Once again we have the predictably dismal maths and sciences leaving cert results and

hatrickpatrick

...the predictable chorus of "This is a worrying development" (development? How many years does something have to happen before it is no longer a "development"?), and following a lot of baying and calls for reform, almost nothing whatsoever will actually be done about it.

Why is this seemingly the way this country runs on every level, not just leaving cert wise? A problem is recognized, a chorus of people demand that something be done about it, those with the power to change it demand that it be changed, and yet nobody actually gets off their ass and does something about it?!

Lethargic nation is lethargic.

MrStuffins

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

A problem is recognized, a chorus of people demand that something be done about it, those with the power to change it demand that it be changed, and yet nobody actually gets off their ass and does something about it?!

Lethargic nation is lethargic.

You're right! The answer is to start a thread in AH!

Can't wait to see next year's results now!

hatrickpatrick

MrStuffins wrote: »

You're right! The answer is to start a thread in AH!

Can't wait to see next year's results now!

Actually to be honest my immediate plan is to inspire a national debate about the general lethargy of the nation in terms of changing things as opposed to CALLING for them to be changed, not just on Boards but in general. Will write some articles about it and see if anyone's interested. Raising awareness must be the first stage.

I am also considering writing a letter to the minister for Education about this particular example giving him an insight into the mind of someone who just did the leaving cert a few years ago, which he may not otherwise get as many my age seem disengaged from politics. I will ask whether anything is actually going to be done besides politicians just talking about it to give the media a nice quote or two.

Can you suggest any further action I as an average citizen should or could take at this time?

MrStuffins

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Actually to be honest my immediate plan is to inspire a national debate about the general lethargy of the nation in terms of changing things as opposed to CALLING for them to be changed, not just on Boards but in general.

Well, i'd join your debate and debate that I don't think the people of Ireland ARE lethargic........... but I just can't be arsed!

Saila

ok, leave it with me and Ill open an inquiry to get to the bottom of this

Buceph

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Can you suggest any further action I as an average citizen should or could take at this time?

You could sit the leaving cert and get an A1 in the maths and sciences subjects.

OPENROAD

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Actually to be honest my immediate plan is to inspire a national debate about the general lethargy of the nation in terms of changing things as opposed to CALLING for them to be changed, not just on Boards but in general. Will write some articles about it and see if anyone's interested. Raising awareness must be the first stage.

I am also considering writing a letter to the minister for Education about this particular example giving him an insight into the mind of someone who just did the leaving cert a few years ago, which he may not otherwise get as many my age seem disengaged from politics. I will ask whether anything is actually going to be done besides politicians just talking about it to give the media a nice quote or two.

Can you suggest any further action I as an average citizen should or could take at this time?

Have a mass ?

AgileMyth

Awful results this year. Seven out of three people failed maths

Rabies

Saila wrote: »

ok, leave it with me and Ill open an inquiry to get to the bottom of this

I'll check back in 10years for your opening statement.

hatrickpatrick

Buceph wrote: »

You could sit the leaving cert and get an A1 in the maths and sciences subjects.

I did pretty well in maths actually.

It's more the fact that it's so abysmally taught at higher level, the course itself is a load of bollocks truth be told and the way it's structured means the only real way to do well in it is to seriously cut into your time on other subjects.

The course itself needs reform, not just the exams but how it's actually taught. Every year, such reform is again promised by our government, and every year, almost nothing is actually done about it.

But I find this is a general thing in our country. Whenever something is broken in any way, despite everyone knowing about it, it takes absolutely ages for it to get fixed. I don't know if this is because of bureaucracy, laziness on the part of those in the position to change things, or what.

Am I honestly the only one who notices this?

Here's another example. There's a bridge over the Dart line next to the People's Park in Dun Laoghaire. It's been fenced off for several weeks, clearly something happened to it and it took some damage.

I can predict with almost certainty that this is going to be indefinitely out of order. Rather than something which is broken and needs repairs, it will become something which is "gone" and "we'll just have to get used to living without it."

Why does this happen here? It seems that in other countries, problems are identified, solutions proposed, and then implemented.

In Ireland it's more like, problems are identified, solutions may be proposed, and are extremely unlikely to be implemented - or, the extreme easy way out will be taken (such as the government's response to phone hacking - rather than insisting on better built in security or non-generic default PIN numbers, they just say "We might just require companies to disable the feature altogether".)

I really do find it fairly depressing, no one else?

Saila

Rabies wrote: »

I'll check back in 10years for your opening statement.

