Page 6 | MATH - Is about spotting patterns. Not learning Times Tables. Opine.

HarrowToCroydon · 2023-09-30T05:40:45+00:00

MATH - Maths is not about learning times tables, it’s about spotting patterns in everything we experience and using them to plan and invent. From a 7 year old Guardian article, [[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/26/reckon-you-were-born-without-a-brain-for-maths-highly-unlikely Reckon you were born without a brain for maths? Highly unlikely | Students | The Guardian]] Would you recount your experiences where you or your loved ones were traumatised by Math.

Hercisback · 30/09/2023 16:22

There's also no argument re math. You're writing on a UK website about the UK education system, it's maths.

ColleenDonaghy · 30/09/2023 17:09

Hercisback · 30/09/2023 16:22

There's also no argument re math. You're writing on a UK website about the UK education system, it's maths.

Give it a rest. Some people in the UK say math, although it is the less common choice. OP may not be from the UK even if she lives here (I'm not).

Hercisback · 30/09/2023 17:56

People in the UK saying math are wrong.

ColleenDonaghy · 30/09/2023 17:59

Don't be ridiculous.

BlueIgIoo · 30/09/2023 18:35

redpicturelamp · 30/09/2023 09:46

Question for the primary school teachers. .
Is there any reason why children don’t rote learn times tables for 5 minutes every day from year 2 (or whenever it is the start to learn times tables). I mean literally chant out loud (perhaps using songs etc) from year 2 to year 6, every single morning, without fail.

I’m sure this is what they used to do in my parents and grandparents generation, & it seemed to work.

My children did this at primary, but only intermittently, not consistently/every day.
My younger child still doesn’t know her times tables securely. We did rote learning at home for months until she learned them, and then a few months later she’d forgotten them which was such a surprise to me. We did them at home again - sane thing happened. It seems to be a retention issue rather than a learning issue.

I guess we need to reinforce the learning at home intermittently every few days, but given it’s such a fundamental party of maths which is this not done at school?

I think most schools do do this. If not, the answer is time. It is widely acknowledged the primary curriculum is far too vast and needs trimmed back considerably. But I also don't think it necessarily helps. I have many children who by the end of Y3 in a Y3/4 class know all their times tables up to 12x12 and can pass the Y4 test with 25/25 at 6 seconds per question. They average about 1-2 seconds per question. Reciting tables every day is a massive waste of their time, yet there are children in the same class, who have experienced the same teaching, who struggle to remember the 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 30/09/2023 18:49

I struggle with Grammar, someone here already posted. What you wrote, I cannot understand. Vowels, Consonants, Verbs etc. frankly I have no clue.

Did you not find this a problem when home-schooling your children? How can you teach them things you don't understand yourself?

RampantIvy · 30/09/2023 23:42

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 30/09/2023 18:49

I struggle with Grammar, someone here already posted. What you wrote, I cannot understand. Vowels, Consonants, Verbs etc. frankly I have no clue.

Did you not find this a problem when home-schooling your children? How can you teach them things you don't understand yourself?

I did wonder myself.

Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 01/10/2023 06:35

Hercisback · 30/09/2023 16:21

It was to highlight that Math could also be introduced by ways of pattern recognition. And that it may be an appropriate time to delve into other such methods, and look beyond rote learning.

Pattern spotting is literally what happens in primary. But there comes a point when you have to cut your losses and just learn the values.

RE method marks. If a method is valid (any method), unless the question asks for a specific one, then yes you get marks.

There's so much BS in that article and your thinking OP.

"There's so much BS in that article and your thinking OP."

We try, to think and learn any techniques to help our children, happy to read articles with BS, if even 5% can be useful.

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Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 01/10/2023 06:36

RampantIvy · 30/09/2023 23:42

I did wonder myself.

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One of us does, "I" do not, Partner does.

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Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 01/10/2023 06:38

Hercisback · 30/09/2023 16:22

There's also no argument re math. You're writing on a UK website about the UK education system, it's maths.

Here is a link from Harvard. They use Math and Mathematics

Math Teacher Leadership | Harvard University

This course supports math teacher leadership knowledge and skills through investigations of practice, reflections, design, and implementation of programs oriented to address dynamic contextual school situations

https://pll.harvard.edu/course/math-teacher-leadership

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Hercisback · 01/10/2023 06:41

Harvard is a US based university.

We try, to think and learn any techniques to help our children, happy to read articles with BS, if even 5% can be useful.

It's good to hear you're researching things for your own children. Why have you made lots of wrong comments about how schools teach times tables? You don't even use schools.....

spanieleyes · 01/10/2023 07:59

Given your username, I think most people assumed you were UK based and therefore maths would be correct.

sorrynotathome · 01/10/2023 08:18

ColleenDonaghy · 30/09/2023 17:09

Give it a rest. Some people in the UK say math, although it is the less common choice. OP may not be from the UK even if she lives here (I'm not).

