Shanghai teachers

[teachersaspirations]

I wonder what the Maths teaching fraternity's view on teachers being bussed in from Shanghai to show how to teach Maths?
I presume this applies to state schools only

Shanghai teachers flown in for maths
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26533428

To add - the number of Math hours within school is often less than the UK because of the additional languages taught from Y1.

there is no way they can magically improve maths performance by importing Chinese methods for several reasons;

The Chinese language has a very logical system for describing numbers which makes mental arithmetic easier.

Learning abacus skills from a young age is also very helpful for maths skills.

The fact that Chinese children have to memorise thousands of pictograms makes them experts on learning by rote, they really develop their memory skills.

This background training in early years can't be summoned at will.

I am not making this up, I have read it in several journals that go into these matters in more depth than the Daily Fail!

I don't believe there are maths methods that we don't already know. However it is more to do with the different learning culture and attitude. Perhaps more trust and respect between parents and teachers will help.

@wiggly - the language aspect although "experts" suggest is one reason why Chinese can pick up Math from an early age I'd disagree . Having my DD together with a handful of other western kids taught in a Chinese school it was the constant rote learning and repetition from an early age that made the difference. No fuzzy learning methods or even explaining just copy and memorise.
@Baba - massive difference in teacher student relationship and respect.
think Chinese teachers will be horrified by the lack of respect and the casualness.

I think that culturally, here in the UK we don't prioritise maths in the way some other culturs do.

Your average middle class family here will read, read, read with their DC. Buy books, joing the library, go to story time, listen to story CDs in the car etc etc...but they tend to leave maths in school.

I think that English education has downplayed the importance of acquiring sounds technical skills in primary education for a long time. There has been a bit of a reversal of late, notably with the push for universal phonics teaching, but there is still a long way to go before all DC learn proper grammar. Maths teaching has suffered from some of the same "distaste" for the rote learning and repetition that the acquisition of technical skills involves.

In this country schools and parents do put a lot of emphasis on literacy. People are very arrogant about the use of English language and form judgement about a person based on how s/he speaks. However one being good at maths will not immediately have that advantage. In terms of learning culture I feel we are too much emphases on theories before practices, too much reasoning not enough actions.