Why read this: This article gives students a researcher's view of two real classrooms in dialogue: generalist elementary teachers in Windsor, Ontario, working alongside specialist math teachers in Chongqing, China. The reading purpose is to follow a dual stance: Ontario math education has genuine strengths worth defending, and at the same time has practical lessons to borrow from Chinese practice. Mandarin L1 readers will recognise the Fang and Shou pair and can use that knowledge to anchor the article's central claim about consolidation. The piece is a useful model of how researchers write for the general public, mixing test data, named voices and a hedged recommendation in roughly 700 words.
What to notice: Watch how the author holds two positions at the same time, defending Ontario and proposing change, without collapsing into a single side. Notice the work that reporting verbs do (reflected, noted, emphasised, characterised) and the careful hedging (modest, uneven, may, would, should). Track who is speaking in each quotation: a Chinese specialist, a Canadian Grade 5 teacher, researcher Christine Suurtamm or the author. Pay attention to nominalisations like consolidation, autonomy, modelling and efficacy, which carry a lot of meaning in compact form, and to the way subheads guide the argument from data, to dialogue, to challenges, to a closing call for evolution rather than a revolution.
Skills practised: Students practise tracking a hedged, multi-voice argument across an extended text, distinguishing reporting verbs that all mean roughly to say but carry different evaluative weight, and unpacking nominalised subject phrases into clearer verb sentences. They also practise reading statistical reporting (per cent figures, year-on-year change) and integrating it with qualitative interview evidence, and recognising the quote-then-interpret pattern typical of researcher op-eds. Discussion can extend these skills to evaluating the strength of the evidence and to comparing the Ontario picture with their own schooling systems.
What Ontario and Chinese math classrooms can teach each other
A multi-year research dialogue between teachers in Windsor and Chongqing suggests that Ontario's math education has real strengths worth defending, and a few practical lessons worth borrowing.
Tap any green word in the article to see its meaning.
What sort of classroom helps a child actually learn mathematics? In Ontario, the most recent provincial test results (2024 to 2025) show only modest improvement in elementary math, and performance across the province remains uneven, especially in the junior grades. Sixty-four per cent of Grade 3 students met the provincial standard, up from 61 per cent a year earlier. By Grade 6, however, only 51 per cent met that mark, meaning roughly half of students were not yet at the expected level by the end of the junior division. Attitudes shifted in the same direction: 67 per cent of Grade 3 students said they liked mathematics, but the figure dropped to 48 per cent by Grade 6.
These numbers point to a slow recovery from pandemic disruptions, and to the fact that more sustained work is needed before teachers and students can engage deeply with the 2020 math curriculum, which introduced new priorities including coding, , and . My research, grounded in classroom observation, has put Ontario math instruction taught by in dialogue with Chinese mathematics teaching delivered by specialist math teachers. The work was supported by a from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, in collaboration with researchers Shijing Xu and Michael Connelly.
Through a project, generalist teachers from a Windsor, Ontario public school and specialist colleagues from a Chongqing primary school joined monthly online knowledge-sharing meetings. They compared curriculum, taught short demonstration lessons on topics such as fractions, multiplication and estimation, and discussed student learning and parent engagement. Between 2016 and 2019, Xu and I co-ordinated these monthly exchanges and organised visits in both directions, with Canadian teachers travelling to Chongqing and Chinese teachers visiting Windsor.
What surprised us was how warmly Chinese specialists spoke about features of Ontario's generalist model, especially the comprehensive special education support system available to students with diverse needs and the high level of that Ontario teachers enjoy. One Chinese teacher with more than 20 years of experience reflected, “I wish we could have a special education support system like in Canada.” In an interview, mathematics education researcher Christine Suurtamm characterised the same strength differently, noting that the deep trust placed in teachers' professional judgment, and in their freedom to select and sequence activities that address curriculum expectations and meet diverse student needs, is a real benefit for Ontario students.
A Grade 5 Canadian teacher in the study described a similarly positive experience when invited to with a Chinese specialist. She emphasised how much she valued the collaboration, and hoped Canadian schools could create more structured time for this kind of professional partnership. Suurtamm agreed it would be worthwhile if Ontario teachers had more time to develop math lessons together. In 2023, the province announced funds to double the number of school mathematics coaches; research into how the coaching model has been implemented, how teachers actually use it, and what classroom effects follow would tell us much more about the efficacy of this approach.
Our work also pointed to two challenges Ontario might address by learning thoughtfully from Chinese practice. The first is teacher collaboration. Chinese specialists routinely engage in co-planning, lesson observation and , while Canadian generalists, despite a clear appetite for it, have few sustained chances to work together in this way. The second is consolidation. One Chinese teacher described mathematics teaching as a dynamic balance between Fang, which means and the use of multiple strategies, and Shou, a structured consolidation phase in which key ideas are clarified, connections are synthesized and methods are formalized. The consolidation phase in Ontario classrooms, by comparison, often feels comparatively thin.