Ill have to commission a report on this matter and troubleshoot any possible issues which could arise

hatrickpatrick

Saila wrote: »

Ill have to commission a report on this matter and troubleshoot any possible issues which could arise

You'll obviously be paying the lawyers full time from the official duratin of this tribunal until the end, including any time between the announcement of the inquiry and its actual commencement - thereby actively providing them with an incentive to drag it on for as long as possible?

And I presume of course that when the tribunal actually DOES reach a conclusion, it will have no legal teeth whatsoever to take any action on said conclusion?
An Irish enquiry through and through. Well done sir.

Saila

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You'll obviously be paying the lawyers full time from the official duratin of this tribunal until the end, including any time between the announcement of the inquiry and its actual commencement - thereby actively providing them with an incentive to drag it on for as long as possible?

And I presume of course that when the tribunal actually DOES reach a conclusion, it will have no legal teeth whatsoever to take any action on said conclusion?
An Irish enquiry through and through. Well done sir.

and when it ends we will ignore the findings, use it as paperweights and plough ahead with our initial ideas, god likes a trier afterall, now and at the hour of our death..amen

Buceph

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I did pretty well in maths actually.

It's more the fact that it's so abysmally taught at higher level, the course itself is a load of bollocks truth be told and the way it's structured means the only real way to do well in it is to seriously cut into your time on other subjects

Absolutely, I absolutely hated maths doing the leaving cert, but started back doing some basic stuff a few months ago. If someone had told me the geometry I was doing was how guys in Call of Duty come at me when they're using a pathfinding algorithm I'd be much more inclined to pay attention. Same as how certain machine learning involves algebra and the like.

They introduced some teaching through application form of maths last year I think, but it was retarded level maths aimed at getting people knowing their sums better. Teach kids using the way virtually everything electronic they involve themselves with is using maths and you might stand a better chance.

Eric Cartman

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Here's another example. There's a bridge over the Dart line next to the People's Park in Dun Laoghaire. It's been fenced off for several weeks, clearly something happened to it and it took some damage.

I can predict with almost certainty that this is going to be indefinitely out of order. Rather than something which is broken and needs repairs, it will become something which is "gone" and "we'll just have to get used to living without it."

Why does this happen here? It seems that in other countries, problems are identified, solutions proposed, and then implemented.

mate, you think thats bad , at maynooth station the bridge collapsed years ago , so they put up a temporary one , the temporary one has been there for close on 10 years now and the remnants of the old one havent been removed either. its a sick attitude of 'ahh sure leave it , its grand' or 'meh its not worth doing'

raah!

High hopes you have for your after hours post!

Naomi00

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I did pretty well in maths actually.

It's more the fact that it's so abysmally taught at higher level, the course itself is a load of bollocks truth be told and the way it's structured means the only real way to do well in it is to seriously cut into your time on other subjects.

The course itself needs reform, not just the exams but how it's actually taught. Every year, such reform is again promised by our government, and every year, almost nothing is actually done about it.

Actually there is a new maths course, my school and around 20 others have been trialling it for the last 2 years, it's a bit easier than the other way. I think every school will be doing it in the next couple of years.

My maths teacher is useless and hardly turns up for class though. Things like that don't help people's results either

Eric Cartman

Naomi00 wrote: »

My maths teacher is useless and hardly turns up for class though. Things like that don't help people's results either

indeed it doesnt , we didnt have a maths teacher for months in 6th year , by the end of the year hons. maths had less than 10 people in it , and the majority failed

melekalikimaka

Let epsilon be less than zero...

now theres a maths test

Dravokivich

from what i read earlier 10% are failing. doesnt that mean an overwhelming majority are passing?

the problem doesnt appear to be the cirriculm or how it's thaught.

biko

I don't see a source link so assume OP is just making things up.

Ruairi is on the case, OP

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0818/breaking4.html

unfortunately I can't see this ending well

mackg

Truth is vast majority of people hate science. I have yet to meet anyone who didn't also do science who was in the least bit interested in hearing about it, and not a lot of people do these courses compared to other courses, Q: "hey man what are you doing in college at the moment" A: "Orbital hybridisation theory" reply: "oh I have to go". The upside to this is that when I finish college I may actually be able to get a job:)

c_man

As well as everything else, I think the whole attitude towards maths and science from Irish people doesn't help. There seems to be this idea that honours maths is much much harder than other subjects at the same level. It's really not. You learn how to approach certain problems and equip yourself with a toolkit to handle these.

