Maths?

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. 

At least for my school, an inner London comp a long time ago, it was not taught that well.

I had a good teacher when younger and got my O level at 14.
Then lost interest a bit, got 3% in the A level mock at Christmas, but went on to do much better after we had a supply teacher and got an adequate grade.
So teaching had something to do with it.

But I always viewed it as a tool to be used by other subjects and did the minimum, whereas the people I knew who did really well in maths (and went on to do maths degrees) liked it as a subject in its own right and spent a lot of their own time on it. It's something that requires time, practice and putting in the work, which does not inspire most people.

I agree,  at school my maths teachers were not specialists.  One was a P.E teacher, who taught in a tracksuit and trainers, another was a history buff, who also taught history and took the kids out of school for an hour to look at local historical buildings and landmarks.

At A level, in the two years we had several teachers, teaching different parts of the syllabus. When it came to exams and revision time, they struggled to answer the past exam questions.  I got a grade A because I read  the text books.

And the current gcse standard is low, in 2024 to get a pass 4 you only needed 17.5% on the higher paper.  Pathetic!

Maths is just very poorly taught in uk secondary schools often by people who didn't do a maths degree. ... because the kind of people who do maths degrees don't want to work in the hell that is the secondery school system. The schools can not aford to pay enough to compensate for the unpaid overtime and stress and maths graduates have better options.

I was in the years when we went from using printed tables to calculators, what sticks in my mind was the teacher struggling to figure out how to use log and anti-log tables.

School reports nowadays tend to be full of positive feedback and constructive criticism. I know some people would say children need to be resilient and some are against today’s style of report writing. Yet the evidence of lasting harm from our experience of school report criticism is overwhelming. The negative messaging has stuck in our brains. 

In some ways we are remarkably similar. I shot up to nearly the top of the class in maths when I was about 10 years old, the following year in secondary education, I came last in maths. Aside from autism, I can attribute the sudden drop in marks to not adapting from basic numeracy to the big school maths of algebra, geometry and trigonometry etc, I am a repetitive counter which was helpful in the early years, but not good in secondary education. 

Catwoman, I empathise, my time at school was nothing short of hideous. I was overlooked, misunderstood and bullied. It's a big reason for me to be there now, to try to ensure no other child has to go through that. To be fair, things are much better than they were when I went. It's more than that though, it's about trying to ensure every child belongs, feels safe and thrives. 

TheCatWoman said:

I was told during my access course that a quarter add a quarter wasn't half

I think you've been lied to there Catwoman! 

Golly those comments ar ethe story of my school reports, it was always could do better, I often wished we could write reports on the teachers!

Autism wasn't recognised when I was at school either, I don't know if my inability goes back to my first maths lesson where the teacher said she'd smack anyone who got it wrong, but she spent ages explaining why 2x2=4, she went on for long that although I thought I'd got it the first time, I thought I must be wrong or she wouldn't of been going on about for so long, so I was the only one who got it wrong and was the only one smacked? But then I never got any maths from that say forwards. 

The only thing I know algebra, is that it was named after an Arabian mathmetician. I never understood it, not even nearly and fractions??? Just as bad, I was so angry when I was told during my access course that a quarter add a quarter wasn't half, that in fractions its all backwards, why did nobody tell me this before?

I'm glad that people are now being taught maths that actually helps them with everyday life, in my day it was all railway timetables, my interest in that could of been writen in fractions.

Pegg, what happened to you seems just so typical of my experience of schools, it seems like the most important thing they think they have to do as an educational establishment is put you down and squash any confidence you may ever have had. I think it goes along with a prospectus that says it will encourage individuality, only to insist that you all look the same by wearing a very expensive uniform and not to let the school down. I think the other name for that sort of thing is square bashing.

I find this thread very interesting, as Maths was the subject I was most successful in. I struggled in most other subjects because I had to remember facts and discuss them.

The only reason I was good was because I learnt by doing. I have to say though that although my job now is in finance, so I have to use Maths, a lot of what I learnt I have now forgotten. To put this in perspective, we were only allowed to use tables and no calculators for the O level, but could use a Scientific calculator for the higher levels.

The politics of which maths set one was in, was incredible in my middle school.  It taught me more about human nature.

