Declining interest in maths etc...

johnnyq

insinkerator wrote: »

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

I do understand your point, but I don't think it would have the desired result.

The only way to guarantee your result would be to offer a no poetry Irish exam only to those who did HL maths.

If i had the choice to drop down between fuzzier Irish and same old boring maths, why would I keep the HL maths? I think your move would do exact the opposite of what you want. Even more would ditch maths, since they could get easier HL points in Irish. Students want max points with min ass bollixing.

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

Perhaps we should view poems as unseen comprehensions in the exam, except that we see what the comprehensions are in advance? Same difference really.

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

Well if we're going to make the unilateral decision to deprive students of Irish poetry (even those with an interest) then I see no difference in banning certain combinations of rote learning subjects. All supposedly with the ridiculous objective of getting students to study maths.

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.

I believe taxes were a temporary measure to fund wars when they were first introduced. But I do believe you - this time it's different.

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

He he he. All the better now that we're finished.:D

Tiroskan

frankly, I think, like maths, the problem with Irish lies not in the secondary schools, but the primary schools. I never even attempted to learn the HL Irish syllabus. I went to a gael scoil and then an English speaking secondary school and walked into my leaving cert with just the basic knowledge of my poems, play and short stories and a decent oral and aural and I managed to get a C1. I didn't even do the history of Irish bit. the people who went to English speaking primary schools and worked their arses off to learn all that stuff off ad verbatim didn't do that much better than me for the most part. B3s and B2s. the only people who broke the A barrier were the ones who had a decent grounding in Irish from speaking it at home and going to the Gaeltacht and being into the language on a personal level. so obviously, the problem here is that the children coming in from English speaking primary schools had an appalling level of Irish, for the most part.

of course, if I ever mentioned this, they arged down my throat that they'd learned off grammar rules by rote and lists of words and essays in primary school and had done loads of Irish. but they never actually learned to speak the language, to understand the mechanics of it.

the assumption, as far as I can grasp, is that if one is sitting a HL Irish paper one will be able to approach it in a similar manner to the English paper because one speaks the language. this is, quite obviously, why the paper is laid out in a similar matter to the English paper, rather than the French one. while the OL Irish paper is much more similar to the French paper, because it assumes that one has a basic grasp of Irish, but is not fluent.

i also think that this is where the problem lies in maths. frankly, in primary school, most teachers are appalling at maths. (or the ones I had were at least.) people who love maths don't become primary school teachers by and large. they become maths teachers, as an odd a concept this may be to grasp. primary school teachers are expected to have a general grasp of a number of subjects and I can't say whether I agree or disagree with this attitude.

however, this means that they approach maths the same way most English language teachers approach Irish. as a number of rules and steps to be learned off by heart and done that way just because. there's no effort to understand the mechanics of the sums or how they work. one just learns off the method of doing things and students carry this through to secondary school with them, the same way that most students get through in French and Irish by making sure they have the grammar rules printed behind their eyelids and reams of notes and essays learned off by heart to regurgitate in the exam, unlike how the vast majority of people (as I understand it) just 'know' the grammar rules of English.

and while this works well enough in general, considering the vast diversity of the maths course, both HL and OL, it's rather draining to have to learn off by rote the methods of doing the different sums and it can seem stupifying and pointless when one still doesn't understand the internal mechanisms of what it is you're doing. which is why I think people are especially prone to dropping HL maths, because at the end of the day it's an intensive course with a lot to cover, even if you do understand what's going on and aren't just sitting for hours everyday trying to learn the methods of doing each different type of sum.

personally, I struggled with the course and just got a D3. I was happy enough with this, because it meant I could go to college. my grinds teacher ate the arse of me because he knew and I knew I should have gotten the honour. I was just lazy. considering how I waltzed into a C1 in Irish, if I just scraped a D3 in HL maths and I mostly understood what was going on, even if I didn't dedicate myself to the hours of repetition and study which are a fact of the lc as a whole and especially HL maths, how frustrating must it be for those students who just don't see the point of why they have to do all these stupid steps just to get the answer to one sum?

obviously, the only answer is a three pronged approach: good maths teachers from the get-go, in primary school; adequate support for those who do find themselves struggling or falling behind in maths and obviously the effort from the students themselves in the first place.