Yeah Buddy

Honours Maths is far too much work, end of. I didn't even attempt it for the Leaving Cert, the amount of time you put into it brings down your other subjects. Science subjects are very tedious and they're a lot of work too. The Humanities/Business subjects are much more manageable, I got two A1's and an A2 from the three I chose instead of Science. You just have the work the system basically

c_man

c_man wrote: »

As well as everything else, I think the whole attitude towards maths and science from Irish people doesn't help. There seems to be this idea that honours maths is much much harder than other subjects at the same level. It's really not.

Yeah Buddy wrote: »

Honours Maths is far too much work, end of.

Case in point

No, it isn't. Everyone just works themselves up into thinking it is, and giving bonus points for it is not helping the attitude

partyatmygaff

Having just finished two years of it, I can safely say that Honours Maths is a nightmare.

Now to give you an idea of how I did, I got A1s in Biology, Chemistry; an A2 in Engineering (To be appealed) and only a B2 in Honours Maths. Before anyone says it, yes Engineering is counted as an applied science.

To give you an idea of the effort I put in to those four subjects

Biology: Absolutely none. I just paid rapt attention in class, watched the odd youtube video and read the odd wikipedia article on protein synthesis e.t.c.. I rarely did my homework in sixth year and had to pull an all-nighter the night before the exam due to having a string of far more challenging exams the days before.

Chemistry: Effortless. I never had any difficulties with Chemistry thanks to my teacher's stellar work and due to the fact it was my favourite subject. Never dropped below an A1 throughout my two years in the subject. I did the very little homework we received every week but started to neglect it towards the end (Mainly to make time for Maths)

Engineering: The theoretical parts of the subject such as using thermal equilibrium charts weren't challenging in any way. I studied three hours the night before the exam and an hour the morning before the exam. That said, I spent (At an estimate) 50 hours or so slaving away try to perfect my project design. It's not meant to be a time-consuming subject but I got so engrossed in the project that it became one.

Maths: Bloody hell. Putting the amount of effort I put in to Maths on a scale relative to my other subjects I'd say that the only subject I studied for throughout my two years doing the Leaving Cert is Maths. I got grinds in the subject. From the first week to the last week of sixth year I studied Maths almost daily. I spent huge amounts of time on sites like IntMath and WolframAlpha trying to gain some understanding of what I was doing as my teacher never had time to explain the theory behind anything. She gave us formulas and methods and told us to practice. As you'd imagine, that didn't work out too well. For example, one particular question on P1 (That didn't come up much to my dismay) is finding the roots of a complex number using De Moivre's theorem. My teacher gave me this three page booklet with a convoluted formula and an example. It made little to no sense so I struggled with complex numbers up until the very end of sixth year when I saw a diagram explaining the theory behind the method. All it had was a graph of the roots of a complex number and a simple caption saying "There are n roots of complex number [LATEX]Z^n = x + yi[/LATEX] spaced equally apart on the complex plane." That's all it took for me to understand that all I had to do was find one root and then just find the rest using the fact that they're equally spaced around the plane. No stupid formula to remember and no convoluted methods. That's how I should have been taught the topic. It sure would have been better than spending three weeks on it learning the formula anyway. Anyway, to the exam itself. I went in to the exam thinking I could get an A1 with the amount of effort I put in trying to teach myself the theory. Long story short, I left Paper 1 (Like so many others) feeling as if I had failed Maths. I ended up getting a B2 (Somehow) but even so, I still feel cheated out of the grade I worked so hard for.

tl;dr? The problem with Honours Maths is that it's taught poorly (Project Maths or not) meaning that students who want do well need to do all the work themselves. That in effect means the effort:reward ratio of the subject is far worse than most other subjects meaning most people take the easy way out of dropping to OL and focusing on another subject instead.

cosmicfart

Simple solution to our maths problem is e=mc2

foxyboxer

cosmicfart wrote: »

Simple solution to our maths problem is e=mc2

But that's the problem, the exam will ask for just the equation whereas it should be asking why e=mc2.

denhaagenite

My experience of Leaving Cert Maths is this.

At the start of 5th year 6 maths classes were made- 4 pass and 2 honours. There were 25 pupils in each honours class and 10- 15 in each pass class. About a month into 5th year, they changed this to 1 honours class with 45 pupils (a couple of students had decided to go to pass) and 5 pass classes with the remaining students. At this stage I was still in the honours class, but through much bullying and little teaching, the honours teacher had managed to pick off 25 more students to be sent to the pass class by the end of 5th year.

