|
|
Post by principled on Mar 23, 2011 12:15:33 GMT 1
It's in the Daily Mail, so it must be true! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369027/Why-maths-teachers-worst-world.htmlI cannot believe that one question on a paper testing the relative knowledge of maths teachers from different countries is: What is 2^5? My own experience is that maths seems to be taught in a vacuum and many who are teaching it seem unable to apply it or explain its relevance in the modern world. But, I'm not convinced that this is the only reason for our poor performance. Perhaps, others' experiences are different. Any comments? P |
|
|
|
Post by carnyx on Mar 23, 2011 13:08:12 GMT 1
State Education in the UK, right up to Uni level, seems to have degenerated into a child-minding service for the working classes ( i.e. everyone with a job).
Why not acknowledge the fact and get the 'kids' doing embroidery/knitting, or picking litter; and pay them by results ....
|
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Mar 23, 2011 13:32:56 GMT 1
It's in the Daily Mail, so it must be true! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369027/Why-maths-teachers-worst-world.htmlI cannot believe that one question on a paper testing the relative knowledge of maths teachers from different countries is: What is 2^5? My own experience is that maths seems to be taught in a vacuum and many who are teaching it seem unable to apply it or explain its relevance in the modern world. But, I'm not convinced that this is the only reason for our poor performance. Perhaps, others' experiences are different. Any comments? P It's probably because the best brains are not going into teaching due to the despicable way they have been treated and continue to be treated. Our teachers are undervalued and this article is simply highlighting the symptoms of an underlying problem. |
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Mar 23, 2011 16:53:49 GMT 1
The best brains for teaching aren't necessarily those with the highest degree results, but there should be some ground-floor standard, and frankly, grade C at GCSE was it, means to me can't do maths, might be able to add with the aid of a calculator. But in my opinion, you shouldn't be trying to teach ANYONE maths with that sort of result!
Problem is, it got lowered because with it higher, not enough people applied. We have a chronic shortage of qualified maths and physics teachers, with (so I have heard), people with biology degrees trying to retrain to teach physics! No wonder we're in trouble!
But perhaps the real problem with maths is that it is still socially acceptable to say -- I was always no good at maths, and not be able to even approximately estimate your bill at the check-out, or make change. That is why kids can't do maths, because they see that no one thinks any less of adults who can't do it, and maths is hard and boring (all those tables, for gawds sake!) if you want to be able to do simple stuff like mental arithmetic well.
Add to that the fact that anyone who is half-way decent at maths can earn far more elsewhere, rather than being stuck at teaching an unpopular and boring subject to pupils who don't want to learn it...................
|
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Mar 23, 2011 16:59:09 GMT 1
For once we are in agreement STA.
|
|
|
|
Post by principled on Mar 23, 2011 18:42:54 GMT 1
Hi STA
How right you are. I used to be an avid listener to the R4 Today programme and remember one female presenter saying "I'm innumerate". I remember thinking at the time that I doubt she would have said she was illiterate!
In my engineering centre, we used to spend a great deal of time at 16+ teaching the basics just so we could teach the maths required in the engineering syllabi. Even so, we knew we were building on dodgy foundations as there is only so much recapping you can do.
I used to use engineering staff to teach most of the applied maths in their particular field together with a maths teacher to underpin where further explanation of pure maths was involved. This seemed to work well as the maths teacher would see "up close" the application of many maths concepts. I feel it is this ability to apply what they are taught that may be a cause of switching many youngsters "off".
Discipline, or the lack of it, is also a major factor. Two of my staff (and they were very well respected staff) went to China to teach and on their return after 2 years they got temporary jobs teaching maths and engineering in a secondary school for a couple of terms. The change in attitude and respect really shocked them. In China, they couldn't get the students to leave (students would even go round their house when they wanted a question answered!); in the UK most of their teaching time was spent on "crowd control" and keeping the students IN the classroom! Respect appeared to be non-existent. And this was with experienced staff who were not easy pushovers and was not in some inner city sink school either!
Who in their right mind would want to face that everyday?
Perhaps the saddest thing is that, in my experience, once students get their head round the maths, they actually enjoy it!
P
|
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Mar 23, 2011 19:08:48 GMT 1
According to the BBC:
Is that ALL! I mean, grade C at GCSE is pants, frankly, and expecting someone with that level of understanding to be allowed to teach maths at primary level is monstrous! Ditto A-level.................
If society in general has a negative attitude towards maths, is it any surprise that children pick that up, and see it as difficult, and a subject where it is okay to be bad at it? If their teachers are fairly crap at maths as well, is it any wonder that so many never grasp the basics properly, when obviously their teachers never did? Add to that not seeing it as any use, or that now knowing maths not being a disadvantage (heck, their teachers don't seem to know that much either!).
I note that we no longer expect assistants in shops to be able to calculate change (and many can't). What's the point, we say, the till can do it for them! Arithmetic then comes to be seen as something that some can do, but no demerit if you can't. Maths is hard, some people can just do it, but many can't, mainly for boys, and who knows what use it is anyway?
|
|
|
|
Post by carnyx on Mar 24, 2011 12:31:18 GMT 1
The gradient of cleverity is a necessary component of the state education 'system'. It creates a social hierarchy and a raison d'etre for these great childhood-rendering plants.
However, human spirit knows no bounds, and children in such gulags are fighting back. And paradoxically we have to thank Blair, the arch-child and pisstaker-general himself, for helping them in their work of sending up the whole bloody nonsese.
And when the next generation are staggering around in the ruins of this great ziggurat; this tower of Babel, clutching and waving their bogus accreditations that nobody believes in, but are very real proofs of the crushing debts that they must service, we will wish that their parents should have retained their personal responsibility for the future well-being of the next generations.
Instead through subtle blandishments and threats, and deploying tactics to incide fear and greed,
'The State' apparatchiks in the form of the educators have connived to steal childhoods, and to live off the very spirit of the young .. and so .. our very future. The result is that any state-education qualification these days is merely a 'receipt for deceit', to quote Eliot.
Everybody can see the moral disaster that awaits those who thought of financing a venture, an enterprise, on debt. Even Shylock realised it in the end, and was just as reliant as Antonio on the mercy that is inherent in the notion of equity.
But State-Educationalists can not. What is the result of saddling young people with debt at the very start of their life-venture? Debts are indelible and are inherently merciless What collateral can they put up other than their spirit?
Down with Skool! It Sucks! (.... the life-force)
|
|
