This is an article that appeared in The Vancouver Sun newspaper on April 29, 1998, in rebuttal to the previous articles by Paula Brooks.
Paula Brook, in her previous two columns, took up the subject of mathematics instruction in our province's secondary schools (An equation I understand: No math = saltmines and Physics might solve high school math problems). I think she fired her arrows at the wrong targets.
[2] She believes that the education ministry is to blame because "many kids are finding themselves on the academic sidelines for their failure to master a level of math they're never likely to use in their lifetime."
[2] She believes that a solution to the difficulties students are experiencing might begin with school principals and called on parents and students to put pressure on them to change the curriculum so that more students may qualify for university admission.
I believe that neither the ministry nor our high school principals are the villains here. Neither sets the admission standards for universities. The universities do. And they require at least Math 11 for admission. The ministry and school principals are but messengers of another body's will.
Why would universities make completion of senior-level Math studies a condition for admission! Because their experience tells them that students who cannot do Math 11 are unlikely to succeed in university. If they cannot do Math 11, they are unlikely to he able to do even the most basic level of math in university, and some university level math is - and should be required in most university programs.
Brook is living in the past when she contends that the alternative to university is "the saltmines" and implicitly includes in that rubric community and technical colleges, apprenticships and other forms of job training. And Patrick Clark of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, an accomplished. educational leader, seems to be back there with her.
Not very long ago, University certainly was the ticket to economic and social success and for some it was an easy casual ride. Today, University is serious business, usually with very high academic and technical expectations in a highly competitive setting. And a university degree is no longer the guarantor of good employment that it once was.
A university education is very demanding, and it ought to be. Universities are not intended to meet the full range of learning needs beyond school. They are specialist institutions. They are meant to be academically exclusive, but not socially elitist.
What could be anticipated if universities relaxed their admission standards to accommodate more high school graduates? Undoubtedly, lower standards of performance at the very time when even higher ones would make much more sense in a knowledge-based world. Equally certainly, drop-out rates would again increase, as they did in the recent past - a terrible human and economic waste.
Institutions like the B.C. Institute of Technology and Vancouver Community College are anything but saltmines. They offer first-rate programs taught by experts. They do a major share of the education of the highly skilled and well-paid workforce we need. And they do more than job training.
As well, many tradespcrsons are successful and prosperous; our apprenticeship system served them well. Some bright young people delay their post-secondary education to become successful entrepreneurs. Many people learn a great deal on their own, without going near a post-secondary institution. Not all of a country's creative talent is in our colleges and universities. And our young people are living in a world where what you know and what you can do have become much more important than the academic credentials you can present. Ask any employer looking for skilled workers.
The ministry of education should be complimented rather than castigated. Well before the Brook family encountered the Math 11 crisis, ministry officials were leading the way in examining new ways of teaching math - and other subjects. Rather than see math as an exclusively theoretical subject taught only in abstract ways, teachers are now recognizing that some students will learn mathematics better when they can see some of its applications to their daily lives and to the world outside school.
The ministry and the federal government are supporting an imaginative new Centre for Applied Academics in Vancouver. It works with teachers, instructors, professors and students to develop and implement new "applied" courses that will satisfy B.C. post-secondary admission requirements.
These are not the traditional math courses watered down. They are not for those who want to avoid real math. The courses are rigorous and parallel the existing academic courses, but they acknowledge that different students learn in different ways, and that there is not only one way to teach math - or any other subject. These new courses already have wide acceptance in B.C. post-secondary education. They are not yet accepted by our universities as equivalent to Math 11- or even better than - but that is not far off.
Similar developments are taking place in other jurisdictions in Canada. British Columbia education is out in front.
Last updated 1 May, 1998