Katie's Irish Experience

The World of Mathematics

When I first signed up to student teach in Ireland I was under the impression that I would have little if any difficulty in communicating with the Irish from a mathematical standpoint. I knew that there would be language barriers when talking in general but I never thought there would be any problem when it came to math. On my first day at the Presentation Secondary School in Listowel I found out that my assumptions were wrong.

Math may be the universal language in that the numbers and symbols are the same but the terminology and methodologies are very different. Throughout my math career I have come to know, and at times love, some of the mathematical abbreviations that we use everyday. For example PEMDAS (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction) is well known to most students in the United States when they are trying to do the order of operations. Students often remember this by the saying Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. In Ireland PEMDAS does not hold true. The Irish do not use the word parenthesis, they call call forms of grouping symbols Brackets, whether they are ( ), [ ], or { }. In the United States ( ) are parenthesis, [ ] are braces and { } are brackets. Because of this the P in PEMDAS does not hold. The same is true for the E.

We call any number or variable that is raised to a power an exponent, in Ireland they call them Indices. So now instead of PE, we have thus far BI. Another major difference in the order of operations is that the Irish include Radicals when describing the order of operations, we do not. We consider radicals to be a part of the parenthesis or grouping symbols. The final part of the order of operations is the same as ours then, just in a different order. We do division, multiplication, addition, and finally subtraction. The Irish go Division, Multipliction, Addition, and finally Subtraction. Their final abbreviation for the order of operations is then BIRDMAS.

When comparing these two different abbreviations I am not saying that the order of operations is different in the two countries I am just saying that the terminology is different.

Other major differences between the two countries are:

• (x,y) is called a couple in Ireland and is an ordered pair in the U.S.
• y=mx+b is called the slope intercept form in the U.S. and but in Ireland this formula does not have a name and is slighty different in that y=mx+c
• When multiplying two terms (x-1)(x-7) together we would FOIL in the United States. In Ireland they break up the first term and multiply the two new terms by the second term. For example, (x-1)(x-7) woud be multiplied in this way x(x-7)-1(x-7).

These are just a few of the differences that I have seen with the terminology and methodologies since I have been in Ireland. There are many more that I have seen, but these are the few that struck me as being the most different. When comparing and contrasting these two countries I am not saying that either is right or wrong. I am simply stating the differences between the two. They are all possible and in doing either of the two methods you would get the correct answer, it is just that they are two different methods for completing the same problem. My short time in Ireland has been great so far. All of the teachers and students have been very welcoming. If I am ever in need of anything someone is always there to lend a helping hand. I cannot wait to work with the students more as the weeks progress and I cannot wait to see how many other similarities and differences I notice between the two country's in math.

posted by Katie @ 3:32 AM