It is enough to evoke the rapid disappearance of the built heritage, the decline of French, the state of our archives or the shortage of teachers to understand that Quebec is facing a breaking point in the transmission of its culture to the next generation. next, to the point where we could witness the disappearance of entire sections of our collective memory.
The Coalition for History, its partners and its sympathizers intend to take advantage of the election campaign to alert the political parties about the shortcomings of the cultural baggage of young Quebecers. Since 2009, the Coalition for History has put forward a series of proposals targeting the most glaring problems in history teaching, from primary to university.
While education and culture are the poor relations of this election campaign, we would like to remind all the political parties to which we are appealing that knowledge of our past and the transmission of a common memory must be a priority. national.
Teach, study, promote
At primary school level, the Coalition notes that history is approached only incompletely, without starting from the schoolboy’s living environment. It seems urgent to us to introduce the child to local and regional history as well as to the great historical figures who founded their environment so that they can identify their traces in their environment.
In the context of the serious shortage of teachers, which particularly threatens the transmission of a solid historical culture, we note a great inconsistency, at the secondary level, of people without a university education who are hired, while we still refuse access to the profession to qualified graduates in one or other of the subjects taught in secondary school. The Coalition for History therefore again implores the Ministry of Education to relax the rules for access to the profession to allow candidates who already have a university degree in history or geography to be hired in a secondary school, in return for a one-year refresher course in pedagogy, which would be accompanied by an internship in a teaching environment.
Not only are the faculties of education not producing enough graduates, but the history training provided to future teachers also has serious shortcomings. The lion’s share of the courses offered relates to didactics, educational psychology and the science of education. Only a third of the courses received relate to the subject they will have to teach throughout their career, in this case history and geography. In some universities, future teachers will have taken only two courses (90 hours) on the history of Quebec and Canada, a subject that they will teach, for some, throughout their career…
Such a situation is absurd! The Coalition for History recommends that at least half of the courses given to future teachers relate directly to the subject they will be teaching.
At CEGEP, Quebec students’ knowledge of their past remains incomplete, in particular the history of Quebec since 1960. However, CEGEP is an essential stage in life for young adults who are overtaken by a host of new realities: exercising their right to vote, take part in social movements and make decisions that affect the future of Québec. At the present time, nowhere does general college education prepare young people to grasp recent developments in Quebec and to be able to enroll there. The Coalition therefore believes that it is high time that we introduce a course in the history of contemporary Quebec in the common general education at CEGEP, so that graduates are introduced to the challenges of present-day Quebec and can play an equally active role in it. than positive.
Each year, the Government of Canada allocates some $100 million to Quebec in university research chairs whose ideological objectives are guided by the federal government. Quebec, which is in charge of education, must invest in the fields of research that concern our history and that are currently left uncultivated.
The Coalition for History salutes the promise made by the Coalition avenir Québec in the context of this election campaign, which undertakes to create 20 new research chairs to study Québec. We ask that of this number, four chairs support university research in the history of Quebec. They would also be invited to collaborate with museums and historical societies already engaged in the promotion of our national history.
More gray matter than greenbacks
After school, historical culture is acquired in particular through the small and big screen. The Coalition for History is therefore of the opinion that the Société de développement des entreprises culturelle (SODEC) is creating a special program aimed at financially supporting quality historical cinema and series on Quebec, both in fiction and in documentary. .
If there is one place where collective memory is in danger, it is in the preservation of archives, the disappearance of which would cause irreparable damage to Quebec heritage. The Coalition for History considers it urgent that the National Archives (BAnQ), accredited private archival services, as well as the archives of Quebec’s religious communities receive from the Quebec State the means and financial and material resources sufficient to fulfill their current and future mandates.
More generally, the Coalition for History observes that, almost every day, the news illustrates the disadvantages of not having a commemoration policy in Quebec. Which personality should be the subject of a state funeral? Who should intervene when an architectural treasure is threatened? In order to avoid improvisation and politicization in this area, the Coalition for History reiterates its request that the Government of Quebec finally adopt a national commemoration policy that outlines in advance the rules of commemorations and protocol and that it allocates responsibilities between the partners.
In our opinion, all of these proposals require far more brainpower than greenbacks. The undersigned invite political parties to promote their implementation. Our memory and therefore our collective future depend on it!
*Also signed this text:
• Stéphanie Beaupied, President of the Association of History Professors of Quebec Colleges
• Marie-Anne Alepin, General President, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal
• Raymond Bédard, President of the Society of History Teachers of Quebec
• Myriam D’Arcy, Executive Director of the Lionel-Groulx Foundation
• Thérèse David, President of the National Movement of Quebecers
• Jacques Girard, President of the Lionel-Groulx Foundation
• Laurent Lamontagne, founding member of the Coalition for History and lecturer at UQAM and UQTR
• Robert Laplante, director of L’Action nationale
• Josiane Lavallée, President of the Maurice-Séguin Foundation
• Mario Robert, President of the Historical Society of Montreal
• Jocelyn Saint-Pierre, President of the Political Heritage Society of Quebec
• Alex Tremblay Lamarche, President of the Historical Society of Quebec
• Jean-Louis Vallée, historian and president of the Fédération Histoire Québec