By Liam Verster

Draft K-6 curriculum

Survey shows Alberta’s teachers very unhappy with the draft K-6 curriculum

Apr 12, 2021 | 9:21 AM

Preliminary results from a recent survey of Alberta’s teachers found that 91 per cent of respondents are very unhappy with the new draft Grade K-6 curriculum.

The Alberta Teacher’s Association (ATA) opened the survey on March 29, and within a week had gathered input from over 3,500 teachers across the province.

The president of the ATA, Jason Schilling, says in addition to the fact that teachers are reporting they are very unhappy, the results also showed people don’t want to teach this curriculum.

“We noted that 90 per cent of elementary school teachers were uncomfortable with teaching this new K-6 draft curriculum in their classrooms, and I think what’s really telling is that 95 per cent of school leaders, so that’s principals within schools and those who might be working at central office, are uncomfortable with supporting this curriculum within their schools and their communities,” says Schilling.

The survey found that 89 per cent of respondents disagree that the draft curriculum has age appropriate content that is logically sequenced within each grade and from grade to grade.

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Schilling says the curriculum has a lot of outcomes that students need to learn that were originally in the junior high level, but have since been pulled down to the upper-elementary level.

“The content is really heavy, there’s a lot of content in the curriculum, and it’s a lot of memorization,” he said.

“There’s not a lot of elements within this curriculum that will say to students ‘Why are you learning this?’ It doesn’t push critical learning skills, it doesn’t push students asking ‘Why am I doing this?’ or connecting ideas that may be in social studies with language arts or with math, which our current curriculum does.”

With the curriculum based primarily on rote learning, which is a memorization technique, over critical learning, Schilling says the curriculum won’t be very engaging for students, nor will it build on itself through a child’s time in school.

He says a curriculum should have a sort of ‘scaffolding’ format that introduces certain skills to students in the younger grades that they can build on over time.

“That doesn’t exist in this curriculum, and that’s part of the problem. So you say ‘I want you to memorize all these facts about Genghis Khan in Grade 2 in Social Studies,’ but there’s no reflection of why you need to know that later on in Grade 3 or Grade 4 or Grade 5 or Grade 6,” said Schilling.

“We always try to get our students to think critically about what they’re learning, to ask questions of ‘Why am I learning this?’ and ‘How can I apply this later on down the road?’ and those elements are things that teachers have noted within this curriculum are missing.”

He adds this curriculum does not include how students will be assessed, and Schilling is worried this will lead to more standardized testing, which the ATA is opposed to.

Eighty-six per cent of teachers also reported that they disagree the draft curriculum will be able to meet high academic standards, while 71 per cent say they disagree that the new curriculum is scientifically rigorous, while respecting a variety of beliefs.

Schilling says a lot of the content included in the draft curriculum has American influences, does not address the LGBTQ2+ community, and has only brief mentions of Indigenous culture or history, which is reflected by the fact that 81 per cent of the survey respondents say the curriculum does not provide inclusive opportunities for students.

The process to write the curriculum did involve consultations with 100 teachers, but Schilling notes those individuals had to sign non-disclosure agreements, so it’s not known what, if anything, teachers contributed to or said about the curriculum during those consultations.

The results of the survey will be compiled into a report which the ATA will present to the government, along with a call to discard the draft curriculum.

Schilling says they want teachers working alongside the government in creating a new curriculum that will provide Alberta’s children with the best possible education experience.

In the meantime, Schilling encourages every Albertan to read the draft K-6 curriculum, and give their thoughts regarding this curriculum through the province’s online survey.