Petition circulated to beef up math skills
Close to 200 people, most of them professors, have signed a petition to toughen up admission standards to the faculties of education, reported the Winnipeg Free Press.
The petition argues for higher high school graduation requirements for those looking to become teachers, alleging that some teachers can’t properly educate their students since they didn’t receive adequate math education themselves.
“Currently, many students enter education faculties in the universities in Manitoba with the least demanding of the Grade 12 mathematics courses — Grade 12 Consumer Math 40S (soon to be replaced by Essential Math 40S, which is equally weak in math content),” the petition states.
“University math professors have found that students with this minimum requirement often have alarmingly weak mathematics skills and high levels of math anxiety,” the petition states.
The professors are asking that students be required to have Grade 12 pre-calculus or applied math to be admitted to faculties of education.
Winnipeg in battle with First Nations over water supply
Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 First Nations is threatening to cut off Winnipeg’s water flow in an effort to secure compensation from the city, reported the Winnipeg Sun.
The community is threatening to load rocks into Ash Rapids, which connects Lake of the Woods to Shoal Lake, if they don’t receive $124 million from the City of Winnipeg.
Mike Myers, a consultant for the Iskatewizaagegan band, estimated that Winnipeg’s water supply, if cut off from the Lake of the Woods, could run dry within three months.
“The mandate the community gave [Iskatewizaagegan] council [ . . . ] was to go as far as you need to go.” said Myers. Although he added that they would only block the rapids as the “very last straw.”
The $124 million is to compensate for the city’s profits from commercial and residential sale of water from the lake.
Weekend sees rash of teenager stabbings
An incident that left a 16-year-old boy in critical but stable condition Sunday morning was the second stabbing involving a teenager in Winnipeg this past weekend, reported CBC News.
Police were called to the 300 block of Kennedy Street shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The boy sustained injuries to his upper and lower body.
This follows an unrelated incident involving a 15-year-old boy early Saturday morning near College Avenue and Aikins Street. The boy was stabbed multiple times in what police say may have been a gang related incident.
In wake of the violence, Const. Jason Michalyshen of the Winnipeg Police Service called for more action to help the city’s youth.
“We have to continue to offer young people positive alternate ways of going through their days,” Michalyshen told CBC News.
According to CBC.ca/Manitoba, the 15 year-old boy has since died of his injuries.
