Alberta ready to put draft social studies curriculum to the test
Changes in store for K-6 classes strike right ‘balance,’ says education minister
After months of engagement and years of battle over what Alberta students should learn in social studies class, the province’s new draft curriculum is ready to be tested in K-6 classrooms this fall.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides made the announcement Friday. The new curriculum will replace the two-decade-old one that is currently taught in classrooms.
“I am incredibly proud of the work that’s gone into developing this new K-6 social studies curriculum, and I am excited to see how it transfers into the classroom through piloting this fall,” Nicolaides said in a news release.
“I look forward to further collaboration with school leaders and teachers as we continue our work to build a comprehensive curriculum that builds students’ critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills, and empowers them to be active citizens.”
Based on feedback from Albertans after the draft curriculum was unveiled last month, Nicolaides says some content has been altered — such as moving the topic of taxes from Grade 2 to Grade 5 — and the content load has been reduced for Grade 4.
“Furthermore, additional First Nation, Métis, Inuit and francophone content and perspectives have been included. In addition, content around racism, anti-racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia have also been added,” he said.
This is the UCP’S second crack at replacing the social studies curriculum and the province’s third in six years. New curriculums proposed by the NDP in 2018 and the UCP in 2021 were both criticized and rejected.
The new draft is based on engagement with parents, teachers, education partners and curriculum specialists that started in August last year; nearly 15,000 Albertans provided feedback.
However, a group of experts tapped to help develop the draft curriculum said they were concerned when it was released last month. In an open letter, the K-6 Curriculum Development Specialist Group said their contributions were “largely ignored.”
The group raised concerns similar to those raised about the 2021 draft curriculum, noting a lack of opportunities for critical thinking and limited perspectives from diverse cultures, including First Nations and Métis. It also noted a lack of coherence in the curriculum, calling it a “random sequence of learning moments.”
Nicolaides said he thinks tweaks made after the latest engagement “moves the needle” on the group’s concerns, but said many of their concerns were related to older grades for which a new curriculum has not yet been established.
“I’m sure we’ll be able to address that when we get to developing those grades,” he said. “But they did specifically have some concern around learning outcomes and that we can do more to strengthen learning outcomes that foster critical thinking skills. … We have absolutely taken that to heart and there are now significantly less outcomes associated with lower-level thinking than the March version.”
The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) also criticized the new
draft, saying recommendations from teachers aren’t present and calling for the pilot to be paused. The province said it engaged nearly 900 educators and education partners between last August and the beginning of this month.
“Rather than proceeding to pilot a curriculum that we know is flawed, let’s take the time needed to get it right and ready for the classroom,” said ATA president Jason Schilling.
The ATA slammed the new curriculum for containing an unrealistic number of concepts, some of which are “developmentally inappropriate and conceptually inaccurate.” Schilling said it still fails to engage students’ higher-order thinking skills.
Additionally, he said the launch of more curriculums continues to “overload” the system, with teachers still struggling to implement a “flawed math curriculum” he says was born out of similarly premature implementation.
“Alberta students deserve the best, and so we must make the effort and take the time to get this right,” said Schilling.
“Government can do this by involving teachers directly in continuing curriculum revision, by listening meaningfully to their advice and by incorporating those suggestions into a curriculum that
is set for success and that Albertans can be proud of.”
Alberta NDP education critic Amanda Chapman said the curriculum changes show that Premier Danielle Smith “wants to control everything, including what is taught in classrooms.”
“Given the UCP’S track record of ignoring advice from experts, Albertans are correct to be concerned if the UCP has addressed the serious deficiencies in the first draft of their backwards and inappropriate curriculum,” Chapman said in a written statement.
Chapman echoed the ATA, saying Alberta has the lowest per-student funding in Canada and that teachers will face added pressure by being “forced to implement yet another new untested curriculum.”
Feedback from the classrooms participating in the pilot will be used to finalize the K-6 social studies curriculum before it becomes mandatory for the 2025-26 school year. However, the minister said he doesn’t expect major changes.
“I think we’ve gotten the balance right,” he said. “The door’s still open to minor modifications, additions, deletions. I’d be absolutely happy to incorporate those.”
The province has earmarked $34 million to support classrooms piloting curriculums next school
year. Teachers will get release days to support planning, and will be provided learning and teaching resources, as well as professional learning opportunities.
School authorities are asked to contact Alberta Education by May 15 if they’d like to participate.
While a subject overview has been released for the full K-12 grade school range, the curriculum is still in the works for later grades. There is no timeline for the release of a new draft curriculum for students past Grade 6.
The province has also updated the ministerial order on student learning — the document that outlines the vision, values and learning foundations for students in K-12 education — and a new guiding framework for curriculum development.
Nicolaides says the ministerial order focuses on career education, knowledge and skills development, educational programming and preparing students to be active and engaged citizens. The guiding framework focuses on implementing inclusive language and representing diverse voices.
The province is implementing its new curriculums in science, French immersion and literature, and French first language and literature next school year.