Canada’s education system currently has a large focus on change, aiming to
raise math and literacy scores. A fully integrated curriculum would address all
subjects at once, and this I feel is the way we need to be going as a country.
Less focus needs to be put on math tests and math lessons vs. spelling tests.
Our current system is not working for all and in order to take a new
perspective on these core subjects I think we need to incorporate them together
in various lessons.
The idea of a schooling system that focuses on topics rather
than subjects is something that greatly intrigues me. The following video gives
a great overview of Finland's education system, which takes this topic based approach and demonstrates how it works.
I strongly believe the North American education system
altogether should be working towards this approach. We have the resources and
we are already trying to change the system for the better, I think this is the
right direction. Being able to create an integrative curriculum where one
lesson connects to multiple subjects would give children more applicable and transferable knowledge, for example from not just a math scenario within
the classroom but to a science and art lesson in the classroom and
potentially demonstrating further use of the transferability to real-life
contexts outside the classroom.
This transdisciplinary educational approach allows the schooling system to use various subjects in one lesson to address and teach one phenomenon. Students need to see how these subjects overlap, personally I think we should already be at this point because rarely in life does one face the subject of one subject alone, where they are not required to have skills in another. If a child is brought up seeing the overlap and use for certain subjects, they will have a better understanding and be more interested through this authentic type of learning.
This is a step I think we need to take working towards a more progressive education system.
