Should maths be optional for leaving cert?

freeze4real

The whole maths course should be changed.

There are people who do not need rigid maths in their lives and by making them learn the so called maths for leaving certs is horrible.

I did my leaving cert last year and i have never done anything in my life that needed trigonometry.

what a complete waste of my time learning that piece of crap.

the maths course should be thought only from first to third year so that students can decide if they need it or not. but majority of students wont know what they're choice of career is by then.

To those you cant stand maths at ordinary level struggle for at least a D or do that of foundation.

To the above poster who said you need maths in business yes, you do but its not advanced maths like calculus algebra trigonometry etc.

Like I said to those who need it its useful to them, to those that don.t its one heavy weight on their shoulder.

Maths should be made more interesting.

partyatmygaff

freeze4real wrote: »

I did my leaving cert last year and i have never done anything in my life that needed trigonometry.

Most people have however... In my LC engineering project I actually found a use for coordinate geometry and trig as well as integration when I was designing my project.

the maths course should be thought

Incidentally, what do you think of the English course?

To the above poster who said you need maths in business yes, you do but its not advanced maths like calculus algebra trigonometry etc.

Taken from Wikipedia
"Mathematics typically used in commerce includes elementary arithmetic, elementary algebra, statistics and probability. Business management can be made more effective in some cases by use of more advanced mathematics such as calculus, matrix algebra and linear programming."

dx22

I hated maths in school and after doing a degree and a masters i now realise that it is an integral part of education along with english and perhaps another language... All other subjects are just filling/fluff that you can learn in you own if u had to, i just wish someone had sat me down and emphasised this to me when i was a kid... good maths and writing skills and the world is your oyster!

freeze4real

what are you implying?

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Incidentally, what do you think of the English course?

."

I am on my iPhone so it must have changed the words.

evolving_doors

crayolastereo wrote: »

But if you get rid of calculators for JC, you would exclude all the people like me, who would be constantly frustrated, discouraged and bored by the endless basic maths. I think its way better to allow people to do the interesting more complicated maths without the tedious other bits.

The "tedious other bits" only take a few seconds unless you haven't practiced them in the past.. for example.. you could say dividing 68 by 32 is tedious but by the time you've found the calculator some one else knows that the answer is at least 2point something.

It's about being comfortable with just a pen and paper and what's the harm in that.

as einstein said

“It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer .”

What's the rush?

yer man!

The current curriculum imo is fairly ****e and the teachers in my experience don't really make it fun. I was actually not bad at maths in secondary school but I found the honours teacher to be really really bad so i dropped to pass and got an A. Once in college i had to do maths in first year and the lecturers actually made the whole thing kinda fun and actually gave us proper really life examples of when you're going to use the maths for problems which made it soooo much better. So many pupils in secondary school always say "when am i going to use this?" and you actually do but the curriculum doesn't really get that point across. It's just learn this and repeat in exam and get your grade....... stupid....

rebel10

dx22 wrote: »

I hated maths in school and after doing a degree and a masters i now realise that it is an integral part of education along with english and perhaps another language... All other subjects are just filling/fluff that you can learn in you own if u had to, i just wish someone had sat me down and emphasised this to me when i was a kid... good maths and writing skills and the world is your oyster!

No, I disagree with that. Obviously if you intend on doing medicine, Maths and English are only going to carry you so far. I don't really believe you could teach yourself Biology. For an engineering course, yes you need maths but also Physics, that certainly couldn't be self-taught. For Design courses including Architecture, Graphic Design etc. you would need Art, that couldn't be self-taught. If the emphasis was put on three subjects alone we would only end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Daire10

I am fully in favour of making every subject optional at LC level (except Irish obviously). I hate maths and I can tell you that I have not gained anything from studying it. Speaking from someone who got an A in JC HL maths (along with another 10 subjects) I can honestly say that it is the only subject I have never used in real life. The only maths I encounter outside school is all basic calculations easily done an a calculator. I have gained do much from others that it sickens me that I have to sit maths in the LC when I could be studying something I have an interest in and will actually benefit me instead. I'm not saying certain people won't benefit greatly from doing maths but that should be up to them to pick maths then if they want to be an engineer etc.

Chuchoter

Daire10 wrote: »

I am fully in favour of making every subject optional at LC level (except Irish obviously). I hate maths and I can tell you that I have not gained anything from studying it. Speaking from someone who got an A in JC HL maths (along with another 10 subjects) I can honestly say that it is the only subject I have never used in real life. The only maths I encounter outside school is all basic calculations easily done an a calculator. I have gained do much from others that it sickens me that I have to sit maths in the LC when I could be studying something I have an interest in and will actually benefit me instead. I'm not saying certain people won't benefit greatly from doing maths but that should be up to them to pick maths then if they want to be an engineer etc.

