"Models (drawing of) destroyed my life." - Sec 3 Math student

I laughed when he said it. But it’s a significant statement by my Sec 3 Math student made two days ago. It’s something I’ve been warning parents and students about, in my earlier article Beware the Critical Years in Math.

This Sec 3 Math tutee is from a top government secondary school in the west. Being mathematically intelligent, he had found it easy to use models-drawing to solve PSLE Math problems. But he had a hard time coping with Algebra in Sec 1 and Sec 2, and it’s affecting both his Math and A. Math performance now. This situation is not unique to him.

The best years of learning by your brain is probably from the time you were born to just before your teenagehood. Singaporeans around my age or older were taught to use algebraic equations to solve math problems at the PSLE back then. I remember using simultaneous equations in 1984 to solve today’s “guess & check” problems in the PSLE. Thus our algebraic skills were good and it helped us, even those who didn’t do well at the PSLE, in doing O-Level and A-Level Math.

Algebra is SO important for Math at O-level and A-level, yet our dear MOE chooses not to introduce it for problem-solving in today’s PSLE. I still don’t understand why.

It is true that some young students may not be able to understand Algebra, due to it being very abstract. But it is also true that some young students are not visually or spatially intelligent enough to draw, cut and move rectangles to solve problems. For eg, what has rectangles got to do with mass or age? (you know, those problems involving age relationships between persons or mass relationships between objects). Using rectangles or boxes to represent age or mass is just as ridiculous or abstract as using letters such as ‘x’ and ‘y’ as in algebra.

The least the MOE should do is to allow the teaching of BOTH methods to solve problems. Since those boxes start appearing in P2 or P3, algebraic expressions should also be introduced at P2 or P3, algebraic expansion in P4, algebraic factorisation in P5, and algebraic equations in P6. Sec 1 students can straightaway start on algebraic fractions etc. Do we lose anything by introducing algebra earlier in our math curriculum?

I’m glad I started my Sec 1 Algebra course for post-PSLE students in Nov and Dec last year (see Sec 1 Algebra Headstart Holiday Enrichment Programme for post-PSLE students). I think students still don’t realise how ill-prepared they are for math in sec school and JC. I dare say that if you are weak in your S1 and S2 algebra, you don’t have to take Math anymore.

Good Luck.

Rgds,

Ilyasa

(M.Ed., PGDE, B.Sc, ex-teacher, full-time tutor: 97860411)