Unqualified maths teachers (1 Viewer)

[tywebb]

Natasha Bita put 2 articles in today's Weekend Australian to do with problems associated with unqualified teachers teaching maths. The first one has also got a lot of reader comments. Articles are "Teacher maths skills make for sum disaster" and "Counting the cost of national maths failure"

I attached them.

 

[enigma_1]

It's sad but true We need more teachers like Mr Woo

 

[BLIT2014]

Depressing as always.

 

[tywebb]

You probably don't even need to physically see the qualifications of your maths teachers to know which ones know what they are talking about and which ones don't.

Do you have some maths teachers who clearly don't know what they are talking about? Are you happy having them as your maths teacher? If not, what are you going to do about it (other than just come on here to complain)?

 

[RivalryofTroll]

The quantity of 'unqualified'/'incompetent' teachers, in general, is a huge issue.

Is there a real solution to this problem?

Probably not.

Even though, ideally, we want students to be learning from the best (people who excelled in school themselves and were top performers) - it just doesn't happen. Most of the top performers are probably studying Medicine, Law, Engineering, Commerce, etc.

You can try to increase the monetary incentives for a teaching career (i.e. higher salaries for teachers) to attract ''brighter'' individuals but the government is already struggling to fund secondary education.

“There needs to be rote learning, memorisation and mental arithmetic so it becomes automatic. The fashion for the past 20 years has been very much against memorisation and we need to bring that back.’’

Funny that the second article says this - when the discipline of mathematics strongly discourages students from rote learning and memorisation.

 

[BLIT2014]

Self teach myself mathematics, and if that fails try to get a tutor or move classes. In my experience the problem appeared mainly that they didn't seem to know how to teach or pass on their knowledge.

 

[Crisium]

The sad thing is that we actually need teachers of all subjects to have a certain degree of expertise and passion because they're teaching the future generations, who will be the ones to one day influence the world.

 

[Drongoski]

I think the report refers to teachers who are training to be primary school teachers.

If I'm nor mistaken, every primary school teacher teaches all the subjects. Because of the relatively low quality of the Education degree intake, many of them are themselves weak in maths to begin with. In my mind, all attempts to try to train them to teach maths would be mostly futile. Long ago, when jobs opportunities were more limited, the quality of education trainees, mainly at the Teachers Training Colleges of each state, were much higher.

A very simple solution, it would seem to me, is for each school to have a number of Maths and Science teaching specialist teachers, in the more senior years of primary school, to be given the task of teaching these subjects. We often have teachers who are very good at teaching History and English, but hopeless at Maths - such teachers are valuable but should not be made to teach Yr 5 or Yr 6 Maths.

Alternatively, if the authorities are serious about the situation, they should mandate, as a requirement for all seeking to be trained as primary school teachers that they have a minimum ATAR of 85 and a minimum of a Band 5 for HSC Maths(2U); those doing General Maths should be automatically precluded since they have shown themselves to be wimps in maths.

As for shortage of qualified Maths teachers, I know of the case of a teacher, fully qualified to teach High School Maths who was unable to get a job for over a year. He went to a top selective school and graduated from Sydney U. He could not even get an interview when he applied for positions in country NSW! So I find all these talks of shortage of qualified High School Maths teachers difficult to comprehend; perhaps it is just a myth.

 

[tywebb]

Actually, many primary trained teachers end up teaching maths at high school because they can't get a job in a primary school. There is an oversupply of primary teachers, and undersupply of properly trained secondary maths teachers.

There are many high school maths teachers who themselves are not very good at maths!

There are over 40% of maths teachers in high school who are not even properly trained in maths.

 

[Drongoski]

Actually, many primary trained teachers end up teaching maths at high school because they can't get a job in a primary school. There is an oversupply of primary teachers, and undersupply of properly trained secondary maths teachers.

There are many high school maths teachers who themselves are not very good at maths!

There are over 40% of maths teachers in high school who are not even properly trained in maths.

You certainly, being in the business, know exactly what is going on. I have been wondering, for a long time, why if there was actually a shortage of qualified High School Maths teachers it was so difficult for the teacher I referred to to find a job, even when he had excellent credentials.

So schools are clogged up with teachers teaching maths who shouldn't be there. That explains why students and parents often complain of poor maths teaching.

Thank you, Sir, for providing that vital piece of information.

 

[BLIT2014]

I think the report refers to teachers who are training to be primary school teachers.

If I'm nor mistaken, every primary school teacher teaches all the subjects. Because of the relatively low quality of the Education degree intake, many of them are themselves weak in maths to begin with. In my mind, all attempts to try to train them to teach maths would be mostly futile. Long ago, when jobs opportunities were more limited, the quality of education trainees, mainly at the Teachers Training Colleges of each state, were much higher.

A very simple solution, it would seem to me, is for each school to have a number of Maths and Science teaching specialist teachers, in the more senior years of primary school, to be given the task of teaching these subjects. We often have teachers who are very good at teaching History and English, but hopeless at Maths - such teachers are valuable but should not be made to teach Yr 5 or Yr 6 Maths.

Alternatively, if the authorities are serious about the situation, they should mandate, as a requirement for all seeking to be trained as primary school teachers that they have a minimum ATAR of 85 and a minimum of a Band 5 for HSC Maths(2U); those doing General Maths should be automatically precluded since they have shown themselves to be wimps in maths.

As for shortage of qualified Maths teachers, I know of the case of a teacher, fully qualified to teach High School Maths who was unable to get a job for over a year. He went to a top selective school and graduated from Sydney U. He could not even get an interview when he applied for positions in country NSW! So I find all these talks of shortage of qualified High School Maths teachers difficult to comprehend; perhaps it is just a myth.

Or alternatively the 'terrible/unqualified' teachers may be relatively older individuals who can't have their agreement terminated, unlike newer graduates who often end up on one year contracts.

 

[integral95]

I know that some people wanting to be P.E teachers find themselves jobless since there's an oversupply of them.

They countered this problem by learning maths quickly (and also inefficiently) so they could get as a job maths + P.E teacher, however it's obvious that they're more specialised in P.E rather than maths, as a result, their quality of teaching is quite poor.

Basically they became maths teachers just for the sake of getting their real dream job in the process,thus won't take equal responsibility as their passion leans towards their better subject.

 

[Drongoski]

So that is how we end up with P.E. teachers teaching maths. I've been scratching my head for years. But I'd have thought these people are stronger in the muscles than the brains department. So how do they manage to pick up maths "quickly"; and what kind of supplementary maths have they acquired??