Published on 12, July, 2020
I've seen the GCSE results are in today and it's made me aware (again) of how badly we seem to teach both these subjects.
IHave we still not learned anything about learning difficulties? I wonder if problems with maths are less likely to be diagnosed and helped than those with English, particularly reading and writing, but do we understand what we're taught?
My Dad was terrified of maths, if you put a maths problem in front of him, he'd totally go to pieces and insist he couldn't do it, but if you gave him a tape measure and a pencil and paper and asked him how much wall paper you'd need to cover a room, he do fine and tell you how much paint you'd need too. It makes me wonder if we wouldn't be better off teaching maths practically, like getting a class of children in groups to design a room, work out how much of what types of materials you'd need, how to cost them, stuff like that?
I'm told that as an autistic woman I should have a love of classic literature, I don't I hate it, it annoys me and I don't relate to it at all. I was terrible at English, I could never write stories, I don't understand most poetry, it dosen't speak to me, it's just a set of disjointed images and I don't think I've ever written a poem and wouldn't know where to begin.
I was good at arithmetic,quite good at algebra, and absolutely awful at geometry.
I didn't sit any exams at school, I doubt if I would of passed maths anyway, I might of scraped a pass at a couple of others.
I still don't understand it, I got to be quite good at mental arithmatc when working in a shop, but it took a while and even then my mind would just go blank, it still does. I don't really remember doing anything like algebra or geomentry, I remember something to do with triangles and angles that I didn't understand. I think I learnt more about angles doing hairdressing than I did at school. Most people don't realise that a good hair cut is all about angles. I remember being asked to do a sum and write out how we'd got the answer, I did and was wrong even though the answer was right, I think that was the point when I stopped even trying. Yeears later I found out that Nobel winners like Einstein and Feynman used the same method, add 6 10's then take off 6=54, rather than doing some complicated thing. I felt vindicated that I was right and my teachers stupid.
I was never taught grammar, I think it was part of thinking at the time that if exposed to books and reading we'd pick it up by osmosis! The books we were given at secondary school were old and awful, some horrid tale of nuns crossing mountains or some such rubbish, I dont' remember anything else, certainly not Shakespeare or Dickens, I think they were reserved for the top group and the rest of us made do with the left overs in the book cupboard.
Do any of you think there are some systemic failures in the way we're taught these subjects as national attainment seems to have remained quite stable despite repeated attempts to raise standards? Mind you when I did an access course and had the first compulsory maths lesson, I'd never seen the sums we were given as basic, they were ones with numbers in brackets, how are you supposed to work out that you do the numbers in brackets first? Apparently thats intuitive and you're supposed to be able to work it out for yourself!
I wasn't taught English grammar at school either (even though I was in the top English class) and I only learned what a verb was from French classes. When I trained as a teacher of English as a second language I had to learn grammar and it was a steep learning curve!
You write well Cat Woman, and have a wide vocabulary. But I hope you do not mind my teacher brain pointing out that it should be "I doubt if I would have passed maths". It's a common mistake - lots of people use "would of" because it sounds like "would've" (which is short for would have)