Between this bullying and other factors in my home life, I did not return to school for 6th year. The situation was not helped by the behaviour of this teacher. I returned to education in a PLC to do my Leaving Cert a couple of years later and did quite well. I got an A1 in pass maths, leading me to believe I would have been quite capable of doing the honours course.

Looking back now, her behaviour was appalling. At home it was chaos, and in school I was systematically broken down daily for no reason other than they wanted some students to get 600 points and not bother with the rest of us. If this happens to my child in the future, I will be making a complaint to the Department of Education. There were also other teachers in the school who, imho, should not have been allowed anywhere near children.

partyatmygaff

foxyboxer wrote: »

But that's the problem, the exam will ask for just the equation whereas it should be asking why e=mc2.

Neither Chemistry nor Physics nor Maths at HL will award you anything for writing down a formula.


For example in chemistry, when you're given a question on atomic theory you're given a formula such as "e = hf" and perhaps a short snippet of theory and then asked a question to explain the snippet of theory.

Herb Powell

/A2 in Biology, does not apply to me
BIOLOGY IS EASY

phasers

For some reason I can't understand algebra. At all. But I can do trigonometry and anything involving shapes and angles no bother. I had to drop to Ordinary maths because half the higher course was complete gibberish, even though the other bit was a cakewalk.

I had the best Maths teacher ever though so it can't be blamed on that.


I did chemistry and biology too and my teacher would completely contradict the book on absolutely everything (when she bothered to turn up) so that was a nightmare and I did terribly.

History is the best subject. Screw numbers.

s20101938

Have to laugh at these threads lamenting Irish education. Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France? Or full of rote drones, like China?

Our entire school years are a nerd-slag fest. How could we expect them to survive? They're slagged into extinction by 18 and forced down the pub for "de craic".

partyatmygaff

s20101938 wrote: »

Have to laugh at these threads lamenting Irish education. Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France? Or full of rote drones, like China?

Our entire school years are a nerd-slag fest. How could we expect them to survive? They're slagged into extinction by 18 and forced down the pub for "de craic".

What's wrong with a nation of people who understand Maths and Science?

Science teaching is perfectly adequate if you ask me. Maths teaching needs serious work (And not rubbishy superficial improvements like changing the curriculum). The teaching methods need to change, is all.

ILikeBananas

partyatmygaff wrote: »

... as my teacher never had time to explain the theory behind anything. She gave us formulas and methods and told us to practice. As you'd imagine, that didn't work out too well. For example, one particular question on P1 (That didn't come up much to my dismay) is finding the roots of a complex number using De Moivre's theorem. My teacher gave me this three page booklet with a convoluted formula and an example. It made little to no sense so I struggled with complex numbers up until the very end of sixth year when I saw a diagram explaining the theory behind the method.

That teacher sounds awful. In fact just listening to that story I'd imagine that that teacher did not do maths as their primary teaching subject and doesn't have a full understanding of the subject matter-the tell tale sign is always when they give you the material to learn yourself rather then break it down into simple steps in class and go through it piece by piece.

I was fortunate enough to have a fantastic maths teacher for Leaving Cert. I remember once I was having difficulty in understanding a topic so I said "I'll just memorise the method of how to do it instead". He replied "That's a waste of time, you'll never learn anything properly that way. You're just fooling yourself in the long run." He was dead right. Unfortunately it seems that there are plenty of teachers who only teach the "how" but not the "why".

If the government is serious about changing maths then they need to phase out the teaching of the subject by the likes of business studies and biology teachers.

ILikeBananas

s20101938 wrote: »

Have to laugh at these threads lamenting Irish education. Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France? Or full of rote drones, like China?

Our entire school years are a nerd-slag fest. How could we expect them to survive? They're slagged into extinction by 18 and forced down the pub for "de craic".

Wow. This post is a gem. I don't even know where to start.

"Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France?" makes me presume that you've never been to France.

"Or full of rote drones, like China?" more like what we're pumping out in Ireland. For example: They tweaked paper 1 of the maths this year so that people had to apply their knowledge of maths instead of rehashing the same old questions and it became a national crisis.

And finally you're saying that anyone who is good at maths and science is a nerd? Grow up will you.

GLaDOS

s20101938 wrote: »

Have to laugh at these threads lamenting Irish education. Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France? Or full of rote drones, like China?

Our entire school years are a nerd-slag fest. How could we expect them to survive? They're slagged into extinction by 18 and forced down the pub for "de craic".

