Manitoba Justice Murray Sinclair made a stirring appeal to educators last week on behalf of aboriginal students who continue to struggle in public schools.
He asked for curriculum changes to ensure that every student is taught about the history of aboriginal people in Canada and the legacy of residential schools. That’s not a new request but his presentation made it poignant.
Sinclair, keynote speaker at the First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) annual conference, not only called for change but asked attendees for a personal commitment that they will set timelines for action and not rest until that goal is accomplished.
The theme of the Vancouver conference was reconciliation through education and a webcast of his speech can be found here. It’s well worth a listen.
Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, said the residential school legacy lives on, not only with survivors but with their children and grandchildren. Yet many adults, educated in B.C., know little about the schools or aboriginal history generally.
That’s because history lessons over decades have made little mention of aboriginal people and those that did presented them as dangerous savages, protesters or largely irrelevant spectators during Canada’s development, he said.
That portrayal left generations of aboriginal students ashamed and humiliated, he told his Vancouver audience. “If you don’t believe this, then you do not understand the implications of the continuing high drop-out rates of aboriginal children from our public schools.”
Sinclair succeeded in school, despite these lessons, but it came at a cost. He compared his experience to that of The Ugly Duckling, a story he now reads to his granddaughter Sarah. Although he developed significant “duck skills” while in school and tried to be a really good duck, “I always felt shame and confusion and sadness because I did not feel like a duck.”
One day, though, he discovered he was actually a swan.
All students need to know that Canadian history didn’t begin in 1492, he said. They also need to know about the rich heritage of aboriginals, including why they signed treaties, why they are fighting to defend those treaties and why they have been ignored. In too many schools, he said history lessons continue to promote misunderstandings, ignorance and racism for one group; shame, humiliation and festering anger for the other.
A knowledge of history leads to understanding, and understanding leads to respect, he said. Reconciliation follows.
As commission chairman, Sinclair said he has visited hundreds of communities and been approached by many people who said they were educated in B.C. schools – universities, even – but knew nothing about the residential schools. He acknowledged the fierce competition for attention from other subjects in the K-12 curriculum but said if aboriginal issues are taught as electives, there will still be people in five, ten and 15 years who don’t know anything about residential schools and their fallout.
“I want to prevent that from happening and I want you to help me,” he said.
Sinclair recommended curriculum developed by the Legacy of Hope Foundation.