Aboriginal Studies Should Be a Mandatory Course in High School

Aboriginal studies should be a mandatory course in high school

After watching the videos: 'the two world colliding', 'I'll never stop sniffing gas', 'a long-awaited apology', and reading the book named 'strength and struggle', I felt stunned. I had never thought that those things could have happened in Canada society. I believe the reasons why all those events happened are due to the lack of respect, lack of understanding, and lack of justice. Frankly speaking, it is racism. One of the efficient ways to eliminate this problem is to infuse aboriginal studies into high school as a mandatory course. By this way, we would benefit from three different aspects as follows:

Firstly, by this way, it offers Canadian youth accessibility to aboriginal history and culture. Through this course, our high school students will increase awareness about this land, our histories and current issues. The more aboriginal history and culture Canadian youth know, the better understandings there are. Also ignoring aboriginal tradition and culture, and trying to assimilate them into dominant culture, is proved fundamentally wrong. On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has offered an apology for former discriminatory policy of Indian residential school on behalf of Canada government. In young generation, the brand-new relationship with aboriginal people will be re-established based on understanding their history and culture.

Secondly, by this way, it will improve aboriginal people self-esteem and self-respect. The infusion of Aboriginal studies into high school will help address the multi-generational cultural repression arising from official policies and give aboriginal people more confidence. This sense of identity and pride will help them rebuild their self-esteem and self-respect. This is extremely important. Over a hundred years, Considering aboriginal as inferior races subconsciously by quite a few non-natives resulted in lack of respect to those people directly, and also is a main contribution of the conflict. Therefore, the way to dispel prejudices are to educate the young generation with concepts of justice, history, and respect at the very beginning, to build up the sustainable relationship each other.

Thirdly, by this way, it will make Canadian society more stable. Peaceful need more equality and mutual-understanding. The sources of conflicts are mostly caused by social inequality. Social inequalities, such as cultural and traditional assimilation, enable aboriginal people lose their senses of belonging and their identities. The lack of their identities contributed to a series of social problem, such as high rates in terms of the self-abuse, the addiction and the incarceration. It was reported that 77 percent of the young people locked up in the jails in Manitoba were Aboriginal youth in 1991, and close to 90 percent now('strength