Parents expressed concerns Tuesday that their children won’t learn the science, math and exam-taking skills they need for university under the Yukon’s new K-12 curriculum.

“I’m a little bit concerned experiential learning is coming at the expense of content,” said one father at Tuesday evening’s information session held at F.H. Collins Secondary School.

The new curriculum, based on British Columbia’s system, involves more hands-on and student-directed learning and fewer standardized tests (see Tuesday’s Star).

It will be rolled out over the next few years, starting with Kindergarten to Grade 9 in the fall, followed by Grades 10 to 12 in September 2018.

Nicole Morgan, the Department of Education’s assistant deputy minister of learning and one of the forum’s speakers, assured parents that courses required for entry into university programs, like calculus, aren’t going away.

Teachers will, however, begin incorporating real-world applications of their subjects into their lesson plans, she said.

In calculus, for example, a teacher could invite a Whitehorse engineer to class, to share how she uses math on the job.

Another father, who is also a teacher, asked whether the new curriculum will prepare students to write university-level exams, some of which are worth upwards of 50 per cent.

“We’ll have to make them ready,” said Judith Arnold, the deputy minister of Education, without offering examples of how.

On the flip side, she said, “we also have kids for whom exams are a terrifying experience.”

An exam situation is all it takes for some students to quit school for good, she added.

Morgan said the curriculum overhaul reflects the Education department’s efforts to create a system that works for all its students.

The goal is “to make them the best learners that they can be, and then they’re prepared for all the doors that are open,” she said.

One woman asked how teachers are being trained to administer the new curriculum.

“Our teachers are going to need ongoing work with this throughout the year,” said Arnold.

For many teachers, the new curriculum means not simply changing what they teach, but how they teach.

In the past, curricula were designed to teach facts, figures and general knowledge, Jill Mason, the president of the Yukon Teachers Association (YTA), explained in an interview Tuesday.

Teachers taught subjects in units: students studied one unit, were tested, then moved on to the next unit.

Under the new model, said Mason, “instead of teaching dinosaurs and the planets and facts, you might be teaching how to critically think, or how to co-operate in a group to get a project done.”

Many teachers are comfortable with experiential learning – that is, learning through an immersive experience – and have been using this method for a long time, said Mason. Others are used to more traditional ways of teaching.

“It’s going to be a challenge to figure out which teachers will need training and in what areas,” she said.

Curriculum changes are par for the course, and teachers expect them, said Mason, but this one is different.

Normally, the government tweaks the public school program one subject at a time, she said.

Next year, the way all subjects are taught will change at the same time.

“That’s a little bit more stressful, than it would have been the other way,” said Mason.

Not that it comes as a surprise.

Teachers have known about the impending curriculum overhaul for more than a year, she said.

While the move toward more experiential and personalized learning will take some getting used to, Mason said, lots of teachers are excited about the changes coming to public education in the Yukon.

“Many teachers have sort of understood for a while that education needs to change with the world, the way the world runs now,” she said.

The new curriculum will offer more opportunities for learning outside the classroom, and for assignments that engage multiple subjects, referred to as “integrated learning.”

NDP MLA Kate White said involving more hands-on activities in school is a step in the right direction.

“As a kid who had a hard time sitting still, my best learning was when I was doing experiential programs, so when I was in music, art and drama, when we went out and we did canoe trips,” she told the Star Tuesday.

“The more kids we can connect with in a way that they are able to be successful, the more successful education will become.”

The new curriculum will also allow students to take some liberties in their course work, said the education officials.

Mason, the YTA president, offered this example:

Say students are assigned to write a story in English Language Arts class: some may be ready to map out their story, write it and edit it, while others struggle may with this process.

Under the new curriculum, students might write their story as play or a comic book, or learn to tell it orally, from a grandparent or elder.

There’s an expectation that teachers will try new things – “take a little bit of risk” – said Mason.

Education about Yukon First Nations, and First Nations ways of knowing and doing, will play a larger role in the new K-12 curriculum, Education Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee said Monday.

White said she hopes the

Education department makes First Nations education a top priority.

“As a product of the Yukon education system, I didn’t know the role that First Nations played in the territory, and I also didn’t know the role that was played against First Nations in the territory,” she said.

White was pleased to hear that all Yukon teachers will be required to take First Nations 101, a cultural competency course offered by Yukon College.

It should be mandatory for all government employees, she said, adding she “absolutely” intends to raise this in the next sitting of the legislative assembly.

“We need to do a better job of making sure that people understand our past, because it’s very proud in some ways – we look at the success of our 14 First Nations – and it’s also been awful, and that is part of our truth,” she said.

“Any service providers, any frontline worker, any bureaucrat who understands that will be better at their job.”

Geraldine Van Bibber, the Yukon Party’s education critic, could not be reached for comment before this afternoon’s press deadline.