EDMONTON — Alberta Education on Wednesday released the updated Grade 6 social studies curriculum, which replaces the previous 32-page unit on Canadian Confederation with a single QR code printed on the inside back cover of the textbook. The QR code links to an 11-minute YouTube video.

The video, titled Confederation: What Really Happened (Honest Version), is hosted by a man in a Stampede vest and was uploaded last spring by a YouTube channel with 3,400 subscribers and a banner image of a beaver wearing a tinfoil hat. It is the only resource listed in the unit.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides defended the change, telling reporters that the curriculum reflected "the way students learn now," and that the 32-page version was "objectively too long" for a generation that "Albertans agree" no longer reads. He declined to identify the Albertans, but indicated they agreed with him on most issues.

Parents reviewing the QR code were divided. Several found the video informative. Others noted that approximately seven of the eleven minutes were spent explaining that the host's grandfather had "predicted all of this," without specifying what "this" was. The video ends with a request to subscribe and a recommendation to watch a follow-up titled Why Equalization Is Worse Than You Think (You Won't Believe #4).

The Alberta Teachers' Association issued a statement describing the new curriculum as "professionally embarrassing" and noting that teachers had not been consulted on the change. The Education Minister responded by saying that teachers were not the experts on what students should learn, a position he said was self-evident.

Sources within the ministry confirmed that the Grade 7 unit on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is currently being condensed into a single Instagram Reel, narrated by the same man, in the same hat.