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The only people in the UK who say Math are Americans or those who learned English via an American route. It’s not a regional thing (like Mom, for instance).

ColleenDonaghy · 01/10/2023 08:22

sorrynotathome · 01/10/2023 08:18

The only people in the UK who say Math are Americans or those who learned English via an American route. It’s not a regional thing (like Mom, for instance).

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My husband says math, born and raised in NI.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 01/10/2023 10:24

There's also no argument re math. You're writing on a UK website about the UK education system, it's maths.

There are all kinds of reasons why a poster might call it 'math', based on where they were brought up or educated, or where their parents came from. Your post implies that you think even a native English-speaker not from the UK should have to use British English just because they are posting on a UK-based website. Why should they, if the meaning is perfectly clear? Would you spell 'colour' as 'color' if you were posting on a US website?

Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 01/10/2023 13:41

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 01/10/2023 10:24

There's also no argument re math. You're writing on a UK website about the UK education system, it's maths.

There are all kinds of reasons why a poster might call it 'math', based on where they were brought up or educated, or where their parents came from. Your post implies that you think even a native English-speaker not from the UK should have to use British English just because they are posting on a UK-based website. Why should they, if the meaning is perfectly clear? Would you spell 'colour' as 'color' if you were posting on a US website?

Sometimes I tend to call University "School", in some cultures this evokes a sense of disbelief.

Common in America, a student is schooled at Harvard.

Long long time ago, someone said to me "What is she reading at Cambridge?", took me a few seconds to connect the dots.

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Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 01/10/2023 13:42

spanieleyes · 01/10/2023 07:59

Given your username, I think most people assumed you were UK based and therefore maths would be correct.

UK based, though moved around a fair bit.

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PuttingDownRoots · 01/10/2023 13:47

Indeed, in the UK we have LSE... London School of Economics... which is a highly regarded University.

Language can be fascinating. Its funny though how uptight some people can become.e between British and American English while words from other languages are assimilated into our vocabulary without issue.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 01/10/2023 13:52

I'm a languages teacher. I have worked with and taught people from all over the world in British schools. I find the level of niggly pettiness on MN about non-standard English (on an informal chat forum!), especially the thinly-veiled sneering at Americanisms, extremely tiresome and sometimes really unpleasant.

RampantIvy · 01/10/2023 19:33

Agreed @AllProperTeaIsTheft

Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 02/10/2023 04:30

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 01/10/2023 13:52

I'm a languages teacher. I have worked with and taught people from all over the world in British schools. I find the level of niggly pettiness on MN about non-standard English (on an informal chat forum!), especially the thinly-veiled sneering at Americanisms, extremely tiresome and sometimes really unpleasant.

To us it is a source of amusement. In dinner parties, the intellectuals love this subject, and make boring parties a little bit more interesting. We can say that we are laughing at the expense of language.

To make everyone here chuckle- When our eldest daughter started Grammar school, for a year or so, I used to write Grammer, which was a source of amusement for the teachers.

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OxbridgeHopeful · 02/10/2023 20:55

So my youngest has just started a maths degree. He spent a lot of time over the summer exploring patterns in domino tiling, and I think it was time well spent by way of preparation!

Unlike me, I don't think he ever memorised the quadratic formula - he essentially preferred to derive it from scratch (slightly worrying shades of his engineer grandfather there). But for most people, for practical purposes, if you're going to solve non-factorisable quadratics a lot, it's worth knowing the formula...

Original poster

HarrowToCroydon · 03/10/2023 06:06

OxbridgeHopeful · 02/10/2023 20:55

So my youngest has just started a maths degree. He spent a lot of time over the summer exploring patterns in domino tiling, and I think it was time well spent by way of preparation!

Unlike me, I don't think he ever memorised the quadratic formula - he essentially preferred to derive it from scratch (slightly worrying shades of his engineer grandfather there). But for most people, for practical purposes, if you're going to solve non-factorisable quadratics a lot, it's worth knowing the formula...

All power to your son, congratulations and very best wishes for his future in the field of Mathematics. This century will be the century of Mathematics if population declines and machines aid humans.

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Soontobe60 · 03/10/2023 06:44

HarrowToCroydon · 30/09/2023 07:58

Same. Math or Maths. Endless debates ensue in intellectual circles about this.

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Technically it’s math’s with an apostrophe as it’s a contraction of mathematics. In the uk we dropped the apostrophe though.

Soontobe60 · 03/10/2023 06:47

HarrowToCroydon · 02/10/2023 04:30

To us it is a source of amusement. In dinner parties, the intellectuals love this subject, and make boring parties a little bit more interesting. We can say that we are laughing at the expense of language.

To make everyone here chuckle- When our eldest daughter started Grammar school, for a year or so, I used to write Grammer, which was a source of amusement for the teachers.

Show quote history

You sound like you’re living in an episode of the Good Life, with you playing Penelope Keith’s part 😂