Instructors who teach curriculum and instruction courses in faculties of education do not have a lot of freedom to decide what should be included in their courses. As with other professional faculties, the expectations and demands are high, both from within the profession and from the preservice students intending to enter the profession. A current example of the pressure facing professors in education faculties is the growing emphasis on curricula as mandated by provincial governments. New curricula (since 1995 or so) exist for nearly every subject area from kindergarten to Senior 4 (grade 12), and plans are in the works for remaining subject areas.

I work as an instructor of Language Arts (LA) curriculum and instruction, a mandatory course for preservice teachers who are working toward a Bachelor of Education degree and who intend to teach at the elementary level. Most will teach in Manitoba. Manitoba curricula for Language Arts are based on those developed by a consortium represented by provincial governments from the four western provinces and both territories. (Similar work has been done in eastern Canada by the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation.) Following the work done by the Western Consortium, the province of Manitoba developed and published several new curriculum documents for Language Arts. I am obligated to help my students become familiar with these documents. The curriculum is mandatory; the previous (1983) document was considered by the field as a "guideline." I am, of course, also responsible for helping my students understand the theoretical and practical aspects of any teaching of Language Arts. This in itself has always been a full agenda. Now, with increasing pressure to "teach the government curriculum, I must remove something -- something important -- to fit in any new ideas.

Teaching the new curriculum is not as easy task. This is evident if one considers only the staggering volume of new materials available. In Language Arts I deal with five documents which concern my area specifically. These are:

Framework of Outcomes -- Early years
Framework of Outcomes -- Middle years
Foundations for Implementation -- Early years
Foundations for Implementation -- Middle years for All Learners

The physical size of this material is also overwhelming. Each implementation document comes in a box over five inches high and weighs about eight pounds, hardly the kind of thing one would eagerly bring to class.

More worrisome than the physical weight of the materials and the literal awkwardness of teaching with them is the high concept load. The documents introduce lots of heavy new ideas, such as:

-the concept of an outcomes-based orientation to curriculum;
-the concepts of standards for assessment;
-the defining of General versus Specific Outcomes;

I know that teaching these concepts takes much more time than merely covering them. I am also overwhelmed by the addition of two more "official" modes of language. When I started teaching LA, I taught listening, speaking, reading and writing. I now must include viewing and representing as well, and these two new modes imply media studies, multimedia, computer applications, hypertext, and use of the Internet, both by teachers and by children, as well as aspects of the visual and performing arts.

I am concerned about the difference between the natural use of curriculum by in-service teachers versus the prescribed use of them. How teachers use these is an idiosyncratic process. If I structure my preservice teachers' use of the curriculum too artificially, I may kill this natural dynamic, especially for my weaker students who want "the right way" even if it contradicts their instincts.

I am concerned about the nature of a quantifiable set of outcomes. This can lead to a "checklist" mentality in a teacher's approach to curriculum implementation, and to the goal of memorizing the outcomes instead of understanding them and their interrelationships. There are five General Outcomes, and, as I was recently (and proudly) told by a government representative, 56 Specific Outcomes. (I have yet to count them to verify this....)

I worry about the government's various testing programs. I know that the standards tests of recent years posed a threat to many teachers, and I know that my students are aware of these tests. Now, as our provincial government has changed, the status of several aspects of its testing agenda is uncertain, but inclusion of this topic remains on my new agenda.

In spite of any concerns I may have about the new curriculum, others' expectations of me and my teaching all seem to me to lead toward the assumption that I will teach about this curriculum, and that I will do so thoroughly. My students want to know about it and how to use it. Some of their collaborating teachers expect it (though not all are using it!!). Publishers of school textbooks are cashing in on an outcomes orientation. Our faculty was even fortunate enough a couple of years ago to receive the guidance of a superintendent who wrote to us with a list of vocabulary (directly from the government documents) which some of our students did not know when they were interviewed by him.

Who should dictate the agenda of a university instructors course? My colleagues and I went on strike for over three weeks for the autonomy to make professional decisions related to our work. To what degree do such expectations have to change if one is working in a professional faculty? In a specific program? What if the government ultimately grants certification based on the university degree which the students achieve?

I wonder what rights or responsibilities I have in getting my students to critique the government curriculum. If I leave this till grad school, I run the risk of helping my students adopt not only the government's orientation to curriculum but also the assumption that I, myself, validate that orientation. I wonder how I might best balance the government's agenda with my own. How can I know, in fact, what the government's ."real" agenda is? As the curricula were being developed, there was only superficial consultation with us. A colleague from another university ended up on the government's committee; however my colleagues and I have no idea how that selection was made.

I wondered initially how much my resistance to teaching this particular curriculum centred on my own fear because of my own ignorance. I had no time and no method by which to learn it, yet was expected to teach it. By what processes was I expected to come to know about this curriculum and its implementation? Since Inkshed 2000, when I first shared these ideas, I have come to realize that resistance to government curriculum is not merely a personal issue with which I am contending; rather, it is a serious concern for many university educators. A couple weeks after Inkshed, I attended several sessions at the annual conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), and specifically the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (CACS) which highlighted problems emerging from western, Atlantic, and pan-Canadian curriculum initiatives. I look forward to further conversations about these issues.