A course created one year ago by the University of Alberta was the most popular online course in Canada in 2017, and is already making inroads into how Canadians understand the history of Indigenous people.
With almost 20,000 people enrolled, the free online 12-module course called Indigenous Canada teaches those from an Indigenous perspective.
“A lot of Indigenous experiences in Canada have been silenced by a normative settler vision of Canada and the history of it,” said Paul Gareau, assistant professor with the U of A’s Native Studies program and the academic lead for the course.
“This course focuses on telling an Indigenous experience of Canada.”
“The course is available for free through Coursera here.”
I’m not surprised it’s extremely popular: it provides an actual answer/solution to the “okay if my entire lifetime of education about the history of the country lied to me and erased these perspectives, how do I learn the opposite?”
“Go and read up on your own” isn’t really a solution to this, as there is a large amount of bullshit out there, and it’s actually hard to wade through, especially for people without actual training on evaluating historical sources (ie the vast majority of the population).
So a course actually being offered by a Reputable Educational Institution is a huge boon, especially when offered for free. Hat tip to the creators of the course.
This University of Alberta Indigenous history course is the most popular course in Canada
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