Monthly Archives: June 2023

Singapore’s PSLE Math Paper

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There is an educational (or psychological or emotional) price a country has to pay if it wants its students to continually rank among the top three in international comparative studies like TIMSS and PISA, or in regional or international math contests and competitions.

An irreverent definition of Singapore’s most dreaded school exam paper

Understandably, parents in Singapore are unhappy about the difficult PSLE (grade 6) math questions that are used to assess their children, before they’d graduate from primary (grades 1–6) school to secondary (middle) school.

And the oft-politically correct or modeled answers from the city-state’s Ministry of Education (MOE) hardly ever pacify or satisfy teachers, parents, and caregivers; in most cases, the canned suggestions or quasi-laughable solutions only make them angrier or more cynical.

PC Slogans for Kiasu Parents

Be it the mantra that “every (local) school is a good school,” or that parents need to help or educate their children believe that “their self-worth or value isn’t dependent on their exam grades” is easier preached than practiced.

When politicians or MOE officials preach to parents that they needn’t be paranoid about their children’s PSLE exam or math score, because it’s not the end of the world, it’s like ex-loansharks-turned-philanthropists or ethically challenged ex-CEOs- or ex-bankers-turned-preachers now telling the financially struggling public that money isn’t everything, or that they’d not make money their god. For the haves to tell the have-nots, it’s utter hypocrisy, to say the least.

Answers and oft-ill-edited half-baked solutions are usually from tutors or teachers-moonlighters.

Tuition: A Necessary Evil for the Nation

Without compulsory tuition or heavy parental involvement, the majority of elementary math students in local schools would likely struggle to score a decent grade in their PSLE math paper.

Singapore’s PSLE math paper with its quota of brain-unfriendly questions looks like a necessary evil that would help define or maintain the “fine” city’s high standard of mathematics regionally and internationally.

From Mid-Year to Mock Exams

This year, Primary 6 students didn’t have to sit for mid-year exams at school, because last year, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing had said that the move would allow them to “focus more on their learning and less on marks.”

In the aftermath of the MOE’s move to do away with all mid-year exams for primary and secondary schools, tuition centers saw a golden opportunity to lure kiasu parents with their mock mid-year exams, whose questions are generally harder (not better) than those set in the PSLE math paper.

Other than parental or peer pressure to excel, most students’ undue stress could be traced to the difficulty of math questions set by neighborhood schools (driven by school rankings) and tuition centers (powered by profits), which are generally harder than those that appear in the PSLE math paper. Yes, they’re the two big culprits that set an unhealthy number of nonroutine questions that often demoralize the kids, by making them feel like they still “aren’t that good in math.”

A Promised Land for Geeks—and Tax Fugitives

Singapore is a “promised land” for those who’re born or blessed with the “mathematical gene” or for those who’d afford a private tutor. However, for the majority of average or math-anxious school children, we can only pray that PSLE math wouldn’t become their bête noire, and that God would keep them motivated and focused as they go through this oft-stressful rite of passage of their schooling years.

I might sound like a mathocrite (short for “mathematical hypocrite”) in giving mathematical or parental advice; nevertheless, let me end with this educational slogan that is worth reiterating, because I believe that the sooner we put it into practice, the less stressful (or peaceful) our life will be: Our math scores or grades don’t define us—in or out of school, and certainly not in life.

Grade-consciouslessly yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 18, 2023.

Make a Ten

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On June 4, 2023, @PicturesFoIder tweeted the following grade one question:

If you were a dad or mum who’s not familiar with teaching and learning math that focuses on relational understanding, not just on instructional understanding, most teachers and homeschoolers would sympathize with you. You’re not alone!

Make a ten is a simple but not simplistic strategy, commonly used by Singapore math and Common Core math elementary school teachers to teach the operations of addition and subtraction meaningfully rather than procedurally through rote learning.

Angry parents would say, “Why make math more complicated? Wouldn’t that (noble?) way of teaching frighten kids rather than motivate them to do math?” They do have a point, don’t they?

Summary page from CPDD’s “Primary Mathematics Textbook 1A” (2021)

Of course, it’s easier said than done, because given a choice, most of us, teachers, tutors, and parents, would find it more convenient or faster to getting children learn math by rote, by rationalizing that they’d naturally know why the procedure works in later years. For now, just teach them the hows—don’t bother about the whys.

Summary page from CPDD’s “Primary Mathematics Textbook 1A” (2021)

In most parts of the world, teaching math the algorithmic way is the default mode of teaching. A common reply or complaint is “Who’s the time and patience to ensure that 30-odd students in a class have really understood why the procedures for adding and subtracting whole numbers make sense to them?”

The Hows and the Whys

What percentage of grades 1–2 teachers worldwide teach both the hows and whys of addition and subtraction? Do they consciously tell children why they need to learn the algorithms rather than using their fingers to count? Or why is it to their benefit that they learn multiplication and division as a shortcut of addition and division, respectively, not to say, the algorithms to perform these operations?

Just because the majority of us didn’t learn school math relationally or meaningfully in our formative years doesn’t mean we’d also subject schoolchildren to the same boring or uncreative pedagogical ritual due to limited time, or to mimimize conceptual overload or potential confusion.

Teach Not the Way You Learned!

School teachers and parents of yesteryear most likely didn’t know or learn about concepts like “make a ten” and “draw a model,” but our present generation of math educators do know. So there’s no excuse not to introduce them to schoolchildren.

We often underestimate young children thinking that they’d not understand or appreciate the whys, because most are already trying or struggling to make sense of the hows. Valid as this argument may be, patiently (and painfully) providing a good mathematical foundation in the early years would bear much fruit in later years, because understanding trumps rote learning any time.

Relationally and meaningfully yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 11, 2023.