Illustration And Teaching (6)

I am sure most Malaysian can recognise the cartoonist who draws this cartoon. The fact that Lat's cartoon is so popular among Malaysians (in fact Lat is recognised internationally) makes his cartoons more suitable to be used as teaching aid. I think (and certainly hope) Lat doesn't mind his cartoons being used for a good cause--to educate the young Malaysians to be more scientific minded.

As an illustration, let us compare the two drawings on the right. The first one is a description of life in a Malaysian Kampung (village). The second drawing is of course a scientific one that guides students to calculate the net force, F, which is given by the equation,
F = F1 cos x - F2.

Isn't the second drawing enough to teach the related scientific principle? Why the trouble of having the first drawing? While the above equation is not a difficult one especially to the more mathematically-inclined students. The situation of the question may need some real life context to make the lesson more lively and relevant especially to the less motivated ones. Even the ablest scientific minds derive much insight from dabbling with real life situations, what more the young minds who may not even be scientifically trained yet. Let me quote a very meaningful advice from a very old science text book (teacher's guide) which remains as relevant as ever: "......Too often in the past the 'law' has been taught first, with a demonstration of its 'truth', followed by numerical examples to 'drive it home.' Good examination technique perhaps, but bad science. This is simply putting the mathematical cart before the scientific horse...."

Hence the drawing of a boy using a dry coconut front to pull a younger boy, is to engage the students with some experiential context, along with some fun and creative imaginations before embarking into the more abstract science of resolution of forces. How about using another of Lat's drawings to introduce either the concepts of boiling, heat capacity or even latent heat of vaporisation? There are many more illustrations which we can use. It always take a keen, committed and prepared mind to discover lots of things around us that can be brought into the classroom as teaching aid. Let me quote a popular maxim of Louis Pasteur to strength my point at the end of this article: '.... chance favours only those minds that have been prepared.'