Declining interest in maths etc...

The LeavyC

This is in response to this article i saw.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhqleycwsnoj/rss2/

The reason most people do poorly in maths time. Theres not nearly enough time for that exam, especially considering it is not an easy exam. 23 minutes per question(i think it was) is ridiculous. In my opinion most people could easily bring themselves up a grade, maybe 2 if they had 5 more minutes a question. Personally, I came out of the maths exam feeling cheated by the time. The point of the leaving cert is to show what you know, not how fast you can write.

A little more time per question and people getting d1's could probably move up to a c3 and get their engineering course or whatever it is. Lots of people drop from honours to pass maths because they get this idea its incredibly hard because a lot of people do poorly, but if there was more time, more people would do well and thereby more people would do Honours maths, and if more people were doing honours maths, more people would consider doing courses where they can use all of this maths that they have learned.

Incase you get the impression i got a d1 and I'm just looking to bitch about it, I didnt.
Let me know what you think.

PurpleFistMixer

You could say the same about a myriad of subjects.

At the end of the day, you have to set a time limit. Everyone has to do the exam, so it's not like some people are being penalised. IMO there's not THAT much writing in maths, the time constraint is simply how fast can you figure out how to do those questions, which comes down to knowing your stuff. (And not making costly mistakes.)

Maybe instead of making the exams easier, we need to make the maths education better.

insinkerator

There is always talk about how few people actually take the honours maths course. Of course, nobody is disputing that is a difficult course to take, let alone achieve an honour, they(mainly politicians) are just humming and hawwing about how few students a taking honours maths or whatever. Now i dont know about any of ye, but when i started my maths course in fifth year there was about 60 people taking honours maths, out of a year of around 120. At the end of the day i think 13 people, myself included, sat the paper.

Why did that many people drop down? Well, there will always be the people who drop down because as the course progresses, the cant actually do the maths, Thats fine. Then there are the people who realise they dont need it, and couldnt be bothered busting there ass studying for two years. Thats fine two. But then

Then there are the people who are forced to drop down, due to other subject commitments. Mainly honours irish and english, and some history. Now can someone explain to me why we are sitting here year in, year out, listening to politicians, journalists, you name it, complain about the falling numbers of those taking honours maths, when the SAME people sit there and allow us to study the current irish and english courses.

Irish: All jokes aside, irish is a dead language. I dont hate the language, and dont think that i do, i got a B2 in honours for my leaving cert. But ask the question... why is irish a dead language? Is it because very few people speak it, the majority of those people are old and are now dying off? Or maybe its because, every single unfortunate student that is put through this country's farce of an education system is FORCED to take the language. Both pass and honours students have to sit in a classroom and learn the ancient literature of a dead language, and at the same time, people complain that the language is dying, and unspoken. UNSPOKEN. yet only 25% of the ENTIRE exam is awarded for oral irish. And how little class time? How many people here)honours especially) can honestly say that they spent an equal amount of time learning oral irish as they did poetry, pros, leamhthuiscints and the dreaded Stair na Gaeilge?. Its no wonder the damn language isnt spoken anymore.

English: The english course? a choice of 4 poets on a paper from a possible pool of 8. A personal response requiring a minimum of 5 poems to be quoted, reccomended is 6. So to be sure that a poet you have studied will come up on the paper you need to study, in detail a minimum if 25 poems, to the point of being able to quote them. And that is only a minor part of the course. Lets no forget the comparitve study, Shakesperian play, unseen poetry, essay work and comprehensions. Its no wonder people are pulling out of honours maths if they have to take a course like this

Apologies for the rant, but it frustrates me when people complain about the numbers of honours maths students. The maths course is always put to blame, but perhaps if the schools took into account the amount of time being wasted, like what i have outlined above in other subjects (and thats only two subjects), and maybe looked into reforming those also, we would have a higher rate of students honours maths

orangetictac

I don't mean to boast.......but....... For Paper 1 this year i was finished after an hour and 15 mins. In the spare time i did every b and c part again to verify my answers.

