Thursday 13 March 2014

11 - Industry Partners

First, the partners involved in the curriculum prototyping don't actually write the final curriculum. 

Okay, Should oil and gas have a say in what our students need to know? Considering the scope of the industry and how many of Alberta's students go into the trades...probably. Is an office executive the best person to say what skills are needed in the oil patch?

Of course I say this with a balanced perspective. They should not be the only voice. There needs to be balanced perspectives  from: FNMI, environmental bodies, post-secondary, language experts, etc. What worries me is that people are making very public comments that may portray things as skewed like in the Edmonton Journal article
“I think it’s the job of the government and teachers to present well-balanced views on different issues and subjects within Alberta and having Syncrude and Suncor as explicit partners in the redesign at least gives the impression that the table is not balanced."
I am a strong proponent for environmental education and ran a "green team" group at my school for a number of years; we implemented a recycling program in my school that eventually became a district-wide program. I understand the distaste for oil & gas, but they are still a key player in our students' futures. If people look a little bit closer we might find that things might be more balanced than previously thought. We need to look at ALL the partners who can have a voice (list at the bottom) for what our students need. If Stantec can tell our CTS teachers that they need to know AUTOCAD, why shouldn't we get that information? Is lack of information any better?

A few days ago, I received the following email:
What do you think Alberta students should learn?
We’d like to offer you a chance to answer that question – AND help inform the the new Alberta curriculum at the same time.
Here at the Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) we are fans of Alberta Education's Curriculum Redesign program, and we are pleased to be working in partnership with all the lead school divisions that are currently busy with curriculum prototyping.  What’s more, we’d like to hear from you… 
If you attend our upcoming Earth Matters conference, we’ll invite you to meet with others who share your passion for a particular area of environmental education – be it outdoor education, energy education, gardening education or whatever! – and generate a list of the relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes you think students should have by Grade 12.  We’ll help you capture the discussion, and then we’ll work with you and the architects of the new curriculum to enrich the important curriculum conversation about what students should learn… 
-Gareth Thomson Executive Director, Alberta Council for Environmental Education
Learn more and register at: http://abcee.org/conference/


Is oil and gas the only voice that Alberta Education is gathering? No. There are LOTS of partners that should shape our students and anyone that will have an impact on them SHOULD have input. 

These are SOME of the external partners involved/invited to the table:

College of Alberta School Superintendents (CASS), 
Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA), 
Alberta Teachers Association (ATA), 
Alberta School Councils’ Association (ASCA), 
Association of Alberta Public and Charter Schools (AAPCS), 
French Canadian Association of Alberta (ACFA), 
Association of Independent Schools and Colleges in Alberta (AISCA), 
Association of School Business Officials of Alberta (ASBOA), 
Public School Boards Association of Alberta (PSBAA), 
Alberta Chambers of Commerce, 
Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, 
Suncor Energy Inc., 
Syncrude Canada Ltd., 
Alberta Construction Association, 
The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, 
Stantec Inc. 
PCL Industrial Contractors Inc.
Community, corporate and post-secondary experts 
FNMI partners Treaty 6, Treaty 7 and Treaty 8, and Métis Nation 
Business and industry; 
SMART Technologies, 
Careers Next Generation, 
Weigl Publishing, 
Cenovus Energy, 
Apple, 
Building Trades of Alberta, 
Microsoft Canada, 
CISCO, 
Byye Labs, 
Alberta Health Services,
LEARN Québec (offering bilingual expertise) 
Discovery Education Canada, 
Pearson Canada 
Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (collaborative 
resource) 


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