Still Learning

In my previous post I lauded teachers and principals for the way they have risen to the challenges of online learning for students as a result of the covid pandemic. I also mentioned that I'd been able to mentor my young grand children as they participated in the online learning from home.

It was a learning experience watching the skills of 8 and 9 year olds year olds in using the iPad, the vehicle for the learning.  Even more exciting was my re-education on how maths is taught today.

I had left the classroom environment before the use of mathematical things such as the number line appeared in the curriculum. I had been clinging to the view that a sound grounding in automatic response to knowing the multiplication tables and the number facts to 19 were a basic grounding to achieving numeracy. Also being effective in bridging tens for addition. I clung to this view even in the context of calculators being available. I was enlightened in seeing my grand children use the number line to carry out complex addition and subtraction. They were learning to tackle theses tasks in a problem solving sort of way rather than just utilising the automatic responses of which I speak.

I also marvelled at their knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes and how they understood faces, edges and vertices. They were even into a more geometric approach to angles within the 360 degree spectrum.

'Look it's nothing new', I hear you say, 'you have just been away form the coalface for too long'. Be that as it may I am beginning to see the STEM influence across the mathematic's curriculum.  I have been converted from a view that the mathematicians had hijacked the school maths syllabus to the detriment of the necessary attainment of functional numeracy.

Despite all of the above revelations I still think it would be easier all round for students if they achieved the automatic responses noted above.  These could be applied within the problem solving approach.  I could see where my grandies laboured at times because they did not know the appropriate tables and number facts.  They were resorting to counting on fingers and saying the appropriate time tables from the beginning until they reached the table needed.  Very laborious despite the new methods they had available.

A constructive blending of the old with the relatively new might be the answer.

Got to say that for my teenage grandchild I was blown away by the idea of using Excel in calculating
surface area variations in 3D shapes.  This for me is STEM truly in action in the contemporary mathematic's approach.

Oh to be young again and experiencing innovative teachers of maths going about the business of opening up such a wide range of career choices through the STEM approach.

Please don't be too hard on me you maths' experts out there.

May the Force be with you!


GD