Ontario’s Financial Literacy Math Curriculum Is Filled With Hypocrisy, Privilege, and Politics
Mandatory Financial Literacy.
Anything which is usually mandated in education — especially mathematics — needs to have a suspicious eye.
You know this is the same government that oversees crooked lottery and gaming. When I say crooked, the odds/prize payouts are garbage AND the government takes out ads telling you to play as a group!
Anyone with basic math literacy would know that purchasing more than one ticket — while technically increasing your probability to win — -lowers your mathematical expectation.
If the 6/49 lottery has a 1 in 14 million chance to win the jackpot, and let’s say you buy 100 tickets, your chances are now 1 in 140 000. You’ve spent a really nice steak dinner to move the probability of winning in decimal places which, statistically, haven’t really altered your chances.
Welcome to the nefarious and amoral world of “Playing as a Group”. The same people who are basically telling you to smoke a pack a day of cigarettes, is now trying to sell their snake oil financial literacy — announcing it with leaders in the financial industry.
Of course they are. That’s who benefits the most. The rich.
IT’S NEVER ABOUT THE STUDENTS OR TEACHERS.
The Lotto Max operates with some of the sneakiest parameters. The probability of getting all the numbers correct in the game are 1 in 28 million. Each ticket cost $5. That means if 14 million tickets are bought, there is at least a 50% chance the jackpot isn’t claimed — that’s why you often see the jackpot not won.
Look at all the money the government just scooped. Sure, it goes to noble causes, but it also goes to an army of people making God’s money doing nothing but managing gaming/lotteries with their crooked mathematics.
Do you think for one second that the government is going to have a math education that teacher you about probability, mathematical expectation, utility and statistics as applied to gambling?
No. They want you to be mathematically illiterate when it comes to that.
Sure, they will give you “financial literacy”, but it’s snake oil. It’s an absolutely overbaked necessity.
Who can afford a house these days? And, here’s the only math you need to know about mortgages/amortization — the banks will bleed you dry with interest payments.
There, that took 5 seconds.
All those stupid formulas that kids are going to learn is only interesting in the algebra. But, being armed with that knowledge isn’t going to make houses more affordable or your payments not overwhelmingly stacked with interest.
This Financial Literacy is only beneficial to the “Friends of Doug Ford” and the PC Government — big business, banks, etc.
Of course, millions will be spent on education materials/testing for this — leading to some undetectable cronyism.
It’s bullshit mathematics brought to you by bullshit people.
Stephen Lecce is the worst education minister in history. He only appears on friendly media — does this sound familiar? He never meets with teachers — unless they are from a private school.
He’s a carnie at some low-rent carnival of education. He just happens to wear a suit. It’s like putting lipstick on pig. Sorry pig.
He and the PC government thinks the only purpose of school is to get a job — working for a boss who probably benefits from having a math curriculum that seems more and more Dickensian.
Back to Basics is the lowest form of mathematical literacy. It’s being sold as it is quite the opposite.
Do think a government run by a luddite lunkhead like Doug Ford is going to give Ontario a math education that sits in the 21st century?
No. It’s Monday’s fish. And this is what the government wants students and parents to chow down now — because they have to.
