Draft curriculum material ‘misinterpreted’: Eggen
Alberta’s education minister defended drafts of a proposed new kindergarten-to-Grade 4 curriculum Wednesday, saying allegations about removing Alberta history from social studies classes are false.
“The suggestion that there’s anything that diminishes the description of Alberta, or the emphasis on Alberta, and the shared history that we have together is a misinterpretation at best,” Education Minister David Eggen said in a Wednesday interview.
References to Indigenous and francophone perspectives sprinkled throughout the draft documents, which the government released to Postmedia Wednesday, are to honour commitments the government has made to Indigenous people, and provide a more complete picture of Canadian history and culture, he said.
The increased emphasis on those perspectives won’t be at the expense of others, Eggen said.
“It’s a significant misinterpretation of the new curriculum to suggest that (social justice) is the pivot point that drives this,” he said.
In 2016, Eggen announced the first major overhaul of Alberta’s K-12 curriculum, in which all subjects and grades will be updated in English and French concurrently.
More than 400 teachers, academics and others are revising eight subjects in the six-year process, beginning with the early grades.
Postmedia earlier obtained copies of some of the K-4 draft curriculum documents, which had been presented to parents at embargoed consultation sessions across Alberta in May and June.
A Postmedia reporter attended one of the Edmonton consultation sessions in May. The event was off the record, and all documents shared with parents had to be returned to presenters.
On Wednesday, Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples opined that the draft K-4 social studies curriculum neglected to mention Albertans or Canadians and failed to emphasize the importance of history or geography.
In response, United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney repeated on Twitter an earlier promise to put the revamped curriculum “through the shredder.”
In an emailed statement Wednesday, UCP caucus spokeswoman Annie Dormuth said Albertans are concerned with the “great deal of secrecy” in the curriculum writing process.
“They are also concerned that the stated goal of the curriculum change is to make students ‘effective agents of change’ — as opposed to things like critical knowledge and teaching the skills for critical thought and decision making,” she wrote.
Eggen rejects claims of secrecy, pointing to public consultations held throughout the process. He is disturbed by Kenney’s curriculum-shredding plans.
“We believe that destroying records of the past, demeaning the heritage that we share, together as a province, that’s one part of history that must never be repeated here or anywhere else,” he said.
The new draft social studies curriculum says Grade 4 students should be able to determine “how the actions of individuals and groups prior to 1905 in what is now Alberta shaped their communities,” and be able to sequence events and developments over time, from first contact with Indigenous people to 1905, when Alberta became a province.
Grade 3 students must be able to interpret maps and other geographical representations with legends and scales, which identify where natural resources are located, the draft said.
Curriculum working groups are now taking feedback gathered from meetings with parents and teachers and updating the K-4 drafts, Eggen said.
The minister is on schedule to approve the new K-4 curriculum by December 2018. The government does not yet have a timeline for when it will be introduced to classrooms.