The findings of the 2022 National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) in mathematics and statistics have been released, and it’s the same old same old. Only 42% of Year 8 students are meeting curriculum expectations, down from 45% in 2018, with statistically significant drops in achievement among girls, and Māori and Pacific students.  

If you want some good news for a change, the schools that I work with defy these depressing statistics. Read all about it here. It shows you what progress and achievement looks like when you understand the mathematical and cognitive principles of teaching approaches that really work, and simply get on with teaching the kids.

The Minister of Education is probably right to be grateful that the results weren’t even worse after three years of disruption to learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. But can we honestly expect to raise student achievement when the Ministry continues to allow experimentation in the classroom, promoting “theoretical frameworks or approaches to teaching, informed by evidence of how ākonga learn”? It was dismaying to hear the Minister defend some of the highly dubious content in Phase 1 of the Common Practice Model (CPM), published earlier this year. Not to be confused with the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area, where feedback was sought on the first two drafts before being finalised, there is no evidence the CPM was ever released to the public in draft form.

In this document, we are told that “a critical maths pedagogical approach uses maths to develop critical awareness about wider social, environmental, political, ideological, and economic issues. Critical maths recognises the importance of understanding, interpreting, and addressing issues of power, social justice and equity in the community and the wider world.”

Of the references offered to support this approach:

• two were not publicly accessible;
• one was 25 years old, an indulgent academic introspection suggesting that teachers play “mind games” to increase their awareness of the “values” (definitely not the numerical type) they signal to students when they teach maths;
• one was a respected university professor’s plea for undergraduate teaching to move away from textbook problem-solving and towards the use of more open problems. Written 13 years ago, this opinion piece is not even close to being educational research, let alone applicable to either critical maths or teaching school-aged children;
• this one was actually an interesting read, but the authors rather undermined themselves by citing an example of moving beyond teaching about and for social justice to teaching with social justice. They admitted the problem wasn’t real-world, let alone related to injustice – it was just inclusive teaching.  Indeed, the authors acknowledged that mathematical proof is democratic in nature, so this was a fine example of how, if you respect the culture of mathematics, there is no injustice. Simple.

Which brings me back to one sentence in the CPM that ought to set alarm bells ringing:

“Ākonga are encouraged to interrogate dominant discourses and assumptions, including that maths is benign, neutral, and culture-free.”

The Common Practice Model Phase 1: Principles and Pedagogical Approaches

Is the Ministry seriously proposing that teachers should encourage their students to challenge the neutrality of mathematics, to mistrust the very tool that would empower them to rise above dominant discourses and assumptions and reach their own conclusions through objective thinking, critical analysis and logical deduction??

My mathematical training compels me to keep an open mind, so I decided to ask an entity that could reasonably be expected to be benign and neutral (but not culture-free since it was created by humans. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.) Here is what ChatGPT had to say about the matter:

Q: Is mathematics benign, neutral and culture-free?

A: Mathematics itself is a branch of knowledge that deals with logical reasoning and quantitative analysis. As a subject, mathematics is generally considered to be neutral and culture-free because mathematical concepts and principles are universal and can be applied across different cultures and contexts.

However, the way mathematics is taught, used, and applied in different cultures and contexts can reflect the values, beliefs, and biases of those cultures. For example, the way that mathematical concepts are taught and presented may differ based on cultural norms and traditions. Additionally, the use of mathematics in various fields such as finance, engineering, and social sciences can reflect cultural biases and power structures.

Overall, while mathematics as a subject is generally considered to be neutral and culture-free, its application and use can be influenced by cultural factors. It is important to be aware of these potential biases and to approach mathematics with a critical and culturally-sensitive perspective.

ChatGPT 3.5

So even an artifical intelligence engine is able to recognise the difference between mathematics being benign, neutral and culture-free, as opposed to its application or the way it is taught. That the Ministry of Education failed to make that distinction is disturbing.

By all means, let students use maths to examine social injustice…in their social science lessons.

Dr Audrey M. Tan
July 2023