Teachers’ Voices Needed to Improve Draft Social Studies Curriculum

 
The Alberta Teachers’ Association has always maintained that teachers, who bring the curriculum to life everyday in their classrooms, should be at the forefront of curriculum development. While the Association, and some teachers, have been consulted on this curriculum draft, we believe that our involvement must go beyond consultation by involving teachers more directly.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association continues to review and analyse the draft K–6 social studies curriculum and encourages teachers to provide their feedback.
Given the busy nature of this time year and upcoming spring breaks in many school divisions, the ATA has asked for an extension of the draft consultation period. The Alberta Government has agreed to extend the deadline to April 2.
The new draft social studies curriculum is better than the 2021 draft; however, further improvement is still required. Teachers may want to consider the following, as well as public statements from others (here and here), when reviewing the draft and providing feedback.
Good curriculum should

• be age and grade appropriate with high academic standards;
• be logically sequenced and use clear and concise wording;
• engage higher-level thinking without overloading surface-level content;
• develop critical-thinking skills and integrate them throughout all grade levels;
• respectfully include Indigenous and francophone histories, contributions and perspectives; and
• examine a rich variety of ideas and viewpoints, while respecting a variety of beliefs in our pluralistic society.

The Association believes that teachers have the expertise and experience to provide valuable insights that can help improve the draft. We are working to support bringing those voices to the table.

• We are organizing a focus group with K–6 teachers in April to gather more detailed analysis directly from teachers.
• Department officials will be presenting a session on the new social studies curriculum at the Early Childhood Education Council conference on April 19.
• We are arranging a curriculum circle with curriculum experts on May 14 to review the latest drafts and determine how to prepare teachers for implementation.
• Association experts will summarize observations from teachers’ convention sessions and conduct further analysis, turning this information into submissions for government.

We will continue to keep members informed once the information is gathered and the analysis is complete. The Association will provide recommendations on changes needed to this draft and on how the government should move forward to engage with the profession on curriculum development.