Curriculum needs to be put back in hands of community and educational experts

Editor,

I am writing with grave concerns about the 2021 Alberta curriculum draft travesty.

It’s time to stop this. We need to send a clear & consistent message to the government about this draft curriculum. I am going out on a limb. I speak on behalf of myself, my professional ethics, my post secondary education (BEd, BFA, MEd, PhD), my teaching experience, the rights of children, democracy, and deep respect for the well-being of all our children and the generations to come. I do not represent any organization or political party.

In reading all the expert reviews, consulting with the ATA and other experts, listening in on these discussions, hearing your rage and fear (and feeling my own), being gaslighted by MLA’s and the Minister of Education, hearing their garbage advertisements, seeing the draft change before our very eyes, and being ignored, I am very firm that we, the Alberta public, need to send the following consistent messaging.

1) Stop providing any feedback about the minutiae evident in the 2021 draft curriculum. They are using it to say “we listened to Albertans and revised it.” This has to stop. This draft curriculum is fundamentally flawed and cannot be used. As I said before, the Minister of Education is putting glitter on a turd. There is no saving this draft curriculum.

2) Demand a moratorium on this draft. The Alberta Teachers Association says no. 58 school divisions say no. Over 40,000 Albertans in this FB group say no. Our educational experts and Deans of Education say no. Our First Nations, Metis, and Inuit say no. Our Francophone experts say no. No means no. We do not consent to this curriculum. This draft curriculum is going to be harmful to our children and teachers for many years to come and needs to be stopped before it even starts.

3) Demand that the Minister of Education renegages with the ATA; teachers; our educational experts; First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Elders and Knowledge Keepers; and Francophone Experts and hand this curriculum over to the experts who love and care for our children. Admit defeat, be humble, admit they are wrong, apologize, and do the right thing moving forward.

4) Demand that the 2018 draft, which was expert, collaborative, transparent, nonpartisan, and based on sound educational, developmental, and Comprehensive School Health foundations, be reinstated, piloted, and revised according to an ethical, transparent, and nonpartisan process. This curriculum needs to be put back in the hands of the ATA; teachers; our province’s (and nation’s) educational experts; First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Elders & Knowledge Keepers; Francophone experts; and community partners invested in the well-being of youth. Of course, with acceptance by parents when the experts have done their jobs.

5) Demand that this curriculum be de-politiced. It does not belong to the UCP. Or NDP. Or any political party. It belongs to our teachers and the children they are responsible for. This curriculum will far outlast any person or party in power.

Share. Copy. Paste. Write more letters/emails. Copy the leader of the opposition on everything. But please don’t plagiarize. Please give credit.

This curriculum and the entire process and trauma the UCP are putting us through hurts my soul. Be damned if it will hurt our children.

Adding this distress & trauma to all of us during a pandemic stops now.

Dr. Angela Grace

Calgary