Category: Teaching Canadian History

Digital history methods and historical thinking skills

On By paulmcguire2013In Digital Transformation, Historical Thinking, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

Such a great book – Guiliano’s book opened up the world of digital history to me. Hard to put down.

There is no question that we should be teaching critical thinking skills – historical thinking concepts – rather than making our students suffer through the intolerable transmission of cold unrelated facts. The question however is not should we be doing this, but how can we do this. As an instructor of new teachers, I struggle with this. How do we teach our students to think critically? How do we apply the rich body of research that has accumulated on historical thinking over the past 25 years?

Here is one clue directly from the research – Tally and Goldenberg (2005) suggest there is a direct link between the development of historical thinking skills in students and the use of digital source material.

I am interested in exploring this link. How can digital history methodology and tools be used to change the way history is taught? How can a new approach actively engage students in inquiry? How do we equip teachers mainly taught through the transmission model to instruct their students in a new way?

Digital History is a relatively new field. The seminal text, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web by Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig was only written in 2005. Guiliano’s book came out last year. I think both would be great resources for any course on history teaching methodology.

The growing field of digital history offers educators a way to help students develop and hone their historical thinking skills (Hangen, 2015). Digital history requires students to work together becoming active participants in the process of historical research (Guiliano, 2022; Hangen, 2015). Digital history opens up diverse sets of historical source material for the researcher including the digitization of library and archival collections, text visualization tools, interactive maps, and large-scale data analysis tools (Graham; et al.,  2022). Digital history also encompasses a variety of tools to share, compare, and publish historical information (Hangen, 2015). As an approach to teaching and studying history, digital history has the potential to engage students and actively involve them in the process of making history (Guiliano, 2022). 

Levesque (2014), reinforces the importance of digital technology, stating that digital methods represent a fundamental break with the past. It is “futile” for students to employ traditional methods of study using the authorized textbook listening to one person’s – the teacher’s – interpretation of history. It is not a question of whether digital technology should be used in the classroom, but how it will be used to further inquiry (p. 44). 

Levesque (2014) writes about the Virtual Historian, a program designed to help high school students navigate their way through the masses of information made available through the internet. Students are provided with a variety of primary source material in order to answer specific historical inquiry questions focusing on various aspects of Canadian history. Indeed, Levesque found that students using the Virtual Historian resource were better able to construct more sophisticated answers to historical queries than students using conventional learning methodologies. Students using the Virtual Historian displayed a greater understanding of the subject matter and a greater propensity to think historically – “present clear arguments supported by appropriate evidence, consider historical significance, and make judgments on the issue” (p. 50).

A key point in this study (2014) – it is not enough to provide students with materials from digital archives and other sources. Developing strategies for analyzing primary sources is a skill that must be taught to students. Unless students learn how to examine source material from a historical thinking perspective, their understanding of historic events will remain unsophisticated. Wineburg (1991) makes the case that students tend to judge material presented to them in the form of historical textbooks as credible and true. Writing in 2020, Barzilaia and Chinn view the problem as much more pronounced. Massive increases in available information online make it all the more challenging for students to assess what sources are reliable. Levesque (2014) contends that more research needs to be conducted to establish a link between digital technology and the development of historical thinking in students. What then is the link between the use of digital sources and the development of the set of skills necessary for students to analyze historical evidence? 

Tally and Goldenberg (2005) suggest there is a direct link between the development of historical thinking skills in students and the use of digital source material. When examining a primary source, they contend, students must follow a series of steps that include a close examination of the documents’ features, an application of their prior knowledge of the historical period they are investigating, and some speculation about the causes and consequences of the event they are studying. Tally and Goldenberg argue that students also need to make personal connections to the events they are examining and use the available evidence to support the speculations they are beginning to make (p. 1). The acquisition of these skills, they conclude, allows for the development of critical thinking skills in history and every other discipline. Their study was conducted using an online historical interpretation activity for students. The central question in their research consisted of an examination of the historical thinking skills students displayed while studying a series of digital images. Student groups of different academic levels and grades were able to make inferences, corroborate information, and use evidence to support their observations and conclusions about the material they were viewing (p. 14). They conclude there is a direct link between the analysis of digital sources and the development of historical thinking skills:

In sum, this pilot investigation of student performance on a digital image analysis task indicates that in classrooms where teachers are using primary sources to actively engage students, students are learning important skills of historical interpretation and document analysis. Scaffolded exercises of this sort described here, coupled with classroom instruction, help students integrate acquisition of historical content knowledge and development of historical thinking skills and immerse students and teachers in building knowledge from documents, in ways that reflect disciplinary perspectives. (p.16)

Nygren and  Vikström (2013) focus their study on the integration of digital history and historical thinking skills through the use of large digital databases designed for historians. Their theoretical stance focuses on the use of digital archives in the history classroom to assume the historical thinking skills of the professional historian (p. 51). Specifically, they examined students’ ability to sense the difference between the present and the past, the familiar and the strange. This they define as historical empathy – the development of a sense of the lives they are studying through the use of digital archives. In other words, can they sense what Wineburg calls the “jagged edges” of the past (Wineburg, 2010)?  Their study was conducted with senior-level high school students over a ten-year period. Students were asked to develop a research question with a supporting hypothesis. The digital database was the source of evidence they were to use in their investigation. In finalizing their work on the lives of people revealed through the database, student work was examined to see if they could perceive the differences between their lives and those of their subjects. Based on their findings, Nygren and Vikström (2013) concluded that using the digital database was a challenge.  By the third iteration of the study, the researcher’s introduction to the database and the more limited focus of the study made the use of the digital material more productive (p. 66). Nearly half the students in the final iteration were able to display historical empathy for the people they researched. This, according to Nygren and Vikström, was a clear indication of historical thinking (2013). Digital history methods, they concluded clearly allowed students to delve into authentic historical research, “The very detailed primary sources serve students’ interest in life and death, blood and guts, in a realistic past. Making history meaningful and fascinating is a challenge of history teaching; digital history clearly has the potential to do this” (p. 67).

