“These new standards mean that eighth-grade teachers will not need to have taken English, French, geography, history or math at the university level”
Distressing changes
Re: Teachers need subject expertise (Think Tank, Nov. 12)
I’m writing, as a parent and as an educator, in support of my colleague Anna Stokke’s Monday op-ed. Having spent two decades teaching post-secondary students in Manitoba, I am distressed, to say the least, to hear about the revisions to Manitoba’s teacher certification requirements.
While most of the discussion has focused on math education, which I can only speak to as a recipient, l’d like to emphasize that math is only one of the requirements being eliminated. These new standards mean that eighth-grade teachers will not need to have taken English, French, geography, history or math at the university level.
With all due respect to my colleagues in the faculty of education, knowing how to communicate content is not, and cannot be, a replacement for an understanding of the topic itself. Good teachers need both the ability to teach and the knowledge that underpins the subjects that they teach. A middle-school math teacher may not need to teach division in base-4, but understanding how division works, rather than just the mechanics of doing long division, can’t help but make them a better teacher.
Manitoba has a teacher staffing crisis, we are told. Rather than working to make K-8 education a field that attracts the best possible candidates, the government has decided that it would be easier and, no doubt, cheaper, to lower the standards of who is teaching our children.
It’s a devil’s bargain, and our children will be the ones to pay the price.
Brandon christopher
Winnipeg
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My colleague, political science professor Felix Mathieu, discussing the MB govt removing all subject requirements for teacher certification on Le telejournal Manitoba ~15:00
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2007 math forum audio video
Discovery Math
Singapore Math
Remedial math
Madison’s most recent Math Task Force
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