Not ONE person in my class complained about time for maths.

Business and History on the other hand......

PurpleFistMixer

insinkerator: Oh god, the Irish debate. I could get into it. I won't. I'll just tell you the facts: There are a lot of people, myself included, who use Irish on a day-to-day basis. It is not dead, don't insult us by telling us it is.

To get back on topic... In my year of 60, there were 12 doing HL maths at the start of 5th year. Before we had sat a SINGLE CLASS, 5 dropped to OL. They were so daunted by the idea of doing HL that they didn't even try it. The last 7 stayed until the mocks, 4 more dropped to OL and it left 3 of us who actually sat the exam.
People seem to have such a mind-block against maths. They have this idea that it's hard and that only geniuses do it, and anything that looks in any way daunting is immediately impossible and they give up. I think more emphasis on problem-solving methods and skills (ie "Okay you haven't a clue how to start this... what do you do?") could be helpful if only to stop people from giving up so easily.

orangetictac: Yeah, I did all the questions on both the papers (okay only did 2/4 of the option questions), but maths is probably my best subject, so I wouldn't count myself as normal in that regard.

You usually get stuck for time if you have to start a problem again, or if you get thrown. I found myself a little stuck doing applied maths because there were some dodgy things... I think it just comes down to being really up to speed with your questions... Let's face it, the LC generally gives you variations on the same question over and over. If you've finished your book of exam papers/text books, you should be so sick of doing those same questions that you can fly through them. A lot of maths skill, for LC unfortunately, is just practice and repetition. The more difficult, unusual problems are in the C parts, and let's be honest, those are for separating B and A students, not for those seeking to scrape an honour/pass.

Mark200

I really don't think time is a problem. If you know what you're doing, 23 minutes is plenty.


For Paper 2 HL I attempted 9 questions. I got a B3, so I obviously didn't do horribly by attempting 9 questions. Plenty of time.

insinkerator

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

insinkerator: Oh god, the Irish debate. I could get into it. I won't. I'll just tell you the facts: There are a lot of people, myself included, who use Irish on a day-to-day basis. It is not dead, don't insult us by telling us it is.

Okay so i was wrong in saying that it is a dead language and i apologise for any offense that i have caused. But can you justify the amount of time that is spent learning filiocht and pros and stair na gaeilge when it is causing students to lose interest in the subject and take up time which could be spent learning, what in my opinion, and i believe many others would think the same, a more useful subject like maths?

My argument basically is that to improve natinal maths grades, instead of changing the maths course, remove or cut down on unnecessary parts of other compulsary subjects

jennyq

It really is a mental block. It's one of the subjects where your answer can actually be wrong and I think people tend to freak out & decide they're bad at Maths because they get questions out wrong when they could have gotten more than half of the marks for their attempt. With subjects like English and Irish while your answer may not be very good it's unlikely that it could actually be "wrong" unless you mixed up poets or something, so people don't get the same feeling of "I'm not able to do this" as they often have with Maths.

There is definitely way too much of a stigma attached to to doing honours maths, when in theory you can leave out a couple of your worst areas and still pass and you don't have to get most questions fully right to get most of the marks.

PurpleFistMixer

Aye insinkerator, I definitely agree with you there, the other courses definitely need to be changed. English isn't SO bad, but I think everyone knows Irish is abysmal. I know it was the case in my school that people, for example, dropped HL Irish because they were already doing HL English, etc. Then again, HL subjects aren't meant to be easy...

