A survey of mathematics teaching in secondary schools in New Zealand 1900 - 1950

Abstract

A clear understanding of the trends In Mathematics teaching in New Zealand can only be had by an examination of the New Zealand situation in relation to that which has existed in England, especially in the Grammar Schools. Our own post-primary system was, consciously or unconsciously, originally modelled in large part on that existing in England during last century. The teachers who at first taught in our schools had been trained in the ways of the English secondary education system. They in turn trained others along similar, if not the same, lines, and it is not too much to say that in Mathematics, at any rate, the formalism that has surrounded the teaching of the subject in this country is, in no small measure, due to the traditional methods transferred from teacher to future teacher throughout the generations. Add to this the inadequate training given in the past to secondary school teachers; the cramping effect of external examinations - the "examination incubus", as it was described even last century; the natural lack of enthusiasm of headmasters for experimentation and change when they already have a "workable" organization; the inertia which delays the reflection in schools of changes not only in educational theory but also in the conditions of living of the world outside; and the almost pathetic faith which some secondary teachers have had ( and often still have ) in the superior disciplinary value of certain subjects over others; and the main reasons for the apparent slowness of progress in teaching methods in secondary schools are made clear. Nowhere, I think, is the lag greater than in Mathematics teaching, especially in the secondary school proper ( as distinct from technical schools, district high schools, and other types of post-primary schools ).