I was moved from a special school, by special,  I mean a school for severely mentally disturbed children, to a normal school half way through the school year.  I was automatically placed in the bottom maths set.  In the end of year exams I was top of that class by a big margin and I was moved to the middle set, the boy who was second in that class was very upset at being left behind in the bottom set. He never spoke to me again despite being in the same form as me and in most classes in other subjects.  He went from being friendly to completely shunning me.

After a few weeks in middle maths set, I came top in an Algebra test with a score of 40 out of 40 and I was moved to the top maths set.  The girl who came second went berserk, accusing me of stealing her rightful place in the top set.

I was in top set for maths - but then, inexplicably (to me at least) I was moved down. It was, I was told, because I didn't seem comfortable in top set. 

Unfortunately, the school apparently mistook social anxiety for inability - just another misunderstanding, one of many that I endured as a child. 

Amazing that I ever came back (I work there now) actually.

I do teach some maths now, as part of my job. I think every student can get something out of it, with an informed approach to teaching. 

I never liked maths, finding it very tedious. I am better with more wordy things like history etc. I am quite ok with numbers and quite like the logic and neatness of them but for me this isn’t really maths….

I fully agree that learning is for life. 

I failed maths and most subjects at school because ‘I lacked effort, concentration, focus and so on’. School report were littered with comments such as ‘could do better’, ‘if she would apply herself …’ ‘lazy’, ‘capable but won’t apply herself’. Autism wasn’t recognised when I was at school and looking back I can see that my difficulties were due to being autistic and not understanding what was required of me. 

i returned to study later in life and passed GCSE maths plus higher level qualifications. Age is no barrier to education.

Thanks

Glad to hear its different now 

TheCatWoman said:

Is maths a subject thats enjoyed or endured at A level? Do people do it so as they can get to the university of thier choice, or do they do it because they enjoy it or because it will be useful in the course they're doing.?

Both I think. Yes, it's a strategic choice for some career aspirations, but equally, there are always students that just love it. 

Jalapeno said:

We should try to show useful maths -  where you can use it in life, like budgets/finances

Real world examples are used in teaching now. I agree that maths has to be perceived as relevant to students to engage them - of course, and that's why real world examples are included. 

I think they are better than when I was at school (20 years ago),  which is probably just as well!

There's also Functional Maths, a qualification that can be equivalent to a GCSE pass and just covers the maths you might use in everyday life. 

I think school method of teaching - inspires a few likewise puts off learning for a similar number and others get by

Maths & Science seemed my go to subjects in secondary school in the 80s. But school didn't inspire me, although I had one teacher who taught Geometric & Engineering Drawing (old fashioned as it was then on drawing board - aka drafting table) .  I think that just latched into my visual thinking and so I left at 16  and got an apprentice job in an engineers office, and studied part-time whilst working and switched to a full-time Masters Degree.  

But that was me and my spiky profile which meant english, arts, languages I found difficult, or as school put it on all my reports for 5 years "lacks effort","lacks concentration/focus","easily distracted", or that my attitude of excelling at certain subjects early on was "narrow minded" - gosh would teachers (form tutor, head of year and headmaster) write this stuff now or think  what's going on ?  I don't know

We should try to show useful maths -  where you can use it in life, like budgets/finances, running a business or understanding business, there's a million more reasons I expect.  And show that learning is life-long

Sorry for the ramble.

I agree that many people in this country have a thing about being anti-intellectual and if you come from a working class back ground, people will treat you differently and even go as far as to bully you for being educated.

Is maths a subject thats enjoyed or endured at A level? Do people do it so as they can get to the university of thier choice, or do they do it because they enjoy it or because it will be useful in the course they're doing.?

When there was a swap between maths teachers between here and China, where they traditionally do very well at maths, the Chinese teachers said they thought we taught to widely and not deeply enough.

Are we bad at maths? Pass rate for GCSE at 16 is around 70%, so most are ok at maths, good enough.

We have an anti-knowledge culture in this country - so long as that knowledge is academically acquired. E.g. Maths in popular culture is presented as boring, inaccessible, the preserve of intellectuals - it's not cool in other words. 

I'm not convinced that these perceptions reflect reality.