Decerto

people doing badly in maths is purely down to bad teachers, maths is one of those subjects you need to want to learn and understand it to do well in it and 90% of teachers do not put any emphasis into teaching it or inspire others to learn it, i spent the whole of 5th year in a slump in maths class failing alot of tests and i had a really bad attitude towards and i put this down to my teacher, At xmas i did the revision course in the tute to try get myself on track to at least a pass and i came out of those classes inspired to do well and confident to get an honour, the teacher there, Aiden roantree made everything so simple and easy to understand and i ended up getting an A1, im not promoting grind schools but i do think teachers there really show how good teachers can be and im sure alot of public school teachers are as good but there is a severe lack of good maths teachers who have a passion for there subject

insinkerator

in my school i reckon we would have had another 12 people(double the class) doing honours maths if it wasnt for honours irish. Im not too sure did too many people drop out of Maths because of English though. All three courses need a revamp in my opinion.

The irish course needs to have nearly all the literature cut down to nothing more than a taster. A huge emphasis needs to be put on speaking and undersanding the actual language. For example... when was the last time you learned a French poem. And then perhaps an extra optionla class for those who want to learn the extra filiocht and pros etc...

English needs to have have the numbers of poets lowered. a possibility of 8 is far too high.

As for maths, the department needs to stop emplying people who are good at maths but are incapable of teaching as maths teachers. Only so much can be learned when you are watching somebody do sums up on a whiteboard, you need someone who can connect with the class and properly teach them.

spurious

To be good at Honours Maths, you need a strong foundation and understanding of the basic concepts. These are learned in play before people even go to school.

If the foundation isn't there, no amount of trying at 17 will make any difference.

Davidius

Maths is balanced.

Lern2leavingcert

[What the Hell was I typing here?]

KnifeWRENCH

There is definitely a stigma attached to Honours Maths, and I must admit I often doubted my abilities to do higher level even though I always got B's and C's (and an ocassional A)
I got a B2 in my exam - at the time I was delighted just for passing it. One year later, I realise I could have done so much better if I wasn't so bloody nervous at the time.

Honours Maths scared me a little - you always hear about how hard it is. In reality it's not much harder than other HL subjects, but I somehow convinced myself it was extremely tough and that I would be lucky just to pass it.

It might sound weird but if I had the confidence I have now (going into 2nd yr Maths&Physics ) back then, I could have done a lot better. So definitely removing the stigma associated with Maths would help the problem.

Now as for the exam itself - for every Leaving Cert subject there will always be one student somewhere in the country that gets caught for time. Every student is different.
I was writing to the last second for Geography - my lovely examiner even gave me a few extra minutes to finish. For Biology, however, I had answered more than the required questions with an hour to spare.
I did get caught for time a little because there were questions I was stuck on. Other students, like orangetictac, did not have that problem.
But say you add an extra five mins per question - there'll still be students caught for time.
Ok, so add 10 mins extra per question: more than likely, there'll still be some students caught for time. Where do you draw the line?

Completing the Honours Maths paper is meant to be challenging, and 23 mins a question is indeed very challenging. But it isn't impossible, so I don't really know if adding the extra time will really make that much of a difference.

Making the honours course easier is not a good idea either - if you do anything mathsy at college, it will be more of a struggle.

In summary (because I'm waffling a bit )I guess the only way of enticing more students to take HL is to remove the stigma and convince students that if they work hard, passing Honours Maths isn't all that difficult. And the only people who can do this are good, solid teachers who can get pupils to embrace and perhaps even enjoy doing maths.

(I apologise for the length of this rambling post)

gaybitch

I'm not naturally good at my maths, and what made me drop from HL to OL early in fifth year was a bad teacher - pure and simple. I don't have an interest in maths, and I've never had a teacher in my entire life that managed to work against that.

I never even seriously considered doing HL - and no teacher I had ever tried to make me. Had I tried to drop any other subject - Irish, French, English - I think I wouldn't have been let!

Maths is the most difficult thing you can try to teach to anyone, in my opinion, and unless it's done by a good teacher or in a 'one on one' setting the uninterested will switch off and learn nothing.

And because maths is so hard to teach to yourself or to revise without having learnt it properly in the first place, it means people get left behind.

Redisle

The way I see it there are a couple of problems with Honours Maths..