None of this argues for a wholesale switch to a specialist system. As Suurtamm puts it, curriculum change should be seen as an : it builds thoughtfully on what already characterizes good practice, rather than replacing it overnight. The picture from our research is hopeful. Ontario's generalist model has genuine strengths that educators in the province can take pride in, and at the same time has room to borrow practical habits, such as regular co-planning and stronger consolidation, from elsewhere. Before pursuing new directions, it is worth pausing to recognise the foundations Ontario already has.
What sort of classroom helps a child actually learn mathematics? In Ontario, the most recent provincial test results (2024 to 2025) show only modest improvement in elementary math, and performance across the province remains uneven, especially in the junior grades. Sixty-four per cent of Grade 3 students met the provincial standard, up from 61 per cent a year earlier. By Grade 6, however, only 51 per cent met that mark, meaning roughly half of students were not yet at the expected level by the end of the junior division. Attitudes shifted in the same direction: 67 per cent of Grade 3 students said they liked mathematics, but the figure dropped to 48 per cent by Grade 6.
These numbers point to a slow recovery from pandemic disruptions, and to the fact that more sustained work is needed before teachers and students can engage deeply with the 2020 math curriculum, which introduced new priorities including coding, , and . My research, grounded in classroom observation, has put Ontario math instruction taught by in dialogue with Chinese mathematics teaching delivered by specialist math teachers. The work was supported by a from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, in collaboration with researchers Shijing Xu and Michael Connelly.
Through a project, generalist teachers from a Windsor, Ontario public school and specialist colleagues from a Chongqing primary school joined monthly online knowledge-sharing meetings. They compared curriculum, taught short demonstration lessons on topics such as fractions, multiplication and estimation, and discussed student learning and parent engagement. Between 2016 and 2019, Xu and I co-ordinated these monthly exchanges and organised visits in both directions, with Canadian teachers travelling to Chongqing and Chinese teachers visiting Windsor.
What surprised us was how warmly Chinese specialists spoke about features of Ontario's generalist model, especially the comprehensive special education support system available to students with diverse needs and the high level of that Ontario teachers enjoy. One Chinese teacher with more than 20 years of experience reflected, “I wish we could have a special education support system like in Canada.” In an interview, mathematics education researcher Christine Suurtamm characterised the same strength differently, noting that the deep trust placed in teachers' professional judgment, and in their freedom to select and sequence activities that address curriculum expectations and meet diverse student needs, is a real benefit for Ontario students.
A Grade 5 Canadian teacher in the study described a similarly positive experience when invited to with a Chinese specialist. She emphasised how much she valued the collaboration, and hoped Canadian schools could create more structured time for this kind of professional partnership. Suurtamm agreed it would be worthwhile if Ontario teachers had more time to develop math lessons together. In 2023, the province announced funds to double the number of school mathematics coaches; research into how the coaching model has been implemented, how teachers actually use it, and what classroom effects follow would tell us much more about the efficacy of this approach.
Our work also pointed to two challenges Ontario might address by learning thoughtfully from Chinese practice. The first is teacher collaboration. Chinese specialists routinely engage in co-planning, lesson observation and , while Canadian generalists, despite a clear appetite for it, have few sustained chances to work together in this way. The second is consolidation. One Chinese teacher described mathematics teaching as a dynamic balance between Fang, which means and the use of multiple strategies, and Shou, a structured consolidation phase in which key ideas are clarified, connections are synthesized and methods are formalized. The consolidation phase in Ontario classrooms, by comparison, often feels comparatively thin.
None of this argues for a wholesale switch to a specialist system. As Suurtamm puts it, curriculum change should be seen as an : it builds thoughtfully on what already characterizes good practice, rather than replacing it overnight. The picture from our research is hopeful. Ontario's generalist model has genuine strengths that educators in the province can take pride in, and at the same time has room to borrow practical habits, such as regular co-planning and stronger consolidation, from elsewhere. Before pursuing new directions, it is worth pausing to recognise the foundations Ontario already has.
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
According to the 2024 to 2025 provincial results, which statement best describes Ontario's elementary math performance?
- 02
Why does the author describe the dynamic balance between Fang and Shou?
- 03
Which sentence best captures the author's overall stance on Ontario math education?
- 04
How does the author use the voices of Chinese teachers, the Canadian Grade 5 teacher and researcher Christine Suurtamm to support her argument? Refer to at least two examples.
Suggested length: ~80 words
- 05
Evaluate the author's claim that Ontario should learn from Chinese math teaching, but only as an evolution rather than a revolution. What evidence in the article supports this position, and what might be missing?
Suggested length: ~80 words
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
According to the 2024 to 2025 provincial results, which statement best describes Ontario's elementary math performance?
- 02
Why does the author describe the dynamic balance between Fang and Shou?
- 03
Which sentence best captures the author's overall stance on Ontario math education?
- 04
How does the author use the voices of Chinese teachers, the Canadian Grade 5 teacher and researcher Christine Suurtamm to support her argument? Refer to at least two examples.
Suggested length: ~80 words
- 05
Evaluate the author's claim that Ontario should learn from Chinese math teaching, but only as an evolution rather than a revolution. What evidence in the article supports this position, and what might be missing?
Suggested length: ~80 words