Post to The Age (10/10/2019) on 11/10/2019)
Commenting on “Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-say-a-lack-of-qualified-teachers-is-turning-students-off-maths-20191010-p52zl0.html
The experts study should go beyond or rather before Year 7 in order to find out the root cause of the problem.
During mid-2018, I requested and was granted the opportunity to volunteer in a primary school, and unexpectedly assigned to help students from Prep to Year 5 in maths. I can confirm that the problems lie in the lack of strict discipline in overall class activities, insufficient time dedicated to the subject, largely not due to the fault of teachers but the system.
Maths is more complex than English as a subject, and it is a myth to believe that it easy to learn and teach. In a way maths is a language - it has syntax, semantics, rules, exceptions and variations. Maths includes more than simple arithmetic operations, but also logic of shapes, quantity, and arrangement, using numeral and symbolic representation, in single or multi dimensions.
In general basic maths is logical, but it can get too abstract for many young mind and even adults, too. Given that premise, rote learning should not be considered as outdated method of learning, discouraged or even abolished at schools.
At very young tender school age, students need to accept and memorise certain axioms, assumptions and basic formulae so that these form the foundation for students to leap frog to learning more difficult branches of maths like algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus.
Most students learnt English since the day they learnt to speak, and they continue to use it daily. Unfortunately, the time spent in learning and using maths is far too little in class and afternoon hours.
A music student or an athlete learn or practise a lot more hours daily outside class contact. Unfortunately, the abolishment of homework, including maths, seems totally illogical and debatable, if students are expected to perform well or excel In non-music and sport subjects.
The prolific growth in private tuition schools especially in maths is the result of market demand and symptomatic about the failure of how maths is taught or delivered at school. Many of these tuition schools require students to do maths exercises of specific topics repeatedly so that the students can gain skill and speed.
How can a teacher help students having large competency gap all mixed in a same class? Abolishment of streaming makes life extremely difficult for teachers to give extra attention to students who need more help. If a teacher is to offer more assistance to these students, those more competent students are being “compromised” and they tend to lose interest, resulting in mediocre performance.
A teacher good in maths may not be good in passing on his/her knowledge to the students. A teacher with higher degree in maths cannot be guaranteed to arouse the interest of a student in Prep or Year 11. In the first place, the students are not required to understand, pure maths, higher algebra, imaginary roots or complex series learnt in higher degree.
If good foundation is built in primary school, and students are interested in maths in the early years, quality of maths teachers in secondary school may not be as big a issue as it seems. It is important to recognise that the tallest building in the world has to start from ground up.
Thank you for reading.
This post and many other similar ones can be found in my Facebook group SFC Education, Teaching, Learning.
During mid-2018, I requested and was granted the opportunity to volunteer in a primary school, and unexpectedly assigned to help students from Prep to Year 5 in maths. I can confirm that the problems lie in the lack of strict discipline in overall class activities, insufficient time dedicated to the subject, largely not due to the fault of teachers but the system.
Maths is more complex than English as a subject, and it is a myth to believe that it easy to learn and teach. In a way maths is a language - it has syntax, semantics, rules, exceptions and variations. Maths includes more than simple arithmetic operations, but also logic of shapes, quantity, and arrangement, using numeral and symbolic representation, in single or multi dimensions.
In general basic maths is logical, but it can get too abstract for many young mind and even adults, too. Given that premise, rote learning should not be considered as outdated method of learning, discouraged or even abolished at schools.
At very young tender school age, students need to accept and memorise certain axioms, assumptions and basic formulae so that these form the foundation for students to leap frog to learning more difficult branches of maths like algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus.
Most students learnt English since the day they learnt to speak, and they continue to use it daily. Unfortunately, the time spent in learning and using maths is far too little in class and afternoon hours.
A music student or an athlete learn or practise a lot more hours daily outside class contact. Unfortunately, the abolishment of homework, including maths, seems totally illogical and debatable, if students are expected to perform well or excel In non-music and sport subjects.
The prolific growth in private tuition schools especially in maths is the result of market demand and symptomatic about the failure of how maths is taught or delivered at school. Many of these tuition schools require students to do maths exercises of specific topics repeatedly so that the students can gain skill and speed.
How can a teacher help students having large competency gap all mixed in a same class? Abolishment of streaming makes life extremely difficult for teachers to give extra attention to students who need more help. If a teacher is to offer more assistance to these students, those more competent students are being “compromised” and they tend to lose interest, resulting in mediocre performance.
A teacher good in maths may not be good in passing on his/her knowledge to the students. A teacher with higher degree in maths cannot be guaranteed to arouse the interest of a student in Prep or Year 11. In the first place, the students are not required to understand, pure maths, higher algebra, imaginary roots or complex series learnt in higher degree.
If good foundation is built in primary school, and students are interested in maths in the early years, quality of maths teachers in secondary school may not be as big a issue as it seems. It is important to recognise that the tallest building in the world has to start from ground up.
Thank you for reading.
This post and many other similar ones can be found in my Facebook group SFC Education, Teaching, Learning.
