Mention maths to anyone and the first response you’re likely to get is ‘I was never very good at maths (at school)’ but rarely does anyone finish the sentence by saying ‘But I’m OK now’.
Two questions pop up – why were these people not good at maths at school and secondly, why does that negativity about the subject perpetuate later in life?
From research, the watershed seems to be the transition from primary school to secondary school, Whilst just over 10% of children admit to difficulties with maths at primary school, this figure rises to 28% at the start of Year 8. Various reasons have been put forward for this rise including the transition to secondary itself and the change in the style of teaching maths in secondary schools. Tellingly perhaps, the figures for middle schools show a much smaller rise (17%) attributable perhaps to the more difficult concepts introduced at Year 7. That said, if you take a look at the content of the maths curriculum in Years 7 – 9, there’s repetition of many of the topics each year, admittedly with an incremental rise in challenge and the staggered introduction of new topics – a plan that seems to have much merit.
Rescue attempts, including the use of manipulatives (physical resources to the uninitiated) have been attempted but seemingly to no avail and, by the time students leave school, the gap between those who can and those who struggle has widened to form the two distinct camps. Remedial courses such as functional skills do their best to give adults the maths skills they need to cope in life but, even then, it’s a case of trying to reach the lowest rung on the ladder rather than address the whole problem.
So much for the problem, what’s the solution?
The UK government think it’s to force everyone to ‘do maths’ at school until age 18, striking horror into those who look forward to maths being ‘out of the way’ at age 16 and again, mathematicians have voiced concern that this approach only adds to the problem rather than addressing it.
Look at any maths curriculum and you’ll see that it’s a one track process. If there’s a new way found to solve a problem instead of adding it to a cohort of possible processes, it replaces it, an example being the replacement of the ‘bus stop’ method with the ‘chunking method’ meaning that those who can manage the former very well are forced to use the latter with the potential of creating confusion where there was none before. Multiplication is a great example. We all know and dread long multiplication – if I’m forced to do it, I’ll get the answer wrong at least a quarter of the time, so why not teach the Chinese Grid Method or the Russian Peasant Method or even the hackneyed Partition Method, all of which are a good deal easier to use and still gives us the correct answer. I’ve watched students using the Chinese Grid Method and be elated when they get the right answer, wanting to try it with numbers a calculator would crash at when calculating them and in a fraction of the time long multiplication takes.
These ‘math’s tricks’, frowned upon by purists, are what simplifies maths and takes away the fear factor. Instead of devising new schemes to help improve attitudes to maths and outcomes, let’s look at how we can make maths accessible to all and allow the uninitiated to experience what to us is the absolute joy of maths.
