Document suggesting students learn positive aspects of Nazi Germany deleted by Alberta education officials

2021/11/15 Leave a comment

Striking that the document dates from 1984 with multiple revisions without anyone noticing or taking action:

A document that suggested Alberta students learn about the positive aspects of Nazi Germany has been deleted from the Ministry of Education’s website, following criticism from multiple groups.

The document, a set of guidelines for “recognizing diversity and promoting respect,” suggested considering whether a given educational resource addressed “both the positive and negative behaviours” of various groups.

“For instance,” it read, “if a video details war atrocities committed by the Nazis, does it also point out that before World War II, German government’s policies substantially strengthened the country’s economy?”

Source: Document suggesting students learn positive aspects of Nazi Germany deleted by Alberta education officials

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

«Malaise» autour du nouveau cours de citoyenneté

2021/10/28 Leave a comment

Of note, and not entirely unexpected:

Le processus de mise en place du nouveau cours Culture et citoyenneté québécoise provoque un « malaise » parmi les experts et les enseignants mandatés pour créer le programme, qui se sentent « instrumentalisés » à des fins politiques par le gouvernement Legault.

Selon ce que Le Devoir a appris, deux des cinq membres du comité de rédaction du programme ont démissionné au cours des dernières semaines. Des experts d’un autre comité, chargé celui-là de « valider » le contenu, envisagent de démissionner à leur tour devant la tournure jugée « partisane » de l’implantation du cours.

La fonctionnaire du ministère de l’Éducation qui était responsable du programme, Marie-Noëlle Corriveau-Tendland, a remis sa démission en mai dernier. Elle estime que la fonction publique « n’est plus un rempart administratif contre les interventions politiques ».

« Je sentais que pour satisfaire un ministre, on devait modifier le contenu d’un programme d’études. Ça m’a heurtée dans mes valeurs. Quand je suis allée au ministère, j’allais travailler pour l’État et non pas pour le gouvernement », dit Marie-Noëlle Corriveau-Tendland au Devoir.

Elle considère « normal » qu’un ministre cherche à influencer le processus menant à la révision d’un programme. Après tout, il a été élu pour gouverner. La machine administrative doit cependant s’assurer de respecter les façons de procéder afin de « dépolitiser la pédagogie ».

« Les experts trouvent bizarre qu’il y ait des annonces de faites avant même la fin des validations normales du programme », dit l’ex-fonctionnaire, devenue conseillère pédagogique dans un cégep.

Le nouveau programme remplacera le cours Éthique et culture religieuse (ECR), créé en 2008 dans la foulée de la déconfessionnalisation des écoles. Le cours remanié réduit la place des religions et accorde davantage d’importance à la citoyenneté, à la culture ainsi qu’à la laïcité, thème central de l’action gouvernementale depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), en 2018.

Un engagement politique

L’annonce de ce nouveau programme, dimanche, avait des allures d’événement préélectoral. Trois personnalités (Dany Turcotte, Pierre Curzi et Ingrid Falaise) sont venues vanter les vertus du cours amélioré. Dans une vidéo diffusée lors de la conférence de presse, huit ministres et le premier ministre défilent à l’écran pour expliquer que ce programme contribuera à un « Québec fier ».

« On se sent en pleine campagne électorale », déplore une source bien informée des tractations entourant la naissance du cours. Cette personne a demandé à garder l’anonymat par crainte de représailles.

« On parle ici d’un simple cours offert au primaire et au secondaire, mais le gouvernement nous décrit quasiment comme les sauveurs de la société québécoise », lance une autre source qui n’est pas autorisée à parler publiquement.

Le ministre de l’Éducation, Jean-François Roberge, se défend de faire de la politique sur le dos des élèves. « La refonte du cours d’ECR était un engagement de notre gouvernement. Il était normal d’en faire l’annonce. En aucun temps il n’est question de politiser l’enseignement des élèves », indique Jean-François Del Torchio, attaché de presse du ministre.

« Les thèmes qui seront abordés lors de ce programme ne sont aucunement politiques, mais bien des thèmes qui reflètent la réalité quotidienne des élèves, comme les institutions démocratiques, le système judiciaire, l’environnement, l’éducation à la sexualité, la culture, etc. », ajoute-t-il.

« Déjà depuis dimanche, plusieurs enseignants nous ont contactés pour participer à l’élaboration du cours. Ils veulent contribuer », précise le représentant du ministre.

Cap sur les élections

De vastes consultations du milieu de l’éducation ont bel et bien eu lieu à partir de janvier 2020, mais le ministre Roberge a écarté à ce jour les opinions contraires à son projet, indique Marie-Noëlle Corriveau-Tendland.

En privé, des experts et des enseignants disent constater eux aussi que le gouvernement Legault cherche à mettre en avant sa vision politique de la nation québécoise. Cette vision n’est pas nécessairement mauvaise, selon nos sources. Certaines personnes y sont favorables, mais le réseau scolaire doit s’élever au-dessus de la mêlée pour produire un programme pédagogique exempt de partisanerie, souligne-t-on.

Une autre membre du comité de rédaction du nouveau cours, enseignante au secondaire, a récemment remis sa démission. Il ne reste ainsi que trois des cinq membres originaux du groupe chargé de pondre la nouvelle version du programme.

Selon nos informations, des membres du comité de validation — l’étape suivant la rédaction — s’interrogent à leur tour sur la suite de leur engagement. Ce groupe d’une quinzaine d’experts ne s’est réuni qu’une seule fois, en juin dernier. Il n’a eu accès qu’à un résumé de quatre pages du projet de programme.

