The Current - Why are Canadian kids falling behind in math?

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

With Canada's tech sector growing, employers are looking for recent grads ready to pursue careers in STEM. But when it comes to getting those math and science courses completed, many students aren't making the grade. We hear from teachers about where we're going wrong, and what needs to change to keep kids excited about STEM.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Vancouver High School science teacher, Darren Eng, knows just what will get his students to pay attention. Sometimes I want to change things up in the science classroom, and at those times, I often bust out the bubbles. What always surprises me is how whether I have a group of grade one kids or literally some serious chemistry, 11, chemistry 12, kids, everyone likes to take a bubble break. Everyone loves bubbles.

And apparently, fireballs too. Hey, Sam. Do you want to safely hold a fireball in your hands? Yeah. Well, then let's go. And while we're at it, we're going to show you a little bit about specific heat capacity and how water keeps things just the right temperature. Darren makes science sound pretty fun.

But for a lot of students, the appeal of things like science and math wane as they move through school. And that means fewer students pursue STEM fields of science. science, technology, engineering, and math after high school has compared to arts programs. At the same time, the math scores of Canadian students continue to slide steeply. And at a time when the job market for those fields is robust, this raises questions about why kids aren't sticking with science and math and what can be done about that. As part of our ongoing series called Learning Curve in which we are looking at the state of public education in Canada, I'm joined by Darren Ng and Jamie Mitchell.

They are both high school STEM teachers and winners of the Prime Minister's Award. for excellence in teaching. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Darren, we just heard you at the start of the segment in some of your science education videos on YouTube. You love what you do. Why do you want to make science fun for students? Well, I think it's the ticket to curiosity and cutting through all the noise that sometimes distracts our students from really going deeper with their learning. The antidote, I'd say, to sort of decreasing attention spans

and often very complex life issues that we encounter firsthand with our students that can take them away from the deeper learning is just making it real. Specifically, I think sometimes as educators, we fall for the trap of where we talk about the science instead of getting kids to just do the science. So making things as real as possible,

as engaging as possible, it just cuts through the noise and kids leave classes going, my goodness, that was like the best science class ever. And it's just, it's contagious and it's really, really inspiring. By the time the kids get to you, what sort of attitude to those STEM subjects do they have, do you think? It's definitely mixed. So we have some kids who, for a variety of very legitimate reasons, complex life issues, they may be checked out.

And so it's sort of like the season for them where they may not have given science a big priority. If it couldn't be Googled or chat GPT, it's not a high priority for them to kids who literally want to be astronauts, like the gentleman you're going to be interviewing at the end of the program. So it's really a mixed bag. What's really interesting, though, is the sort of the perseverance piece and engagement piece initially is sometimes waning. And then it's our job to kind of grab them back and get them excited again. Why is it so difficult, and I want to bring Jamie into this in a moment, but Darren, why is it so difficult, do you think, to teach science and math in a way that you are, in a way that engages the students? Why aren't more people doing that? Well, to be frank, I'd say that to be an excellent educator these days, we have to have the mindset of being like a salmon and kind of expecting to swim uphill to do what we need to do. Big challenges are our students are facing very complex social and emotional needs.

The teachers are also facing challenges, right? I mean, there's a lot of kids in class, for example. Yes, so our classroom composition has definitely changed a lot and become more complex. Lots of kids have various learning challenges, complex family issues at home. Although there's been greater awareness of mental illness and mental health, That poses a big challenge. For example, I have a class of like 27 kids, and I'd say four of them have individual education plans, which are great, but just makes things more complex. Also, a lack of support sometimes, everything from resources to having more caring adults in the room.

And then just the complexity of our job as teachers. I was just talking to a new teacher the other day, and he was going, so excited to just only teach physics. And I was like, brother, absolutely be excited, but you're, as a public school teacher, you're going to be teaching many things other than just physics. And so inevitably, it sometimes waters things down. And then we as teachers kind of, unfortunately, default to, okay, we're just going to do the worksheet or read another page from the textbook, which is kind of the opposite of really what science is, right? Science is a do. A do. Jamie, you've been listening in. And, and,

I mean, one of the things that you do, you have a bit of a different approach to STEM subjects. Tell me what that looks like. So I was lucky enough to be one of the teachers that founded a STEM program in my school board. And what we would do is start kids in grade nine and integrate them into four different STEM subjects, math, science, geography, and a course in Ontario called Tech Design. And those students would learn those four subjects all at the same time, all year long. And when it was working very well, the students were not able to tell us, like, today I'm in geography or today I'm in math class. They were learning all of those subjects all at the same time. And it was all driven through what we might call project-based learning. But the crux of that was getting real people into our classrooms to talk about real problems that they're solving in the real world and giving our students a chance to crack those problems.