(I also feel the need to point out that there will always be those people who just struggle with maths. there's like a form of dyslexia that means people have problems with numbers rather than letters, but I suppose the only solution to this is early and accurate diagnosis of the problem and on-going support)

...uhh, sorry for the essay. feel free to disagree/just plain ignore me.

johnnyq

Excellent post Tiroskan!

insinkerator

johnnyq wrote: »

I do understand your point, but I don't think it would have the desired result.

The only way to guarantee your result would be to offer a no poetry Irish exam only to those who did HL maths.

If i had the choice to drop down between fuzzier Irish and same old boring maths, why would I keep the HL maths? I think your move would do exact the opposite of what you want. Even more would ditch maths, since they could get easier HL points in Irish. Students want max points with min ass bollixing.

Oh now i see what you are saying! Ya i agree to a certain extent, altho there was at least ten people who left my class last year who actually wanted to do honours maths, but just didnt have the time for it..... so i suppose it would work for some and not work for others.....

johnnyq wrote: »

Perhaps we should view poems as unseen comprehensions in the exam, except that we see what the comprehensions are in advance? Same difference really.

I dont know if its that im tired or your not making sense.... but that is going completely over my head

johnnyq wrote: »

Well if we're going to make the unilateral decision to deprive students of Irish poetry (even those with an interest) then I see no difference in banning certain combinations of rote learning subjects. All supposedly with the ridiculous objective of getting students to study maths.

getting them to study maths is only half of the reasoning. The other half is that with a revamped irish course with more emphasis on oral, ideally more people will end up speaking the language, at which point literature can be slowly incorporated into the course..

johnnyq wrote: »

I believe taxes were a temporary measure to fund wars when they were first introduced. But I do believe you - this time it's different.

not just to fund wars but to actually supply the soldiers wih food etc. under War communism, pretty much everything was belonged to the govt. But the N.E.P was to restore the economy to make it solid for the reintroduction of communism. The way i see it is, with the reducing numbers of irish speakers, we ae currently around the war communism period, and we need to introduce drastic change to bring up the numbers of these speakers, even if it does go against outr beliefs. Then once we have a solid base of irish speakers, then start reintroducing poetry and literature

johnnyq wrote: »

He he he. All the better now that we're finished.:D

Oh god yes!!:P

The LeavyC

fivetwenty wrote: »

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.

its 23 not 25.. and those 2 mins make a huge difference

square_igloo wrote: »

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)

firstly, that actually annoys me that you were given extra time in geography, its incredibly unfair on other people in the country that you're being compared to that they had less time than you.

Also. 5 extra minutes per question in maths would have made a huge difference to me, The way i was taught maths was to write everything you're thinking down incase they think you pulled a number from nowhere, add that to a slow writer such as myself and you're not going to have enough time.

Someone said time was seperating a's from b's and not c's from d's which possibly is right, but in my mocks i was writing til the end and scraped a c3. In the leaving i was writing until the end and got a b1 which really annoyed me because i had actually put more effort into maths than any other subject, I had gone back to about 1999/2000 in the 6 topics i was going to do on each paper, and had done a few questions 2 or 3 times.

People definitely have a bad mentality to maths for some reason. I agree that some people give up on homework and say it was too hard which really is the worst thing they could do.. Having gone through the leaving cert, it was definitely in my opinion other students that gave maths the "difficult reputation". A lot of people in my class were too afraid to grab a blank piece of paper and try work out or guess how to do a question that they had no idea how to approach.. which probably boils down to not wanting to look stupid, so cos of this they drop down to pass.

johnnyq

insinkerator wrote: »

Oh now i see what you are saying! Ya i agree to a certain extent, altho there was at least ten people who left my class last year who actually wanted to do honours maths, but just didnt have the time for it..... so i suppose it would work for some and not work for others.....

So why did they drop down.... because they thought they would do better in other subjects. Making Irish easier only exaserbates this.