L’identité des membres de ce groupe est tenue secrète. Tous ont dû signer une entente de confidentialité. La prochaine réunion du comité est prévue pour vendredi. Le cours Culture et citoyenneté québécoise doit encore être peaufiné avant son entrée en vigueur à la rentrée 2023, a expliqué le ministre Roberge. Des projets pilotes doivent avoir lieu à la rentrée 2022.

Mélanie Dubois, chargée de cours en formation des enseignants à l’Université du Québec à Montréal, a l’impression que le gouvernement veut accélérer la mise en place du nouveau programme avant les élections prévues dans un an, en octobre 2022. Elle trouve aussi « décevant » qu’aucun enseignant n’ait été invité à l’annonce du programme par le ministre, dimanche.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/642852/education-malaise-autour-du-nouveau-cours-de-citoyennete?utm_source=infolettre-2021-10-26&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Roberge dévoile les bases du nouveau cours «Culture et citoyenneté québécoise»

2021/10/26 Leave a comment

Of note, likely the next series of debates (Bill 21 and 96 would be good places to highlight issues):

La culture, la citoyenneté québécoise et le développement de la pensée critique formeront les « trois axes » du nouveau cours appelé à remplacer celui d’Éthique et culture religieuse (ECR). Le ministre de l’Éducation, Jean-François Roberge, a dévoilé dimanche « les thèmes » qui seront enseignés dans toutes les écoles primaires et secondaires du Québec à partir de la rentrée 2023.

Le premier volet permettra aux élèves de comprendre la culture « des sociétés » avec un accent prononcé pour celle d’ici, a expliqué le ministre en conférence de presse.

L’« objectif du cours » se trouve dans le deuxième axe. « La visée, c’est de préparer nos jeunes à l’exercice de la citoyenneté québécoise. Nos valeurs et les principes qui sont les fondements de notre société seront présentés aux élèves », a expliqué Jean-François Roberge en citant le respect, la liberté d’expression, la liberté de conscience, les droits, les libertés et les responsabilités de chacun. Il sera aussi question d’éducation aux médias et d’éducation sexuelle.

« Le dialogue, la pensée critique et l’éthique » composent la troisième orientation du nouveau cours. Les élèves seront notamment amenés à se questionner et à aborder des dilemmes moraux. « Cette approche fera obstacle aux censeurs et à tous ceux qui s’attaquent à la liberté d’expression », a déclaré le ministre Roberge.

Il a insisté à plusieurs reprises pour dire que le cours d’ECR était « vicié à la base » et « reposait sur un dogme qui est une erreur », soit que la religion est l’unique « lunette à travers on regarde la personne ». L’analyse des identités religieuses demeurera au programme, mais perdra son aspect « prépondérant ». « On peut ne plus tolérer ce genre des biais dans nos écoles. »

Le nouveau programme n’ira pas dans la « redondance », mais dans la « complémentarité » par rapport au reste des matières, a par ailleurs mentionné M. Roberge.

La rédaction du programme est déjà « bien amorcée », a-t-il affirmé. Le ministère officialisera le contenu au printemps 2022. La matière sera testée à partir de l’automne 2022 avec « des enseignants qui [lèveront] la main » ou « des équipes-écoles qui [lèveront] la main ». Des « ajustements » suivront au cours de l’année scolaire afin de pouvoir étendre ce nouveau cours à toutes les écoles primaires et secondaires du Québec à l’automne 2023.

Le cours d’ECR, 2008-2023

Le nouveau cours de « Culture et citoyenneté québécoise » ressemble au cours d’ECR avec un « vernis national », juge Georges Leroux, professeur émérite à l’UQAM et corédacteur du programme désavoué par le ministre. « La grande question, c’est quel est véritablement le changement qui va séparer le nouveau programme de l’ancien ? À part la promotion nationale, tous les thèmes qui sont abordés en éthique sont abordés dans le programme actuel. »

À cela le ministre répond que « quelqu’un qui compare les deux cours verrait à la fin que la compétence de l’éthique et du dialogue reviennent, mais dans une perspective différente. L’ancien cours d’ECR amenait le débat et l’éthique, mais empêchait parfois la remise en question de certains dogmes. Je ne veux pas répéter cette erreur-là dans le nouveau cours. »

Avant l’arrivée de ce cours d’ECR en 2008, « on était dans un enseignement confessionnel qui sortait du XVIIe siècle », rappelle Benoit Mercier, un autre des concepteurs de l’ancien programme. Les jeunes Québécois devaient alors suivre soit un cours de morale, soit un cours de catéchèse.

Les deux spécialistes doutent surtout des consultations qui ont mené à cette nouvelle version. Plus de trois ans de discussions et d’analyses avaient été nécessaires pour accoucher du cours d’ECR. À la fin ce processus, « tous les syndicats étaient d’accord, toutes les universités, les collèges et leurs représentants étaient d’accord. […] Tout le monde était d’accord », se remémore Benoit Mercier.

Accueil mitigé

Le cours de culture et citoyenneté québécoise découle d’un processus entamé en 2020. Une consultation publique en ligne, deux consultations en personnes — à Québec et à Montréal —, des rencontres virtuelles avec les communautés autochtones et l’étude de quelque 200 mémoires ont mené à l’annonce de dimanche, a précisé Jean-Bernard Émond, adjoint parlementaire à l’Éducation.

Plusieurs se réjouissent de la fin du cours d’ECR, vu par certains comme une promotion du multiculturalisme. Le député du Parti québécois dans Matane-Matapédia, Pascal Bérubé, considère le remplacement du cours comme une « victoire » pour sa formation politique, puisque « le ministre de l’Éducation ne voulait pas l’abolir, car il l’avait enseigné ».

