Abigail Companion
To Whom it May Concern,
My name is Abigail Companion and I am a fourth-year student at St. Francis Xavier University. During the past semester I was enrolled in a course titled “Advanced Social Psychology of the Holocaust”. This course opened my eyes to many current issues and flaws within Canada’s education system. I have always been a student who was interested in History, especially the Holocaust and the residential schools. As a young child, I would take books out from the library to try and learn more about what exactly the Holocaust was and more importantly, WHY it happened. In terms of residential schools in Canada, I was completely unaware of what happened until grade 11. The only reason I found this information out is because I am an Indigenous woman and at a band meeting, they mentioned what had happened. After this meeting, I quickly went home to find out more. Again, the only reason I was gaining more information was because I personally was doing the searching, with zero aid from my education institution.
Unfortunately, majority of the information I learned was through my own curiosity and barely anything was mentioned in my 13 years of schooling regarding the both of these issues. I am writing this letter, to not only point out the flaws within our system but make a few recommendations that has the potential to close the gap between education and the Holocaust and Indigenous genocide in Canada. Canada makes a point to encourage reconciliation; In order to claim reconciliation, there should be education surrounding the reasons for reconciliation. Instead, students are left in the dark about what happened in Canada over the last century regarding Indigenous people. Did you know that it was not until 1996 that the last residential school closed down in Canada? I think this is a fact that all Canadians should be aware of.
I have asked teachers specifically before for the reasons why our education system does not incorporate the Holocaust. I have got the same response each time which is that the curriculum does not allow them teach lessons on the Holocaust. Instead, if they want to include Holocaust education, they must find a way to incorporate it into the already established curriculum. This can be problematic as without the ability to incorporate the Holocaust willingly, educators may neglect the topic. I think that in order to begin incorporating the Holocaust into early education systems, educators should be given the freedom to incorporate topics of importance like the Holocaust. According to Chʻoe, Leicht, and Francapane (2017) Holocaust education can be incorporated into several different disciplines besides just history classes.
There are a number or things Canada can begin to change or start incorporating to ensure that students are aware of what the Holocaust was. I think as time progresses farther away from the time period of the Holocaust, people think that it means we should discuss or learn about it less. Throughout this course, when mentioning what I was taking to relatives or friends about what I was learning, many replied with statements like “oh they still teach about that?”. This is something I feel is problematic because just because the Holocaust wasn’t yesterday, does not mean it is not relevant to what it is happening today. Regardless of relevance, people should still be aware of the consequences that followed the Holocaust and how it shaped our world. Some suggestions that I think would be useful for Canada are the following:
Incorporating Holocaust education into Canada’s curriculum. Unfortunately, this is a lot harder than it may seem. Instead, teachers can consciously make changes and tweaks where they can with the current curriculum to ensure that the Holocaust is discussed and taught. For example, adding it into social studies classes, english classes, even courses like art and music can incorporate Holocaust education. • Teach preventative measure surrounding prevention; this may include recurrence, occurrence, and group-targeted violence (Chʻoe, Leicht, & Francapane, 2017).
Have schoolwide acknowledgement around Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th) and have relevant events or information sessions surrounding the topic. Education is the best form of prevention.
According to Gibson and Case (2019) there are several items that the Canadian government is trying to improve on when it comes to reshaping education around supporting reconciliation. Some of these improvements still need to be worked on, while others have not been incorporated into classrooms thus far. Some educational practices that should be included in the Canadian educational system are:
Alteration of history. Most courses and textbooks avoid Indigenous historical content. There are barely any conversations regarding who the settlers were claiming the land from and they are perceived as the first people who were originally on this land.
Curriculums that include Indigenous studies. Schools emphasize the important of learning French because Canada is a bilingual country, but no discussion around the Indigenous culture or history.
Have school wide events that acknowledge the Indigenous population and recognize their importance and how their cultural has impacted Canada.
I am “just” a young university student and you may be wondering why it would be important to listen to any of my above recommendations or even consider making any changes to our current school system. I realized our education system was flawed roughly five years ago when I learned about residential schools (as an Indigenous student may I add) and realized that if it was not for my own personal interest in my cultural, I would have not known until I attended university. University is not a guarantee for all Canadians; many choose alternate education or career paths. The Holocaust was mentioned in my grade 9 classroom, as we touched on World War II. The only other form of “Holocaust education” I received was when we were allowed to select a Holocaust novel for a reading assignment in grade 11. Neither of these instances allowed for me to understand what the Holocaust was, why it happened, and how our world could prevent the next one. For this reason, I feel as though it is important to encourage our education system to do something about this lack of information surrounding two immensely significant genocides.
Furthering education to promote prevention among cultural minorities in our society is something I have found myself to be quite passionate about. I would be grateful for the opportunity to express my thoughts further and open up a conversation about future expectations for our education system. We have the same common goal in mind; ensuring that our students are well equip with enough information and knowledge to make this world a better place.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Abigail Companion
BA Forensic Psychology, StFX University