A little bit of history...

We have been talking about the education history of Canada so I figured I would read this section of the textbook to see what they discuss. I think the history of education in Canada is interesting and relevant to me as I begin my teaching career. I think knowing about some of the history may help me to understand some of the reasons behind some of the current issues facing teachers and schools. From what we discussed in class, some of the current struggles that teachers are faced with are related to something that occurred decades ago.

Canada’s education system started under the influence of Britain and the United States. Initially, there was a school system for the upper class called “grammar schools” based on the British model and “common” schools for the children of the working class. Soon the separate school system was developed for the Protestants and Catholics. By 1967, the four original provinces had their individual school systems supported by property taxes and the trend continued as the other six provinces were created….and so it has stayed. Now Canada has 13 separate systems (one for each province and territory) and a federally controlled First Nations education, controlled by the department of Indian and Northern affairs.

One thing that I did not know about the Canadian system is that there is general consensus of what children should learn in each grade between the provinces. I thought that since each province could decide their own curriculum, they would all be unique and different. The textbook suggests that things are relatively consistent between the provinces so children can move between provinces without missing or repeating too much information. I have not yet looked at the curriculums of other provinces to know to what extent this is true but I thought it was a good thing nonetheless. I know it is a different matter when you move from one country to another. Things are even quite different between Canada’s curriculum and the United States. Well there may be many similarities between the curriculum but when you learn them are different. My nieces and nephew experienced this when they moved from the U.S to Alberta. All three of them had to repeat the grade they were in because the curriculum was different and they had not learned what they were supposed to according to Alberta’s standards. I think if that had happened to me I would have been a little mad. Why would you want to repeat a grade that you had just passed? But they appeared to handle it quite well. I guess it would be different if you had to repeat a grade and all your friends were in the older grade, but they were new to these schools and had not yet made new friends. But it made me wonder how much of a difference there is between the two curriculums and would they have missed a lot if they did not have to repeat those grades. I guess someone must have decided that they were significantly different to make them repeat the grades.