Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The
University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
First Nations language and culture programs have been added to British Columbia’s External Credentials Program (ECP). Courses and programs beyond the formal BC curriculum may be approved for credit toward graduation. To earn credit the courses and programs must meet or exceed the depth, breadth, and rigor of the Ministry authorized grade ten, eleven, and twelve courses required for graduation. For example, students who are athletes, coaches, or officials may earn credit if they meet the many conditions set out in policy. The same is true for students pursuing their interest in music by completing Conservatory of Music programs.
The ECP gives formal recognition to the valuable learning that occurs outside of school. Such recognition helps – I hope – to inspire a lifelong desire to learn. Students engaged in programs designed to develop students’ knowledge of traditional medicine and food preparation, land-based learning, artistic development, language proficiency, and cultural practices may seek credit for the knowledge they acquire by the ECP.
Schools in British Columbia and elsewhere in North America are deeply steeped in the knowledge and traditions that settlers brought with them. Formal recognition of First Nations language and culture programs makes it clear that the dominant ways of knowing and being are not the only ways. ECP recognition is a complement to the recently mandated Indigenous-focused graduation requirement, another small step toward reconciliation. Four of the 80 credits required to earn the British Columbia Certificate of Graduation must include an Indigenous-focused course from the list provincially approved courses or Board approved, locally developed courses.
There has been some (seemingly minor) opposition to the Indigenous-focused graduation requirement. There is a petition to the BC Ministry of Education opposing the Indigenous studies graduation requirement which at the time that I am writing this blog has 14 signatures. The basis of its opposition is the specious argument that “the more you force students to learn a particular subject, the more they hate it” and that by making the course mandatory it will intensify “hatred towards the indigenous community.”
Another signatory to the petition questions how the addition of Indigenous-focused course work will benefit students. He writes “we need to stop using the school system to push political agendas” but paradoxically claims “that all the wrong doings towards Indigenous peoples in Canada’s dark colonial (very recent) past should definitely be truthfully and honestly recognized.” Both the petitioner and the signatory misunderstand one of the key purposes of becoming educated: expanding our horizons beyond the narrow confines of our own knowledge and experience.
Both the ECP and the Indigenously
focused graduation requirement are respectful of ways of being and knowing that
are unfamiliar to most of us. Exposure to First Nations ways of knowing and
being may help those of us who are unfamiliar with them acquire a deeper
appreciation of and respect for First Nations and in the process take a small
step toward reconciliation.