The Minister's Task Force on Senior High School Mathematics

JUNE 12 .....thanks for the email message today... i tried to find the actual report on the ministry website , but it seems to be so well hidden that even THEIR search engine can't find it (hmmmmm!!!!!). In any case, the release ,sadly, says it all....While our "petition group" proposed that the ministry move boldly into the 21st century by updating Mathematics content so it addresses the needs of a country at the leading edge... instead, the ministry has planted us squarely in the mid-20 th century. Sadly, i come to the realization that as a wayward lad from Timmins arriving at the university of Waterloo in 1970, I ,in fact, had more Mathematics in my wee head than graduates of today will have..... This is sad.. given that a great deal of Mathematics, including Computer Mathematics has developed in these past 36 years. The release announces the death of Algebra and Geometry , the most rigourous of the math courses we offer, as well as the movement of Vectors from the now dead A-G course into the Calculus... The Calculus being "overloaded" is now stripped down to make room for the Vectors, and , i assume, some of the introductory topics in the current Calculus are shifted into the "new" grade 12 course. The surviving course is the Data Management course which while popular and packed with successful students earning high marks, is ,sadly, NOT a university Math prep course...in fact, it is destined to be "simplified" even more than it currently is.. The score at the end of this shell game moves us from a time when we had SEVEN quality university prep courses( advanced grades 9,10,11,12 and Calculus, Algebra/Geometry and Functions and Relations/Finite Mathematics depending on which decade you graduated in) to FIVE (academic grades 9,10,11,12 and Calculus-Vectors.... let us agree that Data Management is an excellent college level course!!!). Net gain is minus 2. I imagine it will take a "sputnik-level" event to kick-start a rethinking of this plan. In the meantime, be afraid... be very, very afraid..... rich