Curriculum and Treaty Education

According the Levin, school curricula is developed through various policies which “govern every aspect of education” (Levin, 2008). This makes sense that policies would contribute to the development and implementation of curricula. Something I found interesting that Levin stated is that most times decisions in regards to curriculum are made with very little to no public knowledge. I found this interesting because the people whose children are learning should be aware of changes that are made to the curriculum, whether it is a small change or not. So, decisions and changes made about curricula are primarily made by the government. Also, curriculum is developed about “very general or broad goals and then much more specific learning activities and objectives” (Levin, 2008). In the article, it is discussed how postsecondary schools can have “powerful influence on school curriculum” (Levin, 2008). To me, this means that postsecondary schools have certain requirements for each program and therefore are looking for certain things from future students. So, it makes sense that postsecondary schools would have such an influence on curriculum since students want to learn things that will benefit the future schooling and have them qualify for those schools.

            The first connection I made from the article and the implementation of Treaty Education in Saskatchewan is that since all these curriculum decisions basically come from the government, it could be possible that the implementation of treaty education could be overlooked. Meaning, it has only been in recent education time that treaty education has begun to be implemented and many people still do not fully understand it. That being said, for teachers it can be difficult to teach about it if they do not have a strong understanding. I also think that no matter what decisions are made in regards to this, not everyone is going to have the same opinions and agree on everything. I think that it is a teacher’s job to do the best job they can on educating young people about treaty education because it is a part of our history and we live on treaty land. It is also up to the government to create curriculums that will best benefit the student and their learning as well as recognizing our country’s past and future.