No-one who has not actually been tasked with
drawing up the timetable in a high school knows how difficult a job it can be.
There are computer programmes that will do it for
you these days, but back in the early 1990s when it was my job, as part of a small
team, to balance the conflicting demands and requests of those who would be
teaching the classes the next year, there was no effective electronic way of
making everything fit in.
We were battling away manfully in the November heat
one year with our metal board and little magnetic counters, when our esteemed
leader, the school principal popped in and dropped a bombshell.
The school was lucky, he told us, to secure the
services of a 1st rate maths teacher for the following year. She had
produced stellar results at one of the private schools before giving up to
start a family.
Now she was prepared to return to the classroom, but there were
conditions attached. She insisted on a four-day week – Thursday was market day
– and she had to be finished by 1pm every day so that she could do the
afternoon school run.
He agreed. Nothing, not even our, then, respectable 1st
team rugby results, he told us, was more important than a 100% pass rate in
mathematics, and a healthy crop of distinctions.
Imagine the size of the spanner that threw into the
half completed works of our timetable in progress!
It wasn’t an invitation to a debate either, the man
– and he was the best principal I ever worked for – didn’t operate that way.
So, we swept the board clean and started from
scratch. The added restrictions meant that it took twice as long to do the job
that year, but the maths results in the next, and for as long as that
particular teacher was at the school, were among the best in the province.
That was in the bad old days, of course. The school
was better resourced than the vast majority of schools in the land and the
parents of those matrics were willing, and able, to fork out the extra cash
needed to bring that brilliant teacher in.
Schools like that are still producing 100% pass
rates, and raking in the As. They are living the unequal legacy, I know, but
they also have that kind of leadership in charge of them.
The principal, if you think about it, managed the
situation in text book business leadership/management fashion. He identified
the problem; assigned it top priority; formulated a solution; found the
resources to fund it; and motivated his team to implement it.
And it worked! Mrs Maths-whiz wouldn’t have lasted long
if she didn’t produce the goods.
Now, 25 years on, we read how the country lies
second from last on international rankings of school maths performance (and
that’s factoring in the world class results of the top schools) and 22 years
after the introduction of the new education department there has been no
improvement.
In the wake of the release of the matric results last
week I read several articles indicating that things are actually a lot
worse than they have been presented to be.
One or two dealt with the continued poor
performance in maths. One in particular, on the Daily Maverick site asks the
question: “School maths: what is our story?
It’s an excellent analysis of what’s wrong with the
teaching of maths in our schools, and it points out that there also one or two
positive signs.
It got me thinking about my days in education, and
the lengths my principal went to in that particular case to ensure that our
maths teaching was top-notch.
And it occurred to that that’s what’s missing in
the analysis I was reading – the role of effective leadership in solving the
maths crisis.
My boss that year had no business training that I
know of, but he tackled the problem along business lines. There would have been
successful businessmen and women aplenty on the school’s governing body and
perhaps he was advised by them. He certainly got their buy-in for his plan.
The principals of the vast majority of our schools
don’t have that kind of experience and expertise to call on. They are very much
on their own and no amount of explaining the downfall of maths teaching in
terms of unqualified teachers; over-focus on grade 12 to the detriment of the
foundation phases; and interference by the unions is going to help them come up
with innovative solutions.
So, if I were to toss in my two cents worth, it
would be to say let’s start with the principals. If the heads of those
struggling schools could learn to approach problems in a business-like way like
we did all those years ago, they would stand a better chance of solving them.
It won’t be easy, but it could make a difference
quite quickly if we were to get the leadership of the schools going well, one
at a time.
That would be a good place to start.
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