{"id":1297,"date":"2023-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/?post_type=studenica_kutak&p=1297"},"modified":"2026-10-01T10:01:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T08:01:29","slug":"ko-ce-nam-djecu-uciti-matematiku","status":"publish","type":"studenica_kutak","link":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/studentski-kutak\/ko-ce-nam-djecu-uciti-matematiku\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will teach our children mathematics?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written by: Boris Stankovic
\nStudent of the Faculty of Science and Mathematics<\/span>
\nScholar of the Studenica Foundation
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\nIf we look at the number of people enrolled in teaching courses at faculties in Serbia and the region, the question from the title naturally arises. Recently, this important topic has been given more space in the media, but unfortunately we rarely have the opportunity to hear the voice of young people and their thoughts. This is exactly why we decided to present in this text two exceptional young mathematicians who plan to work with young people in the future and want to pass on their knowledge selflessly to them. Through their thoughts, we learn what their motivations are for teaching, but also how they see the current position of mathematics teachers and where they see room for improvement.<\/span><\/span>David Sre\u0107kovi\u0107 from Vrnja\u010dka Banja is one of the four students who enrolled in the teaching program at the Faculty of Mathematics in Belgrade in the summer of 2022. Choosing the faculty and the course itself was not difficult for him because he is motivated by his love for mathematics and working with children. His plan is to return to Vrnja\u010dka Banja after completing his studies and teach mathematics. Through its activities, it wants to awaken children's love for mathematics and awareness of its importance in finding their own path. Symbolically, he would like to connect the two bridges that adorn his hometown - the Bridge of Love and the Bridge of Mathematics.<\/p>\n

As one of the reasons for returning to his homeland, he cites the lack of opportunities for children in smaller communities, which he felt firsthand - it was very challenging for him to prepare for the entrance exam for the Faculty of Mathematics based only on the knowledge he acquired in high school. He is aware that this is the result of the circumstances and times in which we live, where teachers are disenfranchised, both because of low salaries and because of the attitude of parents and children towards school. Nevertheless, he is full of optimism and believes that he will be able to contribute to the change of that paradigm in his environment, but also to motivate his future students so that at least one of them decides to become a mathematics professor every year. Delighted by his enthusiasm, we have no doubt that he will succeed in this.<\/p>\n

Matej Vojvodi\u0107 has just finished his first year of studies at the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Zagreb. During high school, he won bronze medals at the world Olympiads in mathematics and informatics, as well as numerous other awards at competitions. In an informal conversation, he says that one could say that he is studying engineering mathematics, majoring in teaching. In fact, he enrolled in the engineering mathematics major, and in addition to all subjects in the engineering mathematics study, he also takes certain subjects from the pedagogical group of subjects. This year, in addition to the fundamental mathematics subjects, he also passed the Psychology of Personality and Developmental Psychology subjects. He got the idea for this study from a friend with whom he started computer science competitions at their high school. It was through the lectures he gave to gifted mathematicians and computer scientists at his high school, the Lucijan Vranjanin Gymnasium in Zagreb, that he fell in love with working with young people, and he is currently the vice-president of the Association of Young Gifted Mathematicians Marin Getaldi\u0107, which organizes camps and lectures for talented students across the country.<\/p>\n

Although at first the number of students enrolled in the teaching program (around 80 per year) at the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb indicates that the future of mathematics professors in Croatia is much brighter than in the rest of the region, Matej explains that this is not exactly the case. He himself points out that he planned to teach at school throughout almost all of high school, but now he is no longer so sure about it. He is repulsed by the bad position of the teachers, but also by the behavior of some students at the mathematics popularization workshops that they organized in numerous secondary schools. The attitude of parents towards teachers is apostrophized as a big problem. He believes that the media sends wrong messages over and over again, so as soon as a teacher has the ambition to work outside the textbooks, and sometimes even inside the curiosity boxes inside the textbooks, he is immediately exposed to the pressures of parents who do not want to accept that their children do not know mathematics for 5th grade. He is especially bothered that in primary, and increasingly in secondary schools, a four is not seen as a "very good" grade, but an obstacle when enrolling in secondary school or university and generally a sign that the material has not been adopted. He sees a partial solution to the current situation in striving for the existence of external testing that would evaluate every achievement because he believes that under these circumstances it is impossible for an unmotivated professor, of which the school is currently full, and an ambitious professor to conduct the same teaching and evaluate students in the same way.<\/p>\n

Returning to the position of teachers in Croatia and the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Matej cites low salaries as a problem, significantly lower than in the Nordic countries or Western European countries. In addition to the fact that teachers' salaries are low, they are significantly worse than all the alternatives that mathematicians can do. Clarifying the large number of people enrolled in the teaching course reveals to us that the majority of students choose that course because it is easier than the others, and it gives a "good enough" diploma with which they can be employed in banks, insurance companies, as accountants or programmers in the future. Because of all of the above, he thinks that less than a third of those enrolled will finish school.
\nIn order to address this problem, in Croatia they recently introduced new state scholarships in the amount of 6,000 euros per year for teaching students at STEM faculties. The only condition for receiving the scholarship is that the scholarship recipients spend at least as much time working at the school as they received the scholarship.
\nAt the end of the conversation, Matej somewhat sadly reveals to us that, despite all his successes, he did not receive a scholarship, and that all registered candidates from the "real" teaching major receive it automatically. However, this has not shaken his desire to continue working with young people and he is sure that in the future he will remain involved in activities such as festivals, camps and math competitions. We wish him the best of luck in this, and we wish him to pass on his love for mathematics to the children at school, at least in the capacity of an external collaborator for working with talented students, as is currently the practice only in the Mathematical Gymnasium in Belgrade.
\nThe stories of these young people inspire, but also leave us still worried about the future of the teaching profession in the region. Mathematical thinking and basic mathematical knowledge can make life easier for every person. In order not to worry about future generations growing up mathematically illiterate, as a society we must make many more young people think like David and Matej. The educational authorities must react, but each of us can take the first step - show respect to these young people, their teachers and professors, and all those who chose this noble profession.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ko \u0107e nam djecu u\u010diti matematiku? 12\/7\/2023 \u00a0 Pi\u0161e: Boris Stankovi\u0107Student Prirodno matemati\u010dkog fakultetaStipendista Fondacije StudenicaAko pogledamo broj upisanih na nastavni\u010dke smjerove na fakultetima u Srbiji i regionu pitanje iz naslova se\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1515,"template":"","categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1297","studenica_kutak","type-studenica_kutak","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studentski-kutak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/studenica_kutak\/1297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/studenica_kutak"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/studenica_kutak"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/studenica_kutak\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/studenica_kutak\/1297\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr.studenica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}