The articles we read this week focused on who creates government and what is included. In an article written by Ben Levin, he shines light on how much control politics have on curriculum. Government has large control over what gets added and what gets removed from curriculum. The reading helped me to see how little control teachers have on curriculum, and how much power external forces have. The curriculum takes a long time to change, unless the government wants something specifically changed. I was very concerned with how little power teachers, parents and the school board have in changing the curriculum.
We also read the document regarding Treaty Education in Saskatchewan. The document discusses the goals, outcomes and indicators of Treaty education. The connection I found strongest between this document and the Levin article was that this document talked about the governments obligation to Indigenous people. This document also had government officials help build it and had a large committee come together to create this curriculum. With a large group of people coming together to make a curriculum, tensions and problems can arise. Some tension that may have been in the making of this curriculum was what to include. Knowing what goals should be included, what gets taught when, and what information is taught is a big decision. A large group can help decide when these things occur, but potentially still have problems coming to this. We see this all the time where curriculums do not get updated due to committees not knowing what to include and what to exclude.
Hello,
I like the clear problems that u highlight in your post regarding the curriculum and the under representation of educators contributions in the curriculum. One question I have is: why does the government have control over the curriculum? What’s the governments purpose?
Hi Laina,
I enjoyed reading your blog post! You covered all the main points/arguments in your post.
Yeah it’s basically like the government gives each teacher and school board a script in which they must read word to word to their students. It almost seems robotic to a point from a teachers perspective.
I agree with you about the difficulties a large group can have when coming to a clear consensus, but also the fact that an Indengious elder or somebody with an Indengious descent isn’t apart of the group is also puzzling.
Thanks for sharing!
Mike