Report – Culture and English Schools in Play
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CULTURECULTURE AND AND ENGLISHENGLISH SCHOOLSSCHOOLS ININ PLAY PLAY Report to the Minister of Education December 1999 ADVISORY BOARD ON ENGLISH EDUCATION CULTURE AND ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN PLAY Report to the Minister of Education December 1999 © Gouvernement du Québec Ministère de l’Éducation, 2000 — 99-0938 ISBN: 2-550-35401-X Legal Deposit: Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, 2000 ADVISORY BOARD ON ENGLISH EDUCATION 1998-99 Chair Gretta Chambers Members Lynn Butler-Kisber Curtis George David Johnson Dominic Martini Dennis McCullough Marti McFadzean Antoinette Modric Kevin O’Hara Michael Palumbo Frank Pettinicchio Donald Reid Thomas A. Reisner Brian Rock Patrick Ryan Aline Visser Joan K. Wasserman Ex Officio Elaine Freeland Secretary Jim Cullen Secretarial Support Services Mireille Laroche iii Table of Contents Introduction . 1 Chapters 1. Culture in the Curriculum: The Example of Social Studies . 3 2. Negotiating Contested Space: The Impact of Culture on the Curriculum . 7 3. The Challenges for English-Speaking Educators . 13 • The Challenge of Evaluation . 13 • The Challenge for Teachers . 13 • The Challenge for Universities . 15 4. English Schools and Community Resources . 17 • Research and Reference Material . 19 • Museums and Cultural Resources . 21 5. The History of the English-Speaking Community: A Work in Progress . 27 6. English Schools … with Culture in Mind . 31 7. Recommendations of the Advisory Board on English Education,1999 Report: Culture and English Schools in Play . 35 Acknowledgements: The Advisory Board on English Education expresses sincere thanks to Diane and Raymond Baillie and to the Atwater Library for the pho- tographs reproduced in this report with their permission. v Appendices A. Culture and Education: A Committed Partnership – Agreement . 39 B. Composition of the Committee on Education and Culture . 42 C. Recommendations of the Task Force on the Teaching of History May 10, 1996 . 43 D. UNESCO School Library Manifesto . 47 E. Excerpt from “La culture dans tous ses états: Collection documentaire sur la culture québécoise” . 50 F. Individuals Consulted by the Advisory Board on English Education . 53 G. Bibliography . 54 H. Interesting Web Sites to Visit . 57 vi Introduction In its 1992 report to the Minister of teacher involvement in the development of Education, the Task Force on English different pedagogical approaches to the inte- Education based its recommendations on a gration of culture in teaching are strongly series of principles, including the following supported by the Advisory Board. University one: collaboration is needed in several areas including the development of distance edu- The English-speaking community must cation services. control its education system within a broad policy framework in order that it In order to transmit its language and may transmit its language, values and culture, the English-speaking community culture and meet the learning needs of must have adequate resources. Chapter 4 young English-speaking Quebecers.1 bases its recommendations and suggestions concerning resources on the needs of the In this 1999 report to the Minister of community and on the recently developed Education, the Advisory Board on English UNESCO policy on school libraries. The Education examines Québec Schools on Board met with representatives of govern- Course, the educational policy statement ment agencies such as INRS-Culture et published by the Ministère de l’Éducation Société as well as museum and library du Québec (MEQ) which calls for improve- spokespersons. It became clear to the ment of the cultural content of the curricu- Advisory Board that culture involves many lum.2 Chapter 1 presents the issues raised by partners beyond the MEQ. There are rec- this endeavour as it relates to English edu- ommendations in this report for the cation in Québec by looking at the social Ministère de la Culture et des Communi- studies curriculum, and more specifically, cations (MCC) as well as the Ministère des the teaching of history. Chapter 2 reminds us Relations avec les citoyens et de l’Immi- all that collaboration is the key to changing gration. the way in which history is taught in Québec’s English schools. The Advisory Chapter 6 considers English schools Board recommends that the new social stud- with culture in mind. Together, the curricu- ies and citizenship program reflect a com- lum reform and the new power base of the mon reality as well as the particular histori- English school boards constitute a window of cal experience of English Québec. Chapter opportunity for English-speaking commu- 3 explores the challenges that must be met nities. This report aims to enlarge and to ensure that the cultural background of enhance consensus within the community the English-speaking students is taken into on the measures and actions needed so that account. Alternative methods must be devel- it may transmit its language, values and cul- oped for the evaluation of student learning. ture and meet the learning needs of young Teacher professional development and English-speaking Quebecers. 