The story of elementary mathematics education in Ontario from 1948 to 1998 is a fascinating and complicated one involving shifting trends and approaches to teaching in the field.  These trends in mathematics education have developed globally; math educators have long had a strong infrastructure of organized committees (in North America, primarily the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) committed to innovating and improving practice for over a century.  Global conventions for mathematics educators are quite commonplace today.  Improving mathematics education, however, has been a long and difficult struggle.  While math education has seen advancement over the last half decade, progress involving increasing curricular demands geared at younger students has been strenuous for teachers.  Since elementary school teachers, charged with developing the foundational understanding of mathematics in young students, are generally without post-secondary education in the field themselves, the subject is met with great apprehension.  This web-site focuses on this diffidence for teaching mathematics in elementary schools, from the end of World War Two to 1998.  For the purposes of this web-site we refer to professional mathematicians as math educators and elementary school mathematics teachers as simply teachers, a convention common with some literature in the field.
     Historians have found it difficult to document mathematics education in Canada.  The reaction to developments in mathematics education in elementary schools has manifested itself in completely different ways.  Some schools quickly adopted reforms in mathematics, and others were more resistant.  Since mathematics was among the most contentious areas of curriculum for elementary teachers, they usually taught in ways that were most comfortable to them, often recalcitrant to innovations which would question and undermine their own understanding of the topic.  In this way, many North American historians have taken a conceptual approach to the topic, writing on "the historical origin of the content, methodology, and course sequences existing in the United States and Canada rather than on the chronological aspects of the topic" (N.C.T.M., 1970, p. iii).  Quite simply, to consider mathematics education as having a chronological progression, with broad implication on teaching, would be too simplistic.  It is possible, though, to trace the history of mathematics education in Ontario by examining it through a wider lens, and considering it alongside other trends within the province.  We call it The Numbers Game - An Overview of Elementary Mathematics Education in Ontario from 1945 to 1998.
     It would be impossible to examine mathematics education without examining the mandate for its instruction.  Ontario's curricular documents on mathematics help explain not only what was taught in mathematics, but the rationale for the particular approach to teaching.  In this way, they provide essential tools for understanding mathematics education.  It is also worthwhile to consider that, as Robin Barrow (1979) suggests in relation to curriculum, to "treat current practice as the natural order of events" (p. 13) is a falsehood.  Often in mathematics, teachers have reacted to curriculum with recalcitrance, and the curricular outcomes, objectives, expectations are never fully realized.  The advice of Howson, Keitel, and Kilpatrick (1981) reflects elementary teachers' apprehension to mathematics.  They suggest that in the future, "curriculum development will proceed with greater ease," so that "proposed innovations will be examined more critically and that, when it is decided to implement changes, those changes will be effected more successfully - that they will not only reach classrooms, but will do so in an ungarbled form reflecting the originators' aims and objectives" (p. 1).  Ontario's changes to math curriculum are understandable in this light.  We call it Take a Number - Elementary Mathematics Curriculum from 1945 to 1998.
     While curriculum has roughly dictated the content of mathematics in elementary schools, textbooks have dictated more of the pedagogical practice.  Teachers have tended to rely heavily on the math textbook, in that the textbook would direct the way the subject matter should be taught and the way students would work.  One study of mathematics textbooks by David Robitaille (1995) suggests that the textbooks are responsible for including students performance expectations, instructional features, as well as perspectives and attitudes towards the subject.  Such lofty goals for textbooks are demonstrative of their importance to teachers.  The Ministry of Education in Ontario has offered directives as to which textbooks could be used, and the last half century has seen dozens of different math resources find their way into Ontario's classrooms.  We examine them in My Book of Numbers - Elementary Mathematics Textbooks from 1945 to 1998.
     Nothing can explain more about actual classroom practice in mathematics than the actual experience of teachers.  Interviews with elementary teachers demonstrate the wide variety of attitudes and approaches to teaching mathematics.  Discussing different eras of mathematics education with teachers help provide a better understanding of the field's history.  We undertake such interviews in Talk to Me about Numbers - Interviews on Mathematics Education from 1945 to 1998.
     Quite clearly, mathematics education is a complex and multi-faceted topic.  While progress has indeed been made in the field, history should provide us with the lessons to direct us towards better mathematics programs for the future.  We discuss our research finding and their implications in our summation, Add it Up - Conclusions on Mathematics Education from 1945 to 1998.   
     Still interested?  Our sources may provide valuable directions for further research in the field.  They are listed in Number Facts - References on Mathematics Education from 1945 to 1998.
     We hope you have enjoyed our site.  If you wish to contact us with questions or comments, feel free to e-mail us.