Saskatoon Festival of Education
February 20, 2014Citizenship education is being advanced in Saskatchewan through the creation of classroom ready “tools” for teachers. These tools focus on “rights, responsibilities and respect” – in effect a new “three R’s” or, perhaps, the three R’s of citizenship. These resource materials fit within the existing provincial curriculum, and are a support for teachers of Kindergarten to Grade 12 students.
National and international research supports the need for broad-based citizenship education that emphasizes “responsibilities” and “respect.” So, how will this happen? The Commission asked a teacher-lead working group to write and prepare citizenship resource materials. In effect, the classroom ready materials are “made by teachers for teachers.”
The Pre-K to Grade 6 resource materials were field-tested last year and the Grade 7 to Grade 9 materials are being field-tested now. The Grade 10 to Grade 12 resources will be field tested later this year. The teacher working group continues to review and refine their work.
The following messages are from Chief Commissioner David Arnot’s presentation at the Saskatoon Teachers’ Association’s “Saskatoon Festival of Education”:
Some of the important lessons learned include:
- A good way to support a teacher is to give her or him quality, classroom-ready, resources that work with the existing curriculum.
- If you want to help children become responsible citizens in the future, you need to support teachers today.