The authors conclude that the favourable results they recorded were only possible due to the careful scaffolding of their teachers:

Making all students use historical evidence, contextualize and use historical empathy, evidently, takes more than a lesson unit with a digital database. We see the teacher as vital for helping the students understand how to use the databases, but also more importantly, for making the students understand the meaning of this type of history teaching. If the task is incomprehensible, it will appear as meaningless in the eyes of the student. (p. 68)

Different elements of historical thinking can be animated by different digital tools. Carretero et al., (2022) argue that digital historical maps offer students the opportunity to study change over time, one of the key historical thinking concepts as outlined by Seixas & Morton (2013), Wineburg, (2001) and others. Unlike maps in textbooks, digital historical maps can be manipulated, allowing students to see how political borders change over time. Digital maps allow students to create their own content by fashioning elements of the map, changing its scale or focus (Carretero  et al., 2022).  Digital technology allows access to a wide variety of older maps providing the student with evidence to research some of the probing historical questions posed by Kelly (2014) – who created the map? For what purpose was it created? When was it created? Where was it created? What type of map is it? (Carretero et al., 2022). Digital maps allow for what Kelly defines as the power “to present the past in clear ways, whether in writing or in other media” (2014, p. 23).

Using Old Maps Online to create an overlay – Montreal present day and 1764 – continuity and change?

Approaches to teaching historical thinking skills

On By paulmcguire2013In Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

This is one of the shortest excerpts, but for me one of the most important ones. Consider that there seems to be a consensus that history is best taught by focusing on historical thinking concepts. Teaching should not be the mere transmission of facts. There also seems to be agreement amongst researchers that there is little evidence showing a transformation from knowledge transmission to the development of critical thinking skills.

There is also some examination of why this disconnect continues to happen. Sandwell and Vansledright are most helpful here when proposing explanations for the gap between theory and practice.

Maybe Pellegrino & Kilday (2013) provide a clue. They assert that teacher time constraints and curriculum demands have more of an influence on teacher candidates than instruction in methodology. I need to read more about this, and I really want to know what happens to teacher candidates during their first years in the classroom. For history teachers, what happens to the skills they acquire during teachers college when faced with the pressures and constraints of the classroom?

This is an area I want to study further, so far, I am not aware of any research that answers this question.

Developing the expertise to operate like a historian, to do rather than consume history, is a skill that must be explicitly taught (Sandwell, 2003). Sandwell outlines the challenge undergraduate students face in conceptualizing history as something that is constructed based on the information that is available about the past (Sandwell, 2011). Further, without an understanding of how to use primary documents or how to conduct a historical inquiry with these documents, students are unable to develop the narratives necessary to interpret the past.

Critical Challenges Across the Curriculum Critical Thinking Consortium

(Sandwell, 2003; 2011). Aligning with Vansledright’s ideas, Sandwell (2011) has developed an approach to teaching historical thinking concepts. Her course relies on workshops to teach students how to use primary documents (p. 236). As a culminating task, Sandwell’s students develop a lesson plan anchored by a Critical Challenge inquiry question. Using a historical thinking concept to frame their inquiry, students follow the same process used by historians – looking for causes, establishing significance, developing empathy, and using evidence-based on sources (2011).

In a similar fashion to Sandwell and Vansledright, Gibson and Peck (2020) apply a number of explicit teaching strategies to facilitate the selection and use of primary sources. As well, they suggest explicit teaching of the core historical teaching strategies as outlined by Fogo (2014). Fogo’s work mirrors earlier research and includes using historical questions to encourage the development of students’ historical thinking, the development of strategies to help students establish and connect historical content, the use of various historical concepts including cause and effect, continuity and change, historical significance and modeling historical reading skills (pp. 176-177). 

While Gibson and Peck (2020) conclude that their pre-service students report a better understanding of historical thinking concepts and how to implement these in their lesson planning, they make no claim regarding what their students will actually do when teaching in classrooms after pre-service training is over. What actually happens, they conclude, will have much to do with other factors determined by where they work (leadership and culture, schedule, ongoing professional development) (2020). What happens to the teacher-candidate once they leave their program does not seem to be addressed in the literature. What impact do the pressures associated with the first year of teaching have on the teaching strategies they have acquired? Pellegrino & Kilday (2013) assert that with pre-service teachers, time constraints and the demands of curriculum to transfer content to their students play a more significant role than their exposure to teaching methodologies including historical inquiry (p. 19). However, the question remains, what happens to recently acquired strategies when faced with the pressures of the first year?

Can Historical Thinking Concepts be taught?

On By paulmcguire2013In Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

For several years now I have been reading research on Historical Thinking Concepts. As a former history teacher, I am interested in what researchers have written about new ways of teaching history that encourages inquiry. It seems from what I have read that history taught in public schools remains caught in a transmission model – get out as much information as possible. This still seems like the accepted way to teach even though it is hard to imagine engaging students through a constant deluge of facts and dates.

Yesterday, I mentioned Fred Morrow Fling who started writing about historical inquiry over 100 years ago. In the last 25 years, many researchers have followed up on what he wrote. Now it is possible to find examples of inquiry skill teaching outlined in the Ontario curriculum. Still, something is lost in translation. How prevalent is the teaching of Historical Thinking Concepts? If it can be shown that inquiry-based teaching is still rare, what are the reasons for this? How are new teachers taught about inquiry? Does the learning of new teaching methodologies survive the first year in the classroom?

Could this be a research question? How do new teachers integrate historical thinking concepts in classroom instruction in the context of their first year in the classroom: A case study of the application of history inquiry skills during the early teaching experiences of teachers?

Historical Thinking

Beginning in the early 2000’s researchers including Wineburg (2001; 2018), Seixas & Morton (2013), and Barton & Levstik (2004) began to flesh out ideas on historical thinking. This reflects concurrent changes in science and math placing a greater emphasis on the development of inquiry skills (Grant, 2018; Sandwell, 2003; Saye & Brush, 2007,). However, what defines historical thinking skills varies. Grant (2018) separates these skills into two categories – broad-based approaches to understanding the nature of history most notably causation, continuity and change, and historical significance. Secondly, more source-based skills encompassing the comparison of different historical narratives, the use of evidence, and an examination of debates amongst historians (p. 427).

What has changed in how history is taught in schools?

