Maths is a langwidge

[callmemadam]

Another shock horror story about declining exam standards in today’s Telegraph. Apparently, it’s possible to pass GCSE maths by getting only 20% of the answers right. I have every sympathy with the candidates. The discovery that I’d passed O-Level maths and would never, ever have to do maths again was one of the happiest moments of my life. If, as Molesworth’s teachers opined, ‘maths is a langwidge’, how come I could do French, Latin and German but not maths? I was good at sums, as shown by this little book my mother preserved from the time I was six.



She also kept the school entrance test she had to do at eleven:



Yikes! Multiply 568 by 397. Use your answer to find 569x397. No calculators in 1935.

At one time I volunteered to teach adult literacy and was horrified to be asked to take on a numeracy student. I swear I learned more about numbers during that time than in all my years at school and what’s more, my student passed her exam; I don’t know which of us was more thrilled. I must be numerate but I still class myself as a person who can't do maths and I wonder how I'd get on with that GCSE exam?

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I would be more scared by finding the cost of 2lb 12oz of bacon at 1s 2d per pound!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

You obviously agree that standards are slipping, then:-)

Edit. It's 3s 2½d.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed! (And more than willing to take your word for it.)

I used to be a maths teacher: I know standards are slipping.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

20% would still be too much for me. I got lost in maths round about ... ooh, the second week in Infant 1, I think it was. And I never did catch up. I got the lowest mark ever recorded at my grammar school for a maths mock O-level ... so low they told me not to bother taking the real one, which I think was illegal.

I can't say it's ever made much difference to my life.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

If girlyswot is to be believed, you'd probably get a grade A now!

[gghost.livejournal.com]

I could do Spanish, French and German in school, but math has always been the death of me.

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on what they mean by a 'pass': if it's a grade G, then 20% sounds about right; if it's a C, then fair enough (although the papers are tiered, and 20% on a higher-tier paper may actually be quite difficult to get).

Maths terrified me. I got an A, though I'm sure that was due to having an immensely patient and lovely maths teacher. If I'd had the Head of Maths, who threw chalk and was notoriously horrid, I'd have been sunk :-( I'm supervising a newly-qualified Maths teacher this year, and what has struck me is how good she is at building the confidence of all the kids who are scared of maths, and getting them to do things they never thought they could do.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I could have done with teachers like that. Mine seemed to think that if you were intelligent you just weren't trying or, because you were bad at their subject, thought you were stupid and then got a shock in the staffroom when they 'eard different.

[(Anonymous)]

You have hit the nail on the head, it is all to do with confidence. I had a brilliant Maths master at school who inspired us, helped us discover its natural beauty and its use in everyday life. As a graduate of a numerate discipline, working in a field for which maths and its underlying logic is a prerequisite, I despair less about the inability of new graduates to understand old units, slide rules and perform mental arithmetic than their loss of ability to understand the feel and logic behind the subject. Use of calculators, spreadsheets and computers to take the slog out of my work allows me time to focus on the valuable part of reviewing and analysing. However whilst I use these tools, I still "know" and understand the sort of answer I should be expecting. This latter skill is what I increasingly see as missing and it really concerns me as this distinguishes a human from a machine!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

The beauty of maths is something I'm prepared to believe in but which was never revealed to me.