Monday, November 17

Advanced General Mathematics

Advanced General Mathematics was introduced at the Salt Mine two years ago. Coming from schools where Sir had the pleasure of teaching at the Senior levels, Sir volunteered to run this subject as an extension Mathematics course available to the select bright ones. It has run, Sir has certainly enjoyed the eclectic curriculum of Semester One and the beauty of Trigonometric ratios in the Second Semester. Trading beloved Chemistry, Organic compounds and Ionic bonding for Sine, Cosine and Tangent curves, discussions around pieces of pi and modelling the movements of the tide, the sun across the sky in Antartica, temperature over a day. A fair exchange? Sir thought so.

The powers that be, heading working parties around implementing college wide strategies to raise the literacy levels College Wide decide that there is no longer a market for the Yr 11 Mathematics in Yr 10. It seems that Nationwide PAT test data has shown that our students have a lower than expected literacy levels. In fact, more specifically, literacy levels seem to
fall from Yr 7 to Yr 9. Solution: introduce a Literacy program that has been shown to improve literacy in the most illiterate children in our Western Schools... proven to work in Queensland!

Setting the context, stepping aside from the politics of creating a Leading teacher position
from an aspirant AP week's holiday, aside from developing an understanding of the classification of schools in the Western suburbs of Victoria someone has to be the lowest in order for a system of comparison to work the junior classes of the Salt Mine lost Mathematics lessons to make way for the Literacy program. Wonder why the Yr 9 kiddies can't get their head around playing with pro-numerals and slicing up pieces of the unit circle.

Despite the loss of the subject, Sir enjoyed the last exam for the class of 2008, wondering how long it will take to accrue enough apathy to chat all the way through the exam... or is it the elusive prerequisite for a Leading Teacher?


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