Likewise, Kelly (2014) outlines 14 different historical thinking skills. While every historian has their own particular list, Kelly proposes a collection of the ideas that outline the process a historian uses when constructing a historical narrative. In summary, Kelly (2014) proposes historical thinking consists of the ability to examine and assess primary and secondary sources, the ability to “recognize the strangeness of the past without being put off by that strangeness” (p. 23), a facility for asking probing questions, and an understanding on how to present interpretations of the past in clear ways. Seixas and Morton (2013) add historical significance, continuity and change, historical empathy, and ethics as important additions to this list. Grant (2018) includes the consideration of multiple perspectives and analysis of cause and effect as essential inquiry skills. Considering the comprehensiveness of this list, it is important to recognize the intellectual grounding provided by Fling’s earlier methodology.

Research indicates that the use of historical thinking concepts encourages students to inquire like historians (Stephens et al., 2005). The contemporary student is transformed into an active investigator using a variety of digital resources to flex their inquiry skills (King et al., 2019). Digital historical source material enables students to develop the critical historical thinking skills they need to create their own interpretations of the past (Bell et al., 2016). On the other hand, reliance on the textbook encourages an approach that favoures the lecture and teacher-centered instruction (Levesque, 2014). With the latter, students and teachers are robbed of the opportunity to use sources beyond the pages of the textbook (King, et al., 2019). However, the use of digital technology encourages students to participate in their education in more creative and innovative ways (Bennett, 2019; Guiliano, 2022). 

Considering twenty years of scholarship on historical thinking concepts (Barton, & Levstik, 2004; Gibson, & Peck, 2020; Levesque & Clark, 2018; Seixas & Morton, 2013; Tally & Goldenberg, 2005; VanSledright, 2004; Wineburg, 2001, 2018) there is little evidence of a move away from memorization and the transmission of vasts amount of information toward an inquiry model (Gibson & Peck, 2020; Grant, 2018; Kelly, 2014). Why is there still a disconnect between theory and practice? The answer may have something to do with the amount of time K-12 students actually witness the use and practice of historical thinking concepts in their classrooms (VanSledright, 2011).

The Big Six – written by Peter Seixas and Tom Morton. A how-to manual for teaching Historical Thinking Concepts in Canada. How well is this text used in Canadian schools?

Vansledright (2014), examines the role that modeling plays in the education of pre-service teachers. If historical thinking is first introduced to pre-service teachers at the university level, how can they be expected to naturally assume a skill-based approach? He continues – how can you practice what you don’t know? Before they begin formal training, pre-service teachers have little hands-on experience using historical thinking concepts 

A simple arithmetic time-ratio calculation makes the point clear. The denominator: Give or take 18 years of teacher preparation via repeated apprenticeships of observation. The numerator: Approximately two semesters or one year of coursework (calculating generously by estimating time spent in school-based internships conservatively) in a formalized teacher preparation program designed to grow history teachers’ knowledge and assist them in rethinking common practices. The fraction: 1/18. Expressed as percentages, a prospective history teacher spends about 95 percent of the time learning to teach history via the apprenticeship of observation and a mere 5 percent of the time in a teacher education program that might offer opportunities to rethink the nature and limitations of that apprenticeship. (p. 175)

Expressed as percentages, a prospective history teacher spends about 95 percent of the time learning to teach history via the apprenticeship of observation and a mere 5 percent of the time in a teacher education program that might offer opportunities to rethink the nature and limitations of that apprenticeship. Vansledright (2014)

Grant (2018) and Bain (2005) theorize that the lack of inquiry-based practices in history instruction is a result of the structure of the school system. Multiple choice assessments encourage an approach that relies on the transmission of large amounts of information. The curriculum design process also plays a role. As Bain (2005) surmises, the bigger questions that often make history engaging are gradually pared away as the curriculum is “written, reshaped, vetted, voted upon and adopted” (p. 182). Teachers pressed for time with little practical experience of inquiry-based methods may be less inclined to switch teaching methods. Grant (2018) agrees, noting that a number of factors outside the control of the teacher contribute, “Large-scale assessments favor convergent thinking and, consequently, convergent teaching; inquiry-based teaching takes more preparation time; practicing teachers have relatively little experience learning history in an inquiry fashion” (p. 423).

Vansledright (2004) calls for the total reversal of how history is traditionally taught. Listening to lectures and reading from textbooks will do little to develop the skills needed to think historically. The solution, he claims, involves the investigation of historical problems with the assistance of primary sources. Importantly, educators need to learn how to analyze primary material so they, like the professional historian, can construct their own interpretations of the past. The heart of historical inquiry involves the assessment of historical sources. Vansledright (2004) emphasizes that any examination of source material must allow for the acceptance of varying points of view or bias. Without the ability to discern different historical perspectives, it will be impossible for the educator to construct new interpretations of the past (p. 117).

How are historical thinking concepts taught in K-12 schools? Pt. 1

On By paulmcguire2013In Historical Thinking, Leaning in, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

I am trying something different for me here. Earlier this year, I took part in a writing exercise to get some of my main research ideas down on paper. Now I want to take excerpts from that paper and use these to further tease out my ideas on historical thinking and teaching. It would be amazing to get some thoughts on the next series of posts that will give me ideas on how to move my research to the next step. These are ideas in the process of being formed. For me, I learn by writing, so I hope to learn something through these posts. I have added some graphics to make these excerpts look more like a blog post. Any new ideas and thoughts written after the paper have been put in italics.

How is history currently taught in the classroom? Is methodology adapting to new ideas presented in academic research, and if so, what ideas and practices are favoured by educators? Current research (Guerrero-Romera & Perez-Ortiz, 2022) shows a significant disconnect between how history can be taught to engage the learner in historical inquiry and what is being practiced in the classroom. Is there a way to bridge the gap between theory and practice?  This paper will explore how history is currently taught in K-12 classrooms. The gap between theory and practice will be examined along with research conducted on digital history methodology. The use of digital technology can be a way to transform classroom instruction (Nygren & Vikström, 2013), therefore, I will conclude by positing several ways digital history can facilitate the teaching of historical thinking concepts and suggest areas for further research.

The purpose and desired outcomes of history instruction have evolved over time. Osborne (2011) provides some insight into the changes that have taken place in the teaching of history in Canadian schools over the past 150 years.

