The truth about times table tests
In February the Government announced plans to introduce a new national test of numeracy by testing times tables of Year 4 students. Cue howls of protests from the usual suspects, i.e. the teaching unions and the liberal arts mafia. The reasons they all put forward for opposing this idea were the usual ones.
1) There is already too much testing in schools.
2) Lots of people who are good at maths never knew or learnt their times tables.
3) There are other ways of calculating 9x7 etc.
And as usual, all these reasons are totally false, erroneous and spurious.
Excuse 1) was proffered by Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, but it can be easily dismissed by any teacher working in any school or FE college because they know that all good teaching requires assessment. Every learning outcome in every lesson should be assessed, or tested. So adding an extra test like the times table test should not add to the testing because it should already be being tested. So all you are doing is replacing one test with another.
Excuse 2) is an urban myth because people who never knew their times tables would never have been able to add and simplify fractions, factorise quadratic equations, find prime numbers, or perform any number of other mathematical operations at school, let alone university. If they couldn't remember their times tables then they would be highly unlikely to be able to remember equations or proofs of theorems either. And if you can't remember methods then you can't solve problems.
Excuse 3) is often contradicted by the very people who propose it. Take this example from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. His "technique for solving the nine-sevens problem ... is to take 7, double it to make 14, double that to make 28, and again to make 56 and then add 7 to make 63". Brilliant! Except that this whole approach is based on knowing your times tables as well. It requires you to first know that 9 = 8+1 and then that 8 = 2x2x2, or 8 = 2x4 and 4 = 2x2. In other words, you need to know the 2 and 4 times tables. Other methods for other similar problems would require a knowledge of other times tables. For example, trebling 7 and then trebling it again would be a lot quicker.
Excuse 4) is another favourite of the post-modernist liberal. It is based on one of two distinct themes. The first is the anti-maths or anti-STEM brigade which is hardly worthy of further comment. The second though is more insidious. It is an attempt to undermine the educational process by promoting skills before knowledge. It is the idea that students don't need to know basic facts, but should instead be taught advanced skills from an early age. In short it is the educational equivalent of the idea that you can teach people to run before they can walk.
But all of this misses the main point. That is that the real reason why the educational establishment is so hostile to initiatives like times table tests is that they know that the only way such topics can be taught is by rote learning, and that is the real issue. What we are dealing with here is a veiled attempt to ban specific teaching methods despite diktats from Ofsted and the Government to the contrary. That is the truth about times table tests.
1) There is already too much testing in schools.
2) Lots of people who are good at maths never knew or learnt their times tables.
3) There are other ways of calculating 9x7 etc.
4) No-one needs to know this stuff anyway.
And as usual, all these reasons are totally false, erroneous and spurious.
Excuse 1) was proffered by Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, but it can be easily dismissed by any teacher working in any school or FE college because they know that all good teaching requires assessment. Every learning outcome in every lesson should be assessed, or tested. So adding an extra test like the times table test should not add to the testing because it should already be being tested. So all you are doing is replacing one test with another.
Excuse 2) is an urban myth because people who never knew their times tables would never have been able to add and simplify fractions, factorise quadratic equations, find prime numbers, or perform any number of other mathematical operations at school, let alone university. If they couldn't remember their times tables then they would be highly unlikely to be able to remember equations or proofs of theorems either. And if you can't remember methods then you can't solve problems.
Excuse 3) is often contradicted by the very people who propose it. Take this example from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. His "technique for solving the nine-sevens problem ... is to take 7, double it to make 14, double that to make 28, and again to make 56 and then add 7 to make 63". Brilliant! Except that this whole approach is based on knowing your times tables as well. It requires you to first know that 9 = 8+1 and then that 8 = 2x2x2, or 8 = 2x4 and 4 = 2x2. In other words, you need to know the 2 and 4 times tables. Other methods for other similar problems would require a knowledge of other times tables. For example, trebling 7 and then trebling it again would be a lot quicker.
Excuse 4) is another favourite of the post-modernist liberal. It is based on one of two distinct themes. The first is the anti-maths or anti-STEM brigade which is hardly worthy of further comment. The second though is more insidious. It is an attempt to undermine the educational process by promoting skills before knowledge. It is the idea that students don't need to know basic facts, but should instead be taught advanced skills from an early age. In short it is the educational equivalent of the idea that you can teach people to run before they can walk.
But all of this misses the main point. That is that the real reason why the educational establishment is so hostile to initiatives like times table tests is that they know that the only way such topics can be taught is by rote learning, and that is the real issue. What we are dealing with here is a veiled attempt to ban specific teaching methods despite diktats from Ofsted and the Government to the contrary. That is the truth about times table tests.
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