Over fifteen years, my colleague Burkard and I gave tons of free talks and articles and everythings for the Mathematical Association of Victoria. In turn, they, and by “they” I mean 98% CEO Simon Pryor, were hugely supportive of me and Burkard, providing us with a platform and genuine opportunities to spread the Gospel of Mathematics; there is a strong sense in which the MAV made possible the Mathologer (and this blog). In particular, during our period of collaboration with the MAV, Burkard and I gave a huge number of talks at the annual conferences. The MAV requested keynotes from us with embarrassing frequency, and I always tried to pay back the compliment by also offering one or two small-session talks. I very much appreciated the opportunity to talk maths, and truth, to teachers, even if eventually, too slowly, I figured out that no one was listening to anything but the jokes.
That all ended in 2016, when I had the temerity to suggest that the MAV might cease being unprincipled shills for VCAA and ACARA, prompting the now Pryorless MAV to decide I was persona non grata. Whatever. I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that wouldn’t have me as a member.
I still pay cursory attention to the MAV annual conference and always give the synopsis a glance, mostly to see if any interstate humans such as Anthony Harradine are rocking up, so I know to go say hi and heckle. I also like to check out the Nonsense du Jour, and this jour/year the conference theme is “Thriving in Mathematics”. A check of the just-released conference synopsis suggests, to the surprise of no one, that there will be a hell of a lot of “thriving” and bugger all mathematics.
That is all a long introduction to a short post: the MAV is offering, once again, and for all and only those who pay, a Meet the Assessors session for Mathematical Methods:
Yeah, it’s not called “Meet the Assessors”, but that is what it is. Plus, as a bonus, conference attendees can listen to VCAA sermonise on filling their SACs with “mathematical modelling”:
Because, after decades of mathematical mismanagement, the most compelling task for VCAA right now is to heavy teachers into shoving modelling idiocy down their students’ throats.
None of this should be happening. No one representing VCAA in any manner should be participating in a paid event for the benefit of some other organisation unless that representation is reasonably open to all teachers. And, no, a few slides with voiceover doesn’t cut it. This is obvious. But, as ever, the obvious is never obvious to VCAA’s clown leadership.
“Simon Pryor SAE FAIM is not a mathematician and yet was the Chief Executive Officer of the Mathematical Association of Victoria for fourteen years. Nor is he a brewer, yet he served for ten years as Chairman of Mountain Goat Beer Pty Ltd, a popular and successful Melbourne based boutique brewery.” – a real human being with clear ability and possibly the only interesting and genuine profile on LinkedIn.
What Simon was, was an intelligent, educated and principled man, and a great administrator. If any of these could be said of Simon’s successor, I never saw the evidence.
Those type of people don’t tend to get the senior jobs these days would be my observation, based on what I saw in the public service.