The Whizz

Maths is too geeky, according to a UK research council study reported in the Education Guardian .

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) study showed:

…that students think of mathematicians as old, white, middle-class men who are obsessed with their subject, lack social skills and have no personal life outside maths.

You might be tempted to wonder if this report comes from the university Department for Stating the Bleeding Obvious, but it’s worth pausing for a second and thinking hard about where such attitudes come from, and what effects they have.

(Danica McKellar, full-time actress, part-time published mathematician, author of ‘Math Doesn’t Suck’ (trans: ‘Maths Isn’t That Bad, Honestly’), and - if the ESRC study is anything to go by - the exception that proves the rule)

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The testing system in England is in danger of damaging children’s education, according to a recent report from the Children, Schools and Families parliamentary select committee.

As the BBC reports, 25 million papers are taken in an annual orgy of testing that, the committee argues, risks placing too much emphasis on too few types of test and on teaching to the test.

More damningly, the report states:

…that the single-level tests’ “one-way ratchet” system will lead to an “artificial” improvement in results, in which pupils will be “certified to have achieved a level of knowledge and understanding which they do not in truth possess”.

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The parents’ evening is going out of fashion, according to an article in The Guardian, yesterday.

Polly Curtis reports:

Rather than an evening a term queueing for a five-minute chat with teachers, parents want more frequent access, or to monitor their children’s progress online, according to research commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The DCSF report, summarised here, suggests that parents’ working lives are getting in the way of engagement with their students’ education, especially homework.

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Whizz Education is on Facebook!

The social networking website that threatened to take over the world in 2007 now features a Whizz Education company site where you can become a fan, view Whizz videos, check out Whizz company pics and chat away about Maths-Whizz Tutoring and Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource with other fans until the cows come home.

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Eagle-eyed Whizz Blog readers - what other kind are there - will have noticed the snazzy Whizz Scientific Calculator lurking in the sidebar to the right of the main blog page.

The Whizz Scientific Calculator is as it appears in our Key Stage 3 animated exercises in our Teachers’ Resource and our online Tutoring service; it features power functions, logarithms, trigonometry buttons and fraction conversion and all that jazz. Do your homework, work out your tax, write rude number-words or calculate the budget deficit (though you may need a larger screen for the last one).

Visit the Whizz Calculator Widgetbox page to put the Whizz calculator in your blog, on your website or even in your Facebook page or Google homepage. Click the ‘Get Widget’  button, select where you want to put your own Whizz Calculator, and copy the code as appropriate.

You can also add the Whiz calculator to your iGoogle page instantly with this link.

If you’re struggling with maths homework and it seems nobody can help, why not call the emergency services!

This is transcript and audio from a call four-year-old ‘Johnny’ made to 911 (the US equivalent of 999) when he was struggling with his maths. It’s no wonder he needed help from America’s finest; we wouldn’t expect our students to attempt such subtraction questions until Year 1 (roughly age 6) at least…

This video, and more, available on the Whizz Education YouTube Channel.