Social studies

A Facebook post featuring a social studies workbook has gone viral and has people from across the country talking. Initially posted by Destiny Samaroo, it’s now been shared over 3800 times and features a photo with a block of text from the book that reads: “When European settlers arrived, they needed land to live on. The First Nations people agreed to move to different areas to make room for the new settlements.”

While outraged like the rest who shared or commented on the post, I’m not surprised. What’s sad is that even in this new time of nation-to-nation relationships and reconciliation, children are still expected to learn, believe and regurgitate these mistruths in order to pass.

It wasn’t different in my elementary school. I remember a mention of Louis Riel’s Red River Rebellion in Grade 4 but nothing of the many millennia of Indigenous history predating that brief act of defiance.

The funny thing is that throughout elementary and high school, whenever the subject of First Nations arose I was looked at as the only resident expert in my class. But when my classmates looked to me for answers I had to tell them, “Hey, I didn’t learn about this stuff in school either.”

Don’t get me wrong, I know more than your average Canadian because my parents took the time to educate me about the history, rights and complex identity I carry, but I’m by no means an expert. It wasn’t until university that I was able to learn these things in a classroom setting, and even then it was marked by disappointment.

One of the courses I took as an undergrad was “Indigenous Lit.” I showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a class that I thought would be a breeze. I mean, I’m Indigenous, and I like to think I can “Lit”. But I quickly learned that this course wasn’t really for me.

To her credit, our white professor did her best to incorporate a diverse lens, and she was much better read on the subject than I. Even so, it dawned on me during the first week that this course was for the well intentioned but still with the optics of a western education. In other words, for the now semi-grown children who didn’t have an Indigenous parent to contextualize the mistruths of our social studies classes.

Is it the job of Indigenous people to educate our ill-informed counterparts? Must we always fill the gaps of information left by the public school system?

In fact, the onus has always be on us to start the conversation that questions past wrongs. If we don’t accept that responsibility we should have been born to someone else. But what this stupid, racist, cowardly Stephen Harper-esque textbook has taught us is that the conversations we’re starting are making a difference.

Indigo and other bookstores have pulled the workbook from their shelves as a result of non-Indigenous people calling out the publisher Popular Book Company Canada Ltd. and people are waking up.