I decided to challenge myself with regards to the maths assessment questions, which can be accessed through the link below. Having been out of formal education now for 7-8 years I wanted to see what I had obtained from the maths classroom and what was quite frankly wasted on myself. During my schooling years there were often days where I would sit in maths and really enjoy it and then there were days where I would feel myself tensing up and thinking why do I put myself through this? I feel this is a very common attitude shared my many individuals!
If you follow the link below you will see a range of different maths problems underlining different maths principles; I worked my way through these questions and the result was a bit of a shock, considering my maths ability was never an issue. I would never say that I was ‘great’ at maths but how can a large area of my childhood that I had to endure from near enough primary 1 right through until Higher level have become a mind blank now?
The questions that I was able to answer quickly and confidently were the ones concerning the principals of :
- Percentages
- simple addition and subtraction
- Graphs
- Distances and converting units
- time
However, I struggled with the questions dealing with:
- Angles
- Symmetry
- terms such as ‘mean’ and ‘prime’ numbers
- Formulas
- Shapes and calculating their areas
After having completed the test and taking the time to reflect on my performance it has become very apparent that the areas that I coped well with are principles of mathematics that I am using frequently, even having been out of ‘education’ for some time.
For example;
- I use percentages when I go shopping; by working out the new price if there is a sale on or when I am using my student card and I am lucky to get ‘10%’ off the original price.
- I am using simple addition and subtraction daily when it comes to calculating money and expenses for when I travel to University or even something as simple as buying lunch each day.
- I am being exposed to graphs continuously on the news at night or even in newspapers so I am able to stay familiar with the data they are presenting and the concepts.
- Distance is not alien to myself, as a driver, I am constantly reading road signs and calculating the distance if I am driving to a new destination using google maps and quite often I am having to convert units from meters to kilometres/miles and so forth.
- Time is something that is continuously being utilised whether that is setting my alarm at night and calculating how much sleep I am going to get or calculating what time of train I need to get in the mornings to make sure I am on time for university.
I am constantly using these principles of maths, perhaps not at the same level as they were in the test, but because I am being exposed to these regularly they do not seem as daunting and I was able to approach them without feeling like I have to turn on my maths brain. This goes to show that because they hold relevance in my life with regards to past times that I enjoy for example shopping, driving or going out for lunch/dinner I have not viewed them as the maths procedures that they are. I was oblivious as to how maths really does surround us in most things we do. I think that if maths was used highlighted like this in classrooms more, especially within the secondary sector, the engagement of pupils would rocket as they could see the resourcefulness of the subject.
If you look at the principles of maths that I was a tad rusty with, it is areas that I am clearly not using now in my adult life, because I’m not required to. Such areas are calculating shapes and their volumes and working out angles. This could be a requirement for some individuals career choices, therefore, I can’t speak for everyone. All I can conclude from the findings of this test is that these areas which I can’t see relevance in (due to not having to use them with regards to my current lifestyle) I certainly found daunting and it left me with the mindset of; was this a waste of my time at school and were they just taught for my assessment purposes?
