Teach Roman Numerals in Primary Maths: Gove

[noblegiraffe]

A story in The Guardian today has a charity expressing concerns about Michael Gove's plans for a new numeracy curriculum in primary school.

Among other things, the classically educated minister with a Latin obsession has decided that primary school children really need to be able to read Roman numerals up to 1000.

Baffling. I can't say it gives me any confidence about the quality of the rest of it.

I would really love to know how people's brains worked when they were working with numerals.

We don't really count, because I imagine most of us when we see ix, we translate to '9' without thinking. I wonder if they had a different locational sense of numbers from us?

I would really love to know about it. There would be all sorts of different patterns to which bits of arithmetic you could do easily and which you couldn't, it'd be fascinating.

Lrd I think that's kind of the best way to be, to be honest. Instinctive grammar. I only know (some of) the rules and names in order to be able to teach what I kind of grasped by osmosis. This isn't bragging, by the way. This is what happens when you are such a weapons-grade nerd that you used to play traunt from school in order to go and sit in the County Library on a beanbag, eating your sandwiches and reading books.

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I agree. I wish I could do numbers as swiftly and easily as wordy stuff. My Mum taught maths and I swear she can sort of see patterns and beauty in pages of equations.

oooh - I use the gerund all the time (I must be a natural !) - I just never knew I was doing it. I think I missed grammar at school - I moved primaries at the wrong time - the first hadn't done it by the time I left, and the the second had done it earlier. I pieced it together whilst doing foreign languages at senior school.

Maybe that is the argument for the national curriculum (everyone one does same thing at a given age) - but there are so many arguemtns against is (it is like an mental straight jacket).

Aww, bless, that's such a great image!

I used to get ticked off for reading books in the playground, but I think that was because they thought I might get them messy.

I didn't think you were bragging - we all have instinctive grammar I think, it's just that a lot of people use non-standard grammar and that's a problem. Or they get confused with half-learned rules.

jodie - oh, yeah, I know what you mean about seeing patterns! My brother is like that - I am sure he genuinely has a hugely better visual sense than I do. He can look at something and just see where the pattern is.

It is fascinating.

I wonder if they had a different locational sense of numbers from us?

They must have had a totally different way of thinking of numbers. One we can't do because we are embedded in decimal numbers.

Erm, my almost Y6 DS1 can do Roman Numerals up to and past 100. My almost Y4 DS2 with SEN can do Roman numerals up to 50. Is that unusual? State school btw.

I agree. People panic when you mention grammar! And you just have to say, now then, you probably already know this, I'm just going to tell you what you've been doing all along, so that every now and then you can check that you were right.

I'll never forget teaching a class how to use a semi colon. Cries of "Why didn't anyone tell us this before" etc. etc. I could get quite misty-eyed at the thought.

Oh I miss teach

Apart from the marking. And the exhaustion. And the travel.

On the pattern/number recognition thing - people always think that I will be good at Countdown, because I am Famously Bookish. But they don't understand that anagrams etc. aren't really literariness, but almost more akin to maths. It's about memory and pattern recognition. Bloody wish I could do it!

I think that's unusual, couthy ... they're not easy! Did they do them learning about the Romans, or what?

jodie - that is rather sweet about semi colons. I love teaching, but I am very new to it and misty-eyed. And haven't had much of it to do!

DH has a similar mental approach. He has had arguments with his sister (a very wordy person) - she insists thinking involves words - DH insists it doesn't. He thinks things through and then applies words to the answer, she must work things through her mind in words. I have no idea what I do - somewhere between the two I think. I certainly find visualising things very difficult.

It's an incredibly privilege, so it is. I do think teaching at any level is one of the most noble, and should be one of the most highly-prized, professions. I now want to know what subject you teach, but realise this would be Nosiness of the First Order

throcken I am now going to spend the remainder of the day furrow-browed, trying to work out how my mind works if at all. Thanks for that!

throck - my brother and I discuss this too. I seem to think in pictures but remember best aurally (so in words), and he does the opposite.

There is research trying to find more about how people think, but there are certainly verbal and visual components so they are both right/wrong. I expect it differs from person to person.

It's not nosy, jodie, I've just recently started teaching a bit of English Lit to undergrads. I tutor English Lit to secondary school students on and off to pay the bills, too.

Ah, we're in a similar boat. It is wonderful, and it sounds to me as if it will be just as much a privilege to be taught by you . People genuinely passionate about teaching and what it can achieve are quite rare, I think - and it does affect the students.

Back to roman numerals and maths. If you think visually then it won't be a problem - you see the answer and then apply the numerals to it. BUT if you think in the numerals then any more than very basic arithmetic is a bloody nightmare.

Whenever I try to query my brain as to how it does something it sort of short circuits and offers a feeble "I don't know", much like my kids do when I ask them to explain why the did x, or how they feel .

JodieHarsh - I hope I am not responsible for you growing wrinkles trying to work out how you think :)

throcken I fear my face is beyond redemption these days, so fret not

I find something similar (re visuals) happens when I read. It's not so much that I am reading what is written: more that I see what it says, which is quite different. Then as soon as I give any thought to how I am reading, it all goes thoroughly to pot.

I am by no means innumerate, but I certainly can't see number patterns in the same way.

jodie - That's very kind to say, I hope so. I do love it.

throck - yes, I think that's absolutely true.

I think for some people, just remembering that these three lines with dots are the same as this double squiggle, and they both mean 3, is much harder than it is for other people.

I also think some people learn arithmetic in a very concrete, physical way - you end up using blocks a lot, that sort of thing.

ah - a thought - did the romans use the abacus ? If so, then they would have done arithmetic visually (or physically) and then just applied the numerals to the result. That would simplify things a lot.

I was beginning to feel sorry for roman accountants and engineers

useful for any job in history

here - and here. Those will make your brain hurt .

The second one mentions egyptian numbers as being essentially roman numerals without the 5s, 50s, or 500s _ so that's easy then ! Apparently it simplifies arithmetic - I think the Egyptians were more mathematically able than the Romans.

My brain hurts just looking at that, ty throckenholt

The poor roman accountants and engineers probably suffer because they don't understand any numeral system like this is just a mere reprensentation. (Or do they? Any classicists here?) You can convert them and store in an internal representation, do your work, and then convert again for display. Viola!