Now if maths Ol/Hl had to be counted for points then all of a sudden those people you knew would be taking a much greater interest. A bit like the communist shock thing you were talking about.
But only as a temporary measure, of course.... (insert evil grin smiley)

I dont know if its that im tired or your not making sense.... but that is going completely over my head

A little from column A and a little from column B

getting them to study maths is only half of the reasoning. The other half is that with a revamped irish course with more emphasis on oral, ideally more people will end up speaking the language, at which point literature can be slowly incorporated into the course..

If we want to revamp Irish then cool, but don't think you'll get maths thrown in the same swoop.

Tbh, everything you have said there could really be in the JC curriculum anyway.

not just to fund wars but to actually supply the soldiers wih food etc. under War communism, pretty much everything was belonged to the govt. But the N.E.P was to restore the economy to make it solid for the reintroduction of communism. The way i see it is, with the reducing numbers of irish speakers, we ae currently around the war communism period, and we need to introduce drastic change to bring up the numbers of these speakers, even if it does go against outr beliefs.

Wow you know a lot about communism, if only they gave points for that....

Edit: Oh wait, you probably did history, hope you got an A!

PurpleFistMixer

insinkerator wrote: »

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?

At the end of the day though, to me it still seems like you're advocating lessening the workload in Irish to allow people to spend more time on maths. Less time required to get the same grade basically means easier (particularly when people measure study in hours).
I mean, I'm completely for making the oral a bigger part of the course, but your reasoning here is just... questionable. If there's a problem within one subject, surely the solution should be within that subject. (Not necessarily in syllabus, could be in teaching etc.)

spurious

The main 'failure' problem in Maths though, is not at the Higher Levels. It's at Ordinary and Foundation where many many people are having trouble.

If someone cannot pass Foundation Maths for the Leaving (or Junior indeed) they do not have the basic principles of Maths. The basic principles of Maths are learned long before secondary school.

yay_for_summer

Wouldn't making the HL Irish course much easier by cutting poems etc be very unfair on those who are good at languages but not so good at maths?

insinkerator

johnnyq wrote: »

So why did they drop down.... because they thought they would do better in other subjects. Making Irish easier only exaserbates this.

They dropped down because they didnt have the time to commit to both subjects, and unfortunately it was maths that took the blow. I dont think it was because the were necessarily better at irish than maths, i think it was the stigma, as mentioned earlier, that led the to believe that maths is harder. Like, they wanted to keep it on but they couldnt, so my theory is that by changing the irish course, you are essentially killing two birds with one stone: making the irish course more accessable and increasing the number of irish speakers, and also keeping the level of people doing HL maths up

johnnyq wrote: »

If we want to revamp Irish then cool, but don't think you'll get maths thrown in the same swoop.[/quote[

I think that by making the changes i am suggesting to the irish course(which in my opinion needs to be changed anyway) will lead to a higher number of people taking honours maths... But then again we can always just agree to disagree!;)

johnnyq wrote: »

Wow you know a lot about communism, if only they gave points for that....

Edit: Oh wait, you probably did history, hope you got an A!

Nope, i got a C3, kinda disapponitng based on my results from 5th year but i knew the exam went terribly, i was expecting lower to be honest. Oh well, it doesnt really matter anymore, i made my number 1!

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

At the end of the day though, to me it still seems like you're advocating lessening the workload in Irish to allow people to spend more time on maths. Less time required to get the same grade basically means easier (particularly when people measure study in hours).
I mean, I'm completely for making the oral a bigger part of the course, but your reasoning here is just... questionable. If there's a problem within one subject, surely the solution should be within that subject. (Not necessarily in syllabus, could be in teaching etc.)

Im not necessarily saying we should lessen the workload, im saying change it. The work will be done on something else, and essentialy the same amount of work wil be done, i just think thaqt students would be faster to pick up oral irish, tan study poems and stair na gaeilge, thus making the subject seem easier, therefore allowing people to spend more time on other pursuits a.k.a HL maths. And again, its not just maths as my reasoning. I also believe that change needs to be done anyway, as the course is getting a little outdated.

