“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” So said Albert Einstein, physicist, philosopher and man of numbers. Mathematical logic and reason lie at the heart of some of humanity’s greatest achievements. Without it, there would be no progress and no modernity.
Fitting, then, that Stephen Hawking will deliver the BBC’s 2015 Reith lecture to mark the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of relativity. But as we tune in, we need to ask whether we’re doing enough to nurture the talents of the scientists and mathematicians of the future. Not simply to produce the next Hawking, but because competence in the subject at school is one of the strongest predictors of life success. Yet in OECD global maths rankings, the UK comes just 26th.
In this context, the news that an increasing proportion of pupils is being taught maths by non-specialists is deeply worrying. For it is the quality of teaching that is the most important difference between a good and an average school. No teacher can be truly great without passion and the ability to explain and inspire. But expertise and deep understanding are also fundamental.
Einstein once commented: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it.” Its inverse is also true: to explain something to a six-year-old you must properly understand it yourself. The teaching of maths by non-specialists is a trend unfolding against a troubling backdrop: a general shortage within the profession and government reforms that have watered down teacher training and scrapped the need in state-funded schools for a teaching qualification.
Of course there are some teachers who are born brilliant, but for the majority, the ability to educate is a skill that needs nurturing. To reform Britain’s training system based on the flawed premise that we have an abundance of naturally outstanding teachers put off by the need to train will do nothing to address shortages and will serve only to undermine the profession’s status.
