English Composition

Responses to “Never Heard of Them…….They must be Canadian” by Mel Hurtig Name: College: 1. The preference and dominance of American content in the Canadian school curriculum hinders efforts of producing patriotic learners. Therefore, there is need to reverse the trend and produce books with more Canadian content. 2. Hurtig’s tone is that of anger, directed at the obsession of Canadians with foreign (American) literature in the school curriculum. He shows this by lamenting that Canadians have gone “way too far in the opposite direction from patriotism” (p. 6). Hurtig is also dejected about the future prospects of the country’s leadership. He argues further that if all that Canadian students learn at school is about America, the country will not have patriotic leaders in future, leaders who understand the nation’s history. 3. One of the ironies is that Canadian students know more about America than they do about Canada. This observation reinforces his point that Canada will lack patriotic leaders in future by suggesting that Canadian schools are actually training people who will make better American citizens than Canadian ones. The second irony is the fact that after publishing his survey results on the level of knowledge that high school students had about Canada, it had the opposite effect; instead of encouraging a pro-Canadian approach in higher education, it prompted the American embassy in Ottawa to propose for government funding to establish studies in American professorship. This development reinforces Hurtig’s view that the Canadian education system is not only owned by Americans, but also serves America’s intellectual and academic interests. Third, Hurtig suggests that while education is meant to reinforce patriotism and good citizenship, Canada’s education system is destroying it. The idea that Canada is an independent state might be illusionary because is still dependant on foreign literature in education. 4. The title of the article is significant because it captures the real extent to which Canadian learners are ignorant of their country. The expression suggests that ignorance of Canadian history is so entrenched such that if one wants to identify anything Canadian, they pick that which they h...