SCHOOL – Meeting point of the past, present and future

The role of a school is to enable the development of our youngsters into right-minded and competent members of the society giving opportunities for intellectual, moral, social, physical and aesthetic growth all of which contribute towards the nurturing to be responsible citizens. In accomplishing this task, it is important to remember those who have done great and noble deeds. The past allows those living in the present time to learn without having to endure, which can be considered as a gift. Our present will soon be our past and it will have an effect on the future.

By R N A de Silva
rnades@gmail.com

What is the oldest school in Sri Lanka? Perhaps it is Richmond College, Galle, as it was founded in 1814. Recently, I visited another very old school in Galle called Buonavista College. Although not well known as the other prestigious schools in the Galle District, it is the school that educated Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, the first Sri Lankan Governor General. The other prominent alumni of the school include former President of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, legendary sri Lankan archaeologist Senarath Paranavithana, renowned author Martin Wickramasighe, founder of the Sarvodaya movement A T Ariyeratne and the acclaimed journalist Edwin Ariyedasa. Buonavista College was founded in 1848 and later upgraded as a high school in 1869. It is a school with limited resources but through the insight and dedication of its Principal and the senior teachers, the students are given the opportunity to flourish through the creation of a learning environment.

One of the functions of education is to bridge the past and the present and thereby prepare children for the future. School traditions play a vital role in this regard as it looks to the past and seeks to learn from its inheritance. It provides opportunities to meet the challenges of the present time reflecting on the wisdom of the past generations. Most schools have their own school anthems, emblems and mottos. These mottos maybe sometimes expressions in languages such as Pali, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. I have worked in two Sri Lankan schools. One of them which is 167 years old has a Latin phrase Lux De Coelo as its motto which means ‘Light from Heaven’. The other school is the oldest international school in Sri Lanka and its motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’. Shared values and beliefs are passed on from generation to generation through these practices.

I was invited to make a presentation about the beauty and usefulness of mathematics to the senior students at Bounavista College and was amazed at the interest and enthusiasm they evinced. When there is a general criticism that the Sri Lankan students are passive learners, I was pleasantly surprised when a student brought up this question during my presentation: “We have just begun learning graphs. What is the history behind this topic and how is it going to help us in the real world?” Thereafter, we had a lively discussion as to how algebra and geometry were treated as separate subjects in the past and the role that the French mathematician Rene Descartes played in combining the two thereby giving birth to graphs and how any curve can be expressed as an algebraic equation and therefore giving opportunities to analyse all its properties. At the end of the presentation, I gifted them with copies of my book, titled ‘Mathematics in Action’, which is about the applications of mathematics in various fields.

The role of a school is to enable the development of our youngsters into right-minded and competent members of the society giving opportunities for intellectual, moral, social, physical and aesthetic growth all of which contribute towards the nurturing to be responsible citizens. In accomplishing this task, it is important to remember those who have done great and noble deeds. The past allows those living in the present time to learn without having to endure, which can be considered as a gift. Our present will soon be our past and it will have an effect on the future. Albert Einstein stated “The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look for the future we must look back upon the past. That is where the seeds of the future were planted”. Education is the passport for the future. Let us hope that our youngsters will move earnestly towards obtaining this passport and use it to move confidently into an unknown world.

The author is a senior examiner for mathematics at the International Baccalaureate Organization.