The incorporation of the geometry involved in the traditional house building in mathematics education in Mozambique: the cases of zambezia and sofala provinces

Abstract

The incorporation of the geometry involved in the traditional house building in Mathematics Education in Mozambique The cases of Zambézia and Sofala Provinces D. B. Soares PhD thesis, Department of Didactics, University of the Western Cape Moved for (i) curiosity and interest for architecture, (ii) necessity of cultural preservation of traditional house building techniques and (iii) will for identifying the mathematics, especially the geometry, involved in the traditional house building, in order to suggest it’s incorporation in Mathematics Education, I decided to do this research as theme of Ethnomathematics, then Ethnomathematics can be seen as the study of the relationship between Culture,Mathematics and Mathematics Education.I made my research guided through two main questions:(1) What mathematics is involved in the traditional house building?(2) How can this knowledge be incorporated in Mathematics Education?In this study I consider traditional house in Mozambique a house with (i) walls made with reed, sticks, wood or bamboo strips, covered with mud, with grass or straw, and (ii) roofs thatched with grass, reeds or straw.For the data collection I (1) made interviews and observations in southern Zambézia (by Echuwabu speaking house builders) and in central and northern Sofala (by the Cisena speaking house builders), (2) studied some works on African house building, (3) read some inquiries from the years 1980s about house types, kindly lended by Sofala’s Cultural Heritage Archive, and read some works that relate socio-cultural activities and mathematics education.Among others I came across eight methods for the rectangle construction,two methods for placing posts vertically, two methods for placing beams horizontally and the translation of 27 (from 28) basic terms for Elementary Geometry into Echuwabu and into Cisena. All these methods are geometrically analyzed and some tasks for the school mathematics suggested.Some of the conclusions of the study were that traditional house building is only learnt by observation and active participation, that the mathematics involved in it can be incorporated in the category of folk mathematics, given that it develops in a working activity, and that the incorporation of the mathematics related to traditional house building in mathematics education has the advantage that house building in rural Zambézia and Sofala is gender free (both male and female people participate in traditional house building), and that teachers and future teachers recognize that the origin of the geometry is the practice -- and that can facilitate the incorporation of mathematics related to traditional house building in Mathematics (and teacher) Education in Mozambique.One of the suggestions of the thesis is that more cultural aspects and production techniques related not only to mathematics, but also to other sciences(and technology?) must be investigated and then used, so that, at least in the first school grades, the pupils can work with concrete examples of their daily lives and culture, and not only with examples from the “standard” text books.The pages in the thesis are indicated through numbers “1, 2, 3 …” and with de indication of the chapter, in the footer. Before chapter 1, Introduction, the vii pages will be indicated with “i, ii, iii, … ”. In the Appendix the pages are indicated with “A.1, A.2, A.3, …”.All page numerations lie below, at the right-hand side of the page. October 2009