Dear fellow petitioners, Again, I thank you for standing by me in this effort to protect our children's education. When I and the team walk in to meet the minister in the near future, your names and comments will accompany us so that they know that we, the parents, grandparents, teachers and professionals do not support their decision to make radical curricular and pedagogical redesign. The number of participants in the Provincial Forum for the 2009 Inspiring Education dialogue was 1400: 63% (882 people) apparently voted for transformation of our curriculum. 28% (392 people) voted for a complete overhaul. Total: 1274 people out of 4 million Albertans. So it is misleading when the IE educational consultants keep claiming that "Albertans want" these radical changes. If you haven't already, please ask your spouse/parents/friends/neighbours to sign this petition too to be more than the 1274 people who have unwittingly agreed to let the Inspiring Education agenda declare that Albertans no longer want their children to go to school to acquire knowledge and a broad education. Fellow petitioners have noted that Minister Dirks likes to tweet praises for Inspiring Ed despite knowing that there is a growing number of Albertans who don't want these changes imposed on our children. So, if you do tweet, please remind Minister Dirks that we do not want Inspiring Education to implement these unproven fads. If you'd like to write to Premier Prentice or Minister Dirks directly, here are their email addresses: Gordon Dirks calgary.elbow@assembly.ab.ca Education.Minister@gov.ab.ca Prentice: premier@gov.ab.ca calgary.foothills@assembly.ab.ca If you have any other thoughts or suggestions on how to protect our children's rights to a good education, please let me know. Kindest regards, Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies (mrgranthd@yahoo.ca) https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alberta-Math-Petition/715037091853017?ref=bookmarks P.S. When Inspiring Education wants to cut content out of the curriculum, here are a few reasons not to: http://michaelzwaagstra.com/?p=484 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11120838 I don't mind an allotted time for computer classes, but when IE wants to "gamify" and overwhelm our children's education with technology, here are a few reasons not to: http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/there-are-no-technology-shortcuts-to-good-education/ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=1 When they want to "personalize" our children's education, here are reasons not to: https://educhatter.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/personalized-learning-is-the-latest-21st-century-learning-cant-more-illusory-than-real/ When they are pushing for less direct instruction and an overemphasis of inquiry-based practices, here are reasons not to: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cogtech.usc.edu%2Fpublications%2Fkirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf&ei=1-LFVN-QDIzUoAT0xICwBw&usg=AFQjCNG0OrVu9AN4XM1k7BjPTc0Ge-MUrg&bvm=bv.84349003,d.cGU http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/31/education-traditional-teaching-versus-progressive