PurpleFistMixer

I would say the reason people choose to drop to OL maths over Irish is related to the fact that, with the Irish course as it is, you can rote learn it without too much hassle (my Irish teacher was always on to us about how you can do well on paper 2 without actually being good at Irish, you just have to learn crap off), whereas maths is perceived to require more "innate" ability.

At the end of the day though, I think people are just afraid of maths.

Spurious is right, though. The more concerning problem is people failing Ordinary/Foundation level.

gaybitch

I'm sure if the figures were analysed then the Dept would see that the majority of students failing Ordinary/Foundation at Leaving Cert were taking Ordinary/Foundation at Junior Cert. There's no doubt that all students should be encouraged to take Higher level at Junior Cert - the Ordinary LC course is literally just a few chapters more. And the theory and formulae remain the same in things like Theorems, Coordinate Geometry, Algebra, etc etc.


And in order for the vast, vast majority of students to be expected to take Higher Level at JC, then the incoming first years must have a decent knowledge of Maths coming into secondary school. A decent knowledge that I, for one, didn't really have.

The solution really does lie in primary school teaching - giving perks to those who take Maths at college won't affect the failure rate, merely give perks to those who were taking Higher level and were good at it anyway.

KnifeWRENCH

The LeavyC wrote: »

firstly, that actually annoys me that you were given extra time in geography, its incredibly unfair on other people in the country that you're being compared to that they had less time than you.

Oh it was one or two minutes at most. And it was only to finish off one answer.
I didn't ask for extra time or anything, just got lucky.
Tbh if I hadn't got that extra time, it wouldn't have affected my result.

TheLeavyC wrote:

Also. 5 extra minutes per question in maths would have made a huge difference to me, The way i was taught maths was to write everything you're thinking down incase they think you pulled a number from nowhere, add that to a slow writer such as myself and you're not going to have enough time.

OK so it would have made a huge difference for you. But what about people who are even slower writers and were taught a different way to you?
Someone comes along and says "I ran out of time. An extra five mins per question would have made a huge difference to me."
You would then be one of the people saying " No, I had more than enough time. It's fine the way it is."
Not everyone is going to happy with the timing of an exam. If you go changing it, then where do you draw the line?

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

I would say the reason people choose to drop to OL maths over Irish is related to the fact that, with the Irish course as it is, you can rote learn it without too much hassle (my Irish teacher was always on to us about how you can do well on paper 2 without actually being good at Irish, you just have to learn crap off), whereas maths is perceived to require more "innate" ability.

At the end of the day though, I think people are just afraid of maths.

Spurious is right, though. The more concerning problem is people failing Ordinary/Foundation level.

All that is very true.

I got an A1 in Irish, pretty much by learning everything off by Rote. One year later, I can just about string a coherent sentence as Gaeilge.
It's actually a bad reflection on the Irish course that people who don't really know the language can get high results. Luckily, I benefitted from it.

People are definitely afraid of maths - if you're not doing so well in exams a teacher is more likely to say "Y'know, this isn't for you. Do ordinary level" instead of "Don't worry, if you put in the work it's not that difficult. You are capable of passing"

Being honest, failing Ordinary/Foundation maths is down to either lazy students or lazy teachers.

TheDonMan

I just thought I would throw this in here seeing as it's quite relevant to what you're discussing. A school in Cork, had a HL Maths class of 30 people, out of those 30 people 24 people got A1's, I believe the lowest in the class was a B2 or B3 or something.

Don't believe me? Well it was also in the Irish Examiner. The school is not a grinds school, it is however a private school but the students in the class credited their results to "great teaching".

I personally have a, I consider, poor Maths teacher and am uninspired to continue HL Maths. I will continue however as I feel it will pay off in College when I'm looking to get a degree.

A lot of students in my class feel the same. I was with many of the same people for Junior Cert and back then we had a wonderful teacher. He gave me confindence in Maths and that seems to have all but evaporated now.