What does that do to engagement and end students? engagement, when you're able to break it down like that, but also, to your point, talk about the real-world applications of what they're learning. Well, I think it drives interest way up because while I was bringing real-world problems into the classroom, students were also taking their experiences, pieces of their culture, pieces of their upbringing, and applying those things to the projects they were solving. So they could take something they were passionate about and apply it to a project they were solving. And, you know, like Darren was saying, it was putting the math, the science, the geography physically in their hands, and letting them explore things in ways that, you know,

a traditional math class where kids are sitting in rows and they're listening to a teacher for 75 minutes doesn't do. Does that keep them in the program? Because you've said there's a leaky pipeline for STEM that women and girls aren't pursuing STEM. We're having a look at some of the stats can research saying that women make up something like 34% of STEM. post-secondary graduation holders. And then if you take a look at the workforce, it's under 30% of people employed in professional STEM fields or women. Is what you're doing going to keep people in the program,

keep women and girls in the program in particular, into that post-secondary and into the working world? I mean, I really hope so. The leaky pipeline in STEM is a real phenomenon. That is, I would say, urgent. And when I was leading this program, It was always at the top of my mind. What can I do as an educator to engage all the people in front of me,

not just the people who are super passionate about math for whatever reason. You know, I can't say definitively with statistics that it was working. I can say anecdotally, very many of our female graduates from this STEM program have gone on to pursue degrees in engineering, medicine, science. It's, you know, from my time in the program, it seemed like it was working. Darren, I could hear you agreeing in the background. What do you hear from students about why they don't want to continue in STEM fields after they graduate high school? It's definitely a mixed bag. I'd say commenting on what Jamie was mentioning about women in science,

I have a former student who, she's now pursuing her teacher training in science education. And she previously got her master's degree in particle physics. But the point I want to highlight there was it wasn't actually anything I did, but it was her caring physics university teacher who essentially just believed in her and really invested in her, especially at a time when she was really struggling and connected her with some real physics challenges, got her involved in physics competitions, and she ended up getting a master's degree in particle physics. So even in sort of our complex challenges that we face as educators,

it's now more than ever we have to understand we still can make a huge difference in getting not just ladies, but just anyone who wants to go deeper in science to go deeper. Now, what I'm observing in terms of challenges, though, is very, very real. The big change we're seeing is the stick. withness, especially in things like math. Because like, say, as a chemistry, biology teacher, it's a lot easier for me to give them the hands-on real stuff that Jamie has talking about. By the way, Jamie, I'd love to visit your class from one day.

It sounds amazing. I'm just saying the same thing. I want to hold a fireball bubble. Okay. Well, we'll arrange a swap. But in the meantime, as you know, Jamie, the challenges are pretty real. To stick withiness, especially with math, because math is. ultimately abstract and we can

present manipulatives and more hands on things but that sort of cumulative year by year study is falling by the wayside sometimes because of diminishing attention spans and well I can just chat GPT it or I can Google it why do I need to go deeper but of course we know that those technologies especially need tons of math

they need tons of stem they need tons of science And so it's a challenging time right now. Jamie, I have to let you both go, but just very briefly, what are you most worried about? If students are disengaging from STEM subjects, what's at stake here? I mean, you know, we hear a lot about going back to basis, going back to basics. We have to go back to basics. And I worry that if we take that to the furthest degree, first of all, we don't understand what people mean when they say go back to basics. I think people fill in the blanks.

But I also think about how, you know, the basics aren't going to solve the problems that the world is facing today and in the future. Climate change, inequities. Those things take, you know, a wide range of different lines from all different backgrounds. And if we don't solve the problem of keeping kids engaged in STEM, we're not going to be able to solve those problems in the future. Good to talk to you both about the work you're doing and lucky students to have you at the front of the classroom. Thank you both for being here. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Matt.

Darren Eng is a high school science teacher in Vancouver. Jamie Mitchell, high school STEM teacher and educator in the Halton region in Ontario. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle in all.

always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. Hi, I'm Sarah Nicole Landry and I'm the host of the papaya podcast where each week I ask curious questions to people with incredible stories or expertise in their fields.

I'm somebody who has found so much inspiration in storytelling and learning from them and I wanted to bring that to a podcast where each week we walk away learning something that might just change our lives for the better. Check us out every Monday on the Papaya podcast. See you there. Nidi Satchewa is a researcher and faculty member at the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education. She's been listening in. She's with me in studio. Good morning to you.

Good morning. They sound like great teachers. Yes, they are. Is the way that they are teaching science and math common? Just in terms of their engagement, but also how they are translating their enthusiasm to the students? I think it takes just so many different aspects to be. an expert teacher, to be an excellent and effective teacher. And one of them definitely is to get the students to pay attention and to get them to understand and feel what they're doing in the classroom. So I can see that the two educators that you spoke with are doing a really, really good job with that. How is the way that we teach math contributing to the stats that I said at the

beginning, which is that this country is falling behind when it comes to math? Our scores in terms of the OECD scores that they gather from around the world are dipping below the benchmark. How is the way that math is taught influencing that or shaping that? That keeps me up at night. Keeps you up at night. Yeah, I really worry about math education and generally learning for that matter. I think there is an idea that we will get kids into the classroom and they will be naturally motivated and will give them some experiences and they'll,