Le cours d’ECR « va passer à l’histoire comme une aberration », selon le président du Mouvement laïque québécois, Daniel Baril, qui s’enthousiasme de la fin du « tout à la religion ». Selon lui, « dans une société polarisée, c’est la culture québécoise qui est le pôle d’inclusion ».

D’autres accueillent l’annonce avec scepticisme. Le vice-président de la Fédération nationale des enseignants du Québec, affiliée à la CSN, se questionne sur le temps alloué de deux heures par cycle. « Il y a une espèce de fourre-tout, de divers thèmes. On se demande comment ce sera possible de faire passer l’ensemble de ces éléments avec seulement deux heures par cycle », a commenté Léandre Lapointe, qui espère que la formation pour les enseignants promise par le ministre sera adéquate.

La présidente intérimaire de l’Association québécoise en éthique et culture religieuse, Line Dubé, reste aussi perplexe devant ce nouveau cours. « Pour des pédagogues, des enseignants, des didacticiens, ça ressemble encore à un gros Jello, pas encore “pogné”. On attend encore la couleur réelle de ce à quoi on nous engage rapidement. »

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/642501/le-nouveau-cours-de-culture-et-citoyennete-quebecoise-dans-toutes-les?utm_source=infolettre-2021-10-25&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

English version:

A new course intended to replace Quebec’s polarizing, long-standing ethics and religious culture curriculum will teach students how to be proud members of Quebec society, the province’s Education Minister said Sunday.

Jean-François Roberge held a news conference to unveil details of the new course, dubbed Culture and Citizenship in Quebec. He was joined by Isabelle Charest, the minister responsible for women, as well as various key players from Quebec’s cultural scene.

“You know Quebec is different from the rest of North America,” Roberge said. “We are not New York, Vermont, Ontario or New Brunswick. We have a Quebec way of life. We have our artists, Francophone and Anglophone, our cultural legacy. We are not ashamed to share this culture with our kids.”

The new class is intended to replace a course on ethics and religious culture that’s been taught in the province’s schools since 2008.

Roberge said the new curriculum was built around three main themes. The first will explore diverse cultures with an emphasis on Quebec. The citizenship plank of the program will teach the province’s values and responsibilities, while content intended to teach ethics is also meant to develop students’ critical thinking skills.

Roberge said the class aims to provide “national cohesion” as well as fight against sexism, racism and sexual violence. He also positioned the revamped curriculum as an “obstacle to censorship.”

The current program has faced years of relentless criticism from Quebec nationalists and committed secularists for allegedly putting too much emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity.

Roberge, however, cited different grounds for objection when critiquing the present-day course.

He said the ethics and religious culture class is not offering enough space for students to ask critical questions.

“We need to be able to discuss and debate everything respectfully,” Roberge said. “It cannot be a taboo and censorship class, it needs to be a course on freedom of expression and learning about personal relationships.”

The provincial government had announced plans to abolish the course last year following criticisms that too much time was being taken up by a section devoted to religions.

Roberge said religion will not be completely erased from the new program, but will not be the primary focus anymore.

“Of course, when you talk about culture you will have to talk about religious culture, but it’s not the only way,” he said. “… We have to modernize our program.”

Caroline Quesnel, president of provincial teachers’ union Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec, offered a different but equally critical take on the current program. She asserted the present curriculum does not present enough nuance when teaching students about religions around the world, citing lack of discussions around gender equality in certain faiths.

She also said the program does not address issues related to Indigenous peoples, calling the approach “quite limited.”

Roberge said the new course will teach residents how to navigate Quebec society and take pride in their province. It will include sections on the province’s judicial system, critical thinking, social media and sex education among others, he added.

Charest said not a week goes by in the province without reports of unacceptable behaviours, such as domestic violence which disproportionately affects women and girls. She hopes the new course offering will help tackle those issues.

“Students will be invited to reflect on notions of consent, respect, self-affirmation, empathy and equal relationships between men and women,” Charest said.

The new program will be introduced in some schools as a pilot project in September 2022 before being fully implemented across all of the province’s elementary and high schools a year later.

Quesnel, however, said the curriculum’s ambitious scope risks trying to cover too many topics at once.

“Freedom of speech, democratic institutions, sex education, technology, Indigenous Peoples, the environment …,” Quesnel said. “None will really be covered properly.”

She said Sunday’s announcement looked like a “show” in which the province attempted to sell the new program, but noted that not a single teacher was present at the news conference.

“I feel like the government is kind of using this curriculum to position itself as the guardian of Quebec values and impose its vision,” Quesnel said.

She also said teachers are worried about how many hours will be allocated for the course, and if they will receive proper training beforehand.

“Teachers are used to multitasking, but when we are talking about all these topics, they are quite specific,” Quesnel said. “It’s not only about writing a good manual and teachers will follow. It really needs more training than that.”

Source: Quebec unveils new ethics and culture class


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Star Editorial: Those who care about math education for all should focus on results, not rhetoric about colonialism

2021/07/20 Leave a comment

Good editorial calling for focus on substance, not rhetoric:

Kids in Ontario ought to get the best possible education in mathematics. And that means all kids — including ones who have historically been left behind in this crucial area.

We should hold the government accountable on this, and demand it do everything possible on both counts — designing the best math education, and delivering an approach to teaching that ensures no groups are excluded from success.

What we shouldn’t be doing is getting hung up on rhetoric about “decolonizing” math education and worrying about the “historical roots and social constructions” of mathematics.

