Thoughts on Olympiads
Olympiads are open exams which are often held at a national or international level. I have always been intrigued by the idea, and so we called Rakhi Chawla of Ed3D to conduct an information session for the parents of Jigyasa. Rakhi, through her company, prepares children for various Olympiads and also creates innovative educational resources for math and science. She has some lovely ideas and it is wonderful to hear about her experiences with children!
Note that these are just thoughts — you may or may not agree with them, and I would love to hear your side of the story!
Some Basic Information
To start off, Rakhi gave us some information about the Olympiads conducted by Ed3D:
- Olympiads are not just about the exams. Children also do the experiments and the activities associated with the curriculum and are encouraged to explore as much as possible. The exam is meant to be only an end product of the learning.
- Concepts become really clear. The way it is introduced to children is crucial to developing a certain skill. Rakhi, with her experience and skill as a mathematician and global math ambassador, undoubtedly has great skill when it comes to her areas of expertise.
- Her method of training children takes away the pressure involved in preparing for the Olympiads. Her focus is on making it a fun process, and one where there is plenty of experimentation.
- According to Rakhi, the level of math which children are doing outside India is phenomenal — much higher than CBSE and ICSE. Goes counter to what you are led to believe when you hear stories of Indians ‘dominating’ scientific fields abroad. The truth is that India has produced only one Nobel laureate in a scientific field to date. A Nobel Prize is not the only indiciation of mathematical ability, but it does say something.
How Olympiads help
Consider this question:
6 + 2 * 3 …what is the answer?
Is it 12? Or 24?
How do you go about deciding which operation should have priority? The multiplication or the addition?
If you said multiplication, you are right, but I suspect that is because the word BODMAS was drilled into you in school. However, few people can reason why BODMAS is the order in which such questions are to be solved.
If you assume 2*3 should happen first, then can you frame a story around this?
Perhaps something like ‘a group of 3 children has 2 lollipops each, and then the group is given 6 more. How many do they have now?’
Or if you do 6 + 2 first, can you frame a story around this?
The way the preparation is done for the Olympiads, children are led to explore different situations and then frame their decisions and solutions using Math. As such, math becomes a tool to answer real life questions and to explore possibilities, as opposed to just a mechanical approach involving steps and methods. The latter is what I thought Math was all about when I was in school. Each kind of sum had a method. And all I had to do was recognize which method to use. In my world, every math exam was madness, and despite all the ‘rules’ I had learnt, there seemed to be no method to the madness…
Here is another question from a math Olympiad for third and fourth graders:
Use the numbers 1, 3, 7 and 10 to get to 45, and you can use each number only once.
Answer is [(3! — 1) * 7] + 10 = 45
That 3 ain’t funny — it is meant to denote a factorial.
So in this case, one of the solutions involved factorials! Factorials for a third grader is pretty heavy don’t you think?! But done correctly, it is something that some children would be able to grasp intuitively and then use to answer questions.
The focus is on flexibility of numbers and how they can be used.
Seeing from what is done at Jigyasa, and without having gone into the olympiads curriculum in any depth, it appears that the focus is on making children grasp concepts intuitively and appreciating the range of possibility that math has to offer. This is no doubt what the goal of any mathematical education should be, but this vital fact seems to get lost once children and their parents start to drown in a quagmire of syllabus, homework, tests and exams.
My View
As an educator, my initial thoughts on Olympiads as a tool to promote academic achievement are as follows:
Advantages:
- If taught by an expert whose goal is to stretch the child’s thinking so that the child can envision the possibilities of math, it can definitely play a huge role in getting children interested in math, and even make them love math
- For those children who do not find the school curriculum challenging enough, olympiads are a great way to give such students challenge in a structured environment and with a concrete goal in mind
- Depending on the methods employed, the preparation for such olympiads can help children develop skills and a work ethic which will come in handy not just during their school lives but well beyond their school years
- For senior school students, participation in Olympiads can give them an edge when it comes to college applications
- For those who are inclined towards competition, Olympiads give children a taste of what it is like to compete against hundreds and thousands of other children
Disadvantages:
- Don’t children have enough to do already? Shuttling between dance class, football, swimming and kumon, is there really any more to be added to a child’s schedule? When is he / she going to play?! Not that I am a role model for anyone, but I spent my entire childhood playing cricket (40+ hours a week on average) and now there is plenty of time to learn math!
- Kumon or abacus or olympiads or cue math? I am definitely not the person to be answering that question, but Rakhi is an excellent educator and so I would recommend her. She has some views on abacus and kumon so get in touch with her and I am sure she can help
- If factorials are on a math olympiad for an 8 year old, it appears as though Olympiads are geared more towards children who are ‘ahead of the curve’. If your child does not have the basics down, I personally would not recommend an Olympiad. It would be an additional burden for the child
- The end result of an Olympiad is a ‘rank’. Come in the top 100 of a global Olympiad, and you can feel great about yourself. What about the child who came 9,865th? I dislike the system of rankings, and then publishing those rankings. Surely they can come up with a better way to record achievement? And to make everyone feel good about themselves?
- Given that Olympiads are multiple choice, there are no points for employing the correct method but ending up with the wrong answer. In most exams, you are given marks for method as well. Not so in Olympiads. The exams are usually in multiple choice format, so to get a mark you have to choose the right answer. Anything short of the right answer is not given any credit
Closing Thoughts
If I had a child who was a high flyer and was finding school really easy, I would probably explore if she wanted to enrol in an Olympiad. On the other hand, if my child was struggling to cope with class material, then I don’t know if it is wise to enrol her in an Olympiad, as that would only worsen self-esteem issues. Especially given how harsh the ‘ranking’ system can feel to a child.
The only caveat to the above is if the coach / teacher was willing to spend a lot of time to get my child up to speed. I don’t know if the method of coaching for Olympiads caters to all types and abilities of learners.
There are better ways to get children interested in fields of study like math. I refuse to believe that a national exam is the best way to deliver a good mathematical education to a child. Children who are lucky to receive a good foundation in the early years tend to be good at math. What are schools for anyway?
Related to above, why does it end in an exam? Is it possible to make it more fun for children? Or even more interactive? What about incorporating the use of technology to make the content more accessible to all?
Is it better for a child to spend time doing and making things of his / her choice, than spending many hours preparing for an exam? There are so many other ways to develop thinking, reasoning and logical skills.
To conclude, if you feel like your child needs more challenge than what school offers, I recommend giving Olympiads a shot. Also, if you place a lot of emphasis on academic achievement and competition, Olympiads might help give your child an edge.
Else, the world has a lot to offer — and I would love to see alternatives to Olympiads — where children are able to gain knowledge and grow to love a subject, but without the burden of having to ‘rank on an exam’. The exam bit really puts me off!
Thanks for reading! If there is something I have missed, I would love to hear your thoughts!
