TO THE TEACHER
Introduction DAMATH, a patent-pending mathematical board-game invented by five-time national awardee Jesus L. Huenda, is coined from the popular Filipino checkerboard game of dama, (or lady in Spanish) and mathematics. It started in a Sorsogon National High School class in Sorsogon, Philippines and its popularity spread quickly and resulted in the first national DAMATH competitions held at Legaspi City in 1980. He initiated this competition with the support of the Science Foundation of the Philippines. He hopes to introduce DAMATH to secondary math teachers as part of a requirement of his work as PASMEP Fellow at Curtin University / WACAE, Western Australia. Thus if this material, or part of it, is used commercially or otherwise (except for classroom instruction purposes), permission must be secured in writing from him. By the way, DAMATH is part of the inventor’s position paper, Non-formal mathematics education: the Sorsogon National High School experience, delivered at the 1978 First Southeast Asian Conference on Mathematical Education, PICC, Manila; 1979 and 1980 MTAP national conventions at Legaspi City and Quezon City, respectively. 1981, 1983 and 1988 Philippine Expositions, PHILTRADE, Manila; conference, Mandurah, WA; Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers 13th biennial national conference, Hobart. Rationale It is becoming a growing classroom practice in many school subjects, including mathematics, to use games to promote the understanding of concepts and skills. This practice is supported by child psychologist Piaget and Inhelder (1969) and Kohlberg (1969) who are convinced that affective, cognitive, and social development strongly influence one another and develop along parallel lines. There are data to support this statement. Thus, the use of socially interactive mathematical games in