As B.C.’s school children head back to their classrooms they are being introduced to a new curriculum for kindergarten to Grade 9.
The Ministry of Education states that the new plan was developed to provide “an enabling framework, giving teachers space and flexibility to innovate.
“Providing student-driven, inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning by placing an increased focus on concepts and content that will address “real-world” issues and problems.”
The theory is that by providing a less structured environment, the teachers can seize on ‘teachable moments’ and use them to illustrate the lessons. The focus is on ‘big ideas’ and encouraging students to be inquisitive rather than just memorizing charts or tables.
One advocate of the program explained, “You want people to have useful knowledge — not the knowledge to be able to pass a test, but knowledge for the sake of applying it to everyday life problems.”
Don’t we have to pass tests every day in real life?
I’m not an educational expert, but I have some suggestions on basic learning that should be included with their less structured environment.
In kindergarten, the kids should have yellow rubber boots and purple raincoats and go outside and collect big maple leaves, bring them in and trace them on big sheets of paper, colour them furiously with every crayon, print their name on them and bring them home, where they will be treasured for years.
In Grades 1, 2 and 3, the students should be taught the alphabet and how to print and write the letters properly; also they should be taught the Alphabet Song, because even when they are old and have to look up something alphabetically, they will run this tune through their heads.
Grades 4, 5 and 6 must learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, and recesses and lunch hours are mandatory if today’s children have any hope of tackling “real world issues” later in life. Skills learned on school playgrounds will endure the test of time.
Once they get to junior high, all cellphones must be turned off and students should be introduced to the school library and taught how to check out real books and read literature from the great authors of the past and present so that one day, unexpectedly, they will read that one sentence, paragraph or poem that sets them on their course.
They should be given art classes, band classes, and choir classes and don’t anyone dare tell one of them they can’t draw, play, or sing. Let them unlock a passion that may be hidden inside.
Those are ‘teachable moments.’
In senior high bring back a mandatory class called Health and Personal Development where students learn about the importance of their personal health, and personal hygiene.
Teach them about self-esteem and self-respect and respect for other students, teachers and parents.
Before they leave school, teach them how to save money, how to balance a bank account, how to earn their tuition.
As part of their career planning, encourage volunteering in their communities at hospitals, schools, or mentoring and coaching sports teams. Encourage them to find out the “real world issues” facing their own communities.
One teacher says that in the electronic world, parents and teachers are no longer ‘holders of the knowledge,’ the kids are and we have to validate it for them.
But they still have to learn to read and write.
At least that’s what McGregor says.