Tbh the biggest problem I have seen is total lack of interest on students behalfs.. people just don't see the importance of it and people don't see the value of doing maths just for the sake of maths. I know that I myself questioned the point of doing maths (especially hl) in secondary school.. I remeber asking myself what the hell am I ever going to need X or Y for.. I was even tempted to drop down to OL after the pre's because I had it in my head that it was going to be pointless putting in loads of work to bring maths up to scratch.. I had just lost interest in. Luckily I decided to stick with it as a good companion for Physics, which I felt was my best subject..

I got some revision books and got busy.. ended up with an A1.

An awful lot of people are very quick to blame the teachers.. I used to be the same. I used to think my teacher was terrible, always assuming we knew things when we didn't and just giving homework and doing the solutions on the board.. I always used to think that there must be a better way to teach the subject..
In reality I think that in a lot of cases the problem isn't really the teachers but a lack of effort on behalf of students. How many people do you know who did maths in lc or are doing it at the moment actually went/go home after school and looked/look back over questions they didn't/don't understand?
I don't know many.. I know in my class at least (~25, and there was another similarly sized class in the year) if a question for homework was hard we would just abandon it and wait for the teacher.. looking back that was a really bad attitude to have..

With regards to timing in the exams... I don't really think there is any issues with timing in HL maths. 23 mins or so is plenty for each question if you know what you are doing. If you need to spend longer than that on a question chances are you didn't go over past papers enough.. as others have said the questions are nearly always rehashed over and over again.
In my case I was using Revise Wise Maths and two or three questions I had done in that book came up nearly word for word in the exam..

I think the dept of education and all those politicians need to stop complaining about how few people are doing the subject.. all the complaining and statistics dosen't help anything.. in fact, it probably makes it worse.

Just think, if you are in 4th/5th year and pondering sticking to honours maths.. and you are seeing loads of media coverage saying how hard it is and how many people are dropping it.. what does that do for your impression of the subject? It's going to make you more inclined to drop down of course..

Instead, what if the same people heard/saw media coverage about the positive sides of the subject? Tell people all the things it does, tell people they use things everyday whose foundations are based on mathematic algorithms and equations..tell them that maths helps to make some of their favourite video games and music players.. make people understand that a good grounding in maths has so many possibilities and so many career options.. Some of it would be bound to stick and it may make at least a few more students keep it up. If people could see some sort of purpose or reason to make an effort in maths there would be a whole lot of more people doing it..

Just my 2c anyway.
Sorry for the long rant

gaybitch

Redisle wrote: »

In reality I think that in a lot of cases the problem isn't really the teachers but a lack of effort on behalf of students. How many people do you know who did maths in lc or are doing it at the moment actually went/go home after school and looked/look back over questions they didn't/don't understand?

I have to say I don't agree - there is a problem, and the answer has to lie either with the students, the syllabus or the those passing on the material to the students. Why did 5000 students fail ordinary maths? If its just that those 5000 people didn'twork hard, or had a "lack of effort" as you say, then why didn't they also fail ordinary Irish, or any other subject? Why is this lack of effort only having an impact on the Maths results? Obviously because there is a problem with the way Maths is taught, and that's because Maths is a difficult subject to teach, and the quality of Maths teacher in Ireland isn't great.


One on one with a grind teacher was the only way I learnt anything...I received an A2 in Ordinary level. That was due to a good grind teacher - and the shock of getting 50% in the mocks.

Teachers and perhaps the Dept of Education need to realise that it's a sad indictment of the standard of teaching in this country if people have a "pass Irish or pass Maths but not higher in both" mentality to the Leaving Cert.

Irish and Maths are the two subjects Irish students are learning for the longest time, English aside, and it's bizarre and sad that these two subjects are seen as too challenging to be taken together, both at higher level.

Redisle wrote: »

Some of it would be bound to stick and it may make at least a few more students keep it up. If people could see some sort of purpose or reason to make an effort in maths there would be a whole lot of more people doing it..

