In March, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced that the new math and English curricula would be taught to students from kindergarten to 3rd grade. All K-6 students will have a newly designed draft physical education plan. The final versions of these curricula will be available to teachers for review and scheduling in April.
According to the province, grades 4 through 6 will see revised English math and arts courses in September 2023.
Rallies were held in Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Red Deer, where protesters demanded that new curricula be stopped this fall and that the county return to the plan.
The renewal of the curriculum in Alberta began in 2010, then under a Progressive Conservative government, with the Inspiring Education initiative putting forward high-level ideas on how to improve education in the countryside.
“So this process has been going on for a long time,” said Carla Peck, a professor of social studies education at the University of Alberta.
“Unfortunately, when the UCP took the baton, they did not bother taking into account all the excellent work that had been done in the past,” he added. “They decided that they knew better and that they would try to do it themselves.”
In her eyes, the curriculum represents a step backwards, emphasizing memorization of concepts instead of promoting critical and creative thinking.
“The curriculum itself looks like something from the 1950s with long lists of information, cut off from big ideas and concepts,” he told CTV News Edmonton. “It will really look like a curriculum that maybe grandparents in the countryside will remember where they had to memorize all kinds of information and put it back to a test.
“This is not good enough for Alberta students and this is not good enough for the world we have today where we need problem solvers, critical thinkers,” Peck added.
Katherine Stavropoulos, LaGrange’s press secretary, told CTV News in a statement that the province “respects the democratic right of the Albertans to demonstrate peacefully” and that the government is receiving comments from interested parties.
“Over the past year, we have heard comments from Alberts, educators and pilot school authorities about the draft K-6 curriculum,” Stavropoulos said. “We have committed ourselves to a transparent and open one-year review process for the curriculum and we have kept that promise.”
Stavropoulos added that the feedback caused changes in four thematic areas, including customized implementation schedules and a new design plan for K-6 social studies.
“Parents were clear that they expected our education system to provide their children with a strong foundation of basic knowledge and skills, and that is exactly what our government intends to offer,” he said.
“Students deserve to learn from the best possible curriculum. The steps we are taking now will ensure that our students learn from an up-to-date curriculum that prepares them for future success.”
A protester stands with a sign at the Ditch the Draft rally in Edmonton on April 2, 2022 (CTV News Edmonton).
Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers Association, said the curriculum is not age-appropriate and introduces concepts without a long-term vision.
“There are some subjects, for example, like math, that have some concepts that are traditionally secondary school concepts that are just confusing, and students can not do those concepts,” he said.
Teachers, curriculum development experts, indigenous groups and French-speaking communities have widely criticized the draft curriculum.
“It’s very Eurocentric,” Schilling said. “It does not address indigenous cultures and ways of knowing with respect, and it is simply outdated.
“We are actually taking our students back and not moving them forward, and teachers, parents and students want to see a curriculum that is modern and focused on their future, not the past.”
One of these teachers is Katrina Schoepp, whose eldest turns five in August.
“I can not even force myself to send her to kindergarten with this curriculum,” said Schoepp. “The pressure they want to put on children in kindergarten in terms of reading and how they suggest teaching it is frightening.”
With files from Jessica Robb of Edmonton CTV News