1. Task Force on English Education, Report to the Minister of Education (Québec: MEQ, 1992), p. 2 2. MEQ, Québec Schools on Course, code 55-1848A (Québec, 1997). 1 Lecturers at the Mechanics’ Institute 1855-1900 Source: Derived from a typed master list c. 1950s Atwater Library of the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal Archives 2 1 Culture in the Curriculum: The Example of Social Studies The social studies program looks at • focus on essential learning; the cultural communities only from the • improve the cultural content of the standpoint of demography and provides a programs of study; very cursory discussion of the arrival of • introduce more rigorous standards immigrants in Québec in the 20th century. in school; Although cultural communities are a fairly • give individual attention to students; recent phenomenon in Québec, they have • prepare students for lifelong learn- helped build modern-day Québec and, for ing; this reason, their contributions to our shared • place schools at the service of stu- history should be acknowledged. It would dents.4 also be appropriate to provide students, as early as possible, with historical background Changes along these lines are now on the main cultural communities in Québec well on the way to being implemented across today. the school system. Most will affect the English and French school boards in by and It goes without saying that appropriate large equal measure. In two areas of greater emphasis must also be placed on the cultural sensitivity, namely, religion and his- presence and role of the anglophone tory, task forces were set up to take a closer community, whose long-standing partic- look at the issues. ipation in and important contribution to Quebec history is well known.3 The report of the task force chaired by Jean-Pierre Proulx, entitled Religion in In the wake of the establishment of Secular Schools, gave rise to enough con- linguistic school boards, the Minister of troversy to have become the subject of pop- Education at the time, Pauline Marois, ular consultation and hearings before a decreed that the elementary and secondary National Assembly commission. We will, curricula would be reviewed in order to therefore, not touch upon religion in this strengthen their basic pedagogy and make study of the relationship between cultural them more adaptable to governance at the perspectives and curriculum content but local level, as schools would become the will rather focus on social studies as an newly constituted “school project” power example of how culture is included in the base. The ensuing policy statement set down curriculum. Under the new curriculum, his- the six essential conditions of this far-reach- tory is now a compulsory subject from ele- ing reform: mentary grade 3 to Secondary 5. The report 3. Task Force on the Teaching of History, Learning from the Past (Québec: MEQ, 1997) p. 42. 4. MEQ, Schools on Course, pp. 13-15. 3 of the task force chaired by historian Jacques in the compulsory history course [i.e. Lacoursière, Learning from the Past, was Secondary IV History of Québec and received with enthusiasm by those who have Canada] was a disincentive to establishing long deplored the little place given the the subject as either relevant or interest- teaching and learning of history in Québec’s ing. schools and the narrow scope of the mater- ial that was taught. Then Minister of In Quebec, the history of “Quebec Education Pauline Marois was quick to and Canada” was taught pretty much as the approve the upgrading of social studies with story of French Canada with little reference emphasis on a secure place for history in or importance given to those builders and the core curriculum. With this decision, shapers of modern-day Québec who were Québec moved into the vanguard of all not bona fide, and particularly, “old stock” Canadian school systems for the place, francophone Quebecers. Such a narrow importance and scope given the teaching of interpretation disenfranchised not only “old national and world history in its public stock” anglophones but so many other schools. The teaching of history has not “newer” Quebecers who had for generations fared as well in other jurisdictions across been integrating into Québec’s English- Canada.5 speaking community. Voices have been lost, left out, turned off. The effect of this dis- The social studies reform was par- tancing was to discourage teachers. A recent ticularly welcome throughout the English report of the History Task Force confirms schools, now organized along linguistic lines. that teachers need support.6 Teachers tried The consolidation of English-language edu- to match their coursework to the MEQ cation has brought into play not only the guidelines but the range of interpretations sharing of language-related resources, but and the ‘narrow’ range of multiple-choice also a certain cultural bias in relation to the questions were frequently in conflict with interpretation of history.