Another Journal salvo at English
QMI is directing another salvo at English in Montreal, with Sophie Durocher’s When Montreal Speak English, the Journal de Québec’s Jonathan Trudeau’s screed against Bonjour, Hi and the inevitable MBC preparing the ground with a big piece on hatred of Quebec, placing himself heroically with René Lévesque, Camille Laurin, Lucien Bouchard and other prominent nationalists, as bearing the hatred of the anglos for his people.
As a sort of counterweight, I offer Martin Patriquin on the new Quebec history textbook.
Jack 14:01 on 2019-08-23 Permalink
The thing I found fascinating about this whole history textbook kerfuffle is the fact that the English School boards and all of the English educational apparatchiks rolled over for this program. A program that was essentially written by Jacques Beauchemin ( Mathieu Bock Cotes mentor and thesis adviser) a Sociologist from UQAM who was also deputy minister of Culture during Pauline Marois reign. So English speaking kids take a two year course that absolutely alienates them from this place. A course in which essentially they act as a convenient binary for the majority community. My question is why did the people tasked with administering english language education acquiesce. If any one wants to nerd out an expert group of historians trashed the program, its on the EMSB website. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-history-high-school-emsb-1.4926499
Michael Black 14:25 on 2019-08-23 Permalink
To be fair, is this new textbook all that bad compared to the past? That’s not an excuse, but my vague memory of high school history from about 45 years ago says things weren’t enlightened back then. Louis Riel I think was presented as some French Canadian hero, and that ignores whatt he was really doing, and the fact that I’ve found three relatives who were part of the Red River provisional government who had native and/or Scottish ancestry.
Yes, they need new textbooks, but they did decades ago too.
I would think that teaching isn’t just the textbook. Circa 1974 I had teachers who insisted on being “Ms” and I think they made a bigger impression on me than the course they were teaching. There are ways to get around bad textbooks, though I guess if the government insists on teachers being the same, it’s harder for other voices to be heard.
Michael
Jack 16:15 on 2019-08-23 Permalink
You are perfectly right and contexts do change. The problem with this course are well documented, what makes it doubly tough is you can not not teach it. Their is a province wide exam that is translated from French and its worth 50% of the final grade in Sec.IV. If you dont pass that exam you cant get a High School leaving.
qatzelok 19:09 on 2019-08-23 Permalink
Virtually every Quebec-politics opinion piece published in English in the last 40 years has mentionned that “support for independence is dropping.”
It must be down to about .001 % by now. Or maybe even in the negatives.
Or this is just tribal propaganda.
Uatu 12:40 on 2019-08-24 Permalink
Frankly, I barely remember anything I learned in highschool history. I’m guessing most students are the same. So the changes will just be another set of facts to be memorized and then forgotten after the exam.
I guess it’s supposed to enforce the narrative of victimhood, but, the world has changed since the 60s and 70s and I’ve met some students from immigrant families that think that this narrative is just a bunch of whining compared to the crap their families have and in some cases, continue to experience. Their perspective kinda makes the effect of the text the opposite of what the government is trying to achieve.
JP 21:46 on 2019-08-24 Permalink
The Martin Patriquin article is interesting.
I did the history class in the mid 00’s and won the award at our graduation because I scored 100% (mostly rote memorization). One of the things that struck me, even as a 16-year old, was how they completely glossed over and ignored the atrocities that were inflicted upon Indigenous peoples. They made it sound more like there were mutual exchanges of culture and benefits. Yes, I understand there were alliances formed between different Indigenous groups and European groups, but it really ignores the genocides and they barely touched on the residential school systems. I thought those were huge omissions, and I didn’t feel like my teacher filled in the gaps. He just reinforced the same ideas put forth by the curriculum.
To be honest, I’m not sure the average person has any understanding of the basic context of the issues concerning Indigenous peoples, and it would be helpful if they did. I’m no expert either, but I’ve encountered people who don’t realize at all that there is a deep history there. I don’t know how/if the current government could/has fit this fairly into this new curriculum; One award and almost 15 years later, my takeaway from it all was just how they made themselves look like the victims when it came to the other Europeans, and how they made themselves look like saviours when it cames to the natives.