This is a giant distraction from those real issues — the quality of education and making sure the government gives teachers the resources they need to deliver it to all their students.

The issue arises because the Ford government has dropped language about racism and colonialism from the preamble to the province’s new math curriculum.

The paragraph that’s been edited out said this: “Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges, and a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions.”

How does focusing on language of this sort help any students actually learn math, or help any teachers operate to their best ability in the classroom? 

And how does it help to get Ontarians behind the cause of making sure we have the best math education possible, and the government carries through on delivering it?

The answer is it doesn’t do any of those things. All it does it convince most parents — and most teachers, for that matter — that the people in charge of designing curriculums are more interested in pushing a political/social agenda than in delivering the best education.

It also distracts from the genuine issues buried beneath those layers of jargon. It’s undoubtedly true that many students — Black, Indigenous and other racialized students among them — have been disadvantaged by the way math and other subjects have been taught.

This is a real, documented problem and it’s in everyone’s interest that it be addressed without delay.

To the government’s credit, it took a big step in that direction vowing to end streaming in Grade 9 — making young teenagers choose between “academic” and “applied” tracks in high school. There are stacks of evidence that this has had a disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous and poor students, limiting their opportunities for the future.

So any new curriculum, especially in core subjects like math, should take into account the fact that some groups have been left behind.

And, in fact, while the government chopped some words from the preamble to the new math curriculum, it added this new paragraph: “The curriculum emphasizes the need to eliminate systemic barriers and to serve students belonging to groups that have been historically disadvantaged and underserved in mathematics education.”

That gets to the heart of the matter, but of course words alone are not enough. The real test will be if the government follows through and makes sure the intent in that paragraph is translated into action and results.

We made that point last month when Education Minister Steven Lecce unveiled Ontario’s new Grade 9 math curriculum.

It’s a single curriculum for all students — no more of that “streaming” — and it looks like a step forward toward making sure they’ll acquire math skills they can use in a wide range of science, technology and trade careers. It includes mandatory learning on coding, data literacy, mathematical modelling and financial literacy.

The government says it’s committed millions to make sure the new curriculum is properly delivered — and that students who find themselves in a more academic math class get all the supports they need to succeed.

But this government has a track record of cheaping out in areas like this, and those who care about math education need to keep up the pressure and make sure that doesn’t happen. In the end, that will count a lot more than all that grad-school rhetoric about “colonialism.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2021/07/19/those-who-care-about-math-education-for-all-should-focus-on-results-not-rhetoric-about-colonialism.html

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Education minister under fire after introduction deleted from Ontario’s new Grade 9 math curriculum

2021/07/17 Leave a comment

Appears that the substantive aspects related to systemic barriers and inclusion remain while the ideologic reference to “non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges” has been dropped. Much of math has non-European roots (numerals, algebra etc):

Premier Doug Ford’s government has deleted a preamble to Ontario’s new Grade 9 curriculum that said math “has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges.”

While the updated syllabus remains unchanged, introductory language for teachers was quietly edited earlier this week.

The modernized curriculum was introduced June 9 as the first step of ending the streaming of students so early in high school. That practice that has been tied to poor outcomes for Black and Indigenous youth.

As first reported by the Toronto Sun on Saturday, the Progressive Conservatives initially approved of a curriculum introduction that said “a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions.”

“Mathematics is often positioned as an objective and pure discipline,” said the preamble to the curriculum, which was made public last month.

“The Ontario Grade 9 mathematics curriculum emphasizes the need to recognize and challenge systems of power and privilege, both inside and outside the classroom, in order to eliminate systemic barriers and to serve students belonging to groups that have been historically disadvantaged and underserved in mathematics education.”

But within the past few days, that entire 124-word paragraph entitled “An equitable mathematics curriculum recognizes that mathematics can be subjective” was deleted.

Sources told the Star that “while the section referenced is not in the core curriculum taught to students, we revised it to ensure there is no confusion when it comes to making sure our students are being taught fundamental math concepts.”

“The curriculum did not change. It continues to educate on cultural understandings of math, of the history of these concepts, and attempts to advance that lens throughout the curriculum. What changed was language in the preamble only,” an official said.

In a statement Wednesday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office said the Tories “ended streaming in the Grade 9 math curriculum — a system that disproportionately affected Black, racialized and Indigenous students — along with launching new and specialized supports to ensure these students graduate, enter post-secondary education and get good-paying jobs.”

But the new president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which supports destreaming, said the education minister “needs to take responsibility” for the episode.

“It’s time for a mea culpa. If you make a mistake, you have to own up to it,” said Karen Littlewood, who took over the union’s presidency on June 22.

Littlewood said “it seems to be very reactionary” for Lecce to amend the language in the wake of media coverage.

“The preamble really sets the stage for the changes to the curriculum and why it was necessary,” she said.

Despite the editing, the lesson plan still addresses inequities in society.

The revised curriculum emphasizes “there are groups of students (for example, Indigenous students, Black students, students experiencing homelessness, students living in poverty, students with LGBTQ+ identities, and students with special education needs and disabilities) who continue to experience systemic barriers to accessing high-level instruction in and support with learning mathematics.”

“Systemic barriers, such as racism, implicit bias and other forms of discrimination, can result in inequitable academic and life outcomes, such as low confidence in one’s ability to learn mathematics, reduced rates of credit completion, and leaving the secondary school system prior to earning a diploma,” it states.

“Achieving equitable outcomes in mathematics for all students requires educators to be aware of and identify these barriers, as well as the ways in which they can overlap and intersect, which can compound their effect on student well-being, student success, and students’ experiences in the classroom and in the school,” it continues.

