Quebec proposes making history less anti-English

ik - Only in Québec would making history classes more inclusive and historically accurate be labeled as "Stalinist". Unbelievable. I've seen the stuff they teach in Québec high schools and it's appalling. Clearly, there are a lot of people in Québec who would rather brainwash their own kids and limit their understanding of the rest of the world than to threaten their own "movement."

No wonder Québec is going nowhere fast. We have to go to "les barricades" for everything these days. Can't we grow up, and move past the institutionalized victimization?

High school reform

Graeme Hamilton
Friday, April 28, 2006

MONTREAL - A provincial government proposal to play down French-English conflict and pay more attention to non-francophone Quebecers in the teaching of high-school history is angering Quebec nationalists.

Reforms planned for the high-school curriculum would teach children a version of history that is "less political" and more "pluralistic," according to a draft version obtained by Le Devoir.
Jean-Francois Cardin, a historian and education professor at Universite Laval who has seen the draft document, said the changes would be welcome.

"They are talking about a history that is more inclusive, where there is more room made for aboriginals and the Anglo-Quebec community," Dr. Cardin said in an interview yesterday. "It does not mean we have to remove all aspects of conflict, but there is a desire to make a history less centred on the traditional conflicts between anglophones and francophones."

Defeats suffered by Quebecers at the hands of les Anglais, dating back to the 1763 Conquest and continuing up to the 1995 referendum, have long been fodder for the sovereigntist movement.
News of the Education Department plan, described as "sanitized history" by the nationalist Devoir, provoked a firestorm among separatists.

"We will have to take to the street to protest this aberration," said one contributor to an Internet forum on the sovereigntist Web site vigile.net.

Gilles Rheaume, a well-known separatist firebrand, issued a communique on the same site saying the proposal was reminiscent of Stalin's regime. To downplay the failed rebellion of 1837-38 would be "to teach lies and promote a whitewashing of the national heritage," he wrote.

The teaching of history has long been a hot political subject in Quebec. When a task force recommended reforms along the same lines in 1996, there was an outcry in sovereigntist circles. Political scientist Josee Legault was scandalized that students would not be taught that Quebec was a nation.

Just last month, the Conseil de la souverainete du Quebec published a textbook proposing history lessons that would awaken children to the need for Quebec independence. The initiative was widely denounced as an attempt to introduce propaganda into schools.

Dr. Cardin stressed that placing less emphasis on events such as the Conquest, the conscription crisis and the battle over separate schools in Manitoba does not mean they will be ignored.

But Jean-Marc Fournier, the Education Minister, felt obliged to distance himself from the report prepared by his bureaucrats. "There have been conflicts in our historym and we have to talk about them," he told reporters in Quebec City. "We are not going to hide the battle of the Plains of Abraham."

Jocelyn Letourneau, a history professor at Universite Laval, learned how high emotions run after being quoted as welcoming a move away from a negative vision of Quebec history.

"You would not believe how many e-mails I received this morning from people who were attacking me," Prof. Letourneau said.

He has conducted extensive research among high-school students in Quebec to gauge their perception of the province's history.

"The general vision that they had of the history of Quebec was a fairly pessimistic, sad version," he said. "In other words, here is a nation that sought to take its place in the theatre of history and was prevented from doing it by 'the other' and remains an incomplete nation today."

Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, said a curriculum that made room for the history of other ethnic groups would be welcome.

"Looking at conflicts is not unimportant, but making the conflict the focus to the point where it undercuts the contribution of non-francophones -- which has been very substantial in Quebec development -- hasn't been constructive and needs to be corrected," he said.

The proposed reforms, which still require the approval of the Education Minister, are scheduled to be introduced for the 2007-08 school year.