I think everyone is aware that Maths is important in computers, architecture, science etc. I don't think that changes many people's experience of finding Maths difficult.

yay_for_summer

In reality I think that in a lot of cases the problem isn't really the teachers but a lack of effort on behalf of students. How many people do you know who did maths in lc or are doing it at the moment actually went/go home after school and looked/look back over questions they didn't/don't understand?

Sorry redisle, but I don't entirely agree there either. Yes, there're definitely people who don't bother doing that to work out things by themselves, but if a student doesn't understand something at all, no matter how much they look over things chances are they won't get where they were/are going wrong. Maths teachers really need to be able to explain things clearly. Mine was great and I'm fairly good at maths, but I know some days I definitely needed him to explain stuff a second or third time. It wasn't my hardest subject, but I can see why people would drop it if they can't work out a good portion of it and their teacher can't help them. Unfortunate truth which the Dept doesn't seem to get is that good mathematicians don't always make good teachers.

Decerto

Davidius wrote: »

Maths is balanced.

Learn2leavingcert.

But seriously, I never understood why people found honours maths so hard. Of course, it's become apparent that I'm good at maths although I did have more trouble with 1st year maths than 5th year maths.

That said, I generally do a bit of maths everyday for the fun of it and look forward to the more difficult chapters. :pac:

I can't say why people find it so difficult so I'd leave that to other people though it should really be noted that honours maths is definitely something you shouldn't do if you don't have to.

All this post served to do was to highlight the pompus, elitist attitude that is associated with HL maths students:/

Davidius

Decerto wrote: »

All this post served to do was to highlight the pompus, elitist attitude that is associated with HL maths students:/

What pompous, elitist attitude?

I think you might have made that up. You shouldn't do that, lest I come down from my Godly pedestal and smite you.

johnnyq

insinkerator wrote:

My argument basically is that to improve natinal maths grades, instead of changing the maths course, remove or cut down on unnecessary parts of other compulsary subjects

Hi Inskinerator, just want to pick up on your point about cutting down the other subjects. I see I Irish comes in for a lot of stick.

So roughly 25% of students sit HL Irish, 60% HL English and 20% HL Maths.

Even if every HL irish student dropped to OL and transferred to HL maths then the number would reach only 45%. And that's even assuming that every HL Irish student doesn't do HL maths. (lol!)

Of course you seem to assume that just because there are fewer poems or something this will make maths seem less daunting/time-consuming?

Let's not forget there are only 13 poems on the HL Irish course and 5 short stories and then a longer novel worth barely any marks anyway. You wouldn't mind but most of the poems aren't even difficult, i mean gealt ffs!!!

I know it's trendy to bash Irish literature etc... but really if it were actually impossible to learn you may have a leg to stand on.

insinkerator wrote:

Why did that many people drop down? Well, there will always be the people who drop down because as the course progresses, the cant actually do the maths, Thats fine. Then there are the people who realise they dont need it, and couldnt be bothered busting there ass studying for two years. Thats fine two.

You seem to be 'fine' with those *major* causes, so are you really that surprised that people are doing the minimum ass busting they can get away with?

insinkerator wrote:

Then there are the people who are forced to drop down, due to other subject commitments.

I agree with you here, perhaps we should cap the number of subjects that could be examined to 6 only and then a lot of this pressure will be alleviated without having to dumb down courses? Just a thought.

johnnyq

alan4cult wrote:

1. Pick the right subjects. The Irish Independent published a table of how easy it is to get an A1 in every subject.....

2. Take one or two extra subjects on and drop to pass in either Irish or Maths. If your looking for 600 points I would advise dropping to pass Irish.

3. Don't rely on your English Grade for points.

Sure just look at the above points for the 600 points thread. Doesn't it seem obvious that the points system encourages people to drop to pass maths/irish in the search for the "easy" A.

