Fraser Institute News Release: Ontario curricula for Grades 1 to 12 lacking in Canadian history
25 Abril 2024 - 4:00AM
The curriculum guides for Ontario elementary and high school
students are lacking in specific Canadian history content, and are
not organized chronologically to give students a solid foundational
knowledge of the nation’s past, finds a new study released today by
the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public
policy think-tank.
“Ontario students are not taught enough about the specifics of
Canada’s history, and the little amount of Canadian history that is
taught is not presented in a logical, chronological order. This
will no doubt confuse students and make it hard for them to put
important historical events and figures into context,” said Michael
Zwaagstra, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of
Canadian History Untold: Assessing the K-12 Curriculum
Guides in British Columbia and Ontario.
The study analyzes the Canadian history content in both the
Ontario and B.C. curriculum guides for grades 1 to 12, and finds
that the amount of specific Canadian history—important dates,
specific events and specific historical figures—required to be
taught to students is limited, and it isn’t presented in a logical,
chronological order.
For example, students only start learning Canadian history (from
1780 to 1850) in Grade 3, with no requirement that students learn
about any specific people or events. In Grade 4, students then jump
back in time to learn about early civilizations from 3000 BCE to
1500 CE. In Grade 5, students leap forward to the 17th and 18th
centuries to learn about First Nations and European settler
communities in New France. The grades 7 and 8 curriculum guides are
chronological, but specific content, again, is not required leaving
it up to individual teachers what their students will learn.
There is only one required course in all of Ontario’s high
school curriculum guide that teaches Canadian history—Canadian
History Since World War I—in Grade 10.
“Because there is little requirement for students to learn about
specific dates, important events or historical figures in Canada’s
past, students will learn very different things depending on who
their teacher is, and what that teacher thinks is important,”
Zwaagstra said.
“If the provincial government is going to mandate a curriculum,
at the most basic level those curriculum guides need to be
comprehensive and balanced.”
MEDIA CONTACTS: Michael Zwaagstra, Senior
FellowFraser Institute
To arrange media interviews or for more information, please
contact:Drue MacPherson, 604-688-0221 ext. 721,
drue.macpherson@fraserinstitute.org
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The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy
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