Abstract:

The teaching of mathematics in prison involves not only disciplinary contents, but also other aspects such as emotional aspects, social barriers and cultural differences between students. The role of mathematics in prison is more complex than in traditional school. In fact, because of previous experiences, inmates often have negative memories of learning mathematics and doubt their ability, convinced that only a few talented individuals can enter the realm of mathematics. In addition, the prison condition often causes an impoverishment of attention and abstraction skills and great difficulties in basic skills such as reading, writing and problem solving. For that reason, success in mathematics is not a simple academic achievement, but it can become an opportunity for redemption and personal growth. Indeed, in addition to the achievement of a professional qualification, one of the main reasons for studying for an inmate is the need for better esteem and self-esteem. Math teachers should be aware that they can play an important role in helping prison students to improve their self-esteem, fighting at the same time stress and depression through the proposal of rewarding intellectual activities.

In this paper we present two recent experiences showing how practical and game-based activities, suitably integrated with more traditional teaching methods, have many advantages when teaching in prison: they motivate students, facilitate the learning process and provide an informal situation, creating good conditions to focus on concepts, ask questions and consolidate skills. The use of practical activities and didactic games in mathematics lessons is quite frequent in primary school, while experiences of this type in high school and especially with adults in a difficult social context are much less common. Despite this fact, games and practical activities such as origami are really very useful in these contexts, because the use of tangible materials and educational games helps students to develop both mathematical skills and motivation, increasing self-confidence as students and problem solvers and promoting true integration among different student populations.

The first experience was proposed in the prison of Busto Arsizio at the end of the school year 2018-2019, as a supplement of traditional lessons. In this case, origami has been used as a tool to consolidate the powers of integers and some geometric properties. The second one was proposed in the prison of Milan-Bollate during the school year 2021-2022. Some mathematical games were proposed to the students of a high school, in particular a vocational school for food and wine and hotel hospitality. The games were about some different math concepts, according to the class attended. From a didactic point of view, games helped students to understand some difficult concepts and to improve their problem solving skills. From a pedagogical point of view, they were used as a motivational tool to increase the frequency, commitment and participation.

Both the experiences have shown that the use of games and practical activities also allows to strengthen the relationship between teachers and students and helps to change the attitude towards mathematics.

Keywords:

Mathematics, education, prison, games, origami.