Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Hidden Histories Project
23 Plays2 months ago
Connie Shea (St. Malachy's Memorial High School, Saint John, New Brunswick)
Recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward
Recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward
Connie Shea organized “The Hidden Histories Project,” a student-led public history and art initiative showcasing significant historical figures and events from marginalized and diverse communities in New Brunswick and Wabanaki Territory. The goal of the project was to find and celebrate important individuals and events not included in traditional textbooks and whose narratives have been "hidden" due to systemic inequality and discrimination. Students created a series of ten informative and digitally interactive postcards covering topics from First Nations history, Black history, women’s history, and the 2SLGBTQAI+ community. Over five hundred postcards were distributed to members of the public to share their knowledge and promote a deeper understanding and appreciation for the diverse historical narratives that shape our region’s collective past.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Governor General's History Award
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Teaching Canada's History podcast. I'm your host, Brooke Campbell, and today we are speaking with the finalists of the 2024 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching.
00:00:16
Speaker
Created in 1996, the award recognizes innovative and impactful approaches to teaching Canadian history. For more information, visit canadashistory.ca slash teaching award.
What is the 'Hidden Histories' Project?
00:00:29
Speaker
Today i'm talking with Connie Shea, a high school teacher in St. John, New Brunswick. Thanks so much, Connie, for speaking with me today and telling us more about your Hidden Histories project. Thanks, Brooke. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:00:41
Speaker
Well, why don't you tell us more about this project and you know provide a bit of an overview and maybe some of the the key steps that your students undertake as they're as they're working through this project?
Focus on Marginalized Communities
00:00:52
Speaker
Sure. I'm happy to do that. um My students created what is called the Hidden History Project. It was a a project that actually was in cooperation with the the local Boys and Girls Club.
00:01:04
Speaker
um They approached us with a program that was designed to um reach high school students and increase their awareness of systemic racism. And as part of this program, throughout a period of of six to eight weeks, they had people come in and interact with us. And we talked about systemic racism and its impact on society. But at the end ah of that time, they wanted us to create a kind of a culmination, culminating activity that would reach beyond the walls of the classroom to show what the students had learned and about systemic racism. And and that would have an impact on on the the larger community.
00:01:40
Speaker
And Hidden Histories was the result of that.
Student Engagement and Project Design
00:01:43
Speaker
So my students decided that they wanted to, being a kind of like a, it was an Indigenous Studies history class, they wanted to shine a light on people from marginalized communities who are typically left out of the mainstream historical narrative. So they created a series of, of 10 postcards that featured stories and events and individuals from marginalized communities here in our region in New Brunswick and Wabanaki territory.
00:02:05
Speaker
So stories from Black history, from First Nations history, women, and the 2SLGBTQIA communities. um They basically created a postcard that was two-sided and to be distributed um in our city. So on one side of the postcard had student artwork, which told this tried to tell the story of the person or the event.
00:02:24
Speaker
On the back was a write-up, which the students wrote wrote and researched. And it also had um a QR code where people in the community could would find a postcard, could use their cell phone and link to a website where they could find more information and resources as well as leave their own feedback about what they thought about these stories that, you know, were really cool and interesting people and events, but not really well known.
00:02:46
Speaker
So in a nutshell, I guess that's what the Hidden Histories project was. And it was an amazing experience for for my students and for me as an educator to take part in. That's wonderful. And I love the the community element and that engagement that your your students were were able to get by having people respond and and react on that QR code.
00:03:07
Speaker
when we When we take a closer look at this work and at this project, can you share more about how your students were able to engage with the historical thinking concepts and and really strengthen those skills and that work through throughout this project?
Developing Historical Thinking Skills
00:03:23
Speaker
Absolutely. So the ah historical thinking skills were embedded in the project right from the start. um First, they students had to identify um significant individuals and events that that would meet the criteria of being um historically significant for the community.
00:03:38
Speaker
They had to find resources and sources, both primary and secondary, to to find out about them and to do write-ups. But overall too, this this project asks important questions about whose stories get told and about um why are the people that we found and events that we found, people who did amazing, incredible things. Like um um one of my favorite stories we found, it was ah about a gentleman named Edward mitche and Mitchell Bannister, who was born in 1828 Andrews in st andrew e Brunswick. He He was ah he was ah a very well-known and an important Black artist who went to the States to and and at the 1879 Philadelphia Expedition won a gold medal and his work hangs on in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. to this day and it hang in it hung in
00:04:24
Speaker
Mike Pence office when he was vice president of the United States. But on the side, um Edward Mitchell Bannister was also an abolitionist and conductor on the the Underground Railway. And so this story, like when we uncovered it and my students found it, I never heard of this gentleman my whole entire life, even though literally I grew up 45 minutes from St. Edward's New Brunswick.
