TORONTO – To kick off Black History Month in Canada, schools across the country have successfully abolished all forms of Canadian slavery from the nation’s history.
“Teaching about Canadian slavery to our students was a difficult period during our school’s history,” said Principal Dan Schrug of the Simcoe Elementary. “These lessons made students feel uncomfortable, unpatriotic and just plain sad. As educators, we had to act and abolish this unfortunate period in our history curriculum. So, the school’s history teachers issued a decree on Black History Month that we would never again teach our children about how this country treated people like property based on their race.”
The principal then quieted his voice so the children could not overhear.
“If the new generation of children found out that Canada once had slavery, it would be a serious blow to morale. How else could we be smug to the Americans? We had to eliminate all references to avoid any questions.”
Meanwhile, students at Simcoe Elementary were learning about non-slavery related black Canadian history.
“Remember children, the slaves fled to Canada for freedom with the help of Harriet Tubman,” Mrs. McMurray told her grade seven class avoiding the fact that the British, French and First Nations all owned black slaves. “Slavery was an American concept and we had something called an underground railway so they could escape. We allowed them to stay. Now, let’s view this Heritage Minute describing how happy they were to arrive in Canada.”
Students also learned about how Canadians of African and Caribbean descent were respected and lived in nice neighbourhoods such as Africville, Nova Scotia.
“That neighbourhood was so proud to be Canadian, they paid property taxes to the City of Halifax and never asked for basic city services in return,” Mrs McMurray told her children.
According to sources, the next Canadian history topic in Mrs. McMurray’s class will be about the brave Japanese Canadians who gave up their possessions and property to live at camps for the war effort.
