Heartaches by the number, troubles by the score ....

Now there's a real problem to solve!


It is exam time gain in old Nu Zulun.









Tens of thousands of young kids will be sitting their NCEA (National Certificate in Education Achievement).

This Friday, November 20, sees the NCEA level 1 maths units being sat. I have been helping some young friends prepare for theirs. Quite frankly, I am appalled at the sheer inanity of some of the questions. Read this and weep! No wonder so many youngsters see maths as fairly irrelevant to their lives.

I don’t like NCEA. In the case of maths it subdivides it into a bunch of highly discrete skills which may or may not be elected by a student. Consequently they leave school with:

1. No unified conception of mathematics and;

2. No conviction of its relevance to their lived experience.

As a result of NCEA, Mathematics has been served up in an utterly piecemeal fashion. As a consequence it has become more fragmented, decontextualised and immaterial to youngsters concerns. This is especially the case with algebra and algebraic reasoning.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am an enormous fan of algebra – always have been. But how often, in connection with algebra, have we heard the refrain: “when am I ever going to use this” and how often is the only hollow reply “it will help you to think logically”. Well, maybe.

Necessary, but hardly sufficient.

It is time for maths teachers and examiners to step up to the mark and show clearly the relevance of algebra. And, my friends, relevant it indeed is.

So throw away the veneer of authenticity that assessors try to give to problems. Ground maths in the pungent realities of lived experience and demonstrate the inordinate power of mathematics to pattern and model those realities.

That could include cross-country running. There's a tonne of maths that could arise out of this kind of data.


 Click here for: Some more of my thoughts on this subject

A man grinding out a quadratic equation.

As has been said, "Mathematics, like life, was never meant to be a spectator sport!"




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