A test was undertaken of grade 9 students in a state in Australia.

A question was : -

If someone had 24 green apples and 12 red apples, what was the fraction of red apples?

1/3 of the grade 9 students in the state did not get the right answer.

I really believe many teachers in Australia do not understand the full situation. Australian students are not just competing amongst themselves, they are also competing with students on an international basis, and their chances of being able to compete with students in other countries in future years is rather grim.

I have regular contact with some students in another country. They may know 2-3 speaking languages, but also 5-6 computer languages. They won’t import a piece of software, they will write the software.

Compare this to our education system that allows 1/3 of students to not know elementary mathematics, and an education system that imports everything.

If the question really was as Vanna says — "If someone had 24 green apples and 12 red apples, what was the fraction of red apples? — I'm with the two-thirds who didn't know the answer. I don't even know the question (though I can make good guess at what it was trying to ask).

It's badly worded.

Should've been in the English exam.

GlenC, Houellebecq

Perhaps you can understand this: -

"It’s important that we ensure that new national standards for teaching and school leadership address the inner person, and that standards aren’t reduced to standardisation, says David Loader."

http://research.acer.edu.au/teacher/vol2010/iss215/4/

A statement that can mean anything to anyone, but so typical of many statements now being produced in the world of Australian academia.

1/3 has more meaning.

Lucky kid he could and did absent himself from the torture chamber
Seems no one cared about his attending

What about the poor unfortunates who do attend and are bored out of their brains, frustrated beyond belief because there is no challenge, often little to inculcate the love of learning........... not even an SRA kit(available in the 70's) with which they can challenge themselves LOL

Frighteningly this state of affairs can lead to quite serious psychological conditions in intelligent children and they can be lost to the system

I have a feeling of deja vu reading this article and the respondents
We seem to talk about these things and never find the answer

Vanna
Did you read the whole article by David Loader
His thoughts were not expressed so that one could readily understand but there were some considerations that were worth reflection namely that principls and other leaders should inject input into that body and form it in a way that is useful and significant

My own thought is that philosophy be an essential component of every teachers learning. Until teachers have some comprehension of the multitude of perceptions about how the world works they wont understand their learners and will be unable to enter their world for teaching.