SOFTWARE

Math Adventure

Hated subjects at school

If you stopped any average adult in the street and asked them "What was the subject you hated most at school?"   They would probably reply with "Maths", or maybe "Maths and English".

Ask them another question, like "why?"    They would probably answer that they were useless at both subjects.   "I could never understand that pi thingy", or "Algebra, it might as well have been Latin, which come to think of I didn't like either"

"As for English with nouns, adjectives and verb thingies it might as well have been algebra!"

When I have done some sample checks with friends and family I noticed that very rarely did subjects like History, RE or woodworking come top of the list.   Why is this?

When I asked myself the same question I come up with three subjects I hated at school.   Science, Music, French.

Was it because I found Maths and English easy and Science, Music, and French difficult?   I can honestly say that I never found any subject particularly easy, so why is Maths and English not at the top of my list?

Now this subject might not be of particular interest to you but it really should be.   It seems like every other day you read something in the papers, on the internet or on the TV about the levels of education in this country.

An International league table on reading and maths in 2007 showed that the most successful countries for reading were South Korea and Finland.   Teenagers in Taiwan and Finland were the highest achievers in Maths.

In 2000 the UK was 8th in maths and 7th in reading.
In 2006 it was 24th for maths and 17th for reading.

Back to the question of why isn't Maths and English top of my hated subject list?

As far as I remember I enjoyed primary school, probably because it was just after the war and lots of good things were happening, like sweets coming off ration, another good way of testing your maths skills, working out how many ounces you had left after you had bought 6d  (1 ¼ new pence) worth on a Saturday morning.

Leap forward a few years to Senior Secondary School.   Now things got tougher!   Suddenly I found I had to study things like algebra, trigonometry, geometry, history, French, science, music, English Lit, history, RE, PE, sport.  

I also had to do HOMEWORK!!   Hang on a mo, my dad doesn't bring homework back from his job, why should I!   I tried that approach with one of my teachers, he just gave me some more homework.   On top of all this I had to walk nearly 3 miles to school and the same to get home, not quite like the primary school that was 50 yards around the corner from where I lived.   I did ask, but they wouldn't have me back.

I digress, back to the question we asked earlier, why didn't maths and English top my hate list?

I'll try to answer by picking the subjects that did top my list first.   Science:   The teacher I had through my senior years was a bully.  Definition of a bully.   "To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner. "

Any pleasure in learning  science was taken away.   It wasn't that I didn't want to learn  science, it was that I didn't want to attend his classes.

Music:   This woman was a miniature devil incarnate.   She was about 4 foot 6 inches tall.   If you didn't read a piece of music sheet correctly, first time, she used to taking her tuning fork, whack it on a desk and then place it on your head.....believe me this did not turn me into a virtuoso of music.

French:   This woman was a slightly different bully, very nice and pleasant on the surface, but when you stood in front of the class to read some translation into French she could make you wish the ground would open up and swallow you. 

Most other subjects had teachers who treated us decently and fairly but the best teacher took us for Maths, English and Geography.   Every lesson was a pleasure; most pupils looked forward to his classes.   He had been a merchant seaman before and during the war and had been all over the world.  

When he took a class he wove a story that was actually a lesson which might include a voyage he took to Brazil picking up coffee to go to Liverpool.

 When he gave us our homework we found we were doing maths (working out the capacity of the ship, distance and time taken to travel to Liverpool).   History and geography (describe how Brazil came into being, what language did they speak, and where was it).   English:  (writing the story in x number of words).

Here is another question for you.   If you were proficient at some subjects, why were you not at others?

I believe the answer is simply that most of us would be proficient at most subjects if something about them hadn't soured us.   Like a teacher who was a bully or ridiculed you in front of your classmates, or told you that you would never amount to anything.

I further believe that most of us would be even better in more subjects if we had teachers who encouraged us and made learning what it should be....FUN, new, adventurous, satisfying.  

School shouldn't be a business, it should be one of the many steps in life where you learn something new, or even re-learn something every step of the way.
From what I can see from the information I pick up from the media and parents and teachers, schools are being turned into businesses.   League tables of which school is performing well (don't know what well means!).   Targets for this and that!

Check out the "Governmentspeak"  below;  

• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Attainment by Pupil Characteristics, in England 2008/09-
• Local Authority Measures for National Indicators supported by the Tellus4 Survey 2009-10
• 2008-09 figures were temporarily withdrawn owing to data quality issues. Children were allocated to the local authority of the school that they attended rather than the local authority in which they were resident. National overall and sub-indicator scores for 2008-09 remain unchanged. However, overall and sub-indicator scores for local authorities and Primary Care Trusts have been revised. These revised local area figures for 2008-09 will be published on 15 December 2009 alongside new national and local area figures for 2009-10.

These are 3 items extracted from the internet on the Department for children, schools and families site.

Does it give you the impression that children are being educated or is it something you might expect to see in the annual report of some big conglomerate?

This is not the fault of teachers.   It is the fault of those in charge of our education system.

Protect me from those who "know what's good for me."

Of all the subjects we take at school the old faithfuls, the 3 R's are the ones that we really  need to use in everyday life.

If every child was proficient at the 3 R's, and truly understood them, then most problems they would have had in adult life either don't come along or if they do they are more able to deal with them.   They would be better at other subjects and this would have a snowball effect on their education standards.   Is this too simple?   I wonder!

An educated person is more likely to have higher self-esteem and therefore self-confidence. Self-confidence is the knowledge that we have the capacity to do something good.   Now there is a target worth aiming for.

I started this story because of the reaction I got when I answered peoples questions on Numenko.   "What is it?" they asked.   "A maths game." I would reply.   The variety of reactions was revealing.   Some wanted to know more,  and others didn't simply say "No thanks, not my scene." They actually expressed strong feelings, which is no bad thing if it hadn't been so negative about themselves.   "I am useless at maths!"   "I can't do sums!"  "I hated maths at school!"   Frequently these comments were made by parents who had their children with them.

As Rachel Riley, from Countdown, said in a recent newspaper report.   "In this country there seems to be no shame in admitting to being innumerate."

The above was originally meant for the UK but it regrettably applies to the USA as well.

Whose fault is it?   Simple answer; every parent who does nothing to help their child with their education.

About the Author

Tom Lennett, inventor of Numenko, a maths and number board game.   For more info www.numenko.com or if in the USA www.dailygrommet.com    Tom has visited schools in Finland and the UK talking about maths and Inventors and Inventions.

Name of educational game pc game that involved small round fluff characters with eyes?

I believe it was a math kind of game...It was like these small puff balls that went through an adventure and it had all these mini games in it i believe it was in the 90s...i'm trying to figure out the name of this game because i can not remember

zoombinies?

LeapFrog: Let's Go to School & Math Adventure to the Moon (Now Available on DVD)