The Mathematics Teacher at the Crossroads Between Indigenous Cultural and Exotic Games in Teaching Mathematics

Abstract The issue of integrating indigenous games in Africa had long been conceived by Mogege David Mosimege in the 1990s. Of late, several countries and universities have introduced indigenous games into their curricula at all levels of education. However, with serious competition with the exotic education games, the mathematics teacher is still at the crossroads of integrating these games. One of the most challenging aspects is determining the games that best suit particular topics. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' challenges in some selected topics and suggest ways best practices of resolving the impasses. Deeply rooted in Piaget constructivism, the phenomenological design was harnessed to address the purpose, objectives and research questions carved to guide the study. With a population of over 200 teachers, the researchers sampled 70 teachers (65 males, 5 females) through simple random sampling for the first stage. Five teachers, comprising three males and two females, were purposively sampled for the second stage. The semi-structured interview guide and an observation checklist were the instruments the researchers used to collect data. The data was analyzed thematically to reflect the research questions. The results of both stages showed that even though a good number of teachers cannot decided on any games and substantial number were still being influenced by the other cultural games, some teachers who selected the indigenous games yielded impact on students’ learning of mathematics. The four indigenous games, namely biloo, bilore, gollaa and mullaa were dominant. However, the observation checklist showed that many teachers are at serious crossroads of selecting indigenous games for the teaching of mathematics. It was therefore recommended that stakeholders reinvent teaching and learning through the integration of games and culture.