“Educators must not only know about these barriers, they must work actively and with urgency to address and remove them.”

Still, the New Democrats expressed concern about the deletion.

“The Grade 9 math program was changed specifically because Ontario had to finally recognize that the existing system treated Black, Indigenous and racialized students inequitably,” NDP MPPs Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre) and Marit Stiles (Davenport) said in a joint statement.

“It’s pretty clear we need more of an equity and anti-racism lens in schools, not less.”

Source: Education minister under fire after introduction deleted from Ontario’s new Grade 9 math curriculum

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New curriculum deepens old political divide in Alberta

2021/04/05 Leave a comment

Brings back memories of working on Discover Canada, the citizenship study guide introduced by former immigration and citizenship minister Kenney (my book, https://wordpress.com/page/multiculturalmeanderings.com/2507, has a chapter covering that):

When Alberta’s NDP government was still in power, the United Conservative Party campaigned on the idea that its political rival was trying to smuggle politics into Alberta classrooms. Once in office, UCP Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said her own government’s plans for a sweeping curriculum revamp would be about getting away from any “ideological bent.”

But when everyone got the first official look at the UCP’s draft kindergarten-to-Grade 6 curriculum this week, it became clear that the governing party’s political stamp is on its own strategy. In social studies, in particular, it’s a prescriptive, details-heavy document with a take on history that’s not an easy sell to many parents, or the people who teach the stuff.

The document asks Grade 3 students – kids aged 8 or 9 – to explain items many grownups struggle with, including the clauses of Magna Carta, the First Nations’ claim to land beyond the settled area of New France and “why Alberta is a leading resource-producing region.”

There was never a chance that a large-scale blueprint that outlines the lessons that will mould young minds would be anything but political. Education is a fraught issue everywhere, but it’s especially so in the polarized landscape that is Alberta politics. Here, there’s no consensus on where the oil and gas-focused economy needs to go, and where it feels like the NDP and UCP are locked in a perpetual, election-like battle.

The government says the draft K-6 curriculum brings a renewed focus to literacy, numeracy, citizenship and practical skills. Everyone seems to agree that the addition of financial skills, computer coding and sexual consent are good things.

The government is asking for feedback from the public but intends to test the curriculum in some classrooms this fall, and all students are expected to be learning it in the 2022-23 school year. The quick turnaround for reimagining the curriculum is in step with the government’s focus on fulfilling campaign commitments, even in the midst of a pandemic.

Alberta has long had a strong, well-regarded public-education system with high student test scores in reading, math and science, compared with global peers. Ms. LaGrange, however, also notes that some parts of the curriculum are decades old, and raw scores are either flat or seeing a decline.

“This is actually very ambitious – to change all of the curriculum at one time,” said Ms. LaGrange in an interview this week with The Globe and Mail.

But already, the Métis Nation of Alberta has called for a redo. Edmonton Public Schools – which counts more than 100,000 students of all grades on its rolls – said Thursday that it will not participate in a pilot run of the draft elementary curriculum this fall. The decision is based on worries about bringing in a new program during the pandemic. But there’s also high public concern as to whether the curriculum is age-appropriate, whether it properly addresses the issues of residential schools and reconciliation, and whether an “us-versus-them mentality” is embedded in the document.

Elk Island Public Schools is also out, and Edmonton Catholic Schools has saidit “will not be committing to piloting the curriculum.”

All subjects are under intense scrutiny but social studies appears to be the major sticking point. Some parents and critics say the curriculum is far too dense for young students, mishandles issues of race and leaves out LGBTQ issues, is too American- and European-centric, or is focused on the three major Abrahamic religions.

There are seemingly gratuitous partisan jabs, like in Grade 6, where the curriculum notes that “the United States Congress, controlled by the Democratic party, ruled in the Fugitive Slave Act that escaped slaves must be returned to their owners.”

NDP critic Sarah Hoffman’s blunt assessment is “this is a mess of a curriculum.”

But the UCP is responding, in part, to broader concerns about the education system – which Ms. LaGrange notes helped her party win the 2019 election. A key part of this is what she has described as the political biases of some individual teachers.

Last year, Ms. LaGrange referred to an excerpt from an exam that she said was from a Grade 10 class in Calgary. She argued that it was an attack on the province’s responsible energy sector. A multiple-choice question asked students to identify “one of the valid arguments against oil sands development” being the destruction of tracts of forest.

“My main concern has always been to ensure that our curriculum is taught without bias,” the Education Minister said the interview. “And the fact that the new draft curriculum is really based on factual content – that will really leave little room for bias in our classrooms.”

But the other side of this argument is that the ability of teachers to adapt to circumstances is diminished. “The new curriculum turns education into a checklist and rote memorization,” said Alberta Party Leader Jacquie Fenske.

And a second, related theme for the UCP is that current teaching now is so focused on the many errors of history, and injustices, that it fails to note the accomplishments of modern civilization, in Alberta and elsewhere. Premier Jason Kenney says it’s possible to face up to historical racism, for instance, “while also teaching how we have increasingly managed to overcome those things, and how we’ve created this incredibly diverse, pluralistic society.”

This part of the revamp is very on-brand for the UCP. Part of it, however, feels incongruous in a week when Mr. Kenney talked about “hitting our stride in diversification.”

An overly political remaking of Alberta’s now-strong school system is galvanizing parent groups who are against the changes. A big fight over the base curriculum for the youngest kids is not only bad for the province, it could make potential newcomers – and even the companies and investors Mr. Kenney’s government has spent two years trying to entice – less enthusiastic about coming to the province.

