Thread by @ls_gibson

Want to know what C.P. Champion, the newly-appointed advisor for #abed social studies curriculum thinks about the #abed social studies curriculum?

Here's a few nuggets from C.P. Champion's Spring/Summer 2019 article in the @DorchesterRev about "Alberta's Little History War."

He seems to really like @jkenney and approves of his attacks on the NDP's social studies curriculum as "social engineering and pedagogical fads."

He despises "issues-based interdisciplinary social studies," which he incorrectly assumes is beloved by my colleague @cpeck3 and I.

He thinks that thematic approaches to history are "lazy" and doesn't seem to understand that the old chronology vs theme debate is a red herring. How can you teach chronologically without focusing on themes and themes without doing some chronology?

He refers to narrative as "a discipline" and assumes that a) teachers don't teach historical narratives and b) that #abed students cannot interpret and explain historical events in writing or orally.

He accuses the 2005 #abed curriculum of turning 9 year olds into "SJW's" even though the curriculum was created by the Alberta PC's, not the NDP.

He recommends cancelling the revised Social Studies curriculum created under the @NDPAlberta, the 2005 curriculum created by the PCs, and the teaching philosophy that underpinned both.

He wants more military history in the curriculum and compares @RachelNotley's response to calls for military history with Leninist theory.

He thinks including more First Nations perspectives in the curriculum is a "fad," and refers to the KAIROS Blanket Exercise as "deplorable agit-prop" that "brainwashes children into thinking of themselves as settlers stealing the land."

He loves air quotes and uses them to suggest that "truth and reconciliation" is not "evidence-based" and relies on "knowledge-keepers" to "foster truth." In other words, he doesn't believe in truth and reconciliation and thinks knowledge keepers do not tell the truth.

He argues that the scientific tradition relies on truth being discovered and authenticated and that the
"truth" of Indigenous elders "sometimes contradicts the evidence."

He asserts that thematic history is "ideally suited to transmitting left-wing dogma," which is actually ridiculous. How could thematic approaches be better than chronological approaches at teaching dogma?

He also thinks equipping students with "great stories" is a "key life-skill" because it teaches the capacity to "think critically about men and ideas and their place in history."

I'm not sure how listening to great stories will teach students to think critically?

What about women?

Champion wants students to think critically "about men and ideas and their place in history," but thinks learning about race and gender is "sterile."

He thinks that education is in crisis, but provides no proof.

He blames millenials for having negative impressions of capitalism, but provides no proof.

He suggests that students have not been exposed to the idea that capitalism is the only system "that has ever lifted the mass of people out of poverty."

He criticizes the CBC for seeing a conspiracy to "grow the privatization movement...outside of the traditional public system," but then goes on to refer to public education as an "overly-powerful public monopoly that should be made a thing of the past."

What are Champion's solutions?

More elementary students should memorize poetry, stories, songs, and dates because "their minds are sponges."

Also students should take home a timeline of European and North American history (note the absence of African, Asian, and South American history) from 2500 BC to 2000 AD. They should start this project in Grade 4 and improve and revise it in Grade 7.

Also he feel Canadians need Classical, European, and US history because North American societies are "offshoots of Europe's particularly Britain and France."

Champion thinks there is value in "other cultures" but we "can never truly appreciate or evaluate foreign cultures without first understanding our own."

Why does Champion think we need to evaluate other cultures?

Champion's other brilliant solutions?

Convert Ted Byfield's "Alberta in the Twentieth Century" into a Ken Burns style documentary, or perhaps even "a few compelling Netflix dramas too."

Make the documentary film required viewing and then test students in grade 11 on their knowledge of the film. These tests can be taken at home. He also thinks the teachers should be tested too. If you fail, watch the video again and retake the test until you get 85%.

This type of teaching and testing "would increase students knowledge of the past and provide counterbalance to the prevailing, politicizing social justice tendency that has already gone too far."

Hoo boy, this Champion fella really likes testing.

I guarantee you that doing a close read of Champion's article hurt me a lot more than reading this thread hurt you.