Ontario's first-year math investment: Parents

Ontario's first-year math investment: Parents

Samuel Reano

The government of Ontario has decided to invest in the future of your children by developing a plan to improve their math skills. We know that not each student is strong in math and we can’t always help the future generation to avoid the stress it can provide. This is why the government has determined to use its resources to change the future of math education. This investment is beneficial for students in elementary and secondary schools. In addition, new teachers will be trained to know math inside-out so that students can understand the math lessons and do homework questions with confidence. The overall strategy behind the investment is to improve students’ abilities in mental math and applying math in their everyday lives. Students will receive extra-math-help from the online tutoring program and will be able to continue to practice skills in the summer program so that they won’t forget the math skills they obtained from the previous school year as they enter the new one.

You can think of it as learning a new language. Learning a new language consists of daily practice in verbal communication and written communication. The outcome is ideally fluency. Essentially, that’s what the government of Ontario is attempting to do with math. These programs will help you and your children plan the future ahead. We all want the future generation to be satisfied in their careers and remain financially stable. Obtaining math skills will help them to maintain their finances, protecting them against poor habits and such. 

Another outcome of the investment is students gaining independence. It is typical for students to ask teachers, parents, and guardians for help on some math problems. While there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, it’s better to equip students with the skills to understand theory rather than force them to turn to outside resources every second question. As students slowly gain independence, they will become confident in their math skills and won’t doubt themselves while answering questions. Throughout elementary school and some of secondary school, I continually asked my dad for help in math because of his excellent memory. But that dependency slowly broke in high school as I stopped asking for assistance on a daily basis. 

Outside of school, students need to apply math in their everyday lives as part of the most mundane of things such as time management, counting items and calculating the number of volunteer hours remaining to graduate. Basic math skills such as addition and multiplication have helped me in time management and in building my schedule for the Fall 2019 semester so I don’t dedicate disproportionate amounts of time to different courses. It’s not a perfect system but I’m better off than I was before. In other words, facilitating students to continue to develop math skills contributes to an improvement in organizational skills, as well. Indeed, the investment will help your child to prepare for higher levels of education.