French tradition and history in Education

When studying the history of education, I did some research on the French tradition and how it influenced the Canadian Educational Landscape. First, it did not strike me why France with other countries would have such an influence in the education here in Manitoba. Then, I started to reflect on the origin of Canada and I realized that when immigrants came to live in this new country they brought not only their culture but also their religion and tradition. Education was one of the heritages they also brought. French traditions really influenced the New France during the period of 1650-1700 and left big imprint especially in today’s Quebec landscape. This is, I believe the province that has the highest number of private schools. In France, they still represent 15 to 20%. In addition to French, English, American and Scottish traditions came and shaped the actual education. First I thought, that after few centuries, those heritages would not show as much but then I reflect on what I know of Manitoba today. Being French immigrants, we have a natural instinct to regroup with other French speaking people at times. That is why we became attached to Notre Dame de Lourdes. Deeply inspired by European traditions, the people of this community established in 1891, preserve and promote their French and Swiss origins, giving Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes its decidedly European flavour. Therefore, it is easy to understand how in small Manitoba communities, different origins of immigrants shaped the actual education. Proud of their origin, the immigrants and their families worked effectively to preserve and promote their own culture especially in schools. Like Notre Dame, various villages still represent nucleus of culture like Dauphin as a Ukrainian heritage, Ste Rose, St Lazare as a French one, Steinbach as a German background… If we would visit the schools in those towns they would reflect the cultural background in the way the children are being taught.
I was also amazed to see how much catholic and protestant religion influenced the educational landscape up to around 1875. After, free non-religion schools became to appear which I think made more sense and avoid delicate problems of religion. It was also a big step towards acceptance and tolerance.
In the French Manitoban School, we could still see the influence of the Catholic religion not very long ago when they were still saying prayers just after “O’ Canada”: a pure example of French tradition!
Personally, as long as a common curriculum is being taught in each school, I think there is a value in preserving the culture because this is part of the history of the country. But it has to be done in a respectful and non seclusive manner. It is all about diversity, tolerance and acceptance: crucial values that children need nowadays even maybe more than before because of the reality of the immigration flow and also because people travel more now than in the past! I really enjoyed this history blog, it made me think out of the box for a while!!!

Slides on French tradition to follow...