If I ruled the world

It is sometimes said or implied that the state of mathematics education is sub-optimal. I’m inclined to agree.

What might be done about it? Here’s a radical suggestion.

As an interim measure, re-name 'mathematics' as 'art' or 'music' or 'sport' and have the teachers of those subjects take over the time previously allocated to mathematics, allowing those students to spend that time exploring mathematical ideas that come up in their classes (eg, randomness, pattern, shape, number representations, spatial arrangement, ...); while the maths teachers attend retraining - those claiming not to need the training can participate with a view to sharing their expertise with the rest, working on their mentoring skills, and devising collaborative teaching strategies.

The retraining would incorporate these changes:

- learn to adopt principles and objectives typically observed and highly valued in art, music and sport: creativity, beauty, effort, commitment, diversity, cooperation, listening, expressing, risk-taking

- realise that all humans are capable of learning mathematics and functioning successfully in mathematics-laden environments

- develop a better understanding of typical learning trajectories, and where mathematics fits into these

- abandon strictly year-level school organisational models, and curricular arrangements, in recognition of the variation observed among members of any group

- learn to diagnose where individual students are on their mathematical learning path, what gaps need to be filled, and what could come next

- learn to do more than one thing at a time, to facilitate teaching according to student needs rather than the strictures of the syllabus, recipes in the text books, and requirements of the next test