Following on from Tara’s recent maths workshops, I decided to go back and think about my own thoughts and experiences in maths. It made me realise that throughout the entirety of my school career, maths was something that I had always struggled with and always lacked confidence in. In fact, the only enjoyable thing I could actually recall from maths was watching “El Nombre” in P1, whereby the Mexican counting hero was forever ‘writing numbers in the desert sand’. From this you can already begin to imagine my disdain when I discovered that we had to attend a 
2-hour maths workshop. However, my moans and groans quickly disappeared within the first hour of this workshop as we were shown new and exciting ways to teach maths and transform it from mere numbers on a page to something that was fun as well as captivating.
After this first workshop I began to think about my own experiences in Primary School maths. I struggled throughout school with maths, particularly in P6 and P7, and found that it was something I simply thought I could not do and would never be able to do. I would always have to seek the help of one of my friends who was seen as the best at maths in the class, even by the teacher. Looking back upon this now I realise that this probably didn’t help anyone in the class. Having the teacher openly state her confidence in one pupil’s maths abilities whilst everyone else struggled with the work obviously would have a huge impact on everybody’s self-confidence. From this, I have been able to identify the importance of equality and fairness in the classroom and strive, even more now, to ensure that my classroom is a place of equal opportunity. The process in which maths work was carried out in school was also very dull and boring. The majority of lessons began with a rushed 10-question mental maths quiz followed by a list of pages we were to work through. Although some of the pages contained pictures and different puzzles that aimed to brighten up maths work, the majority of lessons were dry and therefore nobody would engage fully and be able to enjoy maths.
Then came secondary school and with it, more boring maths at an even harder level. It was at this point that I became even more disengaged with maths and even less confident in it. There were more pages (this time without pictures and puzzles) and more difficult concepts that I simply couldn’t get my head round. From hereon, I think I just gave up with maths.
It wasn’t until last week’s workshop that some of my faith was finally restored in maths when I discovered the importance of it and the various ways that I could bring it to life in
the primary classroom. Firstly, we began the workshop by trying to position our feelings and confidence in maths on a scale of 0-10; 0 being no confidence and 10 being very confident. I decided to position myself rather far down the line for both feelings and confidence. However, by the end of the lesson I felt as if my position for both areas had changed dramatically, particularly in feelings towards maths. Tara had succeeded in highlighting the importance of maths in everyday life – something I had always questioned in secondary school and never received a realistic answer. The various ways in which children learn maths was also explained and I soon realised that maths was more than merely answering questions lifted from a textbook and listening to the class teacher explain different concepts. Children learn better if they are able to see the maths being carried out and then practise what they have seen by doing it themselves – there are more ways of doing maths than textbook work. If children are given the opportunity to discuss and justify their strategies and ways 
of thinking then they are able to consolidate their own methods and perhaps learn new ways of working from their peers. Being able to discuss maths also makes for a deeper and better standard of learning than that of passively listening and doing.
At the beginning of the lesson, maths was something that I had absolutely no interest in and zero passion for, however, upon leaving the class it hit me. As a teacher, maths is something I must make enjoyable and interesting and something that I should be passionate about. It is my role as a teacher to identify and expose maths in the environment and provide children with the skills they require to be competent and active in solving problems. In order to effectively teach these skills however, maths must be presented in a fun, exciting way and in a manner that should not be feared by neither teacher nor pupil. Perhaps the film “School of Rock” was right after all – maths is a wonderful thing.
