Grade 11 students will soon study Indigenous writers after Toronto District School Board trustees voted to replace one of the mandatory English courses high school students must take.
A motion to develop the course was presented at a committee meeting last week. Trustees voted 18 to 3 in favour Wednesday night.
“I am fully supportive of the gradual implementation of this important course in all TDSB secondary schools,” said Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the board. Chair Rachel Chernos Lin also called it an important move toward implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action.
The course will be called “Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis and Inuit Voices” and will be a compulsory credit requirement. TDSB says the curriculum will be organized into five sections: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Perspectives and Text Forms in Canada, Oral Communication, Reading and Literature Studies, Writing, and Media Studies.
“I think it’s amazing that we’re giving exposure to the language and culture of people that were once forced out of everything,” Guelph-Humber student Kaitlynn McLeod said.
McLeod said she is happy with the progressive direction TDSB has decided to take but wishes it had been done earlier. “It’s definitely a step forward towards reconciliation.”
Online reaction tends to support the change, but some critics worry students will miss out on canonical writers like William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens.
“Yes, Charles Dickens is awesome,” Humber’s Indigenous community engagement coordinator Kaitlyn Chapman said, “but storytelling is one of the foundational parts of Indigenous culture, so if you want to learn about Indigenous people, it comes from storytelling.”
McLeod added that had Indigenous writers been shown the same acceptance as Eurocentric writers, they would be looked at just as importantly and be studied academically.
“It’s not replacing something else but more of trying to expand it in the right direction,” she said. “Indigenous people are a big part of Canadian history.”
The TDSB is preparing a report to present to the board in June that will detail the implementation of the course including when students and staff can expect the change to be made available across its 110 secondary schools.
The board, dedicated to improving the gap between Indigenous education will also receive an additional $1,200 in funds from the ministry for each student that takes the course.