Why Indigenous Studies shouldn’t be mandatory...it's unfair, and coercion causes resentment?

apihtawikosisan:

In line with the “when you talk about racism you stop racism from disappearing” and “I wasn’t a racist until you questioned my privilege”, we now have people arguing that a mandatory course in indigenous studies will make people hate natives even more.

Considering this is Saskatchewan we’re talking about for the moment, I highly doubt racial tensions could get much higher.

Kyle Smyth, of the Regina Engineering Students’ Society, isn’t willing to take it. He won’t give up English (his single humanities course) for Indigenous Studies, he doesn’t want a 46th class, and he objects to being forced to spend $650 and countless hours on a subject he’s not interested in.

I’m with him. Indigenous Studies is fine as an elective. But for many, it would be a waste of time and money. Above all, it’s wrong to force students to take classes focused on one minority’s history—especially when that minority’s history is already widely-covered in Canadian K-12 curricula.

Ahhhhahahhahaahahahahahahaha!  Yes, that ‘widely-covered’ education on indigenous peoples in Canada has sure gone a long way to ensuring that by the time you reach post-secondary, you are no longer completely ignorant about indigenous history, law, and culture. 

Oh wait.  That isn’t true at all.

Before you dismiss my ideas as evidence of White Privilege, or start telling me that all courses are currently viewed through a European lens—as Beaudin-Herney informs me—hear me out.

Oops!  I was being unfairly dismissive and did not hear the author out first.  My sincerest apologies.  You see, the author is already an expert, and apparently so is every other graduate from the Saskatchewan system of education.

I learned enough about—indeed from Aboriginal Canadians—to take part in this national conversation without having been forced to take a mandatory course in university.

I learned enough because Indigenous history is already a priority in Canadian elementary and secondary schools and already permeates humanities and social sciences classes in universities.

Saskatchewan has integrated Indigenous studies into K-12 classes since 1986. It’s the same in Ontario. As a 26-year-old, I can assure you that Indigenous issues were the primary focus of my social science and history classes from kindergarten to graduate school at UBC.

In Grade Four, I filled in a map of Canada showing the different Aboriginal linguistic groups. In Grade Five I made bannock with Algonquin grandmothers. In Grade Six I listened carefully to a Cree woman about how she was flown from Hudson Bay each fall to residential schools in Timmins.

In Grade 10, after skimming over the defining moments of Canada’s history like the War of 1812 and the Conquest of 1759, my teacher spent the rest of the semester lionizing a Metis—Louis Riel.

In first and second-year at the University of Guelph, my Canadian History courses were filled, once again, with explorations of the relationship between Canada’s Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals.

It wasn’t until year two of university that I was allowed to even consider anyone else’s history.

Wow.  I suppose Saskatchewan should be a bastion of tolerance any time then, right?  Funny how the author doesn’t seem to realise those ‘defining moments’ had heavy indigenous involvement, hmmm?  I suspect the education the author received was not as well rounded or well delivered as claimed.

And this takes the cake:

Beaudin-Herney tells me that the catalyst for demanding a mandatory course in Indigenous Studies was when her feelings were hurt at Halloween by students who donned leather fringe and feathers and sold themselves Indian princesses. There never were Indian princesses, she points out. It was insensitive stereotyping.

As a gay Canadian, I’ve been hurt by stereotypes too.

Wonderful minimisation there, “her feelings were hurt”, poor little sensitive Indian girl waaaa…and then jumping immediately into oppression olympics.  Straight into how every other ‘minority’ should get mandatory classes because of course indigenous peoples are just another minority.

Not to mention, he goes exactly where it was obvious he was going:

Most Canadians I know are currently turned to loving. But if they’re coerced into giving up freedom of choice at university, many, I fear, would be turned back to hating–and we’d be no further ahead.

That’s right.  If all those loving, tolerant people have to learn about us in any  meaningful way, they will end up hating us for it.  By addressing racism, we cause it. Love and tolerance are predicated on not addressing systemic racism.

Josh Dehaas, I am afraid you have most amply demonstrated that your education has failed you.  You do not appear to understand the unique place that indigenous peoples have in the founding of this nation, nor grasp any current context in which we continue to be relevant in a way utterly unlike any other group.

I’d say it’s high time you were forced to take a course that might correct this lack of education.

Please comment on the Macleans article.  This majority view needs to be challenged.

Josh Dehaas, who wrote the McLean’s article, proves why a mandatory Indigenous studies course should be implemented at the university level. He obviously hasn’t learned enough. And what person decides they’ve “learned enough” about anything. 

“Uh, yeah, that’s enough. I’ve learned enough about First Nations people, I don’t need to learn any more ever. I know it all and you should all take what I say on Indigenous issues very seriously because I’ve learned enough in elementary school to tell you all that you don’t need to learn any more either.” - Not an actual quote, but basically what I read in between the lines.

The only thing you should do after reading this article is GO HERE AND SIGN THE PETITION advocating for Indigenous Studies to be a required course at the University of Regina and its affiliated colleges.

Really, Josh Dehaas, really? You seriously think you’ve learned anything about First Nations people? His own elementary education that he describes is what Indigenous education professors and students (yes, at the UofR) refer to as “bannock and beads education” and essentially amounts to nothing. No real insight needed, no real thought needed, and no real learning achieved. And he seriously thinks that he’s “learned enough” to “take part in this national conversation.” It just makes me ill. 

*I italicized the original article quotes there for clarity.