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Originally Posted by Nodrog
Quoting this because everyone should read it
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The main question I ould have in regard to this (and I only read the first 5 pages, so forgive me if it goes off at another tangent later that I haven't addressed) would be simply that if the state of mathematics education is so dire and terrible, then why do we still have a significant proportion of students taking it up beyond GCSE level?
If it's so boring and crappy and takes the enjoyment out of it, then why do you, I, and many others enjoy maths problems?
The reason (which this article doesn't seem to address) is that not everyone
can enjoy maths. There will always be some subjects at school which we do not enjoy. I hated sports (PE) and MFL (yet, bizarrely, studied two languages...). Changing the teaching style of maths won't suddenly infuse learners with the desire to become mathematicians.
Oh, and by the way I believe that Maths
does involve more "fun" type puzzles now than when we were at school. I was talking to another teacher (maths) a week or so ago and he was giving the pupils basic numeracy puzzles to solve, to try and crack the code for a briefcase he'd brought in. The successful pupil(s) would win the prize inside.