Don't be slaggin' nerds.

partyatmygaff

ILikeBananas wrote: »

That teacher sounds awful. In fact just listening to that story I'd imagine that that teacher did not do maths as their primary teaching subject and doesn't have a full understanding of the subject matter-the tell tale sign is always when they give you the material to learn yourself rather then break it down into simple steps in class and go through it piece by piece.

You'd be surprised. Maths and Economics degree apparently. Don't get me wrong, she's great at explaining methods and examples but they are no longer of any use in HL Maths. Back in the past, questions didn't vary too much. You could just practice using exam papers and feel relatively confident. This year they seemed to have thrown the rule book out of the window by asking questions that differed wildly from previous years in style. If we had learned the theory behind all of those methods we studied, this year's exam would not have been received so poorly. As a teacher, she's more than capable. It's just that trying to teach twenty students of differing competencies a massive and complicated course means corners need to be cut.

Lord TSC

I always feel bad for students who work hard for the LCs. The headlines never celebrate those who do really, really well in subjects that are "too hard" but always focus on how bad some people did...

hightower1

Its just that maths itself is a hard subject to "learn", to me subjects like english , history and art were easy to learn because you involve yourself with them. You start to form a connection. History for example can be taught like a story with narative whilst being related to real world events , people and places that the average student can connect to....

Maths however is not so clear cut, its hard to related to how maths helps us in our daily lives wthout being boring so a lot of teachers simply stop trying to have students "learn" maths but rather , they have them memorize maths. For example I recal the proess being like "If your asked question A. , they are looking for andser B. so apply procedure C.". You end up being trained like a line worker for a low skill job and soon becomes menotenous. For most people that approach would be hard to stay intrested in let alone teenagers.

FloatingVoter

What disappoints me about our young people is nobody has drunk themselves to death celebrating yet. Wasn't like that in my day.

Mr. Manager

Just thought I'd throw this out there, I failed pass maths (OMG I'm such a tard) but still have a very respectable job with a very nice salary.

Never finished a year in college either.


Doing well in the LC is not the be all and end all.

Zillah

s20101938 wrote: »

Do you really want a nation of nerds, like France?

Haha, yeah, stupid nerds.

*posts on world wide network of computers*

Yeah Buddy

bluewolf wrote: »

Case in point

No, it isn't. Everyone just works themselves up into thinking it is, and giving bonus points for it is not helping the attitude

I'm sorry but honours Maths CLEARLY requires far more effort than any other subject, that's not up for debate

Lord TSC

Yeah Buddy wrote: »

I'm sorry but honours Maths CLEARLY requires far more effort than any other subject, that's not up for debate

Of course it is. Although I only got a C+ in H. Maths, I'd argue I had to put far more effort into French and Chemistry.

It's difficult and that should be achknowledged but to say it needs "more effort than any other subject" presupposes everyone learns the same way at the same rate in the same subjects, which isn't trye.

grohlisagod

One thing I find a little strange about the way the Higher maths curriculum is going is that as far as I know vectors is going off the course and a greater proportion of the course will consist of probability. In my year the vast majority of us found vectors to be one of the easiest things to understand while most of us had difficulty with probability. Aren't they trying to make the course easier? But anyway the issue isn't really with Higher maths it's with the results at Ordinary level. That's what has to be addressed.

c_man

grohlisagod wrote: »

But anyway the issue isn't really with Higher maths it's with the results at Ordinary level. That's what has to be addressed.

There's not enough students doing Higher level, and it seems to have been dumbed down imo.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

c_man wrote: »

There's not enough students doing Higher level, and it seems to have been dumbed down imo.

the 10% who failed ordinary maths are obviously the students who just didn't give a sh-it, i knew loads of them when i was school. you can blag a pass in english and other subjects but you have do at least some work in ordinary maths.

sock puppet

grohlisagod wrote: »

One thing I find a little strange about the way the Higher maths curriculum is going is that as far as I know vectors is going off the course and a greater proportion of the course will consist of probability. In my year the vast majority of us found vectors to be one of the easiest things to understand while most of us had difficulty with probability. Aren't they trying to make the course easier? But anyway the issue isn't really with Higher maths it's with the results at Ordinary level. That's what has to be addressed.

The question on vectors is easy but I doubt many people understand them. If they didn't want to remove it then a section on linear algebra might have been good.

hatrickpatrick

FloatingVoter wrote: »

What disappoints me about our young people is nobody has drunk themselves to death celebrating yet. Wasn't like that in my day.

On the other hand, there are probably young people out there who unwittingly created new young people last night thanks to the drink...