Forcing students to memorize and regurgitate facts is arguably among the worst educational approaches to help foster the intellectual growth of insightful individuals who are capable of critical thought.
But a population of intelligent people who rather than absorbing and repeating information like mindless automatons are actually able to analyze and contextualize what they learn, is the last thing a so-called leader like Premier Jason Kenney wants.
Those who seek to secure an absolute grasp on their corrupt reigns of power, have very little interest in a citizenry that can actually process data to draw logical conclusions that might stand in contrast to party policy, rather than just be programmed to patriotically and unquestioningly nod in enthusiastic approval of the state's doctrine.
In far better words than I could ever have conjured up, the late, great comedic philosopher prophet George Carlin hit this nail on the head many years ago in his eloquently articulate and accurate — albeit expletive laden — explanation of the situation in a bit called The Big Club.
"They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
"You know what they want? Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
Of course it's important to bear in mind Carlin was talking about the educational system in the U.S.
But that being said, let's face it.
Canada's Texas, also known as Alabamberta, has a significant portion of its population that would love nothing more than to be just like Texas or Alabama.
And the UCP seems deadset on doing everything in their power to make that happen.
After incessantly accusing the NDP of imposing some diabolical left-wing ideology of radical extremist blah-blah-blah in Alberta's education system — while ignoring completely the process had actually begun years before under the previous Progressive Conservative government — Kenney and cohort wasted little time scrapping the whole thing and starting fresh from scratch.
A bi-partisan process that had many years before begun under the governance of conservative leadership, was turfed almost overnight. The replacement, which hasn't been particularly well received since being released, was a rushed job that was half-assedly finished.
Right out the gate, the "modernized" curriculum for students in kindergarten to grade six received backlash.
Betty Letendre, a Cree elder who worked with a group tasked by the Kenney government to review the First Nations, Métis and Inuit elements of the curriculum, couldn't bring herself to endorse the document.
Treaty Six Chiefs and the Métis Nation of Alberta didn't exactly have a particularly glowing review of the new curriculum either, describing it as peddling a, "Eurocentric, American-focused, Christian-dominant narrative," also going on to say the document, "perpetuates rather than addresses systemic racism."
Probably shouldn't come as a surprise, since we paid millions for an American firm to lend a hand.
Sadly, a base that believes teaching children about orientation and gender is part of some dark, sinister agenda, seems to be just fine with bringing Bible verses into public classrooms.
Parents who want to indoctrinate their kids are welcome to send them to religious schools.
But the public system should out of respect for all faiths and backgrounds always remain secular, with at most an option to study an all-inclusive course on religion that covers all of the world's diverse belief systems.
It seems arguably reasonable to conclude that as far as many supporters among Kenney's base are concerned, anything less than indoctrinating kids into believing evolution and climate change are a hoax and that the LGBTQ community is a deviant unnatural threat to society, is part of the evil, globalist, George Soros-funded Marxist plot to overthrow the West.
Kenney seems to know this very well.
The man is undeniably articulate and arguably intelligent enough to know how to identify and pull emotional strings that make his base dance. Machiavellian machinations and the manipulation of minds is what the likes of Kenney excel at.
One can confidently assume that whatever he accuses his scapegoats of, he himself is guilty of. A fine example of shameless projection. For if this new curriculum is anything but his own party's outdated and obsolete ideology being forced upon malleable and impressionable young minds, I don't know what is.
Satire outlet The Beaverton hit the mark with a brilliant piece that reads almost like news.
But perhaps there's hope, as people are organizing and mobilizing to protest.
Of course knowing this government's track record, their voices will likely be ignored in favour of appeasing a base that considers intellectuals the enemy, and oil barons and business tycoons as our best friends who totally have our interests at heart.