So is the solution to dumb down Irish and Maths to make them the easy A's? For some it appears so. :rolleyes:

I love this one:

alan4cult wrote:

6. Do Geography, even though the A1 rate is low. Put time into your project (goldmine of marks) and learn sample answers and you'll get the A1.

Funny considering that the a1 rate in Irish is 50% higher and maths 100% higher!

But as we all know, not all students will find their 'goldmine of marks' at the end of the rainbow :pac:

(About 97% of them, unless the examiners bell curve changes:p)

PurpleFistMixer

Quoting stuff from a different topic? Confusing!

Anyway, the solution to everything seems to be "dumb it down".

I think spurious is right, though. We can't fix the problem when it's fully-formed at LC level, we need to work on maths education at a younger age. Maths was definitely my best subject, I find it quite simple (well we'l just see what I say in college), and I remember doing maths questions when I was in playschool. I grew up having maths as a sort of... amusement, (in 6th class I'd race people to see how fast they could get all the questions finished... Yes, I know I'm a total nerd) so I never had the bizarre fear that everyone seems to have. Get people confident with maths at a young age, even just manipulating equations, thinking in a rational, mathematical way etc., and second-level shouldn't be so daunting.

And the whole, "What? You're doing HIGHER level? Are you sure you can take the pressure?" doesn't help either. Honestly, at some studying pep-talk during the year, we were warned about doing HL maths. Hardly an encouraging gesture.

johnnyq

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

Quoting stuff from a different topic? Confusing!

Anyway, the solution to everything seems to be "dumb it down".

I think spurious is right, though. We can't fix the problem when it's fully-formed at LC level, we need to work on maths education at a younger age. Maths was definitely my best subject, I find it quite simple (well we'l just see what I say in college), and I remember doing maths questions when I was in playschool. I grew up having maths as a sort of... amusement, (in 6th class I'd race people to see how fast they could get all the questions finished... Yes, I know I'm a total nerd) so I never had the bizarre fear that everyone seems to have. Get people confident with maths at a young age, even just manipulating equations, thinking in a rational, mathematical way etc., and second-level shouldn't be so daunting.

And the whole, "What? You're doing HIGHER level? Are you sure you can take the pressure?" doesn't help either. Honestly, at some studying pep-talk during the year, we were warned about doing HL maths. Hardly an encouraging gesture.

Soz, PFM I will emphasise the '600 points thread' in me post to makes it less confuzin

What are the figures for Junior Cert? What % do honours there?

Even if insinkerator's suggestion wasn't nonsensical, getting rid of all the poetry in the world wouldn't matter if they did pass at JC.

Davidius

It's all johnnyq's fault.

insinkerator

johnnyq wrote: »

Of course you seem to assume that just because there are fewer poems or something this will make maths seem less daunting/time-consuming?

What i am trying to get across is that i new a lot of people that dropped down to pass maths because they couldnt handle both subjects at a higher level. So by cutting some of the poems from the course and concentrating more on oral work, the class can feel more involved, will be more encouraged as they will feel like they are making more progress in class, and by doing so the workload generated by the HL irsh course will be drastically reduced, ideally stopping the multitudes dropping Maths.

johnnyq wrote: »

Let's not forget there are only 13 poems on the HL Irish course and 5 short stories and then a longer novel worth barely any marks anyway. You wouldn't mind but most of the poems aren't even difficult, i mean gealt ffs!!!

Lets also not forget that at the end of the day the time is taken up by the amount of work you do preparing for the question in class, not how much the question is eventually worth. Take for example english. We studied six different poets taking up a good four to five months of a two school year course for a question worth 50 marks. We didnt spend nearly as much time prepping essay work and the like which was worth 100 marks?(i think)

johnnyq wrote: »

I know it's trendy to bash Irish literature etc... but really if it were actually impossible to learn you may have a leg to stand on.

