Welcome to pakiwan.com web site. This web site is designed for assisting students, teachers, and parents to learn, unlearn, and relearn school math for free. Through short videos, interactive worksheets, and articles, my team and I would try to disseminate my principles on math teaching. The first principle is that math learning must be passion driven. Passion means that one must learn with heart, and this ideal state on math learning can only be achieved if we make the math learning experiences involve novel perspectives, matched challenges, and total engagement. These three learning conditions of course relate to three different parts of our brains: forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain.

The second principle is my belief that every student can learn math. However, each student has her or his own learning pace and preferences. All students must realize their learning preferences soon to make math learning experiences meaningful.

The third principle is my view on the nature of math. Mathematics is of course useful for our everyday life, but we learn math is not merely for its purposes. As one legacy of human endeavor for more than two millennia, mathematics has also been developed and appreciated as an art form. Many mathematicians have been doing mathematics without any reason at all. As purposeless as dancing or rock climbing, doing mathematics should be a form of art. This view of math as an art form is, in my opinion, missing in school math teaching practices nowadays. Students are forced to memorize meaningless computational algorithms and do complicated numerical calculations. This situation is against the fundamental nature of math as “an art of counting without counting.” This web site is intended to spread this alternative view of math.

Honestly, I am very reluctant to launch this web site, because in my opinion its contents are not enough. The presentation is also not perfect. However, since we believe that this web site is always under development, I believe that would serve in one way or others. Moreover, since this web site is never final, I hope you all students, teachers, and parents could participate to develop this web site further. Your inputs, comments, and assistances are always welcome.

Iwan Pranoto