00:04:43
Speaker
So questions about why don't we know these stories and about the importance of how history can be used as a narrative to shine a light on issues concerning social justice and inequality.
00:04:54
Speaker
um So the students got into that. So it was about perspective and about and the ethical dimensions of the past and how history can be used to kind of to tell full and complete stories that are div diverse and represent everyone in community.
00:05:07
Speaker
so So historical thinking kind of from start to finish in many different aspects ah kind of is where deeply embedded from start to finish. When you think about this project, but also your classroom and and your teaching practice at large, what resources do you tend to to lean on and and how do you use them?
Connecting History to Current Issues
00:05:28
Speaker
um i I'm a big primary source kind of teacher. I do use primary sources as as my main go-to as as to both reinforce kind of the the events and understanding to deepen, um but also for students to explore different perspectives on the past and that how different um takes on what happened in event shape our understanding of it. And it helps us understand how power works in society and So we also use was primary sources quite a bit, we use but we also use surprisingly, um I don't know if this is typical for history teachers, like current events. Like we we look at news happening, what's going on today and connected to the past. Like most recently, I um i remember teaching about, you know, Weimar Germany and the hyperinflation. And so talking about inflation that we're experiencing here in Canada and the US, s and so students can connect directly and see how the issues that we examined in the past reoccur. they're not They're not over. And that's sometimes things, whether it's human rights issues or if it's economic and political issues, they tend to resurface.
00:06:30
Speaker
um I do use videos a lot, at documentaries that I find on online. um so but But really, i i am i am I'm a big fan of of primary sources, photos, newspapers,
00:06:43
Speaker
quotes, political cartoons to help students kind of deeper their deepen their understanding of the past and to to use it as evidence to construct claims that demonstrate their understanding.
Impact on Students and Community
00:06:55
Speaker
You've shared how this project goes beyond the four walls of your classroom. It really has this community component to it and elements of of yeah sharing knowledge with others.
00:07:07
Speaker
which makes me think about the impact of this work. Can you share more about what impacts you've seen on your your students' learning and and what some of those outcomes may have been for for your community?
00:07:19
Speaker
um In terms of the students in my class, it was very, um I know I did some a lot of student feedback. they They wrote about what they thought about ah the project and and their role in it. And so this is from kind of the things that they said is they found it very meaningful in a couple of ways that that the diversity of the people and the events that we were studying reflect their own diversity.
00:07:39
Speaker
that um I teach in a you know an uptown urban school and my class is just as diverse as the people that we profiled in the Hidden Histories Project. So they connected with that element. They also um connected with the idea of there are these really cool people and events that happened here and that we we we don't always do the best job of promoting ourselves and our own history. And especially, I don't know if that's a maritime thing being from New Brunswick or a Canadian thing,
00:08:06
Speaker
as a whole, and that that these really cool and amazing things happened, and that we should know about them. And it made them feel like the quotes about being proud to be a New Brunswicker. um But also, they they got the point about, they would question, why haven't we heard this until now? Why are we as a class and as students, the ones bringing it into the classroom? we are kind of this is not something that they had ever heard before and why. And they, they, they asked those tough questions and understood the relationship and how history can be an important tool to kind of uncover those, those injustices and to add diversity to the school curriculums, which is, which is needed as, as we all know.
Community Response and Project Success
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah. It's wonderful to empower your students to, to see that. And, and, um, in such a hands-on and and tangible way to learn And if we look at the community responses, sorry to interrupt, no, the yeah similar lines in that though, so there was a QR code on the back of the postcards where so where people can go directly to our website and leave comments and, said Same kind of ideas about why don't I know about this person and this is is such a cool undertaking. um Students were, I've never, honestly, I've never seen ah a project that was so authentically engaging for students. They came they came early to work on this. they
00:09:23
Speaker
And I still get emails every once in a while from students who, who and um the artist I mentioned, Edward Mitchell Bannister, he's recently featured in a and a a documentary on HBO about significant black artists. And I got an email from someone I worked with and said, look, this this is our guy we looked at. And ah so the community response has been overwhelmingly positive.
00:09:44
Speaker
So it's been it's been very, they were very proud of what we did, i think is is the best way to describe it. And that the students really took ownership. They got the mission from day one and and because it was public, that was an important element, I think, too, of of what I try to build into my teaching is that this is an authentic experience that we were sharing with the public. It wasn't just, you know, something or written on a test that I'm going to read.
00:10:06
Speaker
This is something that is going out to the larger community and that um they they took they like that idea and they took ownership of it and and they nailed it with their their work. They did an excellent job.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:10:18
Speaker
love how proud you are of your students and english just you know singing their praises and and what they've done. It's so, so lovely. um Thank you so much, Connie, for for sharing the Hidden Histories project with me today and providing a little bit more insight into what your classroom looks like.
00:10:34
Speaker
Great. Thank you very much, Brooke. It was nice to talk to you.