Today I embark on a full semester of Social 20 & 30. For context, this is a curriculum dating from 2007 that was developed in the mid 2000s. I start this semester knowing full well there are unsubstantiated attacks on curriculum by th #UCP government... #abed #ableg #cdnpoli
particularly in Social Studies.
This is a robust and rigorous curriculum that is held in high national and international regard. It goes beyond a mere set of knowledge outcomes to require skills of creative and critical thinking; historical thinking; geographic thinking;
& decision making and problem solving. Students are already required to analyze ideas and info from multiple sources, as well as to analyze info for context, bias, objectivity and reliability. #ableg #UCP #abed
The weak sauce allegations of bias made by the #UCP were fully exposed in an August press conference, where the Education Minister was asked to provide an example of the alleged bias in the curriculum. She could not do so successfully. #abed #ableg
I'm going to do my best this semester knowing #UCP have made it their clumsy mission to significantly alter the curriculum development process, capped off by appointing an 8-person panel of oversight with a very questionable choice for Social Studies "expert". #abed #ableg
I fear an extremely narrow curriculum focus will be pushed, one encouraged to be heavily laden with the #UCP's one-dimensional, extremist ideology. All signs indicate it will be a curriculum predicated on omitting different points of view and contexts,
and will feature a thinly disguised bias with all the depth and sophistication of a Rebel Media bumper sticker. I've spent the last few years as part of excellent collaboration with colleagues on the demands and skills of the current curriculum, and have come to recognize...
how strong our current curriculum is. Despite the obviously obtuse, strident and misleading criticisms of the curriculum process by: a well-known local columnist that complains of bias yet will never identify his own;
a former leader of the opposition that dependably serves up UCP talking points to the AM airwaves;
and various highly-paid issues managers and other #UCP paid voices asking for things that are already in the curriculum (we teach history, thank you, you can't pass my classes without knowing it); #abed #ableg
I am confident that the experience and work of teachers will help influence a new curriculum to reach the level of the current great one in high school social studies. #UCP #ableg #abed
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