JONATHAN JANSEN | A formula, finally! How thinking out of the box bridges divides in maths education

Albert Einstein is credited with saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We certainly appear to be in a state of madness when it comes to resolving the parlous state of science and mathematics education in South Africa.

Whether it is international studies such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) or national tests such as the systemic assessments, the learning attainments of our children are underwater when it comes to these two gateway subjects. And yet, we do the same thing over and over again — teacher training workshops, repeat assessments, curriculum adviser visits, official rebuke, and public lament — as if these energetic actions will in and of themselves move the needle in science and maths achievement.

I have always argued that our problem in South Africa is not the lack of resources (though that is real) but the lack of imagination; that is, our capacity to think out of the box when it comes to intractable problems such as the teaching and learning of mathematics. Fortunately, in recent times, there have been some stunning new ideas on the table that promise to move us towards states of sanity.

Math Moms is still one of my favourites, where unemployed mothers are taught mathematics to assist their children with maths homework after school, much like middle class parents do. The results have been astounding and some of those mothers have become maths teachers in the education department.

At a Cape Flats high school where I spend time, we decided to do something about the fact that for two years in a row, our grade 8 diagnostic tests showed a significant gap between the mathematics knowledge a pupil should have at the start of high school and what they actually know. We could of course blame the 14 or more feeder schools for sending us “weak learners” with inflated grades from primary education, or we could address the problem as a pipeline issue. After all, the organisational divide that separates educational provisioning into primary and high schools might seem natural, but these arrangements are altogether completely arbitrary.

By the way, this is one of the major problems with diagnostic assessments in South African schools. While there are now masses of data on the underperformance of pupils in mathematics, there are very few, if any, interventions that use that information to develop plans and programmes that redress problems revealed in those assessments.

So, what if we imagined that mathematics learning happened on a continuum and we addressed the “gaps” as if the teachers and children were all part of the same system? The problem would be solved by acting as a team.

In response, we recently brought the maths teachers (and principals) from our feeder schools into one room and identified those areas of the curriculum in which children made systematic errors across the feeder school community. For example, why would only one learner from more than 300 drawn from 14 different schools get the same problem wrong (for example, fractions or proportions)?

Clearly, the errors in mathematics learning were neither random nor attributable to “weak learners” in one school or “ineffectual teachers” in another school but a problem across primary education. The plan under way therefore works with teachers from feeder schools as a group to show them how to remedy those areas of the curriculum where all or most children fail.

We selected one of the top mathematics education experts in the country to lead development conversations with groups of teachers from both grades 6 and 7 (sending primary schools) and grades 8 and 9 (receiving high school). Seven intensive workshops have been designed covering problem areas like measurement, pre-algebra foundations, and data handling — the kinds of topics that our assessments show pupils (and teachers) struggle with in senior primary mathematics.

By the way, this is one of the major problems with diagnostic assessments in South African schools. While there are now masses of data on the underperformance of pupils in mathematics, there are very few, if any, interventions that use that information to develop plans and programmes that redress problems revealed in those assessments. In other words, we waste millions of rand every year in doing assessments but not acting on their findings through improved teaching and learning plans. This should be a huge concern for provincial departments of education and of course the national department.

In our plan which connects senior primary learning to high school learning through collaboration in maths, all parties benefit. The primary school develops the competence of feeder school maths teachers while the high school receives much stronger maths pupils. Primary and high school teachers work together, share ideas and iron out transitional problems in maths education.

The big winners, however, are the children because they will now have much stronger mathematics foundations coming into and passing through the five grades of high school. The long-term goal is to have more pupils doing mathematics rather than mathematical literacy.

I hope that this model will be adopted by school districts around the country rather than have primary and high school maths teachers continuing to works in silos rather than learning from each other for a common purpose — the improvement of mathematics learning — that straddles the artificial divide between grades 7 and 8.

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