Thread by @MsLutzmann

Here’s a long 🧵 about some of what bugs me about the proposed #abed Social Studies 6 curriculum.

Remember, the kids learning this stuff are about eleven years old. They like fart jokes. They stick French fries in their nose, and they need help if they think a piece got stuck.

First, they have to learn about religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam each get their own outcome, with eight, eight and three learning outcomes, respectively. To me, that’s not balanced. 🤔

Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism get lumped together, with three, three and four outcomes each. Sikhism is framed in relation to Christianity, but not vice versa.

Confucianism and Taoism are also lumped together, but for some reason they get questions rather than learning outcomes.

There’s no mention of atheism or agnosticism anywhere in the curriculum, even though varying reports suggest that anywhere from 30% to 50% of all Canadians don’t feel a connection to any organized religion, which means many students will be coming from non-religious households.

Again, remember that these kids are eleven. Some can’t tell time on an analog clock. Most don’t know their postal codes. Some have never had the opportunity to leave their hometown.

Religion isn’t all we’re drilling into these children with this curriculum. They also get “essential” knowledge and “basic skills” like:

The expectation that these children will be able to analyze this painting and evaluate its historical significance compared to other works of art from the same era. You can do that, right? Pretty “basic”?

Somehow I’m supposed to teach about the erection of Brock Monument, which Wikipedia tells me is actually Brock’s Monument. Quick, adults, sketch me a picture of this monument, that is apparently essential for everyone to know about.

I don’t think they finished this part?

The Annexation Manifesto and the Fenian Border raids. Yeah, we were just chatting about that at the water cooler yesterday (jk I’m in isolation and I work in a school, we don’t have water coolers and I couldn’t stand around one anyways).

“Gather round the carpet kids, it’s ethno-cultural analysis time! Bobby, if you need to scratch that area, you need to go to the bathroom.”

I’m going to leave this one for a substitute... I’m not touching this with a ten-foot pole.

And guess what? We’re only halfway through the GRADE SIX Social Studies curriculum! There’s still comparing residential schools in Canada and the USA (why?!), an analysis of KKK membership trends in Alberta...

We need a day or two to dabble in the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, including his views on prison reform...

“Put down your Goosebumps kids, it’s time to read an authoritative manual on political systems!”

Now we compare the Canadian and American systems of federal government. We are also supposed to debate them, so we’ll probably need a few days to study Robert’s Rules of Order:

We’re back to the Fenian Raids?

We still have the entire Economics unit to cover! We’re going to have to pick up the pace in time for the Provincial Achievement Test!

This sounds like fun.

It just appalls me that some students leave the sixth grade without a comprehensive understanding of Heilbroner’s theory of economics systems. Kids today are so lazy.

And finally we reach the end, where we end with some casual misogyny and maybe a pizza party (but only if they do well on their PATs).

Sorry for any typos, that took me a long time and my fingers started to fall asleep. Have a capybara for making it all the way to the end.

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