The value of history is in explaining how things are today. That鈥檚 one good reason why sa国际传媒 students should learn about the residential-school era and its effects.
As part of its response to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the sa国际传媒 government has decreed that students as young as 10 will be taught about policies that discriminated against aboriginal peoples and resulted in the destructive legacy of sa国际传媒鈥檚 residential-school system. To do otherwise would leave serious gaps in students鈥� understanding of history.
Aboriginal Relations Minister John Rustad announced changes that will bring more lessons on aboriginal history and culture into classrooms. It鈥檚 a commendable and welcome move, and we should not be limited by regarding certain past events as only aboriginal history.
This isn鈥檛 just First Nations鈥� history, it鈥檚 sa国际传媒鈥檚 history, sa国际传媒鈥檚 history. History is not a collection of neat little packets, with this packet belonging to one ethnic group and that packet belonging to another. The painful wounds of the residential-school era are felt by First Nations, but it鈥檚 a history that belongs to all of us, scars and all.
The teaching of history has been improving since a couple of generations ago, when Canadian students were taught a version of history heavily flavoured with the syrup of British imperialism and tinged with more than a modicum of racism.
At a rural school in the mid-1960s, a social studies teacher scolded students for using the term 鈥淛aps,鈥� pointing out that the correct and respectful term was 鈥淛apanese.鈥� The students protested that they were only reading what was in the textbook. It turned out the teacher had a newer version of the textbook, and in hers, the offensive term had been changed. Progress, it appears, comes incrementally.
The internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War stemmed from the prevailing attitude that white (especially British) ways were best and other cultures were inferior.
That xenophobic attitude resulted in the Chinese head tax and the turning back in 1914 of a shipload of British subjects from India intent on settling in sa国际传媒
It made it easier to intern Canadians of Ukrainian descent during the First World War and to deny many Canadians the right to vote for the first half of the 20th century.
That racist reasoning was used to justify forcing First Nations children to attend residential schools. The truth is bald and inescapable 鈥� it was an attempt to destroy aboriginal languages and cultures, and it succeeded all too well.
It isn鈥檛 just history 鈥� we are wrestling mightily today with the consequences of that era. We need to understand how we came to this point if we are to progress past it.
When we view the past through the lens of today, we see things differently and, we hope, more clearly than our forebears saw them. If we can learn from their mistakes, perhaps future generations won鈥檛 look back on our era with horror.
To do that, we must not hide from the mistakes of the past, but confront them. Teaching an accurate history is a necessary part of that process.
