Mathematics and the Leaning Tower of PISA

I have had the good fortune of visiting Pisa, Italy twice in the 1990s and recall well the magnetic pull of the tower that leans. Disembarking from the train at the station you don't need a map to get to the tower as you just join the masses who all are feeling the tower's draw. You get sucked into their flow and follow. When you see the tower for the first time, you are struck by one thought alone, "The tower really leans." I am sure that this is a good reason why the tower has not yet fallen and that using mathematics, engineers are able to predict how long it will stand for, measuring the forces at work on the structure but to the human eye it is quite incredible to see the degree of the lean as a non-engineering brain can't quite fathom how it stands (or indeed, leans).

This week the results for the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (or PISA) 2012 were published.  65 countries and economies participated in this assessment and in Canada around 21 000 students from about 900 schools took part. The primary focus was in mathematics with a smaller proportion of students assessed in reading and science.

Canada had an average score of 523 in reading and 525 in science — well above the OECD averages of 496 and 501, respectively. However, there has been a trend downwards on Math; in 2006 Canada placed 6th on the international scale but is now placed 13th. This has caused observers to be concerned and comment on Mathematics teaching in Canada. In particular Manitoba and Alberta were highlighted as provinces that previously were above the national average but now are below. As in BC, the teaching of Mathematics in Alberta and Manitoba over the last decade has encouraged students to explore strategies in Math for computation, relate Math problems to real world examples and to answer open-ended questions. Meanwhile, the countries performing well above average such as South Korea and Hong Kong, are countries that traditionally teach rote learning methods. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-students-slipping-in-math-and-science-oecd-finds-1.2448748

The results of the PISA are timely for BC as a new curriculum also has been released in a draft form (see 'Drafting Change' post).  Debate and discussion on what Mathematics teaching and learning looks like over the next 10 years is imperative. I often compare Mathematics to learning a foreign language, not that Mathematics is a foreign entity but that language learning requires that patterns are learnt and held in the memory banks just as in Mathematics. Repetition reinforces the ability to access memory efficiently. Mathematics and foreign language learning have this in common. Both disciplines are therefore useful for your next visit to Pisa-  to be able to haggle with the stall holders when buying a replica tower and to spark your curiosity to find out how the tower leans. While learning mathematical procedures by rote have a place and are a necessary skill (and the pendulum seems to be swinging back that way) , curiosity should remain integral to the subject in schools and therefore I hope that there is a good balance between the two in the next decade in Math classrooms in BC.