figure the concepts out. There's this notion of they'll construct the meaning on their own. That actually doesn't happen for younger learners. It can happen when you're working with high school students who've acquired a lot of knowledge base. Our younger learners, grade one, two, three, they don't have the basic foundational skills. What they need is a lot of great instruction. So when we don't do that, and that, that is happening, but sometimes it kind of like misses through that experience and that moment of, you know, extra practice or corrective feedback. When students lack foundational skills, then they actually don't feel motivated to be able to do that further. Or they also think that they can't do it. And there's that whole

idea of math anxiety. How much of that math anxiety isn't just felt by students, but also by teachers? Both of them feel it. And we know this. We know this. I work with teacher candidates as well. And I think, again, it goes back to the idea back in 1980s late in that time, there were changes made to how we teach math. One of the important things was that was removed is that we should focus, we should not focus

on a lot of procedural understanding and really have a lot of focus on conceptual understanding. All that sounds really, really good. But if kids don't have the foundational skills, they don't know their math facts, they don't know how to quickly reason through those things, then when they actually go to the higher level math,

then those basic facts, basic foundational skills are their working sort of, you know, tools, and they don't have that. So if a kid has to figure out, what is the square of 64 while doing a question? Because they never learned, eight times eight gives you 64, and that would be the eight. And so they struggle. And that struggle frustrates them. They're what we call in cognitive science, their working memory, which is their mental work space, gets completely overloaded, and they feel frustrated.

We often think of motivation as motivation will lead to success, but it's actually the other way around. when students feel successful in doing questions and doing solving these problems because they have the skills. They feel smart. They feel more confident and leads to self-efficacy leads to motivation. Have you seen this? I mean, you are an expert, but you're also a mom. I am a mom. Have you seen this in your own family?

I have. And as I said, it keeps me up at night for all the Canadian students and all the students who may or may not have the support that my kids, for example, have through me, of course. and this is, again, it becomes an equity issue. Our schools are doing a wonderful job, but we need to also really deeply understand what we could do in the classrooms and what the gaps might be. So for my kids, I teach them,

they are in an augmented enrichment math program. They do know their math facts, and their relationship to math is not, oh, don't give me the next question. When am I going to get the bonus question? Because it's not that they're, you know, know that they're any smart or anything. They just feel so much more confident

because they got the foundation right. And remember, math is relentlessly hierarchical, is like my friend Anna Stocky would say, who's a Canadian math professor. And when they don't have that rung, if it's missing, then they can get to the higher rung. And my kids have that, they feel more confident. So as a parent, I feel good.

But as an educator, I feel worried about this. So let's, just in the remaining time that we have, let me ask you about how we change that. how do or what needs to change so that teachers feel more confident in how they teach math and that confidence translates through to the students. So the answer is actually not really mysterious. We know this with reading and right to read showed us that early intervention was a really, really great thing to do.

But with reading, we would never say, I'm not good at reading and it's a point of pride, right? People say that about math all the time. We have to change that. It is not a joke to say, I'm not a math person. and it is not okay to say and have t-shirts that I suck at math. And that's a worrying trend. We can't have a growing economy because math is a language for all those careers that we're talking about. In STEM, math is not just a letter.

It's the language of coding, engineering, technology, everything. So what we need to do is early intervention, high quality, effective, evidence-informed math instruction. There's lots of knowledge out there. We need to do lots of guided practice. worked examples, and lead the students to being able to do the independent work. We need to build the achievement and then see the motivation thrive. And they did this, they did this in England, right? Tell me this, just briefly the story of what happened in England.

Yeah, it took about 10 years, but they did, they reversed the decline in such a major way for reading. By doing what? By bringing in explicit instruction, lots of corrective feedback, giving them lots of practice and doing lots of universal screenings. and supporting the teachers in a major, major way. They did that with reading. They also did that with math. And we're looking at them right now. And you know what they did?

They followed the evidence from cognitive science. So why does this matter? Just in the last minute that we have, why does it matter? That we broadly tackle this in a meaningful way. Yeah. And I think both of our guests earlier said, we're facing climate change.

We're facing issues with how we're going to survive, how are we going to produce food? all that is going to require mathematical reasoning. But reasoning doesn't come without the foundational fact knowledge and skill knowledge. So we have to build that. It matters because it's necessary for our growth as a country and as humanity. And you believe we can do this. We can turn this around.

I know we can do this. We know, you know. Because we have the evidence and it's so clear and we just have the will. And if we all do this together in our classrooms, and I think classrooms are these phenomenal, beautiful places. where this can happen. And can I tell you something? Kids are ready to learn. They are desperate to learn. And you give them a question and they raise their hand and they can do it right. They say, give me the next one. And they got this. You have fire about this. It's great.

I do. Nidi, thank you. Thank you, Matt. Nitney Satchewa is a researcher, faculty member at the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education at the University of Toronto. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.