Alberta teachers express worries over new social studies curriculum's effect on workload, student learning

Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides at an announcement about the new draft social studies curriculum on Thursday March 14, 2024. (Darcy Seaton/CTV News Edmonton)

A social studies curriculum five years in the making is coming to some Alberta classrooms this fall.

It arrives as Alberta's largest teachers' union raises concerns that educators aren't provided enough resources to teach the new subject matter.

Jason Schilling, the president of the Alberta Teachers' Association, says that means schools and, by extension, the provincial government "risk burning teachers out."

"You risk teachers not being able to perform the duties that they need to do to make sure they are creating creative, fun lessons for their students," Schilling, whose organization represents 46,000 educators, told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

He said he has doubts about the new subject matter after the UCP government revealed what he called a "superficial" social studies draft in 2021.

The province says it consulted with parents, teachers and Albertans for nine months on the new Kindergarten-to-Grade-6 social studies curriculum.

Schilling questions whether the government will continue listening to teachers and make more changes.

Demetrios Nicolaides, the province's education minister, says support for the new curriculum is demonstrated by the more than 1,700 teachers across 429 Alberta schools choosing to pilot the new material this fall.

"There are various stages, of course, through curriculum development, through the piloting," Nicolaides told reporters on Tuesday.

"We're hoping to see how the curriculum really works in the classroom, have a closer look at things like load (and) resources, so we're really in the final stages here."

Sixty-five teachers with Edmonton Public Schools and 40 with the Edmonton Catholic School Division are participating in the pilot program with the goal of providing feedback to the province before the final curriculum is rolled out in all elementary school classrooms next September.

"I expect to see some changes at a more operational level," Nicolaides said.

"I don't anticipate we will see any major shifts from the draft curriculum as a result of the piloting process. There's, of course, always opportunity for modification."

Work to overhaul curriculum in Alberta started eight years ago under the NDP government, with the UCP beginning the process to rework it again after being elected in 2019.