EDMONTON – Education in Alberta is getting a makeover. The government is working with stakeholders on a curriculum redesign for students from Kindergarten to Grade 12.
“We have a fantastic education system,” says Education Minister Jeff Johnson. “Our kids coming out are incredibly competitive on the global scale, but that’s only the case because we keep our system in step with the rest of the world.”
Johnson says curriculum changes aren’t new, they are ongoing, but there are a few things changing this time around.
“We want to make sure we’re taking numeracy and literacy, and that those are not just something you study in language arts or just something you study in math class. We take those, and we’re strengthening and reinforcing those basics – numeracy and literacy – across the entire curriculum.”
In January, an Alberta mother made headlines when she created a petition pushing schools to go back to basics when teaching math.
She argued the way students are currently being taught is convoluted.
“You’ve heard some concerns recently about our math scores internationally and wanting to make sure the basics in math are being reinforced,” says Johnson.
He says the curriculum redesign will focus on numeracy and literacy in all subjects.
“Knowing the math and those number facts, but also how to apply those – kind of in novel situations – the problem-solving skills,” he explains.
“We want to make sure that we’re getting out of the system, that we’re instilling in kids, not just memorization – those things are important, that’s one of the teaching methods teachers use – but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that our kids have some of these soft skills.”
“We want to make sure they have the problem-solving capabilities, the collaboration skills, the communication skills, some of those what some people call 21st Century competency.”
He says those are the skills employers are looking for.
(Above: Education Minister Jeff Johnson talks about Alberta’s curriculum redesign)
However, Wildrose Education Critic Bruce McAllister brought up concerns with the curriculum changes in the Legislature.
“Parents, teachers, and students across this province are very concerned with the radical new curriculum rewrite by Alberta Education,” he said Tuesday.
“You see, the government and its educrats believe in inquiry-based/discovery learning, but to forget about the fundamentals and to abandon tried, tested, and true methods that our kids have been using like times tables is
ridiculous, and it does not serve our kids well.”
Johnson says the fundamentals are still being taught, but how educators teach them can be different from class to class.
Johnson says the province also has to keep an eye on education “best practices” in other jurisdictions.
“The jurisdictions that are doing well and succeeding and improving some of their international scores are jurisdictions that have gone out ahead of us and started doing these things.”
The education minister says it will take about two years to develop the curriculum redesign. (Read Alberta Education documents on the redesign below)
“We’re doing that through consortiums that are the school boards, parent groups, business community, teachers from the classroom, right across the province.”
“We’re actually going to the field and getting teachers to build this with us and for us, alongside of parents and the business community.”
The consortiums will be working on different grades and different subjects and will develop prototypes for the redesign.
“If we don’t have it right, if parents don’t like it, we won’t implement it.”
And, he says, two years will provide a lot of time for input.
“We’ve got a very strong system, so we’re not going to do anything to damage it,” he stresses.
While the curriculum will outline what students should learn, Johnson says how that is taught will still rest with teachers.
“The ‘how we learn’ and ‘discovery learning’ and those things are really, for the most part, left up to the educator in the classroom because every kid is different.”
By 2016, the province hopes to have a decision on whether to roll out the redesign more broadly across Alberta.
Curriculum Redesign: DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE CURRICULUM
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