"Teaching" Canadian Literature

A recent post by Amy Lavender Harris, "Why We're Teaching The Wrong Kind of Canadian Literature," reminded me of a lively discussion that took place on The Danforth Review in early 2003. That discussion was precipitated by a report prepared by The Writer's Trust that concluded:

• fewer than one-third of high schools in Canada offer students a course on Canadian literature;
• most students read fewer than six Canadian books during their secondary education;
• few students can identify 10 Canadian writers;
• the number of Canadian literature courses has declined over the last few years and will continue to decline, in some provinces;
• teen literature programs at public libraries receive staggeringly fewer resources than children's programming;
• there is an attitude within the high school system that Canadian literature is substandard and doesn't merit being taught in schools; and
• community standards and fear of reprisal has a large impact on the materials teachers choose to use in the classroom.

TDR published a summary of the report, which was prepared by Jean Baird.

Harris's piece was prompted by a G&M opinion article by Susan Swan, who also noted the 2002 survey and quoted Baird: “We may be one of the few countries in the developed world that doesn’t teach our own literature.”

Contrary to the Swan/Baird call for a new national literature teaching strategy, Harris recommends a focus on the local:

For one thing, there isn’t a Canadian literature so much as there are many Canadian literatures. By this I mean something other than the old ‘regionalism’ thesis people haul out in efforts to explain why Manitobans and Maritimers drink different kinds of beer. I mean something far more particular. It seems to me that rather than having everyone in the country poring over the plot of Late Nights on Air or Execution Poems (which would themselves be a vast improvement over Roughing It In The Bush), high school students in Sackville would do better to read David Adams Richards (and Clarke) while Vancouver students could focus more particularly on Douglas Coupland and Susan Musgrave.

What I am arguing is that rather than a national or even a regional education strategy, what we need is a far stronger commitment to engaging with local literature, particularly when it reflects the geographical, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds of students learning about it.

This need not lead to simplistic sociological criticism, as Harris's recent Imagining Toronto eloquently proves.

Literature rewards multiple approaches and perspectives. That ongoing fact that students aren't engaging their local or national literature in any significant way ... means whatever rewards are paid them are slim.