TORONTO – Prime Minister Doug Ford advocates removing language about racism and colonialism from introduction to his administration’s new math curriculum.
He says these topics should be discussed in history and social studies.
Ford introduced the new curriculum after years of falling scores on standardized tests, and he says it’s important to get back to basics and focus on financial literacy and programming.
The government has not confirmed when the changes were made, but they appear to have followed the release of new media reports criticizing a section that referred to the content, context, and meaning of the math as subjective.
It stated: “Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledge, and a decolonial, anti-racist approach to math teaching reveals its historical roots and social constructions.”
This section has been removed from the preamble to the curriculum, as has the mention of “anti-racist and anti-depressive teaching and learning opportunities” and “colonial contexts of modern mathematics teaching”.
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