Hopefully this will be a thing that will happen on a weekly basis, as the title suggests. I will have a general whinge (also aptly pointed out in the title) about something important - generally on a 'state of the world' kinda theme.
And debate is invited, of course.
This week, I'd like to talk about the state of education - specifically maths.
I have talked to people before about learning maths at school, and have always been met with the same dispondency at the whole point of it all. And therein lies the problem.
If maths was made more interesting, then kids would be more willing to learn.
How often do you hear kids complaining about English lessons?
Not often.
It is because English deals with stuff that we use every day of our lives; words, letters, speech, writing. We read a book, it's exciting - we learn how to interpret what the author is trying to convey, and think about how those feelings affect our lives.
But how often have you had to use a bit of trigonometry whilst doing the shopping?
What about quadratic equations?
Huh?
It's about then that the child switches off and starts day-dreaming.
We've all done it.
We should make maths more interesting by using everyday examples to illustrate the importance of the subject. Add a 'wow' factor to it, if you like.
For instance:
When you get out of a car, you are exerting about 7tons of pressure on your knee joints.
Any kid would say 'wow' at that. Instant attention grabber(?)
Then go on to explain the maths involved that tells us that fact.
I've said it before, maths rules everything about us - we are all subject to its laws and restrictions - the more we understand, the better we become.
The simple act of throwing a ball and catching it - the mathematics involved are astronomical. But if you can add and subtract, you should be able to work it out (eventually lmao), but I fear that kids are sooo turned off by maths, that they can't even perform basic sums. When I was at school, we weren't allowed calculators in the lesson, lett alone in the exam! Geez, all my stuff was worked out on paper - long-hand lol (my exam papers were handed in as 'see attached sheets' lol).
Education on the whole, is in a sorry state, and this is our future generations, the heirs to the planet, who can bearly string two eligible words together and struggle to work out the change from £1 when they've just spent 82p!
(that's 18p, just in case (100p - 82p = 18p) lol)
Or am I wrong?
Res...
