The Art of Maths from an Arts teacher’s point of view
In Theama we use various forms of art to create Maths tasks, but what is actually the situation for an Arts teacher when it comes to including Maths in the tasks. Here are some thoughts from that perspective.
Helene Krantz teaches a variety of subjects, among them Arts and was already before this project comfortable in combining Arts and Mathematics. A typical Arts task, she says, would be to practice proportions. One example of practicing proportions would be to align the Fibonacci sequence with drawing and then seeing how something extends proportionally. Other typical arts tasks would be drawing perspectives and portraits and in these tasks it would be natural and necessary to use knowledge of Maths. The relations in a face is an example of mathematical knowledge that you need to have (and to teach about) to produce good Arts tasks.
Since the knowledge mentioned previously is vital for Helene’s teaching of Arts, she has already included some Maths in her Arts teaching without being explicitly aware of it as Maths teaching. Proportions and perspectives are parts of the core of the Arts subject.
When she thinks about the Theama project and the tools produced there are some things that comes to Helene’s mind right away. The Maths parts of them (at least some of the tools) are hard. Being a teacher for the lower secondary school, some of the tools would be hard to apply, but others would work perfectly fine. “I have tried some of the tools already, and actually written some of them in cooperation with a Maths teacher”. When she understands that there is one tool where sculpturing is used (tool 52), she says that this would be something she would like to try. “Working with clay is really nice”.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This website and all its contents reflect the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
[Project number: 2018-1-SE01-KA201-039031]