My Sask Experience

Unlike some found within this grad course I have had the experience of teaching in two radically diverse provinces when it comes to curriculum.

Upon my arrival here is Saskatchewan it was readily apparent the heavy push on curriculum reform. I was introduced to the new Psych 20 curriculum by Steve, and later that year the new Law 30 curriculum. Both guides made a new teacher such as myself very comfortable with what was expected of me and what I was expected to teach. However both introductions made it clear that it was simply a guide to be used to give focus to a common direction for all. This built in option of using the curriculum as a guide, rather than law, allows personal freedom to explore topics that students and their questions might take courses. These experiences have generally been positive as it allows this flexibility to adapt to students' interests, allowing the courses to be a little different everytime.

A negative experience within the Evergreen curriculum has been in the History 30 curricululm. This curriculum is monstrous with expectations and goals that are impossible to meet. In my eight years here I have been improving each year by getting further and further within the course. Because of the weight and the sheer amount of information that must be covered the fun of the course is often times lost as you teach toward the curriculum goals. This limits what can and cannot be done within the course. I love history and believe it to be very important for students' (and all people for that matter) to study; hence its core curriculum status. This [curriculum] limits my interest within the course and I am sure that it comes across to students. The most important thing I learned during my first year here was not to teach to the curriculum in History 30. I was told to teach the first three units in history, skip four and then teach five. This caused me to skip both world wars, the great depression, and the beginning of the cold war (all interesting topics). Lo and behold on the final departmental exam there were no questions on the fourth unit. I was told by senior social science teachers that SaskEd was trying to catch teachers who taught in a linear fashion, knowing full well that no one (or virtually no one) could make it through the curriculum. Needless to say I was relieved to find out that departmentals were scrapped the next year.

If this was true or not I cannot say. Since then I have still endeavoured to maintain the spirit of curriculum within History 30 much to my chargrin. Being a core course I feel that I need to maintain these standards handed down. This lack of flexibility I think haunts this course turning it into a course that has potential to be great but gets bogged down with disinterest.