Apparently it is our fault that the economy is such rubbish because we can’t add up

nanna8 good suggestion. People with good maths degrees or even just average ones have so many lucrative choices available. If we need more maths teachers then it's likely necessary to incentivise teaching as a choice.
Not popular with teachers of other subjects though!

I got an ‘A’ for O level maths but I didn’t like the subject all, thought it was very boring. Possibly because of the way it was taught but more likely that I preferred literature, history, biology and the humanities. Maths will never die as a subject but teachers won’t be attracted to it because they are not paid enough. If you have a maths qualification there are so many more lucrative professions available. Perhaps the government should consider paying more for teaching that subject? You gets what you pays for as they say- and something about paying peanuts and getting monkeys ?

Grandma70s

I could always understand money, and the bits of maths that were of practical everyday use. The abstract side of maths i found utterly boring. All other subjects were, it seemed to me, connected to humanity - sciences and languages as well as literature, history and geography. Maths had a sort of deadness about it (and its teachers certainly had!).

We use some form of maths when learning all the other subjects you've mentioned. A knowledge of maths is essential for so many subjects.
Perhaps not advanced maths in literature and language but it's still there.

Grandma70s

I could always understand money, and the bits of maths that were of practical everyday use. The abstract side of maths i found utterly boring. All other subjects were, it seemed to me, connected to humanity - sciences and languages as well as literature, history and geography. Maths had a sort of deadness about it (and its teachers certainly had!).

Maths is no more dead than rules about verb endings or cases or German word order (all of which I find totally absorbing by the way).

Pascal's triangle is fascinating - but I'm yet to find a practical use for it.

Just a different perspective - not better, just different.

The abstract side of maths fascinated me. Trivial example: The area of any circle in the world, divided by its radius squared is always the same number! Why is that ? How does that work?

And what's more, the circumference of any circle in the world divided by its radius times 2, is the same number. How on earth does that happen? You can have a circle on Mars and exactly the same thing is true!

Maths to me is the universal truth; languages and literature are just man-made things. They could all change tomorrow because they are not real.

Just me, I guess...

I could always understand money, and the bits of maths that were of practical everyday use. The abstract side of maths i found utterly boring. All other subjects were, it seemed to me, connected to humanity - sciences and languages as well as literature, history and geography. Maths had a sort of deadness about it (and its teachers certainly had!).

Every pupil should leave school with a level of mathematical ability which allows them to confidently understand and carry out everyday maths
This should be achievable by around 15/16 and not be compulsory to age 18 however in my opinion

Well said, ElaineRI55

Well for someone who used to work at Goldman Sachs, you would think he could help us out, seeing as we pay him to work on our behalf.

To be honest, I don't ever remember anybody being punished physically during my schooldays. I'm pretty sure nobody was. Nobody could opt out of maths O level and we all had to do some form of maths, depending what we were studying for A level, until we were 18 because A level General Studies was compulsory. I don't even remember that anybody complained. The maths we did in the sixth form was no "harder" than O level, but it was different and more applied.

vintage I think you'd find that the "big grin" is part of the act of bravado often shown by pupils who think they can't do something (and sometimes become disruptive). It becomes cool to be one of the gang who can't do things because school isn't cool.

Thank you for your views, ElaineR155! I agree with almost everything, but the 'big grin' is, I think, a defensive reaction to years of bewilderment with maths at school. Many people remember being humiliated by a maths teacher, with the other pupils laughing along, and some were of course physically punished. As you say, once you miss a vital part of the course you are sunk unless the teacher can help you catch up. I managed to get out of taking O-Level maths at my grammar school in the 1960s, feeling it was a waste of the time I should be spending on other subjects in which I had a better prospect of succeeding. We did a CSE course instead, and constructed a scale model of the school. I got a Grade 3, not worth the paper it was written on. (Incidentally, I scraped into Mensa many years later).