I dont particular care wehter its trendy or not to bash it, im doing it because i think it makes sense. Its not that im saying its impossible to learn. My point is that we spend a ludicrous amount of time actually learning it. Chopping it from the course would take a lot of pressure off of students, allowing them to direct their energies towards other subjects, and it would also open a window for more oral work to be introduced , ehich in my opinion would be fantastic for the language as a whole because in my opinion, learning oral stuff is going to cinreas the amount of people willing to speak irish daily tenfold as opposed to making them learn poems which have no relevance to them

johnnyq wrote: »

I agree with you here, perhaps we should cap the number of subjects that could be examined to 6 only and then a lot of this pressure will be alleviated without having to dumb down courses? Just a thought.

I can see how this would be a good idea, but when six subjects are being counted, only taking six subjects would be a cause for a lot of worry. The what if's start to crawl into peoples mind about if they are sick on the day or get a bad exam and they have no backup

PurpleFistMixer

We already have it that you don't HAVE to do any more than 6 (well 5 to be technical I think... know some people who did 5 anyway), doing more than that is a personal choice.

I don't think making the Irish course "lighter" in workload is a good idea. People do badly in maths... let's make Irish easier? I get your reasoning, you know, give people more time to dedicate to maths or whatever, but... HL subjects require a decent amount of time. Not everyone is up to doing a lot of them, but the solution isn't to essentially make them easier by lessening the workload. Like, I definitely agree that the emphasis needs to shift to spoken Irish etc., but what you're suggesting is almost turning Irish into a half-subject. If you're going to do stuff like that, may as well cut out bits of the maths course, so people can spend more time trying to understand what's left.

insinkerator

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

We already have it that you don't HAVE to do any more than 6 (well 5 to be technical I think... know some people who did 5 anyway), doing more than that is a personal choice.

I don't think making the Irish course "lighter" in workload is a good idea. People do badly in maths... let's make Irish easier? I get your reasoning, you know, give people more time to dedicate to maths or whatever, but... HL subjects require a decent amount of time. Not everyone is up to doing a lot of them, but the solution isn't to essentially make them easier by lessening the workload. Like, I definitely agree that the emphasis needs to shift to spoken Irish etc., but what you're suggesting is almost turning Irish into a half-subject. If you're going to do stuff like that, may as well cut out bits of the maths course, so people can spend more time trying to understand what's left.

Im not advocating that irish be turned into a half subject at all. Im suggesting that for all the poetry and stuff that is removed it be repaced with the same amount of oral work. There would be still the same amount of coursework etc but i believe that people take to irish oral better than they do written. After school you can talk to your friends in irish for fun, but who is gonna go home and discuss Oiche Nollaig na Mbean with their friends?

johnnyq

insinkerator wrote: »

What i am trying to get across is that i new a lot of people that dropped down to pass maths because they couldnt handle both subjects at a higher level. So by cutting some of the poems from the course and concentrating more on oral work, the class can feel more involved, will be more encouraged as they will feel like they are making more progress in class, and by doing so the workload generated by the HL irsh course will be drastically reduced, ideally stopping the multitudes dropping Maths.

Why would less poems = more maths? There is absolutely no reason for that. If anything more would do honours Irish instead of maths because of its new found easiness and fuzzyness.

Lets also not forget that at the end of the day the time is taken up by the amount of work you do preparing for the question in class, not how much the question is eventually worth.

How long did it actually take for ye to do a poem? Come on, Bimse Buan ar Buairt gach ló, that if I remember correctly was a long poem put it's main point was he was sad about Ireland etc...

Tbh, if you only read the poem in english and used your makey-upy Irish to write about it, how long would that take, 1 class? maybe 2?

Take the An trial question I remember calculating that it was only worth something like 7%, at most 10%. If the teacher left it out entirely, going on your logic it would actually improve performance with all the new found fuzziness etc..
You don't need to change a syllabus to do that.

