Bad at maths?

Being bad at maths is one of those things that we all take for granted in the UK. We find it perfectly acceptable, even normal. If something mathematical crops during a conversation we will have no hesitation in saying something like, "oh, I'm hopeless at maths - can't do them to save my life." If there's a change in the mortgage interest rate or a bank statement arrives in the post we might spend a little while trying to work out why the figures represent worse news than we'd expected, but before long we enlist the help of someone else with those words we are completely unashamed to use.

What is more, the person we ask is just as likely to reply with the same disclaimer and we think none the worse of them. On the contrary, we regard them as completely normal and together will scratch our heads as to who, among our joint acquaintances, might just be that oddball who can actually do mathematics.

It's not like this in other countries as, over the years, many hapless Britons have found out. It will happen during a social conversation or perhaps during a coffee break at a conference. The subject of mathematics will crop up and we will happily remark, as we have so many times before, that we really can't do maths. And we expect the chorus of agreement which has always followed on previous occasions. But this time there's an embarrassing silence. This time the audience consists of people from countries in Europe or beyond and instead of a light-hearted minute or so of banter the subject is quickly changed.

Many a Briton has wondered why the joke didn't go down as well as it does at home and they put it down to one of those curious differences between nations. But on the occasions when the conversation does go further it turns out that claiming to be bad at maths in most countries is similar to claiming to be unable to read. It's just not something that you make public and people are amazed when we tell them that being poor at maths is perfectly acceptable in English society and even tends to show you as a bit of a "good egg".

When it comes to reading we are quite different. For most people, an inability to read is seen as an embarrassment which they keep closely to themselves. They will even have devised many strategies over the years to cover up their shortcoming.

But for mathematics, the situation seems to operate in reverse. Just as the poor reader in school will develop strategies to hide their lack of skill, so the good mathematician will learn opposite strategies designed to hide how good they are. Better to be one of the crowd and not risk being labelled as some kind of boffin.

The ramifications of this British attitude to mathematics flow out into industry. Although some industries, such as insurance or engineering, clearly require knowledge of mathematics and swallow up those who do admit to being good at it, the fact is that every business needs mathematical thinking and mathematical skills. Clear analytical thinking skills and a sound knowledge of mathematical concepts are essential components for everyone who is involved at almost any level of business.

Fortunately help is at hand with one of the most notoriously difficult areas of mathematics and it's a topic which probably has much to do with the incubation of the British attitude to maths during our primary school years. The topic is fractions and it must be a favourite for the title of "most disliked maths topic". Many a primary school child has struggled to understand fractions and their difficulty has continued throughout their school lives as layer upon layer of complication was added to their already insecure understanding. Vulgar fractions, equivalent fractions, addition and subtraction of fractions. The list goes on and each topic builds on the insecurity of knowledge that began in the primary school. The answer for many of us - and it's the way many maths O-Levels were obtained - was to learn tricks, parrot-fashion. "If you double the top you must double the bottom" we learned and sure enough the O-Level was ours. But did we really understand what it means mathematically?

Visual Fractions from Logotron is about to change all this. As you can see in these screenshots the program includes an absolute wealth of visual imagery which all supports the understanding of fractions. What these screenshots don't show, frozen in time as they are, is the way these images are alive. Drag the point along a number line, for instance and the fraction, the pie chart, the number of pears, the decimal, the percentage and the ratio ALL change to match it. This is powerful imagery which has vibrancy and a life of its own. The child who increases the number of strawberries and sees the fraction change as he does so discovers that fractions are alive and fun and under his or her control. It's a far cry from the dry, theoretical textbook material that we grappled with when we were young.

Perhaps the time has come at last when mathematics is seen as a great subject which has value and relevance in all walks of life. Perhaps in the future the British will have a different attitude. Perhaps the next generation will find that admitting to being bad at maths is not something they will choose to do.