Mathematics Day

Well, two months of organizing finally culminated in the third annual maths day, hosted by Paro College of Education, on November 10th. Whew, what a day it was!

We started out with a debate on "mathematics is the most important subject"
here is our packed house:

The debaters:

I had been grooming both teams for weeks - they do have debates here, but it often consists of grandstanding, shaking the podium... And excessively stated arguments to prove the point. Both teams picked up debating really well, and despite some nervousness over cross-examining in front of several hundred people, they pulled it off with panache.. Sadly, our judges were still operating from an old-school stance, and the points they gave the individual speakers was definitely mysterious to me! oh well, all in good fun..

We then had a quiz contest between students from the schools (pen and paper, based on the Canadian math contests, modified to suit Bhutan of course), and a live one between four students from our college, and four students who joined us for the day from the other college of education.


After that, everyone toured an exhibition on math - based on 5 different principles of teaching and learning mathematics: communication, reasoning and proof, problem solving, representation, and connections. (See the NCTM website if you want more info!)


One of my students explaining his work..
Students from the schools looking at online math games.

and then there was a huge lunch.. I have to say I'm impressed that our students could cook for 400 people!

An excellent day all told.