A movie before the day of your maths exam can help you relax, de-stress and enable you to score better.

This piece of advice might sound too radical for harried parents of students preparing for their boards, but this is exactly what the head of the department of mathematics of St. Thomas College-Dehradun suggested.

Saumyajit Ganguly, also a member of the ISC syllabus committee of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), shared his experiences and provided tips to maths teachers of the steel city on how to help students do better in the subject that is loved and feared in equal measure.

“As a teacher I never entertain students a day before their math exam. Because if you keep doing math you get unnecessarily stressed, something that can affect your paper. So it’s better to relax and watch a movie,” Ganguly, who has also written several ISC text books, said at a workshop organised by ADLS Sunshine School at Kadma on Saturday.

The day-long workshop was divided into two parts, one for class X syllabus and the other for class XII. And Ganguly addressed teachers’ concerns about setting a near perfect question paper, especially with reference to board examinations of 2019. He also spoke about strengthening students’ competencies and enhancing their performance, while updating teachers on the syllabus.

Why do most students consider maths to be one of the most difficult subjects?

Ganguly seemed to blame the home environment when he said, “Students are made to feel that way. Usually parents pass on the phobia.”

“We do stress a lot on maths. We react a lot on maths. I don't think parents come and ask their wards if they have completed their history or Hindi homework. It is always about maths homework, math scores and so on. We kind of pass on the phobia and children grow up with that,” he explained.

More than 50 maths teachers from 30 CISCE-affiliated schools of the steel city were present at the workshop. With a help of a presentation, Ganguly told them about what a student is expected to write, errors that are easily avoidable, essential tips to fetch good marks and mistakes for which students can be penalised.

The idea behind the workshop was to better prepare teachers to help students in Maths. Asked how students could get better marks in board examinations, he said, “Solving more and more authentic question papers, getting it corrected by teachers and also critically analysing papers help.”

As students’ performance also depends on teachers and how they react to their wards, Ganguly told teachers to be proactive, do justice to students by helping them with their concepts as everyone may not be of the same level.

Teachers found the workshop useful too.

“I think a happy maths teacher helps students score better. The workshop shared some valuable tips which we will share with our students. There are students who score very well in board examinations but we forget that that is a small percentage in the entire batch. Hence, these tips will help all students answer papers with much ease,” said Geetanjali Dev Sharma, who teaches at Church School, Beldih.