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Your Views

December 10, 2019

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FACEBOOK FEEDBACK

On the education minister’s social media post about a Grade 10 social studies exam question:

Denise Sandy Baker
Wow, so frustrating and discouraging that they continue to undermine educators in Alberta.

Alan Skinner
Regardless of whether these are good questions, I find it chilling to think that the minister of education is criticizing me and my colleagues by posting snippets of exams on the internet for public criticism. Am I supposed to go through my exams, looking for questions that the government might consider “politically charged”?

Stephanie Amstutz
Keep politics out of our classrooms! Except in Grade 6, where the entire Social Studies curriculum revolves around the provincial government.

Nicole McRae
This type of message towards our educators fuels hate and is not appreciated. Thank you ATA for sticking up for us.

Carol Knott
Did she read question #15? The reader probably thinks...? These questions are designed to apply knowledge of perspective and bias. Clearly the minister is applying her lack of curriculum knowledge and is showing HER bias by seeing the word “oil sands” and assuming ALL teachers are secretly plotting against it.

Jennifer Black
The attack on teacher professionalism by this government is so upsetting. ATA, it is vital that we keep trying to provide the minister with accurate information. I am feeling pretty disgusted right now.

Nick Adams
What’s ironic is that the UCP blasts our education system and likely has no idea what those questions are asking.

Jessica Baudin-Griffin
“We said during the election that we were going to be taking politics out of the classroom, and that’s exactly what we will be doing.” Perhaps Ms. LaGrange needs to go back and take Social Studies 10 to examine her own biases.

Ken Der
The minister shows a total lack of leadership. Despite what she thinks, a social media rant is not the way the leader of our education system, or any government rep, should act.

Lindsey Birrell
This is also a very normal question to see on an exam. It’s testing critical thinking and understanding the point of view of a person’s opinion. Pretty sure we WANT our students to be educated on how to understand diverse opinions. Shame on you, LaGrange!

Shannon Fraser
How can you take politics out of the social studies curriculum??? It’s all about different perspectives and understanding different ideologies and worldviews?! Indoctrination is a product of ignorance.

 

Letters to the editor: We welcome letters to the editor. Please limit your submission to 300 words. Only letters bearing a first and last name, address and daytime telephone number will be considered for publication. Teachers are also asked to indicate where and what they teach. All letters are subject to editing for length, clarity, punctuation, spelling and grammar.

Email managing editor Cory Hare: cory.hare@ata.ab.ca.

 

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