Notes
Repeated mention of going back to basics has started
a few minor alarm bells ringing for Canadian Rockies
Public Schools (CRPS) Board Chair Carol Picard.
As the dust settles following the 2014 Alberta
PC leadership election this past month, Premier
Jim Prentice issued his first mandate letter to new
Minister of Education Gordon Dirks on Sept. 15. In
it, “the basics” of education (reading, writing, arithmetic)
were mentioned three separate times in the
less than two-page letter, which caught the attention
of Picard.
“We need to move forward,” Picard said. “I’m a
little alarmed by words in his mandate letter that suggested
to me that he’s listening to a small chorus of
people who don’t really understand where Inspiring
Education is going, and if people don’t know where
that’s going, it’s a failure of communication and it
needs to be addressed because we can’t stop and we
can’t look backwards.”
It’s not that Picard disagrees with the basics being
the foundation for the building blocks of education;
it’s the many years involved in converting the atmosphere
to “Inspiring Education” in the Bow Valley – a
21st century approach to education, where traditional
methods are expanded on – that are important.
Picard says the school system has to counter an
increasing number of students who are becoming
disengaged with the education system because it
doesn’t address today’s students’ needs. As Inspiring
Education states, “We need to prepare Alberta students
for their future, not our past.
“We have worked for so long and so hard on
Inspiring Education. It was a document that was
crafted by a lot of people over many years that was
the largest public consultation in Alberta,” Picard
said.
Picard thinks the premier’s mandate letter might
just be a reassurance to people who fear that change
is happening; too much too fast.
In the mandate, twice after “the basics” had been
stated, it went on to say that incorporating “21st century
competencies” was on the education plan as well.
Picard and CRPS superintendent Chris MacPhee
will visit Calgary on Oct. 6 to meet with the education
minister, school board chairs and administrators
to hear what “exactly the intent” was in the mandate
letter.
“The world is changing rather rapidly and we
(Alberta) need to be ahead of that wave and not
following it if we want to maintain our status,” Picard
said.
