hi everyone,
lately i have started to be concerned about the syllabus and the level
we are writing to.
i've been tutoring "standard grade" maths here in scotland and i was
comparing it to the South African syllabus. at face value it appears
that the SA syllabus is way more hardcore than the UK system... but
then i started thinking "this can't be... they are asking for stuff in
the SA syllabus which we sometimes only do at university. something is
wrong here!"
then i realised that perhaps the people who wrote the SA syllabus
created their own terminology for things, against the maths community.
this would *really* not surprise me, as the syllabus itself looks like
it has been written by a non-specialist. as a specific example, i mean
words like "prove"... when i read that, i think "ok, they want a
proper proof". but in reality they probably mean "show that its true
for the first few terms by inspection and then assume it holds for all".
so for that reason i'm thinking of editing a few chapters and really
dumbing them down... removing proofs and not deriving a bunch of
equations. i think the content at the moment, in patterns for example,
would scare a 16 year old away for maths forever!!!
if anyone who knows more about the SA syllabus and would like to
comment.... *please* do! i'm just afraid that we are aiming our
language too high. and i urge all contributors to do the same.
cheers,
Sam
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