Much Ado About Inflation and Teaching Mathematics in Junior High

The recent pronouncement of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that the
country has reached a 6.1% inflation rate was disagreed with by President Ferdinand
Marcos, Jr. The latter believes that the country’s inflation rate was pegged to only
four percent.

This development has raised eyebrows about how the newly-elected President
regards inflation and its impact on the national economy. But, how can this social
issue of national concern be integrated into the teaching of Math in junior high school
more specifically students in the seventh grade? 

Filipinos have this penchant of trends. According to Chique Escareal -Go and
Josiah Go of the Philippine Daily Inquirer recent cultural trends dictate Filipinos’
consumer behavior . These trends include the rise of single parents, the late marriages
and smaller families, upgraded role of music as a surrogate companion, and the rise
of “adultescents” (a play of the words adult and adolescent).

How can math teachers integrate these changing cultural patterns in their
lessons?

Trend analysis is best taught by teaching frequency polygon and the ogives.
The teacher can use these lessons by introducing the recent data from the Philippine
Statistics Authority (PSA) about the country’s inflation rate from the last two years of
the Duterte administration.
 
Math teachers can further challenge junior high students to conduct research
on the average monthly temperatures in the Philippines for five years by using
frequency polygon and ogives to guide them in predicting the status of climate change
in the Philippines in the future. 
 
In an online article entitled, Teaching the Next Generation: How Gen Z
Learns, zoomers as they are called use multiple sources of information than their
predecessors. They consume a lot of information and use it in ways Millennials and
Gen Xers never dreamed of.

Using current government data in teaching Math will also help students
connect their understanding of probability, statistics, and algebra with recent
economic and political developments in the country. I

  Developing these ideas in the Philippine classroom will engage young

students to become informed citizens in these challenging times.