Politics will be part of any new curriculum. But Mr. Kenney’s UCP is, as often, in danger of letting politics take over.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-new-curriculum-deepens-old-political-divide-in-alberta/

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Stephens: California’s Ethnic Studies Follies: A proposed curriculum magnifies differences, encourages tribal loyalties and advances ideological group think.

2021/03/11 Leave a comment

Some exaggeration regarding divisiveness but valid points regarding over-reach and the risks in not using ethnic studies to look at both the commonalities and differences:

The first time California’s Department of Education published a draft of an ethnic studies “model curriculum” for high school students, in 2019, it managed the neat trick of omitting anti-Semitism while committing it.

More than a million Jews live in California. They are also among the state’s leading victims of hate crimes.

Yet in a lengthy draft otherwise rich with references to various forms of bigotry, there was no mention of bigotry toward Jews. There was, however, an endorsement of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, which essentially calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. There was also an approving mention of a Palestinian singer rapping that Israelis “use the press so they can manufacture” — the old refrain that lying Jews control the media.

The draft outraged many Jews. And they were joined by Armenian, Assyrian, Hellenic, Hindu and Korean civic groups in a statementurging the California Department of Education to “completely redraft the curriculum.” In its original form, they said, the document was “replete with mischaracterizations and omissions of major California ethnoreligious groups.”

Last September, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would mandate ethnic studies as a graduation requirement in California’s high schools, pending further review of the model curriculum. While some maintained that a critical ethnic studies curriculum was a mistake, and not just for Jews, others took the view that, when it came to those revisions, it was better to be at the table than on it. Progressive Jews helped redraft a curriculum that included two sample lessons on the Jewish-American experience, along with testimonials about Jewishness from the likes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein.

A victory? One can still quarrel with the curriculum’s tendentiously racialized view of the American-Jewish experience. But at least the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist dog whistles have been taken out and the history of anti-Semitism has been put in.

Yet as the Board of Education is set to vote on the new curriculum this month, it is likelier than before to enthrone ethnic studies, an older relative to critical race theory, into the largest public school system in the United States. This is a big deal in America’s ongoing culture wars. And it’s a bad deal for California’s students, at least for those whose school districts decide to make the curriculum their own.

What is “ethnic studies”? Contrary to first impressions, it is not multiculturalism. It is not a way of exploring, much less celebrating, America’s pluralistic society. It is an assault on it. “A multiculturalist framework that views our people through a colonialist lens is what literally led to the need for ethnic studies,” Sharif Zakout of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center told a state Education Department panel last year.

Ethnic studies is less an academic discipline than it is the recruiting arm of a radical ideological movement masquerading as mainstream pedagogy. From the opening pages of the model curriculum, students are expected not just to “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs,” but to “critique empire-building in history” and “connect ourselves to past and contemporary social movements that struggle for social justice.”

That would be fine if it appeared in the pages of, say, The Nation. It would be fine, too, if students were exposed to critical race theory the way they might be exposed to Marxist philosophy or some other ideology — as a subject to be examined, not a lens through which to do the examining. The former is education. The latter is indoctrination. The ethnic studies curriculum conceals the difference.

It also does so in a uniquely lopsided way. “Ethnic studies is for all students,” the curriculum announces. Actually, not so much. Irish-Americans have faced a long history of discrimination in the U.S. and are famously proud of their heritage. But the word “Irish” hardly appears anywhere in the model curriculum, and nowhere in its sample lessons. Russians, Italians, Poles and others rate only the briefest mentions.

Perhaps this is because all of them, like most Jews, have a new identity, known in the jargon of ethnic studies as “conditional whiteness,” which simultaneously erases their past and racializes their present. Leave aside the ignorance this fosters regarding the long history of differences, struggles and achievements by various European ethnic groups in America. It’s also the mirror image of longstanding prejudices regarding “Asians” or “Hispanics” as ethnically undifferentiated masses of mainly identical people.

When the main thing left-wing progressives see about America is its allegedly oppressive systems of ethnicity or color, they aren’t seeing America at all. Nor should they be surprised when right-wing reactionaries adopt a perverse version of their views. To treat “whiteness” — conditional or otherwise — not as an accident of pigmentation but as an ethnicity unto itself is what the David Dukes of the world have always wanted.

It shouldn’t be like this. Public education is supposed to create a sense of common citizenship while cultivating the habits of independent thinking. This is a curriculum that magnifies differences, encourages tribal loyalties and advances ideological groupthink.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/opinion/californias-ethnic-studies.html

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ICYMI: Hong Kong to teach elementary students about subversion and foreign interference

2021/02/10 Leave a comment

Yet another sign of the Chinese regime’s crackdown on Hong Kong:

Hong Kong has unveiled controversial guidelines for schools that include teaching students as young as six about colluding with foreign forces and subversion, as part of a new national security curriculum.

Beijing imposed a security law on Hong Kong in June 2020 in response to months of often violent anti-government and anti-China protests in 2019 that put the global financial hub more firmly on an authoritarian path.

The Education Bureau’s guidelines, released late on Thursday, show that Beijing’s plans for the semi-autonomous Hong Kong go beyond quashing dissent, and aim for a societal overhaul to bring its most restive city more in line with the Communist Party-ruled mainland.

