If I say CCQ, many of you will rightly think of the Commission de la construction du Québec. But there is now a new CCQ, and it is causing a lot of talk: it is the Quebec Culture and Citizenship course that replaces the controversial Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) program.
Beware! An acronym in education is often a sign that there will be a lot of subjects to fit into a single schedule. So I took some time to fully understand this course that goes from sociology to ethical philosophy and sex education. I didn’t succeed.
The task was not impossible. But to do it properly, I would have needed even more time and thought, which is a rare commodity these days. And setting up a course that is not a course, while integrating it with existing subjects, takes time.
Learning without knowing that these contents are formal lessons to be integrated is often a winning recipe in this matter. No need to find an acronym for it: it is the equivalent of subtly slipping vegetables into the spaghetti sauce so that the children do not notice anything.
Let me explain. In the first cycle of primary school, there is always an animal that accompanies the student in their learning; a cat, a koala, etc. These notebooks are very relevant in themselves. What is missing is the desire to add cultural references to the existing program by integrating them into the stories that are told there.
For example, we could replace this animal with the most famous dog in Quebec, namely Cléo, the famous Saint Bernard of The war of the tuques. Cleo could tell the story of magic shoes that we already find in one of these notebooks. But in this revisited scenario in Quebec, these shoes would have belonged to Félix Leclerc and they would have traveled so much that their soles would be all worn out.
— Friends, in the text, what color are Félix Leclerc’s shoes?
— Brown, they would say in chorus!
— Great! Thanks for raising your hand to ask a question Emma. What do you want to know, my dear?
— Mr. Simon, who is Félix Leclerc?
You see where I’m going with this. I would add in the corner of the page of the digital version of the notebook a link that leads directly to the song of the great poet.
It’s a principle that can be applied in a thousand ways: by programming a school bell composed by Alexandra Stréliski, for example. We could also use Samian’s words to discuss in social universe or practice our reading strategies. We could count the snowflakes at Émile Nelligan’s window to introduce little ones to addition. It wouldn’t be “stupid” either for David Goudreault to talk to us about bullying and conflict resolution in a famous learning and assessment situation (SAE, yes, another abbreviation). In these classes, Farah Alibay would talk to us about science by telling the story of a little Daniel Bélanger alone in “his Sputnik”. Marc Séguin would explain to us how to make works of art with human ashes. Well, maybe not…
The fact remains that the possibilities are numerous and the formula is not so complicated. It would be a question of meeting the requirements by bringing interdisciplinarity to another level, which will save us time while refocusing on our language and culture. That is, including cultural references everywhere and addressing the requested topics in the mathematical scenarios as in the French texts is not rocket science.
But here’s what bothers me: according to the Professional Skills Framework for teachers, two founding skills serve as the basis for the 13 skills in this framework. The first requires acting as a mediator of cultural elements. However, there are no general culture, literature, sociology, philosophy or even poetry courses in the training to become a primary school teacher.
Learning and mastering a language means appropriating its culture, knowing its giants and bringing it to life. How can we hope to give this new course with virtually no training and with this skill at the top of the list?
The second skill is to master the language of instruction. About a fifth of the baccalaureate to become a primary school teacher addresses the teaching of French through didactics courses and mastery of the language. We know that teaching French is problematic, we only have to look at the results of the latest ministry exams in secondary school, which some have described as a decline.
I would add to this the pitiful results of the written French certification test in teaching, better known as TECFEE. (Well, well, another very long acronym.)
Teaching a subject that we do not fully master can indeed lead to its share of problems in terms of transmission. “At the time when everything was immobile for us, we could last through immobility, but now we can only do so through movement,” said Pierre Vadeboncoeur.
Very well. Let’s act, then!