First designed and employed as a tool for nation-building, particularly in English Canada, history was taught from textbooks such as The Canadian Pageant; Building The Canadian Nation; and Challenge and Survival (p. 56). After the Second World War, texts began to focus more on Canada and its place in the world. Increasingly, history education was employed as a way to develop responsible citizens motivated to act for the common good (Barton & Levstik, 2004). While the purpose behind the teaching of history gradually shifted, the methods used in the classroom proved more resistant to change. What had been considered innovations, were actually practices first introduced in the early 20th century (Kelly, 2014). Scholars such as Fred Morrow Fling were already favoring the use of primary documents over the textbook to fuel student inquiry (Osborne, 2003).

Problem-based learning, a more student-centered self-directed approach to learning (Maxwell, 2020), also had a long history stretching back to the first decade of the twentieth century (Kelly, 2014). The classroom remained resistant to change, favouring a style of teaching that emphasizes the transmission of great amounts of information to a passive audience (Gibson & Peck, 2020; Warring & Cowgill, 2017). This finding is backed up by the experiences of current pre-service teachers who typically describe to me their experiences in the history class as one burdened by the never-ending narration of dates and names.

As early as 1913, Fling developed a methodology for historical inquiry that mirrors the main components of what later would be called historical thinking concepts. His method focuses on the investigation and evaluation of historical source material leading to a synthesis of available evidence and the creation of a new interpretation of the past (Osborne 2003). Students should be asking – what is the nature of the source? Who created the source? Does it corroborate or conflict with other sources? Students should never accept without reservation the investigations conducted by others. To do so, Fling explains, robs the student of the opportunity to conduct real historical inquiry (Fling, 1907).

Fred Morrow Fling

This is the introduction. Here I am trying to set up the disconnect between what researchers write about how history should be taught and what actually happens in the classroom?

What is your experience as a student in the history class? How did you learn history? If you teach, do you practice in a way different from what you experienced?

Can we teach history in a social media world?

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Digital Transformation, Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, post-truth, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

At a time where credibility is measured by how many upvotes you get, is it possible to teach one history and expect our students to accept this as credible?

I don’t have an answer to this question, but in a world where what is credible is often decided through community consensus I think this is a good question to ask. Jason Steinhauer asks this and other questions in History Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past. (2022)

History is no longer the purview of the professional historian or even the history teacher. Public history captures the imagination like no textbook ever could. Where do teachers go now to teach their students? It could be one of the Crash Course History videos by John and Hank Green. The course commits to help students to become more informed, engaged and productive citizens of the world. It could be Hip Hughes History whose videos are engaging forays into a vast collection of historically significant topics. History Cool Kids @historycoolkids on Instagram offers daily engaging photographs of the past with background information and links for more information.

From August 2020 post – For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

Steinhauer offers many examples of how social media offers so many sites, blogs and podcasts mostly produced by public historians who do not come from an academic background. But, any history teacher reading this post could offer a plethora of other sources of on-line historical information that they use to engage their students in recounting the past.

What is now considered credible is a community consensus on what holds value. History Cool Kids is credible because it has over 1.4 million followers. Wikipedia articles have credibility because there is a community that rejects what is unfounded and promotes what can be cited.

Xavier de Petta, one of the creators of @Historyinpics points out the importance of social media history – “you no longer need to read 140 pages, you can read 140 characters” and most importantly, “you don’t need expertise to be heard”. (Steinhauer, p. 47)

This is something important to note. How relevant are academic historians if they have no voice? The road to academia is a privileged one taking many years and thousands of public dollars to achieve. Once granted the Ph.D. the newly minted academic gains the right to produce material that is rarely read by the general public or educators charged with teaching history in our schools. Steinhauer points out that there is a deep and ever growing rift between academic history and the public history created on the web.

This is real and we should recognize this. When I taught history teaching methodology at the university, all the sites we looked at would be categorized as public history. Some were produced by academics like the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History series that is written by Canadian professors thus bridging the tenuous gap between the university and the public realm. I hope this is not the exception, but most of the material we looked at came from public, not from professional historians.

This leads me to another question based on Steinhauer’s arguments. Does the professional historian play any role in the education of students? Is history a subject that could actually be self-taught utilizing the material that is currently being used in the classroom. Has social media destroyed our traditional approach to teaching history textbook in hand or has the internet opened us all up to new interpretations and viewpoints outside the exclusive realm of the academic?

What is relevant, what is credible, whose voices do we actually listen to?

Researcher’s Journal – Learning is Hard

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Digital Transformation, Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian History1 Comment

I am writing this for me, but you can read this if you want.

Whoever said that failure is good, that’s how students learn. Have you tried it? It is good learning, but it is really hard.

So, I want to read this post in January when my comprehensive exams are over. I did a mock version of my research question and I failed miserably. I think there is probably a comment on every paragraph I wrote. And I appreciate every comment. Two very busy academics took the time to go over every word I wrote, the fact that I came up short is good, it gives me something to work on.

It is hard after a long and pretty successful career to start over. It is like learning Spanish in downtown Consuelo (in the DR) you feel a little like a baby, each step is tentative, and everything is risky.

taking baby steps again

I certainly didn’t have to do this, but I have to take the long view right now. The courses were the easy part, the comprehensives are really serious and no one is going to give you a break here. I have six months to get ready for the comprehensives. My original research question was too much, it was a bit like flying in the face of a hurricane. I winced, so I need to move on.

My old question is gone, I don’t think I even understood what I was asking. I am going back to something I have experienced – how does one assess and use digital resources as a credible learning tool when there are no rules? Textbooks were easy, they were written by credible publishers and they have been approved by our provincial government.

starting with words and pictures

Web information is different – this is a totally unregulated field. Does anyone understand how dangerous this can be? What is a good source? Who is behind the site? What is available at 8:30 in the morning when you have a 90-minute class to teach?

I think I was focusing on themes that were not my own. If you are going to spend four years studying something, you better choose something that you care about deeply. My advisors gently moved me away from a theme that really didn’t resonate. Digital literacy and the curation of learning resources for teachers and students is something I am passionate about. While textbooks are still produced for schools, people (school boards) don’t want to invest as much in digital materials. The temptation is to use Google – Google is free, Google will tell you what you need to know.

When I worked on a committee that advised the school board on digital implementation this attitude was shared by many. When something is free and it looks good it is very hard to convince people to invest in content and staff training to effectively use this content. This was shocking to me, but it makes sense. Digital curation is really hard and it costs money. School boards still focus on expensive textbooks. The idea that you should pay for digital content is still a bit of a reach.