My point is that we spend a ludicrous amount of time actually learning it. Chopping it from the course would take a lot of pressure off of students, allowing them to direct their energies towards other subjects,

Why is that a valid argument unless you go back to your original Irish is useless point. Why not ban students taking more than one of History, Geography, Business, etc... if you want to reduce rote learning.
Ergo, freeing up time for students to do Maths which given your two reasons previous (not able/interested) would be a total waste of time anyway.

and it would also open a window for more oral work to be introduced , ehich in my opinion would be fantastic for the language as a whole because in my opinion, learning oral stuff is going to cinreas the amount of people willing to speak irish daily tenfold as opposed to making them learn poems which have no relevance to them

Going on your logic, why would people speak the language since it would be of no relevance to them? I mean if the culture captured in the literature is irrelevant why not the language as a whole? People don't need to speak Irish, so why would they break their ass doing so?

I can see how this would be a good idea, but when six subjects are being counted, only taking six subjects would be a cause for a lot of worry. The what if's start to crawl into peoples mind about if they are sick on the day or get a bad exam and they have no backup

Why should the system accommodate those individuals that had a bad exam, in this way? Everyone can have bad exams, which do count in the real world.
As an alternative, Keep Irish/English/Maths as mandatory points subjects and allow a 7th subject to cover the other 3?

fivetwenty

The only solution is to make Primary schools work harder at it, and every college give perks for it.

Maths does 25mins/Q and I found that easily workable.

insinkerator

johnnyq wrote: »

Why would less poems = more maths? There is absolutely no reason for that. If anything more would do honours Irish instead of maths because of its new found easiness and fuzzyness.

But what i am saying is that if irish is easier, then there will be less people dropping from honours maths to pass because they cant cope with the two subjects at higher level

johnnyq wrote: »

How long did it actually take for ye to do a poem? Come on, Bimse Buan ar Buairt gach ló, that if I remember correctly was a long poem put it's main point was he was sad about Ireland etc...

Tbh, if you only read the poem in english and used your makey-upy Irish to write about it, how long would that take, 1 class? maybe 2?

We generally spent about a week on a poem, learning it and doing answers etc. Perhaps we spent more than normal at poems, which is why i am suggesting dropping them out? i dunno, im basing my views on my experiences of going through it so...

johnnyq wrote: »

if you only read the poem in english and used your makey-upy Irish to write about it, how long would that take, 1 class? maybe 2?

If you are only going to read an english version of the poem and make up an answer then you may as well not do it all. Not doing the poem through irish defeats the entire purpose of the excercise

johnnyq wrote: »

Why is that a valid argument unless you go back to your original Irish is useless point. Why not ban students taking more than one of History, Geography, Business, etc... if you want to reduce rote learning.
Ergo, freeing up time for students to do Maths which given your two reasons previous (not able/interested) would be a total waste of time anyway.

Why would you ban students from choosing more than one of those subjects? They are option subjects, if they choose them, then they like them and have an interest in the subject and so should have little difficulty in learning them. The reason i am singling out english and irish is because ehtey are compulsory

johnnyq wrote: »

Going on your logic, why would people speak the language since it would be of no relevance to them? I mean if the culture captured in the literature is irrelevant why not the language as a whole? People don't need to speak Irish, so why would they break their ass doing so?

johnnyq wrote: »

I am suggesting removing the poetry and emphasis on culture as a temporary measure, to give irish a chance to be spoken again.Once interest is sparked agin then the poetry etc can introduced again. Kind of similar to Russia in the 1920's After his policy of war communism, Lenin introduced the N.E.P(new economic policy) as a way to get the country back on its feet. He was criticised for the policy as it was seen as communist, and he himself even recognised that it was un-communist, however he introduced it as a temporary measure to stabilise the Russian econmy, and provide a solid base upon which to build a communist regime.

johnnyq wrote: »

Why should the system accommodate those individuals that had a bad exam, in this way? Everyone can have bad exams, which do count in the real world.
As an alternative, Keep Irish/English/Maths as mandatory points subjects and allow a 7th subject to cover the other 3?

I reckon it would be quite controversial but i actually like the sound of that