When Grade 11 English students in Durham Catholic high schools receive their reading assignments this year, the works of Shakespeare and other conventional texts will be replaced with ones focusing on Indigenous voices.

Native studies have come a long way in the last two decades and there are no signs that the pace of change in the program is going to slow down.

The students at St. Mother Teresa Catholic Academy in Toronto didn’t grow up on a reserve or have Indigenous roots, but after a semester learning Grade 11 Indigenous Studies English, they knew they could still be allies to their native brothers and sisters. 

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was wrapping up its work in 2015, commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair repeated over and over, “Education got us into this mess and education will get us out.”