The petition
The Ontario Ministry of Education is considering eliminating 12th grade Calculus from the Ontario Curriculum in the 2007-2008 school year.
Prior to the 2002-2003 school year, which was the last time this occured, Ontario had 13 grades instead of 12. The 13th grade was called the Ontario Academic Credit year, or the OAC for short. Students could graduate in grade 12 if they wanted to, but they had to complete the OAC in order to be elegible to apply to a university.
Once the OAC year was cancelled, the former 5 years of high school were squished into 4 years. This created some problems, notably in the mathematics area. Many concepts were dropped from the curriculum because there simply wasn't enough room left for them, and because they were considered to be 'too difficult'.
Many changes and modifications were implemented in the 2006-2007 school year, and the elimination of calculus was meant to be one of them. The ministry thought that students often don't have a good enough foundation in trigonometry to be able to move on to calculus. Calculus was, according to them, something better learnt in a university-setting. If students are having trouble learning calculus in a highly personal high school environment, how will they fare in a 150+ person lecture hall? The prospect of this triggered a lot of concern among parents and educators alike. It is for this reason that the cancelation of Ontario calculus classes is under extensive review.
The Ministry of Education will make a final decision about the fate of calculus in the upcoming months.
The question still remains: How will this impact high school students? A potential math major will be extremely disadvantaged when it comes to university admissions, because calculus is still taught in every other Canadian province.
The purpose of this petition is to keep calculus in our schools. Once it reaches a sufficient number of signatures, I will send it to the Ontario Ministry of Education.
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