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R M CullenMD MSc MFM BA DipStats DipProfEthics
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march 2013
why can't new zealand kids do basic math?
New Zealand school children are appalling at basic mathematics. They have trouble adding and subtracting, don’t know their times tables, and division is a mystery. Fractions, let’s not even go there. There is a lot of hand wringing over this (see, for example this NZ Herald article ) but very few answers and less leadership.
The number one reason our kids can’t count is their parents can’t count. Number two, their teachers don’t have mastery of basic math. For a generation this country recruited an essentially female workforce into primary school teaching without requiring them to have any skill in mathematics. These ladies had come through an education system which steered girls away from math and science.
It is hard to get middle aged primary school teachers to submit to a test of basic maths, but in those schools which have, the knowledge and intuition deficits are astounding. Teachers don’t understand fractions, and they particularly don’t understand that decimals are just a shorthand for fractions with a particular sort of numerator (one that is divisible by a power of 10).
These problems are compounded by the intellectual dishonesty of primary school teachers who rather than acknowledging that they don’t know have argued that the knowledge is not necessary. In fact one sometimes hears the argument that rote learning of basic facts is damaging.
Maths starts with rote learning. Counting (like the alphabet) is learnt by rote. It is through rote learning that intuition develops, and more advanced facts are built from basic facts.
The answer to our poor maths performance in the pre-teen years is twofold. Ensure that teachers know their basic math, and then its rote learning all the way until proficiency and confidence are obtained.
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