Ignorance of Auschwitz is no surprise
Re NDP candidate’s lack of knowledge on Auschwitz unexplainable, Sept. 26
While I fully share Heather Mallick’s disappointment about Alex Johnstone’s lack of knowledge about Auschwitz, I do not share her shock that this can occur.
I spent 37 years trying to teach sociology to U of T students who had little or no knowledge of any major historical events, recent or ancient. It was enormously frustrating trying to teach the history of social movements to students whose historical knowledge was almost nonexistent. How can one possibly explain labour or women’s movements, or even the very idea of human freedom and its social consequences, without solid historical knowledge?
We live in a province that requires only one history course in a student’s entire high school career. The course is supposed to cover Canadian history, but I guess what occurred in Germany during the Second World War wasn’t considered part of that course. In fact, it should be in high school that students are required to study a wide range of human history and that would require at least one course in each of the four years of enrolment.
To be fair, students often claim to have no knowledge of a particular event or subject despite the fact that it was covered in a course. But this in no way explains why one single course in history should be sufficient for a high school degree. Barry Green, Pickering, Ont. Alex Johnstone’s ignorance on this matter can be easily explained by how schools and universities have pushed humanities aside. She personifies the kind of Canadian citizen we are raising: a functional semi-analphabet who sees nothing wrong with her lack of general knowledge and culture. Why bother?
As a sessional professor of Spanish and translation at two major universities, I constantly see how funds are diverted to pay administrators and faculty in more “profitable” areas, while humanities are neglected and looked down upon.
The result? We just keep producing technocrats who, pretty soon, will not even know what the world is about but have a wide collection of degrees.
Kudos to those people in the highest positions both at our school boards and our universities in Canada: Johnstone is your poster child. Martha Batiz, Richmond Hill