Source: Hong Kong to teach elementary students about subversion and foreign interference

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Alberta’s Little History War

2020/10/30 Leave a comment

From Chris Champion, the Conservative staffer I worked with developing the Canadian citizenship guide, Discover Canada, and who is playing a similar role with respect to the Alberta education curriculum, providing context for the controversies over the proposed approach:

JASON KENNEY, SWORN in as Alberta Premier on Apr. 30, should not only cancel the revised social studies curriculum drafted under Rachel Notley since 2016. He should scrap the extant 2005 curriculum too, and do what he can to shift the teaching philosophy behind it.

Kenney re-entered the History Wars with finely-calibrated counterattacks in 2016-17, renewed this year on Feb. 16, against “social engineering and pedagogical fads.” He should now bring forward the reserve guns.

Mandatory testing to the end of Grade 12 is laudable and should continue. The deeper problem lies in the current thematic approach to history and civics, in which a series of disjointed topics displaces sequential narrative. As against narrative history, too difficult for most academics, the teaching establishment prefers “‘issues-centred,’ interdisciplinary Social Studies courses,” beloved of two of Kenney’s antagonists, University of Alberta educationists Lindsay Gibson and Carla Peck. But even they admit that educators have been “over-privileging thematic approaches and disregarding chronology.”(1)

Thematic history is lazy, dispensing with the need to juggle sequence and analysis and put people and events in context. True understanding absolutely requires narrative, a discipline that forces teacher and student to interpret and explain, as they should be able to do both orally and in writing (but most of course cannot). A bundle of isolated topics — last week women’s suffrage, tomorrow divestment from Israel, next week Oka — half-fills the student’s head with random happenings, creating the illusion of insight, whose only glue is the social-justice temperament that left-wingers equate with good citizenship.

Just look at the “themes” of 2005. Grade 4 socials is about “analyzing various actions taken to address historical injustices.” Say again? This implies that current fads of the left are the engine of history, turning 9-year-olds into little SJW’s. In Grade 5 it’s “examining Canadian identity,” an inappropriate, post-secondary sociological approach. Grade 7 covers “origins, histories and movement of people” (dry social history). Grade 9 offers “a few isolated topics in Canadian history” such as the Indian Act and local Treaties. It gets worse, with “multidisciplinary investigations” of “globalization” in Grade 10, “nationalism” in Grade 11, and “ideology” in Grade 12. The problem is not that this stuff is, as Notley asserted, “out of date”; it is too up to date: it’s a curriculum designed by a committee, it would seem by some childless educratic clerisy.

It’s deadly stuff! When Kenney accused Notley’s experts of omitting military history, her minister countered that wars would continue to be studied in the context of “ideology.” But that’s the problem. To reduce war to a byproduct of ideology is reminiscent of Lenin’s deterministic “highest and last stage of capitalism.” 

Nor should “Nationalism” be taught as a tedious “-ism” with sermons about equality, discrimination, and the menace of ideology. Instead, tell the story of Cardinal Richelieu putting the state ahead of the church; of Napoleon, his wars, and the nations’ backlash. Tell the romance of Bolívar and the South American Republics; Garibaldi vs. the Pope in the Risorgimento; or, more ominously, Bismarck and German unification. Teach that ideas have consequences; that peace comes at a high price; that all of this lay in the background when Canada was cobbled together and mounted its own make-or-break colonial adventures in the West. “Ideology” be damned!

‘A.J.P. Taylor believed that if you sacrificed narrative, you opened the floodgates to laziness, for it was no longer necessary to take enormous pains organising a moving structure into which everything fitted’

— Paul Johnson

The ongoing fad is that we need “more” First Nations “perspectives.” Far from being new, this must date from at least the 1970s if my own repetitive West Vancouver experience with oolichan, cedar masks, and trickster stories is any guide. The plug must be pulled on the deplorable agitprop of the “KAIROS Blanket,” which brainwashes children into thinking  of themselves as “settlers” stealing the land — the kind of “truth and reconciliation” that is not evidence-based but relies on “knowledge keepers” to “foster truth.” The scientific tradition is that truth is discovered and authenticated. By contrast, the “truth” of Indigenous Elders sometimes contradicts the evidence.

Thematic history seems ideally suited to transmitting left-wing dogma. Is this fair to students? Better to equip them with the great stories and give them a key life-skill by the end of high school: the capacity to think critically about men and ideas and their place in history, as opposed to imposing sterile doctrines of race and “gender.” As my old Latin teacher was fond of saying, “He who marries the Spirit of the Age will be a widower in the next.”

If more proof were needed that educational approaches are in crisis, it is that today’s publicly-schooled millennials have negative impressions of the role of capitalism in history. They seem never to have been exposed to the idea that markets are probably the only system that has ever lifted the mass of people out of poverty. Instead the kids accord high notional support to — of all things — socialism.

Talk about turning the clock back! Oddly that is what CBC Edmonton reporter Alexandra Zabjek now accuses Kenney of doing in Alberta Views magazine. She sees a conspiracy to “grow the privatization movement … to encourage more Albertans to educate outside the traditional public system.”(2) But surely it’s an overly-powerful public monopoly that should be made a thing of the past.

The CBC fired a dud rocket when they called for a “focus on competencies” and “inquiry and discovery — not just the dissemination of information and recall of facts.”(3) Yet contrary to the CBC, one has the impression that facts and recall have been passé for decades.

They shouldn’t be. Elementary-age minds are sponges for memorizing poetry, stories, songs — and yes, dates. Canadian children have a right to know our stories, and by heart. Elementary graduates should also take home with them their own compendious time-line of European and North American history with hand-coloured maps and drawings, from something like 2500 BC to 2000 AD. This could be a project begun in Grade 4 and attentively improved and revised up to the end of Grade 7. Canadians especially need Classical, European, and US history because North American societies are offshoots of Europe’s, particularly those of Britain and France. Of course there is value in other cultures but we can never truly appreciate or evaluate foreign cultures without first knowing our own.

