Teacher Bashing Season Is Open!

As the schools go back in September, so the non-teaching critics pipe up, usually at the behest of government ministers and their thirst for political points. This year is no different and it's maths teachers who are the focus of the seemingly bad press. I wasn't aware of this until I opened The Sunday Times to page 7 last weekend and saw the following headline: "Number of clueless maths pupils soars". It was accompanied by a picture of "celebrity mathematician" Carol Vorderman and two maths exam questions:

1. O-Level Maths 1979: "Prove that the internal bisector of any angle of a triangle divides the opposite side in the ratio of the sides containing the angle".
2. GCSE Maths 2010: "Write the number 50,000 in words".

Now I hate to be picky, and I regularly read what I would normally regard as a reasonable newspaper with well rounded and balanced articles, but I am very tempted to change my allegiances from now on. The article is the most shoddy piece of work I have ever read, and I have read the some shoddy stuff in my time.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that the two questions illustrated by the picture of our Carol are aimed at two totally different students. The O Level question is aimed at a high achieving student, maybe A or A* grade, possibly B at a stretch. The GCSE question is G grade, and no more. And let's face it, a G grade isn't worth the paper it's printed on in many cases (not all, I realise that for some, a G grade is an achievement, although ultimately useless). The newspaper's education correspondent, Jack Grimston, ought to have been pulled up on this by the editor.

I would also like to question the relevance in everyday life of bisecting the angle of a triangle so that it divides the opposite side in the ratio of the of the sides containing that angle. When is anyone ever likely to do this? They might be have to write the number 50,000 in words if they write a cheque though. Some of the billions of pounds spent on mathematics in the past 30 years has gone on making the curriculum more relevant and therefore accessible to the majority, meaning that less pupils are left in the cold by an irrelevant and archaic curriculum that Vorderman and Grimston clearly pine for.

A "specially devised test" on algebra, ratio, decimals and fractions was taken by 14 year old in 1979 and 2008/9 and the proportion of pupils getting level zero approximately doubled. Now this is probably a fair point but to lay the blame purely at the feet of maths teachers is unfair. Part of the reason for this increase in "cluelessness" is down to the fact that parents who struggled with maths at school pass their phobia onto their children. This means that numbers will increase and could go towards explaining the rise.

There's also the fact that governments over the past 30 years have taken away any powers teachers once had, and it is now nigh on impossible to get a student to work if they don't want to. I'm not calling for a return to corporal punishment, but it would be nice to feel as though I had some power in my classroom.

Vorderman does make a reasonable point towards the end of the article though when she says that those who struggle initially are thrown on the "scrapheap" to be taught predominantly by non-specialists. This doesn't happen in every school, but happens in most, and can be placed squarely at the feet of government once more, as they aim to cut budgets by making tiny little savings in some areas that have a huge effect on education in schools rather than saving a whopping £200 million per year plus by abolishing Ofsted and other pointless quangos that are remarkably still in existence. It's not fair on those students who are "taught" by non-maths teachers but schools often don't have a choice. The statements seem to suggest that those teachers don't really try, which in almost every case won't be true.

Apart from Vorderman a Professor Dame Julia Higgins, chair of the government's education committee is quoted as saying that we need to get more specialist maths teachers in schools, and she's absolutely correct. The problem is that teaching is becoming a genuinely unpleasant profession to be in, and most people who are competent at maths could earn more or the same in a different profession which almost certainly has a far more pleasant environment. It is for these reasons that poor maths teachers do get employed, because there aren't enough good ones to go around.

Maths teaching is not in any way desirable nowadays; many students don't want to learn the subject but are (rightly) forced to do so, however staff have zero comeback on a student who refuses to make any effort. The pressure on teachers to achieve unrealistic targets of C+ grades also makes many teaching positions untenable. Why do people who advise not actually try the job for a year or two before criticising those who do? Wasn't George Bernard Shaw who said "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach". Perhaps he should have added "Those who can't teach, advise".

I would agree that gaining a C grade is now a lot easier (political targets need to be met people), but it's still just as tough to get the top grades of A and A* and don't let anyone tell you different - the article claimed that an A grade now is equivalent to what a C grade was at O Level. That's harsh, and in my opinion wrong. C grades are now probably equivalent to about an E grade at O level, but you can't blame teachers for that. Government set targets, and grade boundaries are lowered in order to meet those targets. It's a badly kept secret in education.

The only way these sorts of comments from Vorderman and Higgins could be of any use is if it forces central government to put more money into education, but I reckon there'd be a snow day in Hell first.