A school principal once said something to me which really stuck. He said that if you look at a primary teacher’s academic background, you see a clear trend. Most teachers come from a humanities background. They studied Arts, Literature, Politics, History etc. He said, only rarely do you find a primary school teacher with a maths background. The unfortunate truth of the matter, he concluded, is that many primary school teachers are uncomfortable with teaching maths. Many have limited skills and are simply not adept at effectively explaining maths concepts to their students.
I think there is a lot in what he said. Whilst spending a year as a substitute teacher, I witnessed many schools and observed many teachers. It is very rare to find a primary teacher that doesn’t possess an interest in literature and social studies. It isn’t rare however, to find a teacher who groans at the prospect of teaching fractions or who becomes impatient when a student doesn’t seem to be taking in the method for solving an equation.
Early last year an article was printed in The Australian about the deficiencies of Australia’s education system to deliver acceptable maths outcomes. Even though it was written about Australia, I think it may well apply to many other countries as well.
A groundbreaking review of the mathematics and statistics disciplines at school and university by the Go8 found “the state of the mathematical sciences and related quantitative disciplines in Australia has deteriorated to a dangerous level, and continues to deteriorate.”
The review was compiled by a committee of the nation’s senior mathematicians headed by former University of Sydney vice-chancellor Gavin Brown.
It found that in 2003 the percentage of Australian students graduating with a major in mathematics or statistics was 0.4 per cent, compared with an OECD average of 1 per cent.
Between 2001-2007 the number of mathematics major enrolments in Australian universities fell by approximately 15 per cent.
I also came from a humanities background. Before completing my degree in teaching, I studies Arts, majoring in English Literature and History. I, like other teachers was terrible at maths during school. Our school used to give high pressured maths tests all throughout the year. I studied for them long and hard, yet managed to fail just about every single one of them. One day I was so distraught at not being able to work out the answers, I secretly threw my test in the rubbish bin. A week later my teacher approached me apologetically to tell me she somehow misplaced my test.
The interesting part of it was I actually liked maths. Whilst it never came easy to me and was taught in a pressurised and negative way, I still managed to enjoy the subject. In Year 12, I decided I wanted to do maths as one of my final year subjects. The teacher, Principal and Vice-Principal thought I was crazy and tried to talk me out of it. They were worried that my inevitably poor results on the three major assessment tasks would drag the class’ score down and tried to persuade me to take up economics instead. I stubbornly refused.
As it turns out, I did quite well in the end, including earning an A on one of the assessments. The same Maths teacher that didn’t want me in her class later told me I was her favourite student. Not because I was the best behaved or the smartest, but because I was determined. She was impressed that I chose to fight my maths demons rather than take the better grades on offer from doing economics.
Now as a maths teacher (I teach all general subjects), I can relate to the student that doesn’t get it. I enjoy teaching maths in a style that I would have profited from as a child. The creative scope for teaching elementary maths is almost limitless. I like to set up maths role-plays in my class. In teaching place value I set up a situation where the students are spies trying to break codes in order to thwart an evil plan. For measurement I get the students to build towers and design tracksuits for Australia’s National sporting teams.
It’s always going to be hard for primary teachers to excel in teaching something they may have never excelled at when they were students. But that can be a blessing in disguise. Sometimes a rustiness in the subject helps you relate to the struggles of some of your students and encourages you to be more creative in the way you teach.
Topical Teaching 