It doesn’t add up: we’ve got to make maths fun

It’s that time of year again: everyone’s flat out thanks to the Christmas rush, strawberries and asparagus are in season, BJ Watling saves the New Zealand batting order, and some students are in tears over an NCEA maths exam. This year it was the level 2 exam that raised eyebrows and saw some competent maths students leaving after just 45 minutes.

Yes, you’d be right if you thought it had happened before. In 2017 level 1 NCEA maths attracted widespread criticism from both teachers and students for being way too hard. Using my brilliant powers of mathematical deduction, which saw me gain a C for stage 2 algebra the second time, I predict that, in November 2021, it will be the level 3 exam that causes tears and early walkouts.

In the past, maths has been studied either because it has been compulsory or because you need it to study other subjects including economics, engineering, science, IT and architecture. The concept of studying it because it might be quite interesting is foreign to most students. And many avoid it like the plague if they possibly can.

Thanks to the way maths is tested, I suspect we will have a whole new generation of students who will never study it again thanks to the trauma of their NCEA exam. Or they will only study it if they must pass it as a prerequisite for something else.

Does the fact that our standards are slipping, and that we are facing shortages of students taking STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) subjects, worry those setting exams and running the exam system?

At the heart of these cursed maths exams that have upset so many are good intentions. When Pythagoras was drawing triangles in the sand, maths was a truly creative endeavour. However, by the 18th century it had become a ‘‘necessary’’ and often boring school subject. If you were truly creative – like Carl Gauss, who calculated in just a few seconds the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 100 in an exercise designed to take ages – you risked getting into trouble with your teacher.

Traditionally, maths exams didn’t look much different one year to the next. ‘‘Good’’ teachers taught techniques, rather than concepts. ‘‘This is how you integrate by parts’’ became far more important than ‘‘why and when would you integrate by parts and is it the right technique to use to solve this particular problem?’’ ‘‘Good’’ students could master techniques then practise on old exam questions and breeze through exams.

The trouble with this approach is that it didn’t encourage creative mathematical thinking or problem solving. But it did reward rote learning and accuracy. Yet it’s creative thinkers and problem solvers that we need in our workforce.

There has recently been a laudable and genuine attempt to make sure NCEA maths encourages creative and critical thinking. Trouble is, it seems it’s at a level that’s way too hard for most students.

While the ‘‘old school’’ part of me reckons the complainers should toughen up, as I had to at school, I’m aware of the ridiculousness of having large numbers of good students failing or getting low marks when they have expended a lot of effort.

An additional problem is a maths curriculum that’s crowded with ‘‘essential’’ content. I feel sorry for teachers who would like to take more time with students to embed basic concepts, but can’t because there is so much content to get through. It’s like driving a bus that must be at its destination by a certain time, so to save precious minutes you stop picking up and dropping off passengers.

I suspect the overall effect of these difficult NCEA exams will be the exact opposite of what was intended. Larger numbers of students will be turned off ...

Isuspect the overall effect of these difficult NCEA exams will be the exact opposite of what was intended. Larger numbers of students will be turned off STEM subjects and will look for more passable alternatives. If we really wanted a broad range of students to engage and excel in maths and other STEM subjects, we should make it more, not less, passable and enjoyable. Have more special interest ‘‘fun’’ modules for less competent students that get them interested in studying more difficult areas.

We should also be encouraging students, and giving them the time, to master one level before going on to the next. Struggling from level to level with barely an ‘‘achieved’’ hardly fills one with confidence.

I occasionally teach writing to adults, who pay for the experience. If I was to spring an overly difficult exam on them at the end of the course, which left many feeling inadequate, I would be fired for not meeting their needs. Why should it be any different for secondary school students?

Sadly, our government, which is usually enlightened on educational matters, has gone down the path of making NCEA more exam-based. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to calculate that, in the future, there are going to be more tears before exam time.