Is Rishi Sunak utterly thick?

[noblegiraffe]

Today he actually went ahead and announced his plans for everyone studying maths till 18.

And all everyone commenting on this on the news or social media has been saying today is "but this is mad because there aren't enough maths teachers to teach the qualifications we already have".

And teachers including maths teachers, are going on strike again next week because the government refuses to pay them properly. The government also failed to meet its maths teacher trainee recruitment target last year and will again this year.

This announcement just gives everyone the wonderful opportunity to point these governmental failings again and again.

Why the fuck would anyone with any political sense announce a policy that cannot happen and gives everyone the opportunity to point out that it can't happen because the government are shit?

Just why?

Funnily enough, I don't think Bob in set seven is going to make that list. He needs qualified, experienced teachers.

But then that surely makes the point that people don't need formal maths education until 18?

The man they planned to use for their campaign taught himself the data skills he needed. He thinks other things are more, or just as, important.

Besides which , the huge majority of those people are from at least 70 years ago.

Being self taught does not mean it's suitable for everyone as people learn different, but it's not an impossibility that people can learn from others and teach themselves and also combine that with formal schooling too.

Overall you don't need to just be taught in a school setting to be knowledgeable about different subjects.

True. But if they existed then and taught themselves or learned from others, then given technology today a good percentage of people can easily learn and teach themselves.

I think you are missing the point.

Exactly, I'm in favour of improving maths education,

Quite possibly

We are not saying ‘can motivated (often very able) individuals teach themselves things they want to learn?’ The answer to that us, self evidently, yes.

We are asking whether a policy that forces 16-18 year olds (who got more than a 4 at Maths GCSE, otherwise they would already be studying Maths for resits, but are not interested enough in Maths to choose it as part of their existing 16-18 courses) to continue to study Maths in a meaningful way is realistic.

Yes, online courses for them could easily be provided - tbf are already available - but would be ineffective for this group of learners. The teachers to do the job properly are not available.

Why, btw, must Arts-inclined 16-18 year olds continue to study Maths while those doing Maths & sciences/IT exclusively not study English? The standard of basic written English in society is at least as low, and possibly lower in terms of the very basics of homophone spellings and apostrophes, than that of basic numeracy.

Fair points, I must admit I'm a bit out of my depths, with the whole debate on the issue, but it's been good debating with everyone.

Ramanujan did indeed teach himself maths to the highest levels, breaking new ground even though he lacked training.

He said that the Hindu goddess Namagiri appeared to him in visions and gave him mathematical insights.

Perhaps we could try to get her on board?

It also worked for Milton so why the hell not.

"Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. According to Hans Eysenck, "he tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but failed for the most part. What he had to show them was too novel, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in unusual ways; they could not be bothered". Seeking mathematicians who could better understand his work, in 1913 he began a postal correspondence with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, England. Recognising Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge.Wikipedia"

Can I just check is someone who goes through school until school leaving age mostly self taught?

it's not an impossibility that people can learn from others and teach themselves

Not an impossibility, but not something to base educational policy on.

Depends on the subjects and the usefulness of the teacher, if they have to rely on teaching themselves the material due to eg supply teachers covering the lessons ect, then I'd say yes they are self taught

@Hawkins003 i don’t want to sound rude but you have had the same points explained to you over and over again and yet you keep banging on about self teaching and whatnot.

I’d go so far to say you’re the perfect example as to why online teaching is NOT in anyway effective as you appear to have learnt absolutely nothing from the same points being made over and over again by different people.

I think if you were able to site down and have an actual conversation with an actual person then you might be able to understand the issues at play here…

Also considering the dictionary definition is

self-taughtadjectiveˈself-ˈtȯt

Synonyms of self-taught1
: having knowledge or skills acquired by one's own efforts without formal instruction
a self-taught musician2
: learned by oneself
self-taught knowledge

Then yes they can still study at school and still also be self taught in different subjects other than their GCSE subjects and or if certain material is not covered in lessons then that would apply too

Fair points, through the debates I'm refining my perspectives but yes I apologize for any overlap of my perspectives

You could say I self taught myself music. I had a major Morgan, learnt the pattern of buttons for some tunes, removed the sheet an learnt the letters underneath.
I then played the notes in the same order on the recorder and keyboard.

It doesn't mean I can play an instrument though.

@Hawkins003
I’ll give you a case study.
Boy aged 9. Family lives on a farm. There is nothing he can’t tell you about farm life, mending fences, livestock etc etc. It’s what he wants to do, and what he will do. He’s animated and engaged if you ask him about it.

However at school…
No engagement at all during any lockdowns. Not a single completed piece of work, and that’s with teachers driving to his house to hand deliver work and check on him. Could have come in as a key worker child but didn’t. Parents ‘didn’t need him to.’ Never does homework. Doesn’t read at home. Has yet to learn spellings for the weekly test. His family aren’t fussed about education. School is useful for keeping him out of the way but if something is happening on the farm where he’d be useful, then he’s ‘ill’ that day and doesn’t come in. His school report from last term is still in his bag. He’s had a huge amount of support as he struggles- we have been incredibly creative in developing maths problems involving farming for him (which you couldn’t do in a video) and even getting local farmers in to talk about the value of education. But it makes no difference- he thinks school is a waste of time and he doesn’t want to be here. He even wears a T-shirt with ‘forced to go to school’ on it. His first question, every day, is ‘when is it playtime?’ After playtime: ‘when is it lunchtime?’ And he will ask how long until playtime/lunchtime/ home time about half a dozen times in each session.

He is the kind of child that will do well
because he has a passion for farming. I don’t worry about his future beyond school. But he won’t do well at school. He doesn’t care and neither do the people who would need to support him.

My question is, if maths teaching is to go to 18, but is mostly online due to lack of teachers, will this child be the kind of child to pay attention? (Bearing in mind it’s hard enough trying to get him to pay attention when you are 1-2-1 with him using specially written material!) Will he watch a video and then try the suggested question to see if they get it right and understand the maths? Obviously he’ll be older but looking at the environment etc, do you think he’ll suddenly experience a change in attitude and start eagerly watching maths videos on YouTube? Is he the kind of self motivated person you have been using as an example? And if not what do we do with children like him? Knowing online won’t work because they won’t engage? Or does he actually need a person in front of him, putting things into a context which make sense to him? In which case we are back at the problem of not enough teachers…

The idea of tech won’t work if we are relying on intrinsic motivation of people who just aren’t motivated, for whatever reason.

Surely you could just refine your perspectives by watching youtube videos?

@Hawkins003 - sorry, I think my post came across quite aggressively and I didn’t mean it to. More trying to use a real life example of a real person I work with, to show what a reliance on self motivation might mean for this plan.

@babybythesea I teach that boy. In my case he's 14 and there are several of them in my class. He's got far more important things to deal with - like the yows - than to do school work.
He's ace. But self motivated about education? Nope.

I appreciate your time and effort in writing the post, I must admit I can understand your perspective on the matter.

I guess the main positive for that case, is at least he has potential to be the da Vinci of the farming industry.

But I understand the online perspectives would not help with this one, but then the same could apply to others that if online wouldn't help and it seems even with an actual teacher in this case doesn't help, then in theory some students no matter how many teachers were available, they still would be ineffective?