Proposed curriculum revision raises concern
News of an Alberta education curriculum overhaul came as a surprise to mom Barbara Silva.
Organizer of Support Our Students, or SOS, with three elementary schoolchildren of her own, Silva said Alberta’s curriculum is ripe with opportunities to bring the province “into this century.
“There’s lots of room to make it current, and make it relevant to where we are today.”
More time in play, changes to physical education standards, including more information on climate change and introducing consent and LGBTQ issues into the sex education curriculum, are all updates Silva would like to see.
“Education should be at the forefront, it should be responding, it should be leading,” she said Tuesday. “We really hope SOS is part of the discussion, that we can sit down with the minister.”
News of the comprehensive curriculum review and revamp “unlike any seen in Alberta” was revealed Monday. Education Minister David Eggen said every subject area in the K-12 curriculum will be reviewed and rewritten.
Not so fast, said the official Opposition.
Wildrose education critic Mark Smith voiced concern Tuesday about the aggressive timeline of the education minister.
“We have a problem with the scope of this review,” Smith said. “This is a very, very complex thing, and it’s got to be done right.”
Smith, a teacher for 30 years, was part of the last social studies curriculum review. It was a multilayered process, he said, which took a lot of time, and that was for just one subject.
Instead of a wholesale overhaul, Smith said he would prefer to see “the traditional approach” of reviewing disciplines one at a time.
“Then you can work through the grades to make sure you have a coherent system.”
Smith said while six years is doable, it’s an aggressive timeline.
“It’s a fine thing to have a curriculum review, they do need to be updated, but I wonder if six years is enough time?”
In a statement, Eggen said he thinks Smith will be pleased with Wednesday’s announcement about how the government plans to attack the curriculum review.
Eggen will announce plans to begin developing the province’s future curriculum and will describe how Albertans can provide input.
Did you hear that sound Alberta? Like a can of pop being cracked. That’s the can of worms the NDP government just opened with news that it plans a comprehensive review of K-12 curriculum “unlike any seen in Alberta.”
More details are to be released by Education Minister David Eggen Wednesday morning, but Albertans already know every subject area from math and language arts to music and career skills are to be put under the microscope and rewritten over the next six years.
Points to Eggen for ambition and guts. A fullblown curriculum review is a massive undertaking. Just one subject alone (dare one mention math) can spark parent rage and protests.
That’s not to say that some of Alberta’s curriculum isn’t out of date. It is.
But shouldn’t curriculum be updated as a matter of routine? The province spends millions of dollars every year reviewing and researching various subjects — $30 million in 2014 alone. Why isn’t that good enough?
Is digging into every subject, all at once, the right strategy? All or nothing feels risky, especially coming against the backdrop of recent attempts at education reform. There is the argument that skills need to cross subject areas and therefore, belong as part of the same discussion. But is the government about to give Albertans an education revolution when something less dramatic would do? Good teachers make sure their classes are relevant to students, no matter how dated the bones of the curriculum.
There is a cautionary tale in the former Progressive Conservative government’s equally ambitious review of all aspects of education that took the form of Inspiring Education, a project aimed at reshaping Alberta’s education landscape for the 21st century learner. The three-year exercise that consulted with an estimated 20,000 educators, parents, students and other interested parties culminated in a new Education Act that went through its own painful approval process and series of revisions in the legislature.
That act was supposed to replace the outdated School Act, setting up a framework to allow more Alberta children to graduate and be part of mainstream classes. But the PCs never proclaimed the new Education Act and now Eggen says he is rethinking that too. The PCs also paused a curriculum review started in 2014 when loud complaints started coming to the fore about new methods of teaching math.
How will this go-round be different? Albertans will know more Wednesday. But you can bet there will be plenty of homework ahead for those who care about how this province fulfils one of its core responsibilities — educating Alberta’s kids.