Thread by @sunnshiiny

I’m fuming. The utter condescension and contempt for education professionals by UCP is repugnant.

However, I am not surprised in the least that a conservative lackey was brought in to “endorse” the curriculum under so much public pressure to scrap it and start again.

https://twitter.com/AdrianaLaGrange/status/1397923201540255754

UCP is busy boasting about the glowing endorsement by a BC teacher who wishes ever so longingly that he could use the proposed curriculum instead of the inquiry based curriculum BC has adopted. Mr. Formosa is a teacher. He even has a Masters in Education. Impressive.

But, and there is a but, Formosa is also a conservative activist. He’s a young impressionable millennial with firm ideological beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, evidence and faith, and politics.

He’s an Anti Choice advocate that led his Campus “Pro-life” organization.

He’s a former CPC staffer and a well known behind the scenes conservative cheerleader.

And he’s not from Alberta, so why should anyone here listen to his opines?

I’m perturbed and insulted that an obedient, indoctrinated, young pup is all UCP could dredge up to spin their propaganda.

But then again, Matt Wolf is head of “issues management,” so I guess I shouldn’t be too affronted.

But enough about the author of this piece of propaganda. Let’s debunk myths and dissect his arguments. Reveal his method. Expose his obvious attempt to legitimize a curriculum that’s proven heavy on libertarian and Christian propaganda itself.

The Dominionist movement is not a religion or a sect of Christian faith. It’s a coalition of like minded paleolibertarians working to regress modern civilization back to mid 19th century social, economic and political structure.

They want ordered liberty & homogeneity restored.

They want Gilded Age policies and reestablishment of the white male property owning voter and the rigid hierarchy absent of any social mobility that is characteristic of the period.

They believe religion is the bedrock of liberty, property and the natural order.

And the Alt Right is emblematic of this movement. “Blood and soil” along with “God and country” are their central tenets.

Now that that is established, let’s look at Mr. Formosa’s endorsement.

He starts out dividing teachers with “us and them” references. “Good” teachers

Then chastises the entire dissenting body of Albertans saying we should be GRATEFUL for this curriculum.

Then he throws in contempt for unions and for those Albertans advocating loudly that this curriculum is garbage.

Apparently advocacy from the community is intimidating.

Mr. Formosa offers a lesson on the difference between progressives and conservatives.

Cons believe children are empty vessels to be filled with abundant knowledge.

Progressives believe each individual child comes with their own personality, interests and talents.

Conservatives believe education and “good” teachers provide the core knowledge & skills to be a successful human being.

Cognitive science does not endorse rote learning.

Harvard research from 2006. We’ve known this for awhile. Learning is NOT linear.

gse.harvard.edu/~ddl/articlesC…

Formosa offers deep concern for the poor students who come from poverty stricken homes. Paleolibertarians assume if you’re poor, you deserve poverty. But if you expose the poor kids to the same resources as wealthier kids, then the poor might prove to be worthy.

I came from a low income background. Poverty isn’t a reflection of personal worth. It’s a reflection of conservative policy.

What an ignorant & poorly informed opinion. (Yes I intentionally used a pun). It’s a value statement to infer poor kids learn better using rote memory.

Notice how the reference to a two parent stable family is the foundation to well educated offspring. Single parents are inadequate to produce “good” children is the implication.

And why is Ancient Greece and China featured? Both had a strict patriarchal hierarchy.

Induction? I think the word Mr. Formosa was meaning is “INDOCTRINATION.”

Here’s an overview of inductive learning. Where the student has personal experience to induce the learning of information.

Apparently teachers need guidance on what to teach.

thehumanist.com/news/hnn/helpi…

Clear and ambitious expectations. Learning objectives do need to be clear, but teachers train to know HOW to teach. A new teacher telling experienced teachers they’re too dumb to figure it out themselves. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include reading a textbook aloud.

I’m falling asleep just thinking about it.

And what does a parent’s past experience have to do with modern teaching methods? Or does tradition trump modern research regarding how learning occurs? My ancestors used grass for bathroom hygiene, that doesn’t mean I must.

What Mr. Formosa recommends for teachers is clandestine insubordination if refusing to teach using rote learning methods is not an option.

Except that doesn’t solve the problem of the troublesome content in the curriculum. Which is the central issue.

I learned in classrooms much like the ones this curriculum would impose. Statistically I’m an anomaly. Poor, female, indigenous inner city kid from a broken home with neglectful parents. Many of my peers never finished high school. But I did.

I did because my family didn’t fear education and they knew that was the only way out of dead end jobs. I came to grade one reading at a grade four level. Had I been forced to endure the rote learning my less literate peers were, I would have dropped out early too.

But I had great teachers who encouraged my own inductive learning experiences which made education fun.

It’s well documented that rote learning is the worst form of education for children whose population health indicators are not in their favour.

Read some research from the 21st century Mr. Formosa and put your ideological beliefs about poverty and socioeconomic factors to rest.

I’m not a teacher, or a union rep, and I’m certainly not poor anymore.

But I’m insulted and unnerved that a nubile teacher in his mid twenties thinks he knows better than me & countless education and curriculum experts what children require in their curriculum.

It certainly isn’t the poorly sourced, and sometimes plagiarized Eurocentric, Christian Nationalist model of curriculum offered by Alberta’s UCP.

It’s even more insulting my government thought your attempt at propaganda would go unnoticed. Or unchallenged.

Just in case it isn’t clear which direction UCP is travelling, this is Texas attempting to muzzle teachers and control what they say or do in the classroom.

https://twitter.com/texastribune/status/1398406075200778241