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

hatrickpatrick · 18-08-2011 03:12AM #1

...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 · 18-08-2011 03:14AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:20AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:22AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:23AM

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

Buceph · 18-08-2011 03:24AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:27AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:31AM

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

Rabies · 18-08-2011 03:40AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:43AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:44AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:46AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:50AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:57AM

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 · 18-08-2011 03:59AM

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! · 18-08-2011 04:05AM

High hopes you have for your after hours post!

Naomi00 · 18-08-2011 04:08AM

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 · 18-08-2011 04:22AM

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 · 18-08-2011 04:46AM

Let epsilon be less than zero...

now theres a maths test

Dravokivich · 18-08-2011 10:22AM

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 · 18-08-2011 10:31AM

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

18-08-2011 10:32AM

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 · 18-08-2011 10:33AM

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 · 18-08-2011 10:36AM

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 · 18-08-2011 11:05AM

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

18-08-2011 11:33AM

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 · 18-08-2011 11:35AM

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 · 18-08-2011 11:39AM

Simple solution to our maths problem is e=mc2

foxyboxer · 18-08-2011 11:50AM

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 · 18-08-2011 11:56AM

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 · 18-08-2011 12:01PM

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.

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

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