Article by Megan Lehmann published in The Australian on Saturday 18 October 2014.
Lehmann’s piece looks at the success of Alex Gunning, a teenage Melbournian who won a gold medal — with Australia’s first perfect score — at the 55th International Mathematical Olympiad earlier this year. Professor Geoff Prince, AMSI Director is quoted towards the end of the piece with regards to the new STEM Strategy and the lack of qualified maths teachers in Australia.
ALEX Gunning is not very good at the trumpet. He glances cheerfully at the offending instrument, propped in a sunlit corner of the room fronting this inner-Melbourne home, as his three younger sisters and step-mum Katherine, a music teacher, subject him to a good-natured ribbing. “It’s because he never practises,” says Katherine, quietly chiding three-year-old Genevieve for bouncing around on the piano stool and scattering biscuit crumbs all over a floral-patterned rug. “In our family it’s like, ‘Do music or else!’ ” chimes in violin-playing Cathy, 12, while 10-year-old Victoria (clarinet, cello and recorder) nods vigorously.
“A lot of studies show that studying music improves maths outcomes,” Katherine continues, leaning down to pat a superannuated ginger tabby weaving through her legs. “Even as a little kid, Alex understood key signatures and stuff because he could see the patterns.” Does that make him better at music? “No.” The undiluted answer makes everyone laugh. “Intellectually, he’s good at it,” she says, “but physically not as good. Alex has made it through on the bare minimum.”
In the corner, riding the edge of an overstuffed armchair, Alex grins, scratches at his chin. The 17-year-old couldn’t give two hoots about blowing his trumpet. Scales and arpeggios: boring. Part of, but apart from, this loving jumble of Saturday-morning home life, Alex Gunning – recently ranked No. 1 maths brain for his age group in the world – is busy running numbers through his beautiful mind.
Director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, Professor Geoff Prince, went further, saying the failure to staff schools with inspiring maths teachers was at a “critical” level, with 40 per cent of classes in years 7 to 10 not being taught by qualified maths teachers.
