This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. Jackie Cleave is a teacher at Laura Secord School in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she developed a project about making the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action accessible for younger students. As Jackie notes, the 94 Calls to Action are a set of directions towards reconciliation but they were not intended as a teaching tool. To make the Calls to Action more accessible, a team of educators worked with seventy-five grades 4, 5, and 6 students to reword the calls in child-friendly language. Her students researched history, explored current reality, toured the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and listened to Indigenous leaders. The students used art, poetry, dictionaries, and thesauruses to identify the problem and rephrase each Call in their own words. The result is a book containing the art, poetry, original Calls, and the students’ wording of the problem and the solution the CRTC TRC proposes. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. What do we do with statues of people whose views and actions we now recognize as problematic? What role do we play in the telling of Canada’s national story, and what impact can we have on its future? Katie Tressel considered these essential questions while developing her project “Heroes and Villains.” Students are asked to consider how perspectives about historical figures and events can change. They examined how what we choose to remember about our past influences our future, and they took steps towards creating the Canada they want to live in by designing their own monuments celebrating their vision for the country. Overall, students learned that history is not a single story, and that recognizing multiple perspectives creates a richer, more accurate national identity. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. “Missing,” a show performed by Kelly Barnum’s dance students at Nanaimo District Secondary School in Nanaimo, British Columbia, explored the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. The thirty-minute show focused on the lost lives of six British Columbian women and girls and incorporated powerful images of those lost and the symbolic red dresses. Kelly developed the show with her former student, Sarah Kielly, in collaboration with the Indigenous Education Department and used music by Indigenous, primarily female, artists; monologues describing the lives and loss of the six women; as well as the NDSS Drumming Group performing "Women's Warrior Song.” The goal of “Missing” was to spread awareness to the school community. Unfortunately, due to COVID the students were unable to share their work with a larger audience but highlights from their dress rehearsal was shared with teachers. Several faculty provided positive feedback, stating the show was impactful and that they were grateful for the conversations that were prompted. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. In Randall Keast’s project, The Human Rights Symposium, students must conduct in-depth research into a marginalized group in Canada and the challenges they faced in their pursuit for equality. Once they have conducted their research, students must present their findings in seminar-style groups. This allows for students to not only engage in a conversation about the historical influences that led to marginalization of these groups, but also provides students an opportunity to directly engage with the history and teach their peers what they’ve learned themselves. At the end of the symposium, students are asked to reflect on the process and explore the notion of a just society. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
Denise LeBlanc enseigne à l’École du Grand-Pavois à Rimouski au Québec. Son projet finalisteLe cœur d’Auschwitza été réalisé en collaboration avec École en réseau et le musée de l’Holocauste de Montréal. Les activités pédagogiques réalisées ont favorisé l’enseignement et la sensibilisation des élèves face à l’Holocauste. Le point de vue ciblé a mis en lumière des actions de bienveillance et d’empathie survenues au cours de cette page d’histoire sombre. Un partenariat avec la Fondation Monique Fitz-Back s’est imbriqué dans la démarche éducative. Cet organisme de bienfaisance aide les jeunes à développer la reconnaissance de l’autre et l’empathie afin de favoriser le vivre-ensemble et la poursuite du bien commun. Le projetLe cœur d’Auschwitza valorisé le respect des droits de la personne et la considération de la diversité culturelle comme l’enrichissement d’une société saine.
Jean-Pierre Bélanger enseigne au Collège Clarétain à Victoriaville au Québec. Le projet finaliste qu’il a créé pour ses élèves et qui est intituléLe discours politique, dans la peau des personnagesoffre aux élèves une occasion de reproduire en classe un discours historique. L'objectif est pour eux de s'approprier notre histoire en redonnant vie aux mots qui ont marqué l'histoire du Canada, en les remettant dans leur contexte et en examinant leur impact sur la société de l'époque. En plus de mettre en valeur leurs talents oratoires, ce projet laisse place à l’originalité des élèves et permet d’actualiser la pensée historique à travers des événements d’une autre époque ou d’un passé très rapproché.
Maintenant plus que jamais, les pédagogues sont ouverts aux conversations sur l'égalité et le racisme systémique. Judette Dumel,enseignante à l’École intermédiaire publique Louis-Riel,a été inspirée par ce thème et a développé son projet finaliste. Concrètement, elle a encouragé ses élèves à explorer des histoires du passé et à fouiller des sujets d'actualités afin qu’ils comprennent ce que vivent les communautés noires du Canada et de l'Amérique du Nord. À travers leurs découvertes, ils ont pu à leur tour devenir transmetteurs de connaissances pour leurs pairs et pour les élèves d'autres classes.
Ce projet créé par Kevin Péloquin, enseignant au Collège Saint-Hilaire à Mont-Saint-Hilaire au Québec, est finaliste pour le Prix d’histoire du Gouverneur général pour l’excellence en enseignement. Le projet intituléCours-voyagesur des sites historiquesengage activement les élèves à jouer le rôle d’interprètes de l’histoire tout au long de l’année scolaire. À partir de l’étude des fonctions et usages d’un site historique ou d’un artéfact de la Grèce ancienne, les élèves plongent au cœur d’une véritable enquête historienne afin de recoller les pièces de leur casse-tête historique. La présentation du fruit de cette enquête ouvre la voie à la discussion sur les usages publics des lieux historiques sur tout le territoire canadien.
This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. Janet teaches at the Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies in Toronto, Ontario where she developed her project. Janet’s project had two major goals: as a direct response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 62nd Call to Action; and to contribute to the process of reconciliation as defined the TRC report, as reconciliation “requires that the paternalistic and racist foundations of the residential school system be rejected as the basis for an ongoing relationship.” It consists of a 20-page interdisciplinary Jamboard showing different maps or landscapes that students can interact with online. It begins with a Land Acknowledgement page which invites students to draw the First Nation territories of the place they occupy.This is followed by a variety of units that feature Indigenous histories and governance practices for sharing land, numbered treaties, and colonial events from Canadian history. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
This interview is part of a special series of the Teaching Canada's History podcast where we spoke with the finalists for the 2021 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching. Student members of the Westwood Historical Society at Westwood Collegiate, along with teacher Kelly Hiebert, have made a documentary film about student voice and social justice regarding the issues of hate and anti-Semitism in Canada today. The project was inspired by a Holocaust Tour where Kelly and the students in the historical society visited Warsaw Ghetto, POLIN (Museum of Polish Jews), Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Lidice Village just outside of Prague, Czechia. The film includes student-led interviews with eight local Winnipeg Holocaust survivors and Angie Orosz-Richt, who was born in the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Angie has dedicated her life to continuing her mother’s story of bravery, courage, hope, and love to protect her daughter in unimaginable circumstances. Students have also interviewed specialists in Holocaust education, local historians that specialize in the Holocaust, and many others who helped in getting the film off the ground. Kelly hopes to hold a viewing of the film in Winnipeg in October 2021. To learn more about the Governor General's History Awards or to nominate a teacher in your community, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.