the next topic was binomial expansion.
According to the timetable, they have further mathematics in the afternoon. I got busy with my laptop. I had to put the lesson plan together and send it to my HOD for approval before using it to teach.
Lesson plans for the coming week are submitted every Friday. The HOD of the various departments would go through and effect corrections on them. By Monday morning, every teacher has his or her lesson plans ready in his or her email. Since my day of resumption was on Monday, I was told to write the lesson plans at my convenience for that week.
I went to the front of the class when it was time for my lesson.
"Good afternoon students," I began. "I have gone through your books and the scheme of work and I found out that the topic for this week is binomial expansion."
The students looked at one another in a strange manner.
"What's the problem?" I asked them when I noticed the countenance.
One boy raised his hand to talk.
"Okay, stand up and introduce yourself before talking to us."
"My name is Ahmed Sani. Sir, I am just wondering why further mathematics has funny names as topics. The last topic was polynomials and now is binomial. No wonder the contents are as difficult as running a marathon."
The whole class burst into laughter.
"Don't worry, my job is to make it simple for you," I responded to him.
"A binomial is an algebraic expression consisting of the sun or difference of two terms . We can expand such expressions in many ways. Let's start with the first method called the Pascal principle."
Immediately I pronounced the word Pascal, the whole class looked in a particular direction and laughed.
Then, a boy who was the center of attention was raising his shoulders and smiling.
"Pascal the mathematician," all the students chorused at once.
"Is your name Pascal?" I asked the boy.
"Yes Sir. I am Mathew Pascal, the great mathematician."
"That's good. That's what I like hearing. I want all of us here to be great mathematicians. I believe it is possible. Do you believe it?"
A thunderous "yes" followed.
"Alright, this is how you build up your Pascal triangle before using it to expand a binomial expression."
I wrote 1 in three places to form a triangle. 1 + 1 = 2. "Bring both 1s at the extreme ends down and keep adding this way to build up the triangle." I turned back and saw the students smiling.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes Sir. If it is the problem of addition of numbers, that one is like pizza that I love eating," replied Ahmed. I couldn't hold my laughter.
"I am sure that the whole contents of further mathematics will become pizza for you very soon," I assured them.
The lesson progressed to the application of the triangle to do the expansion.
"The power of x will start from the maximum and will keep decreasing until it gets to zero while the power of y starts from zero and keeps increasing until it gets to the maximum power. You will pick the coefficient of each term from the Pascal triangle.
"Are we together?" I asked the students to know their level of assimilation.
"Sir," my good friend, Ahmed raised his hand again. "If you are in America now, I think I am yet to get to the airport in Nigeria. We are not together Sir."
I looked at other students and I saw them nodding in agreement to what Ahmed was saying. I reached for a bottle of water and drank first before starting over again.
"Drink water Sir. You can't have mathematics like this in your brain without experiencing dehydration. The mathematicians must drink water."
Ahmed nearly made me experience a hiccup as I busted into laughter while still having water in my throat.
I started the solution all over, this time around slower. Before the end of the lesson, the majority of the students understood the steps involved in applying the Pascal triangle.
Prior to that time, I never taught in a class with a character such as Ahmed. Even when he does something wrong and you want to punish him, he could make you laugh and forgive him for his misdeeds.
I spent two years in the school and I can say that my experience with the students remains the best till this moment.
By the time I left the school, the students had created interest in further mathematics. Many of them registered further mathematics in their SSCE examination.
I was able to take advantage of the humorous characters like Ahmed to make the learning experience fun and rewarding.