I am heading to a meeting at University of Toronto this morning – part of my activities on the advisory board of the Masters of Engineering in Telecom. It is somewhat appropriate to keep alive last week’s thread of stimulating excellence in our schools.
My son is taking an interesting course this year that looks at poetry and mathematics. It is an unusual combination.
His math professor, Peter Taylor, seeks to inspire excellence. He believes we need to go way beyond repetitive arithmetic exercises found in our text books. In reviewing his writings, he argues that our traditional system of teaching math is failing our kids.
A few years ago, Professor Taylor wrote an article that is worth a fresh look. He noticed that high school English exams had a level of sophistication that was not found in the routine arithmetic that is characteristic of high school mathematics.
No mathematician I know would read any part of the Grade 12 text book for intellectual or spiritual pleasure. I don’t know how that statement strikes you but it strikes me as scandalous.
It seems to me that we need more professors like Peter Taylor, combining poetry and math, to transform the math and science curriculum in our schools. We need enhanced support of science centres, such as TELUS‘ gifts in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal. We also need to get right into the schools, school boards and ministries of education.
We need to inspire an innovation generation.