Matt Gurney: Backlash over John A. Macdonald highlights Canada’s crisis in history education

I confess that I’m a few years removed from high school myself, but I’ve written more than once before about Canada’s woeful neglect of history education. Something in the principal’s note — the “In recent years, we have all become more aware of (Madonald’s) legacy” part — got me wondering: how much history actually gets taught in Nova Scotia’s high schools?

There’s no easy answer to that. No doubt there are nerdy Nova Scotian teens who do as I did and take every history class on offer. But it’s worth noting that graduating high school from Nova Scotia (in the English stream, at least) only requires one credit in Canadian history. There are five courses on offer: one focused on Black Canadians, one focused on Indigenous Canadians, one on Acadians, Gaelic studies and a general Canadian survey. The survey curriculum material notes that,”Key topics studied … include, but are not limited to, First Nations, colonialism, Confederation, the world wars, free trade, constitutional issues, Canada’s role in the global community, industrialization, human rights issues and immigration/migration.”

Oh, good. So in one high school credit, we’re going to cover off four or five centuries of material, including everything from the Mayflower to the American Revolution through the steam engine and Confederation plus Gavrilo Princip, Nazism, the Suez Crisis and the internet.

Great! Easy-peasy. And in math class, the students will cover addition, subtraction, BEDMAS and quantum mechanics.