Copy the territories on mandatory residential school education

The documentary 8th Fire, shown on CBC earlier this year, had a number of wonderful scenes, but one in particular stands out given recent news coming from northern Canada. In the scene a group of young high school students living in southern Ontario went through a course on residential schools. The students were shocked and appalled to learn about what had happened to First Nations students so recently in this country. But even more astounding was the fact that none of them had ever heard of residential schools before that course.
Non-Aboriginal children cannot be blamed for their lack of knowledge of residential schools. In most cases, neither can their parents. It is a part of Canadian history that has for too long been covered up and glossed over. But the government can be blamed, and should be held responsible. The government created the schools. The least it can do now is make sure the entire country gets educated about what happened during that time.
So it was great to see the news coming out Canada’s northern territories earlier this month. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut announced they have completed the country’s first mandatory residential school curriculum for high school students.
The curriculum, which will be taught in Grade 10 Social Studies and Northern Studies courses in both territories starting immediately, was presented to Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Marie Wilson on Oct. 2.
“We all need to realize this very, very key point: that residential schools are not Aboriginal history, this is Canadian history based on Canadian laws that Aboriginal people had no say in,” Wilson told CBC after the event.
We’d suggest taking her comments literally. This is Canadian history, but not just in the NWT and Nunavut. This is Canadian history right across the country – and as such, similar curriculums should be mandatory learning in every high school in Canada.
The model that the territories will use to teach about residential schools is based around stories of residential school survivors from the north. The stories are told via audio clips or video, allowing the students to experience from first hand sources what happened at the schools and what the lasting effects have been.
John Stewart, the NWT’s curriculum developer for the residential school lessons, told the Northern Journal newspaper that the unit takes students on an “arc,” from a high point before residential schools, to the dark period of the schools, before ending on the “hopeful beginnings of reconciliation.”
“It’s a dark part of our history, and one of the dangers is that you leave kids there. They hear or read a story about someone in residential school and it’s devastating,” Stewart said. “All the guidance we received from all of the leaders that we interviewed was that you don’t leave kids there. You talk about that as part of our history, but then you also talk about where we’ve gone since then.”
The model that the territories used is one that can be copied by each province. Ontario, for example, could use stories from residential school survivors across the province to get the knowledge out to students. There is already work going on in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on doing something similar – in fact, Manitoba was piloting a similar course curriculum last school year and the province is expected to unveil a mandatory course on residential schools sometime in the near future.
Ontario has made small steps in the right direction. In 2007 the provincial government created an Aboriginal education policy framework. Then in 2011 it created a minister’s advisory council on First Nations, Metis and Inuit education, to help implement the 2007 policy. But much of the province’s work has been focused on improving outcomes for Aboriginal students – a laudable goal, but it cannot be the only one.
The territories have realized that First Nations, Metis and Inuit people do not live in a bubble. Aboriginal issues are territorial issues. That is why it is so crucial that curriculum about residential schools is taught to all students. Ontario needs to make the same realization, to help educate all people – including and especially non-Aboriginal people – about the dark chapters of our past.
As Wilson said, this is Canadian history. If we are ever to move beyond the residential school era, to heal from it as a country, the entire country needs to understand what happened and why.
There is no better place to start building understanding than in the school system. Ontario should follow the NWT and Nunavut’s lead and implement mandatory residential school curriculum.