[whelan costen]

I think the key to learning and teaching anything is to make it interesting, make it have value. I also don't remember much of the physics I took, because I don't use it in my daily life; so for history, we don't generally speaking, refer to our history, we don't talk about how great Canada is, or what great inventors we have produced etc. So there will have to be a complete change in our conscious attitude to promote Canadians and our accomplishments. When you think that Ralph Nader wrote two books on Canadians great achievements, why didn't a Canadian write those books? My opinion is that Canadians don't value Canadians, because we've been taught not to, so now we have to be retaught! <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/smile.gif' alt='Smile'>

[KevinGagnon]

<br /> Great post. I think what your saying there is a real truth about Canada's Identity problem. I guess we can say though Peter C. Newman did a good job as a Canadian writing about Canada. Funny how throughout Peter's life, he turned his friends into enemy's, when he wrote about them without holding anything back. He told it like it was. Great Canadian writer.<br /> <br /> Kevin

[Marcarc]

As a DD proponent, I of course don't agree, Peter Newman is as elitist as they come, and before the last referendum was quite adamant about keeping the canadian 'beast' out of it.<br /> There is quite a difference between school boards and provinces, I was looking at curriculae from across canada generally, and Nova Scotia in particular where a fair bit of canadian history was listed. How close individual teachers follow those is debatable and relative. One might see that in specific grades there is less while in others there are more. I can't speak for certain, because as I said, I don't remember too clearly, but we did primarily european history. I remember NO american history whatsoever, and remember being suprised later in life when I was learning some of the basics (I still don't know a lot). <br /> <br /> I was looking at the K-12 and K-16 stuff online and there's tons of stuff on canadian history for teachers, keep in mind that standby remark from kids to the question 'what did you learn today?': "nothin" If you're concerned about the specifics then by all means get involved in the areas. Call your school, check out textbooks, but find out for sure what is being taught first before you potentially waste your time trying to re-invent the wheel. If you find that a particular board has avoided canadian history then one logical response is to run as a school board trustee or at least contact yours. <br /> <br /> Much of the series in question was, I think, probably too in depth politically. This is a debatable question and I haven't found any specific high school curriculum which lists what is being followed. Most of the series would, I think, be more pertinent to high school levels, and perhaps this is where I should have kept my mouth shut since junion high we did some canadian history in a 'civics' class which in the long term is useless. Before we debate how to go about it, perhaps a good first question is : how many provinces are like Ontario with provincial curriculum? Do private and public schools have to teach the same thing at the same time? What about homeschooling? Where can we find a copy of the textbooks used at the high school levels in various locations? MacGraw Hill seems to publish an awful lot of them.

[Marcarc]

Being from New Brunswick that is where I am most interested, other provinces may be substancially different, I don't know. But check out:http://www.cmec.ca/tguide/1998/english/nb98.stm#social for the curriculum at upper levels. <br /> You can see that its FAR different from when we went to school, kids have a lot more choices. Now, the issue could be that while there are two canadian history courses, they are not required. The issue of whether it should be required is an open one, just as the content of the course is. I've never agreed with our educational system, while teachers are trained in HOW to teach they are not trained in WHAT to teach and I would agree that that is something that we should all be discussing, whereas curriculum specifics are completely isolated from us. Just to note, that will only change with direct democracy<img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/smile.gif' alt='Smile'><br /> <br /> You will also note many other canadian centric courses such as geography, literature, native studies, and some others I may have forgotten. You may also note that there is an 'american history' course and european one as well, whereas we just took 'history'. However, your part of the world may be different.

[Mr.Can-Euro]

In the high school, these were our choices after grade 10 mandatory Canadian History: <br /> <br /> Grade 11 and 12 European History<br /> Grade 11 and 12 American History<br /> Grade 11 and 12 World History (Asian, African, South American History)<br /> <br /> I never persued history courses after grade 10 because it does not interest me. I do enjoy learning about different cultures especially the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cultures.