Ontario unveils new Grade 9 math curriculum that eliminates streaming
Posted Jun 9, 2021 05:38:00 PM.
Ontario's new Grade 9 math course, which will be the first to eliminate the practice of “streaming,'' will involve more real-life applications of the subject and include lessons on financial literacy and coding.
Students were previously streamed into “academic'' or “applied'' math courses in Grade 9, a practice that opponents said discriminated against students from marginalized communities.
The new course will take effect in the fall and will cover more areas of mathematics.
It will include more real-life examples of mathematical concepts and also look at the importance of mathematics across cultures.
The Progressive Conservative government committed last year to ending streaming in schools and said math would be the first course to change.
The government says it will provide $40 million to train educators and some training materials will become available today.
Vanessa Vakharia is the CEO of the Math Guru in Toronto and she said that she is encouraged that the province is involving more real-life applications to the curriculum but is worried about how little time teachers are getting to implement the course material.
“I don't think it's a shock to anyone that the math curriculum needs a makeover,” she said, “that in of itself I definitely improve on. I think it's a great idea to include more real-life math. I took a look at the curriculum, there's story-telling, there's relevance, there's even socio-emotional learning which is really, really necessary,” she said.
Vakharia's concern is mostly surrounded about how little time the province is giving teachers to learn and implement this new curriculum.
“They are introducing this curriculum in the middle of June, school is about to end, there is no training plan for the teachers, there are no new textbooks, and there's no action plan,” she said, “we are kind of in a cycle with the ministry introducing these new breakthrough curriculum enhancements without a single implementation structure to follow that.”
Vakharia suggests that the plan is being introduced too quickly, and too soon. She said there is no quick solution to fixing the math curriculum.
“There's a ton of new material in the new curriculum,” she said, “we have a history of expecting teachers to just understand all of these new measures and standards are and magically being able to implement them into their classrooms so I think that's a huge problem.”
Vakharia said the summer isn't a good time to introduce an over haul of the math curriculum.
“I think we are really starting to see that we expect teachers to be magicians, or super heroes who need no time off,” she said, “they aren't supposed to be training and learning new material over the summer so if they are going to be introducing something new in June, where is the compensation in time to learn this?' she asked.
She said it's important for the ministry to speak with teachers about any changes that happen to curriculums to ensure that the things teachers are supposed to take on can be properly implemented and developed as the task lists for teachers grows throughout the province.
With files from James Sebastian-Scott and The Canadian Press
