In the article Curriculum Policy and the Politics of What Should be Learned in Schools by Ben Levin, he talks about how the curriculum is made through public policy. Because public policy is closely related to politics, politics tends to dictate what is in the curriculum and what is taught. It is concerning to me that politics controls curriculum because the government doesn’t have students’ best interests in mind. So much of education is controlled by what the government wants, therefore the curriculum benefits the government and produces a product that benefits them. The main priority of whoever is making the curriculum needs to be the students, it is easy for government to make a curriculum that benefits them, because they don’t see the effects of what they are doing, they just want what they want and that’s how they are getting it. Levin also mentions that experts help make the curriculum which can also be bad because not all teachers are experts in the subjects that they are teaching. Some teachers have to teach subjects that they didn’t necessarily want to teach, so when they go and try to teach it it becomes difficult do.
After reading both the article and the treaty education document one things that I notice is that since the government has a major part in making the curriculum, this should mean that treaty education would take its place in the curriculum, however, this is still a battle. I can only image that the idea of putting treaty education had a fair share of pushback before it was finally put into the curriculum. Even now there is not much for treaty education in schools. I remember when I was in high school there wasn’t really much for treaty education and for what was taught, it was a lot of the same things that just got retaught. One thing I do remember is in grade 12, I had a really good social studies teacher, I was not a fan of social studies, but this specific teacher was determined to teach us what actually happened in history instead of what was necessarily in the curriculum. She did a really good job of giving both sides of the story rather than just one, and that was the first time I ever learned the whole story.
Sarah,
I agree that the government should not have as big of a say in what is taught in schools. It only shows that teachers and those who are involved directly with students, those who should have a much louder voice, are very much overlooked. I remember being in middle school, and the teacher who teaches shop class, was also teaching me science. He was teaching multiple classes that do not have much in common because there was no one else to do it. How do you think teachers could come to have a louder voice when it comes to public policy regarding education?