Chaplain's Corner

Why Maths makes the world go round

Participating in a joint chapel presentation during Junior Chapel last week with Miss Chloe Hewitt, the Head of the Mathematics Department, was such a pleasure. Last week was Maths Week at St George’s Anglican Grammar School and as a chapel we wanted to contribute to celebrating the positive role of mathematics in making the world a better place. Mathematics offers numerous benefits, including enhancing our problem-solving, analytical, and reasoning skills and improving our financial literacy. It is critical in engineering and designing the world around us, among many other applications. We found using the Venn diagram particularly enjoyable, as it helped us understand the differences and similarities between various concepts. 

The language of the Universal Set and Subsets illustrated how different sets can still share many common elements, referred to as the intersection. While Ms Hewitt explained the mathematical concepts, I drew from Genesis 1:26-31 to help students recognise that, despite our differences, we have much in common—elements that unite us as a family.  I encouraged the students to think of themselves as members of the Universal Set representing St George’s Anglican Grammar School. Within this Universal Set are the subsets, which consist of the different year groups. However, between these subsets, we share many commonalities, such as identifying as members of the same community, our shared humanity, and the shared image of God present in each of us. In our chapel service, we encouraged students to develop a positive attitude towards mathematics, defy the myth that maths is difficult, and seek extra help from their teachers, who are always willing to help. 

We also expressed gratitude to our dedicated mathematics teachers Miss Chloe Hewitt, Mr Richard Truong, Mr Tim Hayward, Ms Stephane Searle, Mr Eamonn Lesk, Ms Sadie Yoxall and Dr Laurie Burn.

Fr Gift Makwasha

School Chaplain