When it comes to content, part of the solution may be to film Ted Byfield’s Alberta in the Twentieth Century, an illustrated series of twelve oversize books, published between 1991 and 2006, that is already approved for use in schools. It’s a comprehensive analytic narrative of the Province in the context of historians’ debates and Canadian and world history. As Byfield told me when he recruited me in 1994 to work on Vol. 5, his dream was that the set would one day become a Ken Burns-style documentary like “The Civil War” on PBS. I’m sure the books could be spun into a few compelling Netflix dramas too, if competent directors can be found.

Once filmed, the documentary could be required for mandatory testing, perhaps in Grade 11. Watch Episode one at home, discuss with your peers, take a supervised test at school. Test the teachers while you’re at it. If you fail, you get to watch the video again and retake until you pass with 85%. Watch Episode 2, repeat. This alone would increase students’ knowledge of the past and provide counterbalance to the prevailing, politicizing social justice tendency that has already gone too far.

— C.P. Champion

Source: https://nuzzel.com/subscriptionstory/08282020/dorchesterreview/albertas_little_history_war?e=6707902&c=6ZpMrqxwRZjsQ21ty4Q3ZNz5DgUMIGhgcRJEW6skW9&u=davidakin&utm_campaign=newsletter_subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nuzzel

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Senator criticizes Alberta proposal to shield younger students from lessons on residential schools

2020/10/23 Leave a comment

One of the better articles soon the Alberta proposed revised curriculum, reminding me of some of the internal discussion regarding the citizenship guide, Discover Canada, steered by the same political staffer to Jason Kenney:

The former chair of the commission on residential schools says a proposal from government-appointed advisers in Alberta to shield younger children from that dark history would be a “terrible mistake” that would leave them with a distorted view of the mistreatment of Indigenous people in Canada.

Senator Murray Sinclair, who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said children can handle information about the difficult topic of residential schools when it is presented in an appropriate way. If the education system waits until they are older, as contemplated in a leaked curriculum proposal, he said that will perpetuate a “wall of mythology” about Indigenous people and their history that will be next to impossible to undo.

“It’s not only a terrible mistake, but it would be an act of discrimination against the Indigenous people,” Mr. Sinclair told The Globe and Mail.

“It would be, in fact, a continuation of the white supremacy which the residential schools and the public schools have historically perpetrated against the Indigenous people of this country. And we should call it what it is and we should fight it when we can.”

An advisory panel appointed by the United Conservative Party government has presented the Education Minister with a package of recommendations, published Wednesday by the CBC, for the kindergarten-to-Grade 4 social studies curriculum. The document argues that information about residential schools should not be taught to children in Grade 3.

Instead, the document says that material should wait until students are older, potentially in Grade 9, and with residential schools presented as one example of “harsh schooling.”

“The ugliness of Dickensian schooling, boarding schools, 19th-century discipline methods, and residential schooling that applied to some Indigenous kids can probably best be saved for later when learners are more mature and are less emotionally vulnerable to traumatic material,” the document says.

“For example, there could be a Grade 9 unit about benign vs. harsh schooling in the past, inclusive of all cultures not only Indigenous, but with regard to the particular problematic of residential schooling even if it applied only to a minority of Indigenous children.”

Mr. Sinclair rejected that idea, and said it is possible to present the history of residential schools in a way that that is appropriate for young children.

“We’re not asking them to start holding up bloody pictures and demanding that they cry,” he said. “What we’re saying is, talk about it from the perspective of children. Talk about it in ways that they can understand, that they can utilize. It can easily be done.”

Mr. Sinclair, who has called on provincial education ministries to ensure students learn about residential schools, said young children already learn about potentially upsetting topics, such as wars.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange stressed the ideas in the document are merely recommendations. She said residential schools would be taught in elementary school but she declined to say at what age that would start or how that information would be presented.

“We are absolutely committed to truth and reconciliation and to ensuring that the truth about residential schools is in our K-6 curriculum. That is non-negotiable,” she told reporters at the provincial legislature in Edmonton.

She noted that a larger working group that will include teachers will examine the curriculum this fall and a draft will be ready for public feedback next year.

Richard Feehan, the Opposition New Democrats’ critic for Indigenous relations, said teaching all students about residential schools should be non-negotiable.

“They worry that young children can’t hear that story, and yet here we are approaching Nov. 11, when we go into every grade in school and talk about the history of World War One and the history of World War Two,” he said.

“But somehow, when we talk about Indigenous children being harmed or being killed, it’s somehow too much for children to handle. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2015 described the Canadian government’s long-running policy of removing Indigenous children from their communities as cultural genocide.

The report also found that abuse was rampant within the residential school system.

“Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers,” the report said.

The commission called on ministers of education across the country to include the history and legacy of residential schools in kindergarten-to-Grade 12 curriculums. In 2014, the Progressive Conservative government of the day publicly committed to ensure students at all grade levels learn about the legacy of residential schools.

When it comes to First Nations, the proposed curriculum document focuses on teaching young children about the life and customs of Indigenous people, particularly before contact with Europeans. Topics include the structure of First Nations leadership, farming, hunting, Arctic survival and “warfare.”

While the document argues lessons about residential schools would be traumatic, it also proposes that students in Grade 3 be taught about ancient Rome, battles of the Middle Ages and slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-senator-criticizes-alberta-proposal-to-shield-younger-students-from/

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