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Maths?

TheCatWoman

Are we Brits genetically bad at maths, poorly taught or what? It seems so many of us ND and NT really struggle with it and have done for years, so much so that it almost seems to be a point of national pride that we're collectively so bad at it.

All I know is that I'm terrible at it and couldn't pass a GCSE grade 3, even with special tutoring, it meant I failed my access course, luckily it didn't stop me going to uni because I didn't need maths for history. What makes it even worse is I seem unable to use a calculator either, I can put the same numbers in 3 times and get 3 different answers.

Parents

  • I think that maths, like foreign languages, is taught by and for people who have natural abilities in the subject. For me, maths was taught badly. I have zero interest in maths as maths, I get no satisfaction from solving maths problems per se. I do not find either numbers or equations beautiful. Maths was presented to me as, "there is a thing called simultaneous equations and this is it, this is how you apply it". Then we would spend an age doing simultaneous equation problems. It was tedious, dreary and meaningless.

    I really need to know 'why'. Why are simultaneous equations useful, why were they developed. Also, what real world problems do simultaneous equations help to solve? I really needed these explanations to make maths accessible to me and I never really received it. 

  • in reply to Martin

    I did have one unhelpful teacher whose reply when I didn't understand the explanation was,  ' we will be covering it again on a later date'.

    Today I think there are not enough good Maths teachers. My son seemed to have a chance with a very good teacher, untill he was changed near to exam time to one of several newly enlisted Maths teachers and he had no further teaching, but was just given worksheets. 

  • in reply to Homebird

    I think all my maths teaching after the first year were from work books, we were expected to work it all out for ourselves, I don't remember having any help from teachers, I do remember asking for help as I'd finished all the stuff in one work book that knew how to do and being told to go back and do the ones I hadn't done before, so that was hours of twiddling my thumbs.

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  • in reply to Homebird

    I think all my maths teaching after the first year were from work books, we were expected to work it all out for ourselves, I don't remember having any help from teachers, I do remember asking for help as I'd finished all the stuff in one work book that knew how to do and being told to go back and do the ones I hadn't done before, so that was hours of twiddling my thumbs.

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