Can we make the French love math? This is the social question posed today to sociologist Jean Viard. Mathematics will be compulsory and will return at the start of the next school year, for all 1st and 12th grade students.
Maths will be back as a compulsory subject at the start of the next school year, for all 1st and 12th grade students. Why is it important to love mathematics? We ask ourselves this social question, because making us love math is precisely the objective of Maison Poincaré, the very first mathematics museum in France, which opens its doors today, Saturday September 30, in Paris . A project inspired by the famous mathematician and former MP, Cédric Villani.
franceinfo: Why is it important to make us love math, Jean Viard?
Jean Viard: Mathematics is first and foremost a requirement of the mind, therefore it is its form. It’s a bit like learning Latin, Greek, which we do less today, but it structures thought, in fact. And then, what is true is that we are in a digital world, we are in a world of artificial intelligence, therefore in an immense scientific and technological period. However, we are going backwards.
In Europe, compared to the European average, there is a figure that is always given, it is 527 in the rankings, it is the average, we are at 488. In itself, it is the gap which is interesting, so we are below, but more worrying, in 20 years, we have declined enormously. We were at 64% of young French people who were classified as “high” in math, and we rose to 11%.
This question of maths is so important that the State returned last year to this Blanquer reform, which had removed compulsory teaching of maths from 1st grade. So, more than in the museum which will open today, making us love maths, does that happen through school?
Of course, it goes through school, and it goes through the fact that people perceive the teaching of mathematics as useful, that we make them calculate things in their daily lives, in their lives. So, it serves them. And it’s the fundamentals that are important in mathematics, because afterward, it becomes a game. But if the fundamentals are not there, you suffer like an unfortunate person all the time, and it becomes a real punishment.
And then, there is also the idea that in France, we used math a lot to select. We have a bit of an image that we have to do math at an incredible level to go into medicine, and all those who fail in math, maybe they would have been the best doctors in the world, with empathy for the sick. So, we also used math as a combat weapon to bring order.
But afterwards, Mr. Blanquer’s position, what is serious, is: should we do an hour and a half or not, of maths in final year, when we are not in a mathematics section? But it’s a strong signal, it says: basically, maths isn’t very important if you’re not a specialist. There is a traditional French culture, built on “the humanities”, as we said in the old days, that’s what it symbolizes for young people. It’s: well, if you’re not specialized in math, you don’t care, but it’s very bad, so math is back in 1st and 12th grade classes next year .
But what concerns me is that we can have a ministry and a government where we have made this decision, which is extremely dangerous. And in addition, at the time, there were Cédric Villani, the one who is at the origin of the museum, with President Hollande. So, it’s a completely counter-intuitive decision.
This museum, the Maison Poincaré in Paris, will receive many schoolchildren, particularly fourth grade classes. We say that it is often there, that there is a dropout from maths, and we have the impression that it rebounds over the years, and generations, because there is a shortage of teachers, and the teachers who are lacking the most, and it has been structural for years, are it the math teachers?
Well yes, because the problem is that teaching is a market. If you have a discipline, and alongside, with the same skill, you have job offers in digital, in IT, much better paid and completely attractive, there is competition. About 20 years ago, at the CAPES in mathematics, we took 1 candidate out of 8. Today, we take less than 1 candidate out of 2, which means that there are fewer candidates, and we can suspect that if there are fewer candidates, those we take are rather less good. It’s a probability, but it’s pretty logical to think like that.
So it’s a fundamental problem, we have this kind of imagination of maths, which would effectively be like a foil, including the use we make of it in the selections. So we are faced with a real problem, which is to make maths positive, it is a phenomenon of work organization, of motivation. There are also countries where children attend school in different numbers of years, because children do not all learn at the same speed. We can do one more year, not to repeat a year, but to rework where we were not good, in a very targeted way.
Not all children are the same height, weight, or developmental period. Some develop earlier, others later. I think the Republic must learn diversity and hybridity.