Near as I can tell, people have been complaining about the ânew mathâ for roughly as long as there has been math. The common-sense critics of ancient Greece, for example, resisted representing zero as a number, because, duh, everyone knows nothing canât be something. The numerals we use today were introduced to Europe by at least 1202, but didnât replace the Is and Vs of Roman numerals in common use there until the invention of the printing press roughly CCLXXX years later. You imagine some stern dad of the time staring at his kidâs homework and shaking his head at the absurdity of the need to line digits up in columns representing factors of 10 that reflect the logic of the decimal system.âIn my day, we learned to sum DXXVI plus LVIII in our headsâŚâ This was true when I was growing up when my aunts and uncles complained that the system of long division I was learning was ridiculous. It remains true today, when everyone is convinced the âdiscovery mathâ their kid is learning is convoluted bafflegab producing a generation of innumerate fools.That last bit, it seems to me, was behind the announcement of changes to the math curriculum by provincial Minister of Education Lisa Thompson on Friday. There were, what seem to me at first read, to be encouraging elements among the changes, to be sure: more funding for math learning, extra help for schools specifically struggling, more emphasis on training in math for teachers. Given that our studentsâ performance in math shows some struggles by international standards, these are understandable enough steps.Read more:Ford government announces hikes to high school class sizes, but no changes to kindergartenGroup worries kids with other disabilities forgotten amid autism crisisPremier Doug Ford says education is âgoing back to the basicsâBut that all was the fine print to a âback to basicsâ pledge that will, as my colleague Kristin Rusho ...
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