“Honestly, I want to point to something (positive), I really do. I want a curriculum that is solid and good for students,”
“I can’t find anything so far.”
The proposed kindergarten to Grade 6 curriculum was introduced Monday by Education Minister
It overhauls study in eight core subjects to stress fundamentals and real-life skills and applications.
The social studies section has kids learning a wealth of historical detail intermixed with financial literacy.
Grade 1 students are to explore the origin of writing, First Nations culture, ancient civilizations, the divine right of kings and the existential question of whether money can buy happiness.
In Grade 2, it’s Socrates,
By Grade 4 students are to learn about explorer
Students in Grade 5 are expected to learn about the
The horrific legacy of residential schools — in
Peck said it’s far too much and far too complex for youngsters and comes at the expense of critical-thinking skills.
“It’s like the people who wrote this have never met a child,” said Peck, who focuses on social studies in education at the
“The whole philosophy is they don’t want kids to understand any of this. They want kids to be able to make a passing reference to it. In other words, you can do really well on (the game show) "Jeopardy." You don’t actually have any depth of understanding.”
“Why are we learning it? What is the understanding that we want students to take away from this?” asked Patrick.
She suggested developing empathy and understanding of other beliefs can be done through illustrative examples and religions don't need to be taught in minute detail.
“It will feel certainly to some students, and it will be interpreted by some parents, as this is just indoctrination — which is what you don’t want."
“What I see in K to 6 is very much a celebratory story about the colonial side of our history, where the Indigenous people are more of an add-on to this bigger colonial story,” she said.
“They’re not looking deep inside at the negative impacts of the colonial past on Indigenous peoples. If you think of the Metis, for instance, there’s none of the inclusion of the ways in which the scrip process was flawed (and) in which lands were taken away.”
Donald said in the proposed curriculum, the Indigenous experience seems bolted onto a timeline, a box to be checked off. The Indigenous experience suffuses the North American experience, he said, and the curriculum needs to draw on that accumulated wisdom and worldview.
Instead, said Donald, "There is this moral success story (the curriculum designers) want to tell, and the story is based on how liberal democracy coupled with market capitalism has morphed together to create the most successful societies the world has ever seen.
"(They want) to bring students into this tradition of this moral success story and say to everybody, 'Your best option, if you want to be successful, is to accept this story, to get on board with it.'"
In the music section, Grade 6 students are to study jazz and big-band sound, focusing on
Opposition NDP Leader
“(It) is a profound display of whitewashing,” said Notley. “You do not learn about jazz without learning about
“Any curriculum that proposes or purports to teach jazz by only talking about white musicians — even those who are related to the premier — is a failure.”
Kenney's spokeswoman
Alberta Education spokesman
This report by
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