According to Benjamin Levin’s article, the curriculum is made and heavily influenced by the political situations within the province. Although there are other people that contribute to the curriculum such as teachers, ministry of education members, parents, and experts, the politicians have the most influence on what is included or excluded from the curriculum. Levin states explicitly that curriculum in politics cannot be separated and are indefinitely entangled. This has changed my perspective a lot on my voting process in the future. As I have just turned 19, I have never voted before. I will forever make education my top priority when thinking about who to vote for as it will affect my job and my students in very big ways. I am also very surprised how little actual educators are included in the making of the curriculum. I really like how Levin says, “an important element of the politics around education is that everyone has gone to school, so just about everyone has a feeling of being knowledgeable and a personal response to educational issues. The same would not be true of health care or environmental policy or energy policy. People’s own school experience, whether primarily positive or negative, deeply affects their views about education policy” (page 15).
It is important to educate about treaties and it is great that we finally have a curriculum to enforce this but it is not nearly as specific as any other subject. The goal and purpose is more vague and shorter than any other subject as well. This gives the notion that it is less important, even though it is a huge and very integral part of our history and our present. I think there was definitely some challenge when making this curriculum because there are definitely two different sides of the story. There may have been some argument or discussion about how to tell each side accurately, or even if both sides should be taught.
Levin, B. (2008). Curriculum policy and the politics of what should be learned in schools. In F. Connelly, M. He & J. Phillion (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of curriculum and instruction (pp. 7 – 24). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Available on-line from: http://www.corwin.com/upm-data/16905_Chapter_1.pdf.