By CATHERINE SOLYOM | Published April 2, 2014 by The Montreal Gazette
Excerpt:
Education Minister Marie Malavoy, who had famously remarked that the 2006 history course “drowned (or evaded) the whole issue of sovereignty,” tried to put anxieties to rest.
“Anglophones can’t be excluded, they are part of the national narrative,” said Malavoy, who is not running for re-election. “It’s an inclusive approach.”
Not everyone is convinced. Robert Green, who teaches history at Westmount High, welcomed some aspects of the
Photograph by: John Mahoney, The Gazette
new course, particularly the return to the chronological approach to the two-year course, divided at the 1840 mark (the creation of one Canada). The “dysfunctional” thematic approach in Grade 10 – which included discussion of three kinds of liberalism – was despised by teachers and students alike, he said.
But the new course will probably exacerbate the biases already found in the curriculum, Green said. For example, the role of the Irish during the Patriotes rebellion in 1837 is hardly mentioned, and discussion of the Second World War centres on how francophones didn’t want to participate. There’s almost nothing on the Holocaust.
Then there’s the depiction of First Nations, during the Oka crisis, for example, with no mention of how both federal and provincial governments negotiated in bad faith with the Mohawks, or of the racist riots on the LaSalle side of the Mercier Bridge.
“Yes, it’s disturbing, but it needs to be talked about,” Green said.
Read more:http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/pushes+history+rewrite/9688918/story.html
Montreal Teachers 4 Change.org 
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