Thoughts from the Chatsworth Primary Hallway

I remember sitting in Mrs. Miller’s class as a grade five student.  Every day we had to tear a piece of A4 paper “hot dog style” (length wise) and share the other half with a friend.  We then numbered our paper from 1-10.  She then set out calling times tables at breakneck speed.  As she called out the questions, the students’ job was to write down the answers as quickly as possible.  We then exchanged papers and graded the problems.  Mrs. Miller would then call our names and we had to tell her, in front of the class, how many we answered correctly.

Luckily I was good at my times tables.  However, I had friends who had not yet learned them consistently.  Because of this, they did not like going to math class.  They became turned off to the subject because they felt unsuccessful and embarrassed each day.  Instead of becoming inspired to learn the tables, they became to loathe the subject of mathematics.

The dissertation for my doctorate degree focused on how technology can help digital natives (today’s students) learn their multiplication facts more quickly and sustain the knowledge over time.  In doing this research, I read extensively about mathematics and mathematics learning.  An area that was of particular interest to me was how students can develop anxiety towards mathematics.  Researcher and educator Gerardo Ramirez has found that children as young as 5-6 years old are susceptible to developing anxiety towards the subject.  

One major cause of our children developing math anxiety is due to timed testing.  The scenario I described above still happens in schools all over the world; it does not, however, occur in the Primary section at Chatsworth.  

I presented this idea briefly when I met with Primary parents at the first Parent Café.  This was also a topic of conversation at our first Primary staff meeting where we spoke of how we will continue to stay away from timed testing as any benefit that would come from them was heavily outweighed by the damage it could cause our students.  

To our Muslim families celebrating Eid al-Adha, I wish you well.  I hope that all of our community enjoys this long weekend.  

Dr Michael Berry