I taught maths ( mainly adults in college) and was involved in maths education for many years. I found that some students had a lack of confidence in maths if they hadn't done well at school in the subject. In some cases, they had a period of illness or other disruption to their learning . It is a subject where it can be hard to progress to new topics or the next level if previous work has not been fully understood.
It made me incredibly happy when these students grew in confidence, passed their maths courses, and even admitted to enjoying maths. Some were going on to train as primary teachers.
It does make me sad to hear journalists and others in the public eye say with a big grin that they can't do maths.
This issue of negative attitudes and lack of confidence has actually long been realised, it is not a Rishi Sunak discovery.
In Scotland in 2016, a Making Maths Count initiative was started, largely to tackle this.
Some different teaching approaches, such as focusing on the concrete-pictorial-abstract progression have had considerable success.
There is also an Applications of Mathematics course up to Higher level in Scotland which includes numeracy, finance, statistics , and measurement applied to real life situations.
Every pupil should leave school with a level of mathematical ability which allows them to confidently understand and carry out everyday maths.
This should be achievable by around 15/16 and not be compulsory to age 18 however in my opinion.

Eshma

There is such a thing as Maths anxiety. It is a real thing for those who feel panic when having to do on the spot calculations because they put pressure on themselves to perform.
I think that is what people mean when they say their brains shut down.

Any half decent teacher knows that, which is why it's the role of a teacher to overcome anxiety in pupils, identify difficulties and introduce strategies to explain in a different way. The look on the face of a child who "gets" something after believing he/she can't do it is priceless. Unfortunately, most teachers don't have the opportunity to give their pupils the individual help they sometimes need. In the case of maths, they're too often not trained themselves in teaching the subject.

The scissors are back!

Hooray!!!

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

An example from true life. I have dormer windows in the roof!

If wallpaper is sold in 1m rolls 20m in length, and you have to paper a room with sloping walls and a fireplace, how many rolls do you need?

I f you have any sense you don't buy any! Have you ever papered a room with sloping walls? 😂
I did it once with striped wallpaper...

People untested for anything do not appear on statistics proving it disproving anything. That’s basic maths.

Extrapolation, modelling and representative sampling can be used to increase the accuracy of results. That's not basic maths.

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Mollygo"

I can do maths and Shakespeare. 😊

Maths isn't an "add on" in today's world. It's essential for understanding the world around us.
Incidentally I don’t disagree with what you say here. The confusion on GN is more about what constitutes vital basic maths. When people say they are rubbish at maths, do they mean they are unable to cope with basic addition, subtraction, multiplication or division and using those skills in everyday life? Or do they mean something different, e.g. they couldn’t/didn’t work out the total cost of their mortgage if interest rates remained the same as at the start?

growstuff

Mollygo According to these statistics, between 94-97% of people do not have dyscalculia. However, far more people than that claim to be bad at maths. What's the reason for that?

Maths isn't an "add on" in today's world. It's essential for understanding the world around us.

Statistics?
How many people are undiagnosed with anything, and therefore do not appear on the statistics for that item?
E.g. People with undiagnosed COVID because they don’t bother to test now, do not appear on any statistics.
People who were never tested for ASC or Dyslexia appeared in no statistics but even on GN have been seen to record the relief a late diagnosis gives them.
People untested for anything do not appear on statistics proving it disproving anything. That’s basic maths.

volver3

Callistemon21

Geometry? How much plastic grass do I need?

That one's easy.
None.

But you knew that already!

If wallpaper is sold in 1m rolls 20m in length, and you have to paper a room with sloping walls and a fireplace, how many rolls do you need?

I'm really sorry, but we just decided to paint the room. (True) Now, how much paint?
The carpet fitters measured for the carpet (always let them do the measuring).

When we moved here, we ordered carpets to be fitted before we moved in from another firm. They came to measure up.
They didn't bring enough, it was 18" too short, we had to move in and they had to move all the furniture when they came back again.

51 fun things to do with calculus:

allusesof.com/math/51-amazing-uses-of-calculus-in-real-life/

Callistemon21

^Geometry? How much plastic grass do I need^?

That one's easy.
None.

But you knew that already!

If wallpaper is sold in 1m rolls 20m in length, and you have to paper a room with sloping walls and a fireplace, how many rolls do you need?

Geometry? How much plastic grass do I need?

That one's easy.
None.

But you knew that already!

I haven’t got a problem with maths…. bet my brain against Sunak any day of the week!