Changing Perspectives
Among the many preconceptions that have met a long hard death in my time at Trinity Western University, there are two that were especially potent. The first is that First Nations peoples are incapable of making their own decisions and that they need the federal government to do so for them. The second idea is that we should simply cut-off all special treatment for First Nations groups, putting the distant past behind us. These are the things I would tell myself when I wanted to make the harsh reality of the situation go away.
Photo credit: Tim Andries
My peers and I seemed to repeat, with an alarming regularity the following mantra: “We can’t keep apologizing for our ancestor’s mistakes.” It has taken me a lot of years and a lot of Dr. Shelvey’s courses, but I have gradually come to see the sheer inadequacy of this statement. The turning point for me was beginning to understand a more accurate time frame. To that end, some statements closer to the truth would be: “We can’t keep apologizing for our grandparents’ mistakes, for our parents’ mistakes,” or “for our own mistakes.”
For instance, did you know that it was only in 1948 that attendance at a residential school stopped being compulsory for status “Indians” under the age of 16? That is my grandparents’ generation. In fact, it was only in 1996 that the last residential school closed. This was my parents’ generation that was still doing that, and those were my peers that were still going through residential schooling.
When we stop accepting a history that says First Nations people were conquered by Europeans (either through force or disease) and faded into obscurity long before we came on the scene, we begin to take responsibility for the problems that face us today.
The TWU professor that has been the most influential in opening my unwilling eyes – as a first year student and each year after that – has been Dr. Bruce Shelvey. He is a professor who continues to push students to explore their heritage and the things that define them as Canadians, whether they know it or not.
If you are interested in testing your preconceptions or shedding your misconceptions, History 135 and 136 (Pre- and Post-Confederation Canadian History) are offered each semester. If you have the pre-requisites and they happen to be offered in the right semester, you can also take History 340 (Canadian First-Nations Relations) and the pièce de résistance History 332 (Issues in History of British Colombia). The latter class just had its inaugural class in the spring semester of 2011, consisting of eight field trips to various historical locations in B.C., including a day-trip to a number of locations in Victoria.
Put plainly, if you want to know how your history defines you in the modern world, you don’t want to miss this class.
Will Davies
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