Maths teaching in SA just doesn’t add up

Giving a talk this week to a group of leading mathematicians in SA, I could see the concern etched on their faces.

In basic mathematics our primary school children score so poorly we are often dead last compared with other countries, including those much poorer than us.

This means that the pipeline of competent mathematics graduates from school to university to the workplace is leaking serious talent.

I decided to address the elephant in every classroom: Why are so many SA children struggling with mathematics?

First, because mathematics is taught without meaning, as a series of operations and little more.

I tried the same old trick with these mathematicians that I use when visiting schools around the country: a man has three goats and four sheep; how many horses does he have?

An older prof at the back of the room had to remind the group that X is unknown.

If mathematics has no meaning except for calculations, no wonder our children have no appreciation for mathematical values like efficiency, prediction, elegance, and mystery.

Second, because of the fear of failure in mathematics.

Ours is a risk-averse society and in classrooms we stress not experimentation but the right answers.

You are made to look stupid if you get the answer wrong.

Children sense that education is about the right answer and so they are terrified about looking silly in a class of image-conscious teenagers.

How else does one solve complex problems without getting things wrong before we get them right?

Ask innovators of all stripes; error is your friend.

Third, because of the press for coverage.

An over-correction to the open-endedness of earlier curriculum reforms (Curriculum 2005 and outcomes-based education) where teachers were given the scope and freedom to create their own teaching plans, with disastrous consequences, the government now specifies detailed content for every subject that must be covered in tight time frames (the CAPS curriculum).

But you cannot teach mathematics like that because a smart teacher knows to work at a pace and with a patience that fits each student.

When you rush teaching, you cannot build learning, and this is especially true in mathematics, where many students fall behind.

Fourth, because of the lack of content knowledge.

If teachers do not know enough mathematics, the children will suffer.

It is an unpleasant reality that many, if not most, of our teachers simply were not trained in mathematics at an advanced level.

Evidence shows that children in the privileged schools sometimes know more maths than teachers in the poorest schools.

Heartbreaking, but we have done nothing to resolve this problem, especially in primary schools where teachers are trained as generalists rather than as subject specialists.

Fifth, because of a poverty of pedagogy.

That is, teachers might know enough mathematical content, but have little idea about how to break it down simply and make it accessible to children.

Or as a famous scientist once said, “If you cannot explain it simply you do not understand it well enough.”

This ability to connect what the teacher knows to what a learner knows about the same topic is pure artistry in motion when observing an expert teacher.

But that wizardry is in short supply.

Sixth, because of poor foundations in numeracy.

Mathematics is the one subject you cannot start teaching at grade 10, for example.

You can teach economics or biology for the first time in high school, but not mathematics because the basic number concept and simple operations must be learnt in the earliest grades.

Children from middle class homes come to school already able to count with confidence and understand basic concepts like “add to” or “take away from.”

Alas, that gap in basic mathematical knowledge never closes as children move through school; in fact, it widens.

That is why most matriculants write the lesser maths (literacy) and less than 30% pass with more than half the required marks in either form of mathematics (real maths or mathematical literacy).

Seventh, because of the enthusiasm gap in teaching any subject.

You can solve most of our backlogs in science or maths with teachers who match competence with enthusiasm.

Ever watch a SA teacher or lecturer?

Most of them (not all) look as if they have lost a relative.

You sense a burden on their backs.

The children observe the misery on their faces and make an early calculation — ‘this is not a job I want one day’.

Truth is, you might not know everything about school mathematics, but if at the very least you show up, express enthusiasm, and are determined to work with children to solve complex maths sets, half of the problem goes away.

I told these academic mathematicians that they cannot sit and wait for the school system to give them enough quality passes for university-level mathematics.

They need to find ways of bridging their expert knowledge of maths to the teaching and learning of this beautiful subject from the earliest grades onwards.

Otherwise, the definition of madness applies: do the same things over and over again and expect a different result.