As announced in yesterday’s budget, there is a considerable amount of funding going towards education. A significant part of this is to support the teaching of mathematics in schools. Over the last few decades, New Zealand education has moved away from the rigour of separate subject disciplines and teaching and learning has become much more interdisciplinary. While the reasons for this shift seem at first glance to be sound, what has happened over this time is that the literacy and numeracy skills in New Zealand have declined significantly. The reasons for this are no doubt complex and relate to many factors within the socioeconomic landscape of New Zealand. However, the loss of specific, rigorous subject teaching is almost definitely a contributing factor.

The use of the term ‘discipline’ to describe the unique intellectual training that takes place when learning a particular subject such as mathematics is rarely heard these days. It used to be commonplace to talk of subject disciplines. This provides a much larger view of education than just learning to do x, y or z. Each subject discipline trains young minds in unique patterns of thinking, unique ways of expression, which provide the foundation for future creative thinking.

At Ficino, the students are exposed to the discipline of grammar, which is essential to being able to express oneself with clarity. This is done through formal grammar lessons in English as well as through the teaching of Sanskrit, which gives our students an excellent foundation in an ancient language with its clear grammatical structure. Mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, the discipline of history, of essay writing – these all nourish our students’ young minds to build the best possible foundation for a life in which what we know is becoming less important than how we think.