An old Canadian co-worker of mine here in Cambodia wrote his masters thesis centred around the idea of internationalizing the curriculum in Canadian universities -- only to be met with a resounding lack of interest which sounds typical of a problem that I think infects far too many Canadian schools, both secondary and post-secondary (or did when I was student, anyways.)
What did I learn about the world in high school? I'm not talking about the world of literature, or the world of science, or the world of dodgeball. I'm talking about the real world, the one that exists beyond the boundaries of the Canadian border.
Very little, I'm afraid. I vaguely remember some South African lady coming into my geography class to talk about apartheid...and that's about it. I swear. Even our history classes were concerned almost soley with WWII, and the geography lessons made use of film reel strips that dated from the seventies (and looked it).
Maybe times have changed. Maybe the Canadian curriculum, thanks to the rise of the Internet, has become a bastion of internationalism.
I kind of doubt it.
So why is this relevant?
I think it has to do with the issue of dreams, the notion of belief, the concept of reaching out beyond your usual boundaries.
Very few Canadians travel to foreign countries outside of the U.S. Our knowledge of the world is pretty limited. There are terrible, atrocious events happening halfway around the world, yes, we know that, but what time does Seinfeld start again? Is it the one with the 'contest'?
Part of this lack of awareness (or interest) in the world comes from our schooling. Canada was voted by the UN as the best place to live in the world for two years in a row. The magnitude of that had never even occurred to me before I lived in a place like Cambodia.
What that means is, there is no other way of life on the face of the planet that is better than the suburban lives most of us grew up in. This is it, the top of the human food chain, the cream of the crop of human existence.
(And if you're thinking: If suburbia is as good as it gets in the world, I might as well kill myself, well, I hate to say it, but you're wrong. It is as good as it gets. Wander around some of the villages over here and you'll find it hard to moan about the 'cultural wasteland' of the suburbs. We should be kissing the grass on our weekly-cut lawns on a daily basis just to have such a wasteland to grow disillusioned with.)
Given that our place in the world is so high, I think Canadians have a responsibility to at least consider the rest of the world for even a moment, because guess what? The rest of the world is considering us, big time, and the amount of immigrants coming to Canada does not seem to be stopping. My old co-worker here is a Somali whose sister lives in Canada, and who wants to become a Canadian citizen himself.
Why?
Because Canada is seen as someplace good, honest, fundamentally better than other countries.
That's a reputation, is what it is.
And that reputation has to be validated by the people who are left with the responsibility of holding it up.
To cut to the chase, I don't think students are given the sense of power that they should have, the sense that they can go out and affect the world and, possibly, even change it. I know I sure as hell didn't have any teachers that were telling me that kind of stuff. Good, kind people, yes, but not inspiring, not lighting the flames under the asses of energetic teenagers who have not yet allowed the cynic inside of them to take full flight.
Abnormal success is caused by abnormal people, I read recently, and 'abnormal' does not have to mean deranged. It can mean different from the norm, parallel to the norm.
Canada is abnormal compared to the rest of the world. It is filled with abnormal people, ones who actually have qualified doctors to go to, clean water to drink, lawns to water. If there is a problem, you can go to the police. You can't do that over here. The police don't care.
I think it's time that Canada lost its provincial, small-minded ways, its relentless, ultimately pointless inferiority complex that causes it to constantly compare itself to the States.
Maybe the new influx of immigrants and refugees will bring the stories and legacies of their homelands to the rest of Canada, and together a new Canada can be built, one composed of third and fourth generation Canadians and first generation Canadians working together to integrate Canada more fully and completely with the rest of the (developing) world. All of the Chinese and Indian and Pakistani and Somali young people (soon to be Canadian citizens themselves) that are increasingly filling Canadian classrooms can somehow help the rest of us whitebread Canucks create a new kind of patriotism rooted in a true global consciousness.
That's only going to happen through education. That's only going to happen when Canadians who have lived abroad and have a grasp of international issues are brought into the education system and allowed to create learning systems that reflect their overseas experience. That's only going to happen when young black and white and Asian and African Canadians are reminded again and again that they are a strong, resilient, powerful, abnormal people who live in a place that millions are trying to reach, and that they, themselves, have the obligation to sustain and transform. That's only going to happen when they utilize their potential and capacity to bring themselves up and out of their tiny world and into a state of being much larger than themselves.
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