So here is my new question:

Digital literacies and the teaching of history – the development of critical thinking skills to assess and curate learning material for the classroom.

This is my old question, not answering this well has taught me a great deal:

Drawing on existing history education scholarship, how have different writers sought to critically address the teaching of history education in Canada? In your response draw on the scholarly literature to show 1) the role of historical thinking concepts in Canada; 2) the tensions that currently exist; and 3) how these relate to settler colonial narratives about Canada’s past.

Thanks very much to my course prof and my academic advisor for taking the considerable time to go over my work. I am sure this was not easy to do and it took lots of time. Yes, in the trial run I didn’t do very well, but I will keep and read again every comment that they have written. Failure is tough, failure is liberating and it can be a wonderful teacher.

This where I start again. I am getting really good
material on comprehensive exams and new resources!

Researcher’s Journal – Looking for a question

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian History1 Comment

It is time to get back to my researcher’s journal. The semester has been so busy with assignment work that there has been little time to think about anything else. Now after a great session with one of my profs – Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, I have some great material to work with!

First – I need a question. This is certainly a challenge, you would think this would be easy, but for my comps exam, I will need three questions and I write on two of these. The point here is to choose something that your committee will agree with and it is also important to come up with questions you can actually answer.

Where am I now?

So, I am starting with this – What would a poststructural or critical theory approach to examining grade 10 history teachers’ classroom practices look like?

This is probably the most challenging question that I am going to come up with. There needs to be something on epistemology or methodology so this is a theme to explore. But it is also grounded in reality – I am most interested in cataloguing how teachers are teaching the only mandatory history course in Ontario high schools. How is our national story being told in the classrooms of this province?

Two authors to look at – Petra Munro and Ania Loomba.

Thanks to VoicEd Radio and Dr. Ng-A-Fook there is an interview with Petra Munroe. This might help me with this first question.

Dr. Munro Hendry draws on curriculum studies, history, and philosophy to share her wisdom on the practice of history in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic, curriculum history, and a history of education from a transatlantic perspective.

Nicholas Ng-A-Fook Twitter August 9, 2021
Fooknconversation Episode 29 on VoicEd Radio – this is where I will start

So far, I have a collection of reading themes where all the articles I have found so far have been organized – this is what it looks like now:

Historic Agency and Consciousness

(7 articles)

Lévesque, S., & Croteau, J.-P. (2020). Beyond history for historical consciousness: students, narrative, and memory. University of Toronto Press.

Teaching Historical Thinking

(9 articles)

Allender, Clark, A., & Parkes, R. J. (2020). Historical thinking for history teachers : a new approach to engaging students and developing historical consciousness. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

History teaching methodology – teachers and teacher candidates

(17 articles)

Use these 10 tips to make your lessons engaging and relevant to your students.

Students’ ideas about history

(5 articles)

Continuity and Change

(1 article)

from the Historical Thinking Project

Alternatives to historical thinking concepts

(2 articles)

Understanding the ethical dimension of historical interpretation

(1 article)

Cause and Consequence

(2 articles)

Cause & Consequence – from Historical Thinking Projects ppt.

Methodology

(1 article)

There is a bit of a pattern here. The methodology of teaching history and more specifically, the teaching of historical thinking concepts are the two themes that are of the greatest interest right now.

Posters are still available on the historical history concepts – you can order them here.

My next step will be to look for more articles from Canadian researchers like Heather McGregor, Lindsay Gibson, Carla Peck, Stéphane Levesque and Dwayne Donald.

What I need to work towards is a comprehensive knowledge of a particular topic. The topic revolves around the teaching of history in Ontario schools and the impact (if any) of historical thinking concepts. The question will be something like this – What are current history teaching methodologies used by history teachers and taught to teacher candidates? How are historical thinking concepts beginning to enter the school system?

This is probably still too unwieldy, but this is what I have right now. The next step – spend the next two weeks adding to the articles I have found and honing my question!

In all this I need to remember to keep this practical, make this something that is useful to teachers. For me this is essential. If I am eventually going to create something of value, it has to be situated in the classroom, it has to be grounded in reality.

Year One of Graduate Studies – Finding My Way

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Historical Thinking, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

In the first year of a doctoral program, one of the most important things to learn is who your supervisor(s) are. I am very fortunate to have two people working with me – Dr. Marie-Hélène Brunet and Dr. Cynthia Wallace-Casey. Marie-Hélène was suggested to me by Dr. Lindsay Gibson, a professor at UBC. I had messaged Lindsay to get some ideas about starting a Ph.D. I don’t know Dr. Gibson all that well, but I have read some of his work and I take part in the Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future project where he is on the executive committee. He suggested I contact Marie-Hélène and ask her to be my supervisor. Here, I have to stop to note what an incredible academic community I am now a small part of. I had only spoken to Marie-Hélène over Zoom, but she agreed to be my supervisor and carefully coached me on my letter of intent for the University of Ottawa. Pretty wonderful.

Incredible what one conversation on Twitter started!

I love this graphic from the Historical Thinking Project!

This year, Marie-Hélène introduced me to Cynthia Wallace-Casey, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa; she is now supervising me with Marie-Hélène. Dr. Brunet started out as a high school and CEGEP teacher in Montreal and after four years went back to school to get her Master’s and Ph.D. She has been an Assistant Professor of social studies and history education at the Faculty of Education since 2018 and her current work focuses on understanding the historical consciousness of teachers and students. Her work enriches the literature on Historical Thinking Concepts (2014); she is currently a co-investigator on the Thinking Historically project (2020).

Dr. Wallace Casey

Dr. Wallace-Casey has worked in the field of public history and heritage in New Brunswick for the past twenty years. For her Masters, she studied the contributions made by women weavers in 19th century New Brunswick and how they contributed to the economy of Queen’s County (2011). Cynthia also has an incredible blog – Cynthia’s Heritage Education Blog – A View from the Picture Province… (2022) started in 2009 and updated on a regular basis. Her latest post includes a webinar (2021) outlining ways to bridge the gap between educators and museums to facilitate student learning.

