Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if
authorship is acknowledged]
As
every parent knows, names are important. It is also true when applied to
schools.
Some
school boards are renaming schools that were named after people who, by
today’s moral standards, did things society no longer finds acceptable (slave
owning, support for residential schooling, for example). The attention this has
received recently prompts several questions for me.
Is
renaming a school consistent with the educational mission of public schooling?
The
sensitivities and considerations that apply today may not have been considered
at the time that a school was named. However, because schooling is dedicated to
the education of the next generation of citizens, schools and the boards that
govern them have an obligation to model careful and deliberate thought about
the names given to its schools. This includes the names applied in the past
that may not conform to the sensitivities and moral considerations that apply
today.
Consider
a school named after a politician who was
instrumental in defending the rights of French-speakers at the time of
Confederation but was also an architect of the residential school system. Residential
schools were government and church run schools established to eliminate
parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural, linguistic, and spiritual
development of Indigenous children - a value that is in direct opposition to
the values which we hold today.
I do not think renaming the school alone would meaningfully
address the harms caused by residential schooling and would not fulfill a
school board’s broader educational responsibility. In the spirit of
reconciliation as expressed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
Canada (TRC), we might use the renaming process to raise awareness of
residential schooling and its long-standing effects on Indigenous people.
I think that, for
instance, a school board should engage and consult with leadership of the First
Nation(s) on whose territory the school board is situated. The purpose of the
consultation would be to seek the advice of the First Nation(s) about whether
the name of the school in question should remain or be removed from the school.
In either instance a plaque explaining the politician’s role as an architect of
the residential school system in Canada should be placed prominently on the
school and a companion lesson or lessons about the politician’s role developed
for use in that school as a way of educating students about residential
schooling and its impact.
What behaviour merits
reconsideration?
Determining what
behaviour merits consideration for school renaming is challenging because good
people can do bad things and vice versa. Perhaps the politician who was the architect
of the residential school system was also a defender of the rights of French-speakers
at the time of confederation. His behaviour should be used to educate students
and the public about residential schooling because the horrors and impact of
residential schooling were so abhorrent.
Consider a school named
for a politician considered a hero for preventing his country's invasion by
another country intent on exterminating Jews. He was also a winner of the Noble
Prize for literature. And he was a
racist and eugenicist as well. Should
his name be removed from the school? Who should make such a decision? Does his
objectionable behaviour over-ride his positive behaviour? What standard should
apply in making the decision? Do we not make such judgments every day?
Expunging names from
school buildings is fleeting. It does not absolve the education system of its enduring
responsibility to educate about, and carefully consider, the complexities of
making historical and moral judgments.