TRC Calls to Action: #62

Reconciliation
Education for Reconciliation

62. We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in consultation and collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal peoples, and educators, to: 

i. Make age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students.

ii. Provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.

iii. Provide the necessary funding to Aboriginal schools to utilize Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods in classrooms.  

iv. Establish senior-level positions in government at the assistant deputy minister level or higher dedicated to Aboriginal content in education.

The Government of Canada has committed funding toward this Call, and all provinces and territories include the history of residential schools in their curriculum, although not all of it is mandatory or extensive.

I'm always a bit baffled when I talk to people who never learned about this time in Canada's history - or about Indigenous people's experience in Canada in general - because I remember very clearly learning this as part of curricula in elementary school and high school. How can the history of a colonized country be taught without mention of those who were most deeply affected by colonization?