Dr. Marie-Hélène Brunet

Both of my supervisors have a keen interest in Historical Thinking Concepts, as do I. This is a methodology for teaching history that focuses on key concepts like cause and consequence, historical significance, ethics and the development of a historical perspective (Seixas et. al., 2013). They both write about this methodology and I am looking forward to working with them; there is a great deal I can learn. Dr. Wallace-Casey writes about the development of the Canadian History Hall in Constructing Patriotism: How Canada’s History Hall has evolved over 50 years (2018). She has also written about how students can develop historic consciousness through work with adult volunteers at community museums (2017). Dr. Wallace-Casey has followed up on this inquiry with a recent piece that investigates student learning at the Museum of History and their development of ‘Big Ideas’ in Canadian history (2019).

Tracing the story of the History Museum is reveals the evolution of our historical consciousness

Dr. Brunet writes about historical consciousness and students’ and teachers’ sense of agency. In a collaborative piece with high school teacher Scott Pollock, they analyze the historical understanding of feminism held by different groups of female high school students. The surprising results of their research led them to examine why girls were hostile to feminist ideas. Their inquiry examines the students’ sense of historic consciousness and their personal theories of agency (p. 12). They conclude that in the mind of the students, the past has no connection to the present. While past struggles for the vote and legal recognition by women were understood by the students, these struggles have no present-day meaning. 

Both of my supervisors see this concept as the key to understanding how people understand history. Both also reference Jörn Rüsen who writes about historical consciousness:

The basic category for understanding historical learning is that of historical consciousness. Its widespread definition sounds as follows: a mental activity of interpreting the past for the sake of understanding the present and expecting the future. Thus it combines past, present and future along the line of an idea of what temporal change is about. (p. 523) 

Forming Historical Consciousness – Towards a Humanistic History Didactics. Antíteses. 5(10), 519–536.

After conducting separate studies, Brunet and Scott concluded that most of the students were operating at a level of historical consciousness that views history as a steady progression towards the good. The past battles for justice, are now over; there is no need for a feminist movement  (p. 18). This in turn leads to a false sense of agency where the individual believes the past has no impact on the rights and privileges they currently enjoy. 

The works of Drs. Wallace-Casey and Brunet are linked by the concept of historical consciousness. In Dr. Wallace-Casey’s research, she recounts a narrative describing the development of an inclusive Canadian consciousness through the slow evolution of the Canadian History Hall. In this piece, it is important to remember that the weaving of Canadian Indigenous stories into the main narrative only happened in 2017 (2018). 

Historical consciousness – a mental activity of interpreting the past for the sake of understanding the present and expecting the future

Both Drs. Wallace-Casey and Brunet agree that a sense of the past is something that must be developed over time. Both use the same categories of historical consciousness to situate the students and teachers with whom they work. Dr. Wallace-Casey sees a strong role for local museums in helping students to develop personal relevancy to the past – something that was lacking in the high school students in Dr. Brunet’s study.

Dr. Brunet also examines ways to develop a greater sense of historical consciousness through teacher-candidate workshops that examine how traditional male-dominated narratives are still told in our current textbooks (Brunet & Demers, 2018). By analyzing the stories that are missing from our current historical narrative. Dr. Brunet attempts to deconstruct the traditional narratives still held by new teachers. In doing so, there is a chance that these educators will be able to develop new narratives in their classrooms. In this sense, both of my supervisors are examining how we perceive our stories and what can be done to develop a more inclusive look at the past.

Author’s Note: This video explains a lot about Dr. Brunet’s work

a great interview with Dr. Samantha Cutrara and Dr. Brunet – all about agency, teaching history in meaningful ways and the progress narrative. Part of the series Pandemic Pedagogies: Imagining a New We

References – what I read to put this together. Yet another challenge, figuring our APA!

Brunet, M., Demers, S., (2018). Deconstructing the history textbook to (re)construct more accurate knowledge: account of practice in initial and continuing teacher training. Erudit. 31(1), 123-140 https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/rf/2018-v31-n1-rf03912/1050657ar/

Cutrara, S. (May 20, 2020) In conversation with Dr. Marie-Hélène Brunet {Pandemic Pedagogy convo 21} Imagining a New ‘We’. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJVgrBH3g9s

Cynthia’s Heritage Education Blog – A View from the Picture Province (2022) http://nbheritage.blogspot.com/. 

Pollock, S., Brune, M., (2018). “When it became equal”: How Historical Consciousness and Theories of Agency Can Explain Female Students’ Conceptions of Feminism. 

Canadian Social Studies, (50,1), 11-24.

(Rüsen. P., 2012). Forming Historical Consciousness – Towards a Humanistic History Didactics. Antíteses. 5(10), 519–536. https://doi.org/10.5433/1984-3356.2012v5n10p519

Seixas, P., Morton, T., Colyer, J., & Fornazzari, S. (2013). The Big Six: Historical Thinking Concepts Toronto: Nelson Education.

The Historical Thinking Project (2014) https://historicalthinking.ca/about-historical-thinking-project

The History Education Network (2011)

http://thenhier.ca/en/content/cynthia-wallace-casey.html

Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future. (2020) https://thinking-historically.ca/

Wallace-Casey, C.  (2017). I like to take everything and put it in my own words: Historical Consciousness, Historical Thinking, and Learning with Community History Museums. Canadian Journal of Education, 40(1), 1–28.

Wallace-Casey, C. (2018). Constructing Patriotism: How Canada’s History Hall has evolved over 50 years. History Education Research Journal. 15(2), 292–307. https://doi.org/10.18546/HERJ.15.2.10

Wallace-Casey, C. (January 20, 2021). Museum Collections and N.B. Social Studies: Bridging the Two. Association Heritage New Brunswick. 

https://amnb.adobeconnect.com/p2x51jb1n1g1/

Wallace-Casey, C. (2019). ‘I want to Remember’: Student Narratives and Canada’s History Hall, Yearbook of the International Society of History Didactics. (40), 181-199. https://jhec.wochenschau-verlag.de/back-issues/#40

My Academic Life (so far)

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Christie Lake Kids, Climb for Kids, Climbing Kilimanjaro, Discovery Education, Historical Thinking, MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

When I put things down on paper or in a blog I make a public commitment. Right now I am working on developing an academic schedule that will take me through the next four years. Yes, this is an assignment for one of my courses, but this is really a letter to myself. I understand the importance of committing to a plan. When I was working as a  principal I would plan ahead all the time, even though the job by its very nature, was unpredictable. Despite the chaos in running an elementary school, every week I would write weekly plans in a school blog to parents so that they would know what was intended to go on at the school. On some Sunday afternoons, this writing would take hours. I never resented the time. This was an opportunity to reflect on what had happened the week before and plan for upcoming events.

