First Nations content focus of new education program

A new program to be offered this year by the University of Saskatchewan’s college of education will see more focus on “anti-colonialist” education and First Nations content. Critics within the college were concerned the new program overemphasized these areas at the expense of sufficient instruction on how to teach specific subjects like language arts, fine arts, social studies or math. In response, the college developed a course in teaching methods for both math and language arts. Next year, second-year students taking the new curriculum will also test out a new course in teaching methods for science and social studies. Last fall, 67 students starting a two-year stint in education, along with first-year students in the Indian Teacher Education Program and the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program’s Prince Albert class, were the first to try out the new “2012” curriculum. About 170 students started in the college studying the “old” curriculum. The college surveyed and held focus groups with both students and faculty to evaluate the pilot program, said Lynn Lemisko, assistant dean of undergraduate programs and research. It is expected that all education students will be taking the new set of classes by 2015-16.