My point is that I feel the teaching of Maths is partly to blame for the decline in people doing HL Maths. You can argue if you want but I have this information first hand from experience. It is however not all there is to blame but my post has gone on long enough...

cailin_donn

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

Think about it, obviously there's a reason that people are mostly dropping from HL maths to OL because of the demands of HL irish, and not the other way around. If people want to drop to OL Maths, then making the Irish course easier won't stop them, they'll still say they "can't cope".

Plus, HL isn't meant to be easy, it's the most difficult level of school and it's the only way to get 100 points per subject, if you really need the 600, you'll work harder. Half of the time giving HL Maths up because people "need to concentrate on other subjects" is just an excuse because the thoughts of HL Maths are daunting (I'm not criticising this btw, I'm planning to do it myself!)

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

Controversial? That's what we do in my school.... you are talking about doing 7 subjects (one "backup") right? If you're not.... Nevermind:D

The LeavyC

square_igloo wrote: »

Oh it was one or two minutes at most. And

OK so it would have made a huge difference for you. But what about people who are even slower writers and were taught a different way to you?
Someone comes along and says "I ran out of time. An extra five mins per question would have made a huge difference to me."
You would then be one of the people saying " No, I had more than enough time. It's fine the way it is."
Not everyone is going to happy with the timing of an exam. If you go changing it, then where do you draw the line?

Being honest, failing Ordinary/Foundation maths is down to either lazy students or lazy teachers.

well a lot of people in my opinion were stuck for time at maths, the physics exam is an exam similar to and extent to maths(as in working things out albeit a lot less than maths), yet i didn't hear anybody say they didnt have enough time for it.
I agree time is stopping people mainly getting the high grades rather than passing.

You can't blame failing ordinary or foundation completely on laziness, although i'm sure for most people it was the sole reason.
I think the article was about declining interest in college courses that required maths so i think this should be focused on higher level maths.
Since ordinary level maths is Such a step down from higher level, and most people do 7 subjects and can discard a subject, its very tempting for students to drop honours maths. In my year, only 2 people did all honours, of those that didnt, it was either Irish or Maths that took the hit(and for a lot of people both). If people really want to pass maths, they can, but there is no incentive to keep it over irish unless you want to use it in college.

PurpleFistMixer

cailin_donn: the point would be that english/irish/maths would be mandatory points subjects. (Which I think is a terrible idea, btw, but it's not the issue in this thread.)

talk2050

<snip>

There are already two threads on which you have pimped your grinds site. There doesn't need to be a third.



-Piste

spurious

talk2050 wrote: »

<snip>

You are a partner of the State Examinations Commission?
Are you sure?

talk2050

Im not connected with the state Examinations Commission if thats what you mean. I put a link to the site so students can access the past exam papers and relevant information about the exams... Let me know what you think of the site.. Like i said its relativity new and by all means alot of work has to be done. So any constructive advice is always welcome and needed.

spurious wrote: »

You are a partner of the State Examinations Commission?
Are you sure?

spurious

talk2050 wrote: »

Im not connected with the state Examinations Commission if thats what you mean. I put a link to the site so students can access the past exam papers and relevant information about the exams... Let me know what you think of the site.. Like i said its relativity new and by all means alot of work has to be done. So any constructive advice is always welcome and needed.

The link to the SEC appears under 'Site partners' - you should change it - it gives the impression you have some connection to the SEC.

fivetwenty

cailin_donn wrote: »

Think about it, obviously there's a reason that people are mostly dropping from HL maths to OL because of the demands of HL irish, and not the other way around. If people want to drop to OL Maths, then making the Irish course easier won't stop them, they'll still say they "can't cope".

Plus, HL isn't meant to be easy, it's the most difficult level of school and it's the only way to get 100 points per subject, if you really need the 600, you'll work harder. Half of the time giving HL Maths up because people "need to concentrate on other subjects" is just an excuse because the thoughts of HL Maths are daunting (I'm not criticising this btw, I'm planning to do it myself!)



Controversial? That's what we do in my school.... you are talking about doing 7 subjects (one "backup") right? If you're not.... Nevermind:D

Think he meant count Irish, English & Maths - then 3 out of your four chosen subjects rather than six out of seven random subjects. I like his idea personally. Even though I didn't do Irish at higher level so would have hated to see it counted