I wonder if critical thinking is a part of universities being a target for right wing groups, because critical thinking is a key skill in research that teaches you to question and challenge information while looking for other sources and views. Schooling at younger ages is just “this is how it is, learn it”, so it’s easier to influence people who just believe what they’re told.
As long as they don’t use english lessons or we’ll be reading the Nardigag again
The headline sounds like bollox but we could all benefit from proper statistics classes
There. Are. No. Maths. Teachers.
This really is something that needs to be shouted from the fucking rooftops at this point. Every bloody party seems to be under the impression that “do more maths” is a great policy and will stop the intellectual decline of the nation. That’s all well and good until they realise that this additional maths provision (whether it be more years of maths, more lessons each week or more content matter to cover) will need to be taught by Wendy the LSA who barely scraped her O Level (no offence to any Wendys, LSAs or O Level takers – I love you all) and she’ll be trying to stay just one lesson ahead.
And yeah, I get that, *on the statistics,* the problem is getting “better”. Last year, schools recruited 90% of the target number of maths teachers… because they slashed the target number despite the need being greater on the facts. And that figure doesn’t take into account the fact that maths teachings, statistically are almost 50% more likely to leave in the first five years than other subjects.
I appreciate the fact that a comprehensive understanding of maths is important and has a huge swathe of benefits but, without a robust plan to address the shortage of teachers, any plan to do maths more or better or more comprehensively just will not happen.
A lot of conspiracy theories rely on a misunderstanding of data so basic they literally do cover it in Year 8 maths. Emphasising the “here is how stats can mislead” part of it a bit more couldn’t hurt.
In my experience many conspiracy theories had been perpetuated by teachers, I’ll never forget a highschool teacher claiming that mobile phones are dangerous when placed near your head due to microwaves. Or a college teacher who claimed that vaccines cause autism.
Doesn’t matter, the new reality is that the old reality is fake and nothing can overpower that with a single policy unless it’s seriously authoritarian
What conspiracies theories could actually be debunked by maths? I guess the flat earth theory but anything else?
When teaching about statistics I wonder if they will mention the fact that many of our civil institutions refuse to collect data on certain topics?
How are they going to deal with cases the conspiracy theories turned out to be true? For example, the conspiracy theory that cigarette companies knew their products caused cancer.
This is the start of every totalitarian political force. Imbue every aspect of education and life with the official Party ethos.
Using algebra to prove Oswald killed Kennedy after all
Weird how English already does this very effectively, but the emphasis is on history, IT & maths. I can see superficial points in favour of each (e.g. maths seems like an obvious place to examine misuse of statistics, until one considers that the misuse is more to do with the import than the methodology). Glad to hear it’s on their radar but this sounds like a very hazy plan that hasn’t yet had any expert input.
Ok what about this for a maths question:
Q: If the UK issues 1 million visas each year, how fucked is the average young person trying to buy their own home?
15 comments
Non paywall version here https://archive.is/2024.03.09-171812/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-will-use-maths-lessons-to-debunk-conspiracy-theories-29vknjkcc
I wonder if critical thinking is a part of universities being a target for right wing groups, because critical thinking is a key skill in research that teaches you to question and challenge information while looking for other sources and views. Schooling at younger ages is just “this is how it is, learn it”, so it’s easier to influence people who just believe what they’re told.
As long as they don’t use english lessons or we’ll be reading the Nardigag again
The headline sounds like bollox but we could all benefit from proper statistics classes
There. Are. No. Maths. Teachers.
This really is something that needs to be shouted from the fucking rooftops at this point. Every bloody party seems to be under the impression that “do more maths” is a great policy and will stop the intellectual decline of the nation. That’s all well and good until they realise that this additional maths provision (whether it be more years of maths, more lessons each week or more content matter to cover) will need to be taught by Wendy the LSA who barely scraped her O Level (no offence to any Wendys, LSAs or O Level takers – I love you all) and she’ll be trying to stay just one lesson ahead.
And yeah, I get that, *on the statistics,* the problem is getting “better”. Last year, schools recruited 90% of the target number of maths teachers… because they slashed the target number despite the need being greater on the facts. And that figure doesn’t take into account the fact that maths teachings, statistically are almost 50% more likely to leave in the first five years than other subjects.
I appreciate the fact that a comprehensive understanding of maths is important and has a huge swathe of benefits but, without a robust plan to address the shortage of teachers, any plan to do maths more or better or more comprehensively just will not happen.
A lot of conspiracy theories rely on a misunderstanding of data so basic they literally do cover it in Year 8 maths. Emphasising the “here is how stats can mislead” part of it a bit more couldn’t hurt.
In my experience many conspiracy theories had been perpetuated by teachers, I’ll never forget a highschool teacher claiming that mobile phones are dangerous when placed near your head due to microwaves. Or a college teacher who claimed that vaccines cause autism.
Doesn’t matter, the new reality is that the old reality is fake and nothing can overpower that with a single policy unless it’s seriously authoritarian
What conspiracies theories could actually be debunked by maths? I guess the flat earth theory but anything else?
When teaching about statistics I wonder if they will mention the fact that many of our civil institutions refuse to collect data on certain topics?
https://twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1764623598906450091
How are they going to deal with cases the conspiracy theories turned out to be true? For example, the conspiracy theory that cigarette companies knew their products caused cancer.
This is the start of every totalitarian political force. Imbue every aspect of education and life with the official Party ethos.
Using algebra to prove Oswald killed Kennedy after all
Weird how English already does this very effectively, but the emphasis is on history, IT & maths. I can see superficial points in favour of each (e.g. maths seems like an obvious place to examine misuse of statistics, until one considers that the misuse is more to do with the import than the methodology). Glad to hear it’s on their radar but this sounds like a very hazy plan that hasn’t yet had any expert input.
Ok what about this for a maths question:
Q: If the UK issues 1 million visas each year, how fucked is the average young person trying to buy their own home?