Many had a mild panic response to the very idea of learning even rudimentary statistics. Sometimes, the panic was more serious. Occasionally, there were tears.
Those teachers are not alone. Upwards of 90% of adults experience at least mild anxiety when they have to perform a task that involves maths. Maths anxiety can almost always be traced back to the experience of learning – or trying to learn – maths at school.
Unfortunately, a vicious cycle has developed in maths education. For many primary school teachers, teaching maths activates painful memories of their experience with the subject as children. As a result, they lack the confidence to teach maths well. Frequently, they also lack sufficient knowledge. Their students, some of whom will be the teachers of the future, are thereby put at risk of developing maths anxiety themselves.
This vicious cycle has resulted in a litany of data showing that most students do not keep up with curriculum expectations in maths.
At the National Party conference last weekend, the Prime Minister revealed new data from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study. Just 22% of the Year 8 students participating in the study met curriculum expectations.
The PM also announced measures to tackle the problem. There will be $20 million to support professional development in maths teaching. People seeking to train as teachers will need 14 credits in maths at NCEA Level 2. Teachers will be provided with guidebooks on how to teach maths.
These are emergency measures. They are necessary, but they will not be enough.
Another component of the Government’s response will be to bring forward the implementation of a new maths curriculum from 2026, to 2025. The current curriculum has exacerbated the problem. It is vague and poorly structured, all too often leaving teachers to figure out for themselves how to teach a subject they don’t like or understand. The new curriculum, with its greater detail and rigorous structure will help drive improvement in the longer term.
To break the vicious cycle of maths anxiety, though, a much greater focus on maths is required in teacher education programmes. We need knowledgeable teachers in front of our primary-aged children, who pass on a love, rather than a fear, of maths.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
Unfortunately, a vicious cycle has developed in maths education. For many primary school teachers, teaching maths activates painful memories of their experience with the subject as children. As a result, they lack the confidence to teach maths well. Frequently, they also lack sufficient knowledge. Their students, some of whom will be the teachers of the future, are thereby put at risk of developing maths anxiety themselves.
This vicious cycle has resulted in a litany of data showing that most students do not keep up with curriculum expectations in maths.
At the National Party conference last weekend, the Prime Minister revealed new data from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study. Just 22% of the Year 8 students participating in the study met curriculum expectations.
The PM also announced measures to tackle the problem. There will be $20 million to support professional development in maths teaching. People seeking to train as teachers will need 14 credits in maths at NCEA Level 2. Teachers will be provided with guidebooks on how to teach maths.
These are emergency measures. They are necessary, but they will not be enough.
Another component of the Government’s response will be to bring forward the implementation of a new maths curriculum from 2026, to 2025. The current curriculum has exacerbated the problem. It is vague and poorly structured, all too often leaving teachers to figure out for themselves how to teach a subject they don’t like or understand. The new curriculum, with its greater detail and rigorous structure will help drive improvement in the longer term.
To break the vicious cycle of maths anxiety, though, a much greater focus on maths is required in teacher education programmes. We need knowledgeable teachers in front of our primary-aged children, who pass on a love, rather than a fear, of maths.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
4 comments:
Were the teachers anxious about the machanics of statitics, or what serious application of would reveal?
Was arithmetic ("maths") ability canvassed at their enrolment interviews? What proportion/fraction/percentage of interview did it occupy cf matters maori? The emphasis on maori deters from the profession the objective productive types likely to have a grasp of arithmetic and the teaching of. I have encoutered a teacher (admittedly infants) who had to think hard in calculating 10%
The strongest education systems keep all teachers up to date and up to scratch through mandatory in-service training throughout their careers. The Japanese system is absolutely exemplary as it represents a joint planning and delivery effort by Universities of Education, teacher bodies and schools. By contrast, in-service in most systems tends to be fragmented and largely ineffective - 'time off' tends to be teachers' prevailing attitude. An active role for a coordinated in-service effort is called for here. Moreover, this should be a norm, not just an 'emergency measure'.
After 40 years of privately tutoring maths at all school levels using traditional methods , unfortunately no longer seen in our schools , I have acquired some very decided views on the topic.
My age group can remember , when everyone in a class of 50 students could all do exercises in arithmetic at the same level with some extension work given to the more able.
A teacher's passion for the subject , I believe was not as important as an effective pedagogy, including all those ingredients now confirmed by cognitive and neuro science.
In NZ we have arrived at this crisis in education because gradually all those traditional methods and content were scorned and removed from classroom instruction. In maths beliefs of times tables and addition facts rote learned were dispatched to the rubbish bin as were one simple algorithm for each basic arithmetic process. Revision, consolidation and reinforcement were removed along with text books , exercise books and homework.
I believe maths anxiety and dyscalcula are largely a product of wrong methods, in parallel with reluctant and dyslexic reading students. I am a fan of Dr Kim Hempenstall of MIT , who lists all the aberrant and destructive behaviours , of underachievers in reading which are for me , often similar to those failing in maths.
When parents of my students declare they are hopeless at maths my reply is "So would I have been , but I was fortunate to have good teachers with correct methods".
I consider myself lucky to have had a teacher in the early 1960’s who was very mathematically inclined and I am forever grateful for his efforts. We were introduced to fractions using cuisenaire blocks, but the old tried and true methods seem to have been forgotten-more’s the pity.
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