Of course. Pick the useful one.:rolleyes:

coffeelover

Yes it should be optional. It is the biggest pain ever. I HATE it

dx22

rebel10 wrote: »

No, I disagree with that. Obviously if you intend on doing medicine, Maths and English are only going to carry you so far. I don't really believe you could teach yourself Biology. For an engineering course, yes you need maths but also Physics, that certainly couldn't be self-taught. For Design courses including Architecture, Graphic Design etc. you would need Art, that couldn't be self-taught. If the emphasis was put on three subjects alone we would only end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Biology is pure memorisation did it in school and college no other cognitive skills requied, i agree physics is a different kettle of fish, but i believe uf u have good grounding in maths you will pick ut up readily, can art/ creativity really be taught??

letsbehonest

I am excellent at Business, Geography, LCVP, French and even Irish which I only took up in 2nd year I am pretty good at but maths I can't get my head around at all I can do a pretty good leaving cert I could get over 400 points but I might fail Ordinary level maths. I'll prob have to do foundation level maths. I can add, subtract, multiply, divide, get a % of. I can do basic maths.

rebel10

dx22 wrote: »

Biology is pure memorisation did it in school and college no other cognitive skills requied, i agree physics is a different kettle of fish, but i believe uf u have good grounding in maths you will pick ut up readily, can art/ creativity really be taught??

Yes, of course it can. Giving students the necessary tools to enable them to think critically and creatively is something that needs to be taught and imo, it is one of the subjects which really benefits most other subjects for these reasons alone. That is something which can be taught. Aside from practical work, the Art history course (about 40% of the L.C. course) most certainly needs to be taught as it is such a broad field. Imagine all the professions out there that stem from the subject. Unfortunately, we Irish still have a very traditional view of an artist being someone who holds a pallette and is covered in paint, when today many of the most advancing careers are in the artistic fields. Animation, graphic design, product design, fashion design etc. The genius of Leonardo and the likes wasn't just bestowed on him, he was apprenticed to an artist so he could be taught skills to better his own art and thinking, which is a good example of someone who brought the skills he developed in art into his inventions, theories, medical experiments etc.
Sorry rant over!:)

rebel10

letsbehonest wrote: »

I am excellent at Business, Geography, LCVP, French and even Irish which I only took up in 2nd year I am pretty good at but maths I can't get my head around at all I can do a pretty good leaving cert I could get over 400 points but I might fail Ordinary level maths. I'll prob have to do foundation level maths. I can add, subtract, multiply, divide, get a % of. I can do basic maths.

Honestly, I would go to your maths teacher and explain to her that you need a little help. This happens to me the whole time where I am teaching, and I am more than willing to give extra time to someone who is in need of a little bit more tuition. I was in the same situation as you a good few years ago, hated maths and feared that I would fail Ordinary level, but I got a C. The only reason I passed was because my teacher gave up a few lunch times to help me out on areas of the subject I didn't get. You will be fine.:)

letsbehonest

rebel10 wrote: »

Honestly, I would go to your maths teacher and explain to her that you need a little help. This happens to me the whole time where I am teaching, and I am more than willing to give extra time to someone who is in need of a little bit more tuition. I was in the same situation as you a good few years ago, hated maths and feared that I would fail Ordinary level, but I got a C. The only reason I passed was because my teacher gave up a few lunch times to help me out on areas of the subject I didn't get. You will be fine.:)

I wish I could do this!
For my Junior Cert I had a nice lady for maths and I got a B in ordinary level. She helped me a lot. She explained everything very well gave me us notes on for to do questions and helped us during lunch.
I then went into 5th year and got an older teacher who had the whole book complete by May. He just skips the examples in books and dives straight into questions and he didn't explain them well. Since the beginning of 6th year all we have done is exam papers and if we ask him how to do something he just says Ye should know and hands us the solution. I need someone to explain things to me. So I have just given up on him!

rebel10

letsbehonest wrote: »

I wish I could do this!
For my Junior Cert I had a nice lady for maths and I got a B in ordinary level. She helped me a lot. She explained everything very well gave me us notes on for to do questions and helped us during lunch.
I then went into 5th year and got an older teacher who had the whole book complete by May. He just skips the examples in books and dives straight into questions and he didn't explain them well. Since the beginning of 6th year all we have done is exam papers and if we ask him how to do something he just says Ye should know and hands us the solution. I need someone to explain things to me. So I have just given up on him!

I know it's a difficult situation, but he may suprise you if you ask him for a little help. Is the other teacher still in the school? Could you approach her? Perhaps she could give an hour of her time to help out and just go through things?

MathsManiac

Hmmm. Reading this thread, I wonder whether everyone here realises that maths is currently optional for leaving cert.

coffeelover

Hmmm. Reading this thread, I wonder whether everyone here realises that maths is currently optional for leaving cert.

What? It's optional?

ciarashauna

Yeah as it is a requirement for college courses, not to pass the leaving cert. Some courses do not require maths.

Aoifey!

ciarashauna wrote: »

Yeah as it is a requirement for college courses, not to pass the leaving cert. Some courses do not require maths.

But you do need maths to get into almost every course. If you plan on doing a FAS course then you don't need it (as far as I know), or if you plan on working straight out of school, but with recession and what not that's become less of an option.

Even if you don't want to go into a course right now, a couple of years down the line you might, and it would be better have it and not need it than not have it and need it.

J_E

The man who created Wolfram Alpha gave a talk on TED about restructuring the maths course altogether to eliminate tedious calculating and instead focus on practical applications of maths. You should check it out whenever you have some free time, it's an interesting approach.

ciarashauna

Yeah I would never suggest someone not taking it. I was just stating it was optional in theory. The only course I've heard of so far is (I think) computing in DKIT.