Category Archives: 2.2 Education Systems & Prof. Responsibilities

Maths is what?

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Today I was shown a quote describing maths as ‘Elegant and Beautiful’. This left me baffled as I thought back to my Maths jotter full of messily written, panic stricken, bunk bed sums. Otherwise known as “vertical calculations” to those more Mathematically capable. How could Maths possibly be beautiful?

That’s when it clicked. As a teacher it is my job to make it beautiful. In today’s class we explored what made maths so terrifying and difficult to children. It shocked me to realize that a massive part of the problem can be down to a parents view or even a teachers apprehension. As a teacher it is my job to show children that maths is not something to be scared about. I must put forward that even great mathematicians make mistakes, and alike every other area of the curriculum, mistakes are welcome.

So how do I change my view on maths? According to Haylock (2014) there is evidence that some teachers experience anxiety and panic when they encounter mathematical tasks they are unfamiliar with. One way I can combat this is to be as familiar as possible with the maths I need to teach. This will reduce panic during teaching if I perhaps make a slight mistake and get the incorrect answer. If I continue to be relaxed when teaching maths, I will hopefully be able to keep this relaxed manner when faced with new problems in the subject. This air of confidence will in turn reflect on the children in my classroom.

Another common cause of anxiety in teachers in relation to maths is that it is a difficult subject that only clever people can understand (Haylock, D, 2014). Personally, I think that the difficulty of a topic should not stop someone from attempting it and trying their best. I believe that if I put my mind to it I could achieve anything I wanted to. I also want to pass this belief into the children that I teach. However, I have never applied this term to my ability in maths. From this point on-wards I will strive to do my best in mathematics. This way I will begin to see that I am capable of understanding and teaching in a way which children will enjoy.

There is so much more I need to research in relation to maths and how to teach it in a way that will engage children and provide a math promoting environment. These points are just the beginning in what I hope will be a process of changing my fear of maths, in turn allowing me to eradicate this fear that is ever present in school so far.

Haylock, D. (2014). Mathematics explained for primary teachers. 5th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Stop doing that for your kids!

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I recently read a very interesting article/blog that highlighted one Mum’s new revolution on how much we do for children. I’ll add a link here, so that I don’t take the credit. http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/stop/

The basic idea of this post is that we are doing far too much for children which is potentially doing more harm than good. I really enjoyed the description of the event that this woman used. It made me think back to my childhood in a way. I was always the child who would go to my friends house and try to keep as much to myself as possible in regards to their possessions or when offered food. I was terrified that I would make a mess and their parents would be angry, whereas my friends seemed not to care. They would tell me to leave wrappers on the floor or to leave my dirty plate for her mum. I felt very uncomfortable knowing that I was effecting someones home and leaving them to tidy up after me.

Taking this all into consideration I think back at how my mum raised me to help out and mentally thank her. She would help me tidy my room, but never do it herself, she would encourage me to pick up my toys and take my dishes to the kitchen when i’ve used them. I would help her dust and I understood the importance of my actions at a young age. I grew up to continue to help my mum around the house and it set me up to do well at school too. I was used to having responsibilities and could cope with them well. I think starting to get young children to take small responsibilities around the house can really do them well and set them up for a good future. So many things in life depend on having responsibilities and following them through effectively. We should all teach our children to take responsibility and enjoy it.

I then started to think about how teachers could promote this. I have previously come across teachers who kept plants in their classroom, and each week a new child would have the job to water this plant. This is a small example of a responsibility that is not too complicated for a young child. We can help children to become more responsible, they may need reminders now and then, but that is all part of our nurture.

This was a very interesting post to me and I enjoyed the thoughts it brought to me and hope I can use these in my future career as a teacher. I have a new found interest in the way we encourage children to take responsibility and how it can effect them throughout their lives. This is looked into more in the original post and I do not feel comfortable discussing these points as they are put forward so well there, but I do greatly believe that doing too much for our children can lead to lazy, dependent adults.