My last school blog post – December 2016

I never worried that the school schedule did not follow what was set down on Sunday. Writing was a  way for me to take a longer view and celebrate what was going on with our parent community. This also made the learning more visible for the community.

Six years later I find myself planning again: this time for a Ph.D. which will consume my time for the next four years.  The first year in a Ph.D. program is probably the most straightforward. I am in the process of taking six courses – two last semester, three right now and one in the spring. After this I will be starting work on my comprehensives. This begins with the development of my bibliography and continues on following the schedule below:

StepsExpected completion
Courses completed Spring, 2022
Committee Member List 
Comprehensive Exam: Bibliography
Written component
Oral presentation		1) October
2) spring
3) fall 2022 
Thesis proposal  winter 2023
Ethics approval spring 2023
Recruitment and data collection summer – fall 2023
Thesis winter 2024
Defense December 2025
my first draft at a long-term schedule

To get to 2025, I need a detailed schedule. I am sure this will evolve as I learn more about the Ph.D. process. However, on this cold January afternoon in 2022, there is comfort in editing a draft schedule that sets a future path and supposes order to a very busy four years.

The challenge will not only be managing a busy writing and reading schedule, it will be finding ways to balance this work with many other interests. The foundation of the week will remain exercise. If I have learned anything through the Pandemic it is the importance of keeping body, mind and spirit healthy. The activity can change from the Peloton to hiking to biking, but this is where I have to start, I simply can’t afford to let this go no matter how busy things get.

one thing we did regularly during Covid was to take walks and photos

At the heart of all this will be the thesis and defense. These are the end goals and I have to keep these in mind all of the time. Over the past summer I started to collect articles and write summaries of what I was reading. This has fallen off with the amount of work I have been doing, but now I need to get back to the process of preparing for my end goal. To do this, I will reserve one morning a week – Wednesday for reading and summarizing articles that I can start using for my comprehensives and beyond. It is a challenge to block out time for a goal that is so far away, but by the fall I plan to produce a bibliography of 20-30 pages that will prepare me for my comprehensives.

Every article – one-page images – can be single entry or represent a folder with hyperlink; text in different fonts – synthesized big ideas; icon for connections – your own and/or other articles or sources; photo scan – original written notes; ideas – applications for your own teaching.


content or topic with matching photo article on gallery walk – pedagogy
  




 text – big ideas/concepts


                   ← other resources







← applications for own teaching/inspirations
the summary chart I started using last summer – designed by Heather Swail

The summary chart above was really helpful last summer and I plan to start using it again this Wednesday. I have known for a long time that I write best in the morning, especially after an exercise session, so I am going to reserve time every day for writing – summary notes, assignments, reflections, and revising.  I plan to put in two hours in the mornings each day to get something down. This semester, my goal is to improve my academic writing. Last semester I learned that while I write well, I am a little careless with my grammar and I need to brush up on my APA and academic style.

This leaves afternoons free for reading –  a highly necessary Ph.D. activity. Right now, I am working through Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life by bell hooks (hooks, 1997). She writes that when researching her first book hooks would read up to three books a day, sometimes getting only one line she could use for her own writing (p. 102-103). That will not be me. I am a slow reader; sometimes I need most of the day to absorb one article. I will read every day, otherwise, I will never keep up.

bell hooks (Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)

It is one thing to write a schedule, it is another to live it. I will need to weave in the work I continue to do at the university and for Discovery Education. I won’t give up my work with Discovery, I love working with them. The assignments are always different and interesting. Whether I am writing or editing for one of their digital science books, there is a great sense of accomplishment in getting this work done. Without doubt, they are the most positive and affirming people I know, so why would I leave that behind? It is hard to add this work to my growing schedule as I never know when another contract will come up. When it does, I can easily put in 15 hours a week working on their material. Because there is always a deadline, I will have to estimate and portion out my hours throughout the week.

Right now I have one meeting a month with the graduate student committee for Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future. I am definitely the junior member of this group, but I am starting to meet some great people, so I need to find ways to become more involved.

I also want to keep up my teaching at the University of Ottawa. Right now the responsibilities are light: we work as faculty advisors to second-year teacher candidates, but we haven’t been able to visit their schools since the beginning of the Pandemic. Next year I hope to get either another section of this course or even better, a section of the history methodology course that I taught three years ago. I am certain that this experience led me to this PhD journey. I can’t really schedule this time yet, but when the fall comes I will have to restructure my days. For now, I will reserve one morning a week to work on our current course.

SundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday
exercisexxxreading for
comps		xxx
writingAMAMAMAM
readingPMPMPMPM
DEwhen
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily		when
available 3-4
hours daily
University
work		AM
classes5:30 – 8:30pm11:30 – 2:30 pm
free
time		6:00 pm – 9:00 pm – 6:00 pm –6:00 pm –6:00 pm –6:00 pm –6:00 pm –
My schedule – first draft

There will be adjustments to this schedule over time, but the daily reading and writing will remain the foundation of my schedule. I am leaving some events out like meeting with my supervisors and committee work, but as these become more frequent I will have to find space.

My schedule is seven days. Since my days as a principal, a seven-day schedule made more sense. There is less pressure and at times when there is no Discovery work I can get ahead on my assignments. I really hope to keep my nights free – there needs to be time for fun, just as bell hooks said (p. 122).

What is missing right now is something I love to do. If I mention it here I know I will get back to it – our regular radio shows – Old Fellas New Music. Bob Kennedy, a very long-time friend and I started doing this show in the spring. Work took over and we gave the show a bit of a rest. We got two episodes done over the holiday break and we hope to get another one in next week. This is a great creative outlet and I am determined to work this in, let’s say Wednesday afternoons for now.

You can find our shows on Mixcloud – https://www.mixcloud.com/paul-mcguire3/

What is also missing are some of the activities that were so important to us before Covid. In 2017 Heather and I developed a fundraising campaign for Christie Lake Kids, an Ottawa foundation that provides recreation programming for children throughout the year. Our campaign – Climb for Kids has raised over $100,000 over a three-year period. We raised this money by carrying out group climbing trips in Peru and the Alps. Our next trip was to be Mt. Kilimanjaro, but this has been on hold because of the Pandemic. Our whole family has been involved in this venture and all of our children have worked for Christie Lake Kids. The family is not on the schedule, but in all things, family comes first.

