Social responsibility wording vague

By Katherine Wagner
Originally published in The Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Times, December 19, 2008

As schools break for Christmas holidays it seems an appropriate time to dip a toe in the waters of a vast and sometimes controversial topic: social responsibility in schools.

December through the New Year marks a season of peace and goodwill towards our fellow man. At this time of year, most North American religions and cultures observe holidays and traditions centered on the ideals of brotherly love, charity and community.

The main responsibility for teaching children about values, mores and ideals has traditionally been reserved for family and communities (including religious communities).

Schools focused on teaching a defined set of skills and knowledge - mostly in the areas of math, language and fine arts, science, history and the structure of society and government.

During the 1980s, a movement within university faculties of education sought to expand the area of study known as citizenship or civics education into the broader topic of social responsibility.

At the time, researchers pointed to increasing globalization and the need for students to understand mankind's interdependence and responsibilities for each other and the environment.

Student populations at schools were becoming more diverse. To improve learning conditions, it was recognized students needed to gain a greater understanding and respect for differences.

Responding to this emerging school of thought, British Columbia was one of the first jurisdictions in North America to integrate social responsibility into its public school curriculum.

The NDP-led provincial government of the 1990s introduced the social responsibility curriculum with little fanfare. For the first time, student attitudes and behaviours were the sole criteria for determining if curriculum expectations were met.

Definitions for the term social responsibility vary and generally are vague-but-positive-sounding outcome statements.

There has been scant attention paid to the unintended consequences of incorporating another seemingly limitless (and difficult-to-measure) goal to an already crowded agenda for our public schools.

When considered on an annual basis, students attend school on average for only about 15 per cent of their waking hours. Over the decades, time for school has not increased but the content schools are expected to cover has increased dramatically.

Consider the knowledge required just to complete common everyday tasks -- it has more than doubled over the last 50 years. On top of that, entire curriculum areas, such as technology, didn't even exist 20 years ago.

The B.C. Ministry of Education publishes a set of expectations for student development and outcomes for each broad curriculum area. They are called performance standards.

The performance standards for social responsibility are cautiously and somewhat vaguely worded and include statements like, "The framework is pragmatic. It does not provide a comprehensive definition of social responsibility...whenever possible, students should be involved in monitoring and evaluating their own development...socially responsible individuals show "community-mindedness" in their responses to school, local, national, and global issues and events...'

The framework includes expectations for student development in grades K-10 in four categories 1) Contributing to the classroom and school community 2) Solving problems in peaceful ways 3) Valuing diversity and defending human rights, and 4) Exercising democratic rights and responsibilities including articulating and working toward a preferred future for the community, nation, and planet--a sense of idealism.

While the standards are presented as voluntary, most districts and schools are now using them to monitor school improvement and many have incorporated the standards into their assessment of individual student progress.

In 2005, the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows School Board added social responsibility to its goals.

Currently, there are common social responsibility goals across local public schools. The achievement contract (available at http://www.sd42.ca) includes an impressive list of current and planned programs and activities such as formal training in restitution for teachers and administrators; Roots of Empathy; an annual Social Responsibility Conference for Grade 11 and 12 students (this years theme was genocide) and; funding to support programs for disadvantaged students and schools including breakfast and lunch programs, a girls conference and art therapy.

Using BCeSIS (a data collection program) the school district is tracking student behaviour incidents ranging from the relatively minor "horseplay, hats and hall wandering" to the considerably more serious "alcohol, arson and assault". Baseline data was collected last year and on-going incident tracking will help determine the effectiveness of social responsibility initiatives.

Though implementation has been largely positive to date (a caveat: we do not know what has been compressed or pushed out of the curriculum to make room), the social responsibility curriculum has created some controversy.

The most notable is the "Corren Agreement" which is the result of a complaint to the BC Human Rights Tribunal. Activists Murray and Peter Corren were awarded the unprecedented right to influence B.C.'s. social responsibility curriculum as it relates to how and when homosexuality issues are dealt with within schools. It has resulted, in part, in the creation of an elective course called Social Justice 12.

B.C.s social responsibility curriculum is a work in progress. The ministry encourages individuals and groups to provide input.

Schools, classrooms, districts and elected representatives will benefit from community and individual attention to this complicated subject.

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