Surely the solution to all our problems! Maths is completely broken at
2nd level, we are not in a position to fix it, so go with the flow
and extract all math content from our 3rd and 4th level
courses!
This would result in more students eager to do such a course (its easy!), no
problems with retention (no-one fails!), and lots of graduates who will get jobs
with companies starved of technical know-how. And while we are at it if its an
ICT course take out the programming and software development skills as well, as
they are hard to teach and hard to learn.
All of our quality monitors would be quite happy with this, in fact such a
course would pass completely under the quality radar. The statistics on
completion rates etc. would look great, and no-one would complain. Certainly not
the graduates who would think they were the bees knees and expect to quickly get
to well-paid top management positions where their lack of technical skills would
not be an issue.
(Occasionally I do get such a graduate coming to me with top honours in such
a degree and enquiring about doing a Ph.D. It is difficult to explain to them
that they have been sold a pup in terms of their 3rd level education, and that
there is no way in the world that they would be able for a computing Ph.D.)
And of course the problem wouldn't be solved, just pushed up the food chain.
It’s the aghast employer who learns to their horror that the honours science
graduate can’t do long division.
Meanwhile big multi-nationals, while going along with the myth of our world
class education system, grumble amongst themselves, quietly import people from
abroad to do the hard technical stuff, and plan their departure from our
shores.
To avoid such dumbing down (for that is what it is) we urgently need to fix
math at 2nd level. Here is where “Project Maths” comes in, which
seems to have gone from being a blatant political fig-leaf (politicians must of
course be seen to be “doing something”), to being the fount of all our hopes.
Frankly the jury is out on Project Math. I have heard good and bad reports. Let
us hope it lives up to its billing, as there is a lot riding on it.
Meanwhile in DCU we will continue to insist that graduates emerging from our
computing degree courses will have strong technical skills. This is why
employers consistently indicate a preference for our graduates. If this means
taking the occasional hit from an ill-informed media about poor retention rates,
then so be it.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Media & Mathematics
How often do you hear a media professional say something like “Sure I was
brutal at Mathematics at school – hated it with a vengeance - hahaha..”,
the subtext being – look it clearly didn’t do me any harm as here I am on RTE getting a fat fee for jabbering on about nothing in particular and displaying how witty I am. I suppose its only natural that people from a humanities background dominate in the media – after all they need to do something. And these put-downs of the sciences must be taken on the chin – any attempt at retaliation along the lines of “sure you are only a useless bunch of needy navel-gazing wasters” brings on an instant whinge about the humanities not being sufficiently valued. And these people surely need to feel valued.
The other day I heard an hilarious exchange on RTE radio when it was suggested that some-one might actually have been good at maths, and might indeed even have liked the subject. The poor man was indignant as he hastily protested that no, he was brutal at maths, absolutely hated it. He was clearly horrified that he might be considered as being outside of the national consensus. And that consensus is about fear and loathing of math. The damage done by this sort of idle chatter is inestimable. You certainly would not get away with boasting of illiteracy (hahaha, can’t read or write, aren’t I the gas man?), and yet boasting about innumeracy is completely acceptable. And this shows up in numerous ways – billions and millions routinely mixed up and a complete inability to absorb the significance of statistics (and indeed as many politicians would be aware, it is trivially easy to fool the Irish public by misuse of statistics). In fact it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that national innumeracy might have played a part in the mess that is our current financial/economic situation.
And yet as is now generally accepted, producing graduates with world class maths skills is vital to our national well-being. Bluntly put, multi-nationals are not attracted to set up in Ireland because of the theatre scene. Instead we produce commentators whose job is to commentate on other commentators. It’s a national characteristic – we much admire clever commentary on the activities of others, rather than actually attempt something ourselves. This is of course recognised by specifically Irish terms such as “begrudgery”, or “hurlers on the ditch”. Unfortunately it encourages a strongly anti-innovation culture.
It is often claimed that Ireland has a great tradition in Mathematics. However a close examination of the role of honour reveals that most of Ireland’s famous mathematicians were of a distinctly Anglo flavour, and although they may have worked here (as part of the then UK), they could not be considered as representative of a long native tradition.
Which isn’t to say that such a tradition cannot be started right now…
the subtext being – look it clearly didn’t do me any harm as here I am on RTE getting a fat fee for jabbering on about nothing in particular and displaying how witty I am. I suppose its only natural that people from a humanities background dominate in the media – after all they need to do something. And these put-downs of the sciences must be taken on the chin – any attempt at retaliation along the lines of “sure you are only a useless bunch of needy navel-gazing wasters” brings on an instant whinge about the humanities not being sufficiently valued. And these people surely need to feel valued.
The other day I heard an hilarious exchange on RTE radio when it was suggested that some-one might actually have been good at maths, and might indeed even have liked the subject. The poor man was indignant as he hastily protested that no, he was brutal at maths, absolutely hated it. He was clearly horrified that he might be considered as being outside of the national consensus. And that consensus is about fear and loathing of math. The damage done by this sort of idle chatter is inestimable. You certainly would not get away with boasting of illiteracy (hahaha, can’t read or write, aren’t I the gas man?), and yet boasting about innumeracy is completely acceptable. And this shows up in numerous ways – billions and millions routinely mixed up and a complete inability to absorb the significance of statistics (and indeed as many politicians would be aware, it is trivially easy to fool the Irish public by misuse of statistics). In fact it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that national innumeracy might have played a part in the mess that is our current financial/economic situation.
And yet as is now generally accepted, producing graduates with world class maths skills is vital to our national well-being. Bluntly put, multi-nationals are not attracted to set up in Ireland because of the theatre scene. Instead we produce commentators whose job is to commentate on other commentators. It’s a national characteristic – we much admire clever commentary on the activities of others, rather than actually attempt something ourselves. This is of course recognised by specifically Irish terms such as “begrudgery”, or “hurlers on the ditch”. Unfortunately it encourages a strongly anti-innovation culture.
It is often claimed that Ireland has a great tradition in Mathematics. However a close examination of the role of honour reveals that most of Ireland’s famous mathematicians were of a distinctly Anglo flavour, and although they may have worked here (as part of the then UK), they could not be considered as representative of a long native tradition.
Which isn’t to say that such a tradition cannot be started right now…
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