Our first Climb for Kids trip – The Ausangate Region of Peru

If I write it down, I will do it. If I publish this, I have to do it! Thanks professor for giving me the push to get all this down. I am writing again and it feels great!

References

hooks, b. (1997). Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life. Holt.

Canadian History – looking for connections – a rewrite.

On By paulmcguire2013In Historical Thinking, Teaching Canadian HistoryLeave a comment

This is a rewrite of a post I put out earlier this week. I am rewriting it because it lacks direction and frankly, it’s not very good.

My poor writing reflects my confusion.

I am taking a few months to read lots of academic material on the teaching of history. I am entering a Ph.D. program at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa and I am trying to get my head around the writing that is out there on teaching methodology.

History is a hard subject to teach well, but it is also hard to write clearly on what good teaching in this field is all about. Much of what I have read is confusing and complex. I despair that if we can’t write clearly about this topic we will fail to put out much that is helpful for teachers.

To bring down the confusion (I hope) the earlier writing I am keeping is in italics.

So, I wrote:

Today I am trying to figure out what we can possibly do to make history interesting for our students.

I started by randomly going through some of the sample questions in the Ontario History Curriculum document for Grade 9. This is what I found.


B: Canada, 1914–1929

Here are some of the Sample Questions based on Specific Expectations B 1.1 – B 3.4

When you analyse census data, what do you think is the most significant trend in the Canadian population between 1914 and 1929? Why? Did this trend affect all people in Canada?

What were some of the short- and long-term consequences of Canadians’ participation in battles such as the Somme,Ypres, Passchendaele, and Vimy Ridge?”

How did First Nations, Métis, and Inuit tend to view Canada’s participation in World War I? How did they view Canada’s status as part of the British Empire?

Every time I rewrite this piece, I take out more of the ‘sample questions’. I am now down to four. There are so many and they don’t do anything to help people teach or learn. Someone sat around and threw together a bunch of questions making sure they covered all the right bases. Why were these questions chosen? What is the thought process going on here?


What I wonder is this. How do we follow a provincial curriculum with so many specific expectations – 14 for the unit Canada, 1914-1918 – and at the same time enable students to build connections in the narrative?

Whose questions are these? How are they relevant?

As part of my reading, I am working through Samantha Cutrara’s book Transforming the Canadian History Classroom. She is challenging many of the ideas on what the Canadian history classroom looks like and she is arguing that the focus needs to be put squarely on the student.

I continue to read her book, but as I read I am again feeling lost. By the fourth chapter, she seems to be basing her theories on the teaching of one educator who is struggling with a Grade 9 Applied History class. She seems to be saying that the teacher does not ‘see’ the real students and is caught up in ‘edu-speak’ in order to explain what is not working well in her class (p. 109)

This is a really dangerous approach – to blame a teacher as a way to prop up your own ideas is simply wrong. Anyone teaching high school applied history for the first time would probably fail – based on my own experience, this is something that is really hard to do! It is so easy for a theorist to point out the practitioner’s failings. Nothing good can come from such an approach.

Cutrara does ask some pretty important questions about how we teach history:

“…when students encounter histories that lack meaningful connection to the present, when students have no clue where the information or story is heading, it contributes to a sense of demoralization about learning history” (p. 73)

She continues, Canadian history “fails to connect to the Canada they live in outside of class…”(p.74 Cutrara) – if we fail to connect to our students, what is the point of all the specific expectations and suggested questions we find cluttering up our history curriculum?

At this point in my writing, I am beginning to get lost, I continue:

What does our current curriculum have to do with creating the relevance students need to take an interest in history?

Maybe what we need to focus on is the telling of stories – maybe by doing this we can create relevance. This works for me. Every day when I go to the Globe and Mail, I often go first to the Moment in Time section – I do this because the photos tell a compelling story like the one below.

Part of the delegation of the Negro Citizenship Association is shown here boarding the train at the Union Station in Toronto, for Ottawa, where they presented a brief to Walter E. Harris, Minister of Immigration on April 27, 1954.
THE CANADIAN NEGRO

Protesting Ottawa’s immigration laws

More than 60 years ago, a group of determined Black activists boarded a train in Toronto to head to Ottawa to protest against discriminatory immigration laws. This marked the first time in Canada that a Black-led delegation brought activism directly to the doorstep of the federal government. The delegation, comprised of civil-rights activists, including Bromley Armstrong and brothers Stanley and Norman Grizzle, was led by Barbadian Canadian Donald Moore. 

Madalyn Howitt

This is a real story, this is interesting, it also could have some relevance to the students we teach. If not this story, there are hundreds more that could engage their interest.

As I reflect on this, I realize there is nothing really helpful in what I am writing here – any good teacher should be able to personalize the curriculum to fit their students. I will look for more writing on this topic, but nothing new here.

When so much is predetermined for students, how is it possible to link the interests of students to what they will be learning in history? This is one subject that really needs to cater to the interests of students in order to create connection to the lives of the people we are teaching. When we are in the process of telling our national stories, how can we decide what are the elements of this story before students walk into the room?

Another case in point, today I read this on the CBC website.

I grew up a young Black girl in Olds, Alta., without ever hearing the name Amber Valley.

Amber Valley was the largest Black community ever to have existed west of Ontario. It was only an afternoon’s drive away from where I lived. 

I also never heard or read about any of the self-sustaining all-Black communities founded by the 1,600 or so African-Americans who moved on to the Canadian Prairies at the turn of the twentieth century: Wildwood, east of Edson; Breton, southwest of Edmonton; Campsie, northwest of Edmonton; Maidstone in Saskatchewan. 

I grew up a Black girl in Alberta without ever hearing of Amber Valley. How does history go missing?

These are ramblings at best. I am throwing these ideas out there then I am rewriting them on the fly. I am mainly disappointed with what I am reading, but I am a long way from articulating something of value for myself. It seems to me that we have put a great deal of focus on effective teaching for math, language arts, and science, but we are at a collective loss when it comes to telling our own national story.

I will keep reading and writing. Sorry for the confusion, I have a long way to go.