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The Story of a Soldier project focuses on local history
9 Plays1 day ago
The Story of a Soldier project is an investigation into the life of a local resident and an exploration of local history during the First World War.
This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards.
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Transcript
Introduction to Governor-General's History Award
00:00:03
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 for the 2023 Governor-General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching.
00:00:14
Speaker
Created in 1996, the award recognizes best practices in teaching Canadian history and is an opportunity to highlight the important work that teachers and students are doing to interpret and share the stories of the past.
00:00:26
Speaker
For more information about the Governor-General's History Awards, visit canadashistory.ca slash awards.
Interview with Erin Dupe
00:00:33
Speaker
Today I'm speaking with Erin Dupe, a high school history teacher in Guelph, Ontario.
00:00:37
Speaker
Thank you, Erin, for speaking with me today. i'm I'm looking forward to learning more about the project you've designed. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me to the interview.
Story of a Soldier Project Overview
00:00:46
Speaker
Can you give us an overview of the story of a soldier assignment and explain the key steps that your students took in their work?
00:00:55
Speaker
Sure, thanks. um So the story of a soldier assignment we've been doing for a few years with my grade 10 academic history class, and it's looking at the lives of the men and women on the Guelph Cenotaph, specifically from the First World War.
00:01:15
Speaker
um We had been doing an assignment like this for for a little while, at In 2017, started to think about some of our local stories. I had been listening to the Massey Lectures, um The Truth About Stories by Thomas King. And I had done this assignment for 150th anniversary of Canada's birthday with my grade 10 class where we had done a quilt and we had invited some seniors from a nearby ah retirement community come and teach quilting to the kids. And just sitting around the table quilting, These women are sharing their stories. And it was really eye-opening for my students who had these kind of stereotypes about older women. And they weren't really expecting these women to have high levels of education, to have had careers in the 60s and in
Connecting Students with Local History
00:02:05
Speaker
the 70s. And so I thought, gosh, you know, there's so much rich story in our town, in our city. um What are my students not learning about the community which they live because we're not listening to those stories. And so there had been um a news article about ah professor in Peterborough who had been sending out postcards to the former residences of men of the 60th Battalion um ah ahead of the centennial
00:02:33
Speaker
ah the armistice in 2018. And I thought, gosh, we could totally do this in Guelph because so many of our old houses still exist and people live in them. And so um it really kind of took off for there where we took this, dusted off this assignment where we had students researching um people from the First World War using the resources from the Library and Archives of Canada. And we turned it into a one-page biographical essay that would be mailed out to the houses that our soldiers from the Cenotaph used to live in and letting the residents of the the current residents of the home know
00:03:12
Speaker
the story of their house and the people that used to live there. So we began by by like taking a photo of the Cenotaph and having the names there for the students. And I did some research and found an article from 2014 that was written by a local historian named Ed Butts. And he had published a summary of all of the World War I soldiers on Guelph Cenotaph for the the newspaper the time, which was the Guelph Mercury. It's now the Mercury Tribune.
00:03:40
Speaker
And so we used that as our launch pad. So we we had the names and we went to the Library and Archives website and we opened up the attestation papers for the
Research Process and Discoveries
00:03:50
Speaker
soldiers. And essentially we were starting out by just looking for the address because we were going to figure out where they live so we could send a little biography to their former home. And so as soon as we found the address, the students were putting the addresses into Google Earth and we were looking at their homes.
00:04:07
Speaker
um And it really, the assignment really just kind of evolved from there because once the students started seeing these houses that these men once lived in, we started having conversations about why someone would go to war. We started having conversations about socioeconomic issues. And we started to really need to know a lot more about our city, which led us to some secondary source research where we read an essay that Ed Butts had written. It's actually on the Canadian Encyclopedia website about Guelph during the First World War. The Guelph Historical Society had a number of publications about life in Guelph during the time of the First World War. So we started looking at that material And then we reached out to the museum and the education coordinator for the museum came in and started ah answering some of the questions that my students had. So just by going through the digitized service fire file on the library and archives, we started to see patterns. So we saw patterns that oftentimes the soldiers, if they were not married, they were identifying their mother as the next of kin so that she would be in receipt of their pension should something happen to them. um We noticed that oftentimes the wives and the mothers of these young men were moving every single year. So the address kept getting updated in the digitized service file, which led to these really incredible questions about why are they moving?
Insights into Socio-Economic Conditions
00:05:33
Speaker
And so... Some of our local research showed that, you know, there weren't a lot of property owners or a lot of the soldiers that who show up on the on the cenotaph were from lower income households that were renters. um
00:05:46
Speaker
Our coordinator from the museum talked about how rents got jacked up on the widows. um or the the wives and the mothers when when the man of the house wasn't there anymore. And so to advocate and negotiate the rent. And so these these women were on the move year after year after year. And sometimes they were moving in with other families. We even had one that lived in a church for a period of time.
00:06:11
Speaker
So it just became this really rich learning experience um where we were using all sorts of local resources, including our our museum and um the ah the archivist as well coming out and giving us some hand with just reading the digitized service file and understanding what what it all said.
Exploring War Diaries and Challenging Notions
00:06:33
Speaker
Once we kind of got a picture of our soldier and the life they had before they went to war, we started to do some investigation into the life they had while they were at war. So then we began using the war diary. And so we started to piece together um what their last day looked like. And again, we be we paired it with secondary source research about um the battle that was their last battle. And that was also really eye-opening for the students because it really kind of conflicted with this narrative in Canada about, you know, what the major battles were. So we had learned about the second battle of Ypres. We had learned about Vimy and the Somme and Passchendaele. But most of the Guelph soldiers who show up on the Cenotaph, they died in Mount Sorrel or they died at Hill 70 or they died in the last hundred days. And so...
00:07:27
Speaker
we're now in researching battles that we haven't studied in class that don't show up um in in in the text. Not that we use a textbook too, too much in the class, but these were outside of that that canonized narrative of Canada's First World War history. And so that led to these really great conversations about like, why aren't we talking about Hill 70? Why don't we talk about the St. Helois Craters?
00:07:54
Speaker
And oftentimes it's because These were not glorious victories or um these were were devastating losses or pyrrhic victories at best. And and um that was really interesting for my students be able to see. And particularly with the last hundred days, um reading the war diary of the 13th Battalion for August the 8th. was shocking because it describes going into hand-to-hand combat.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so it really changes the shape of what war looks like in their mind as well. um So if there if there had been any kind of glamorized notion of warfare um in their mind, this preconceived notion that was certainly challenged by the primary source documents that described hand-to-hand combat.
00:08:43
Speaker
and And so the it began to kind of turn into these questions about like, why did we ask these young men to do this? And, and really changing our perceptions about, you know, who goes to fight and and why we're fighting the way that we're fighting. And even looking at like the, the changes over time and how our, our involvement in military conflict as Canadians has changed over time. And um even looking at how the value of a human life has changed over time.
Community Reflection Through Essays
00:09:23
Speaker
So in the end, the product that students end up with is three-page essay, if or sorry, a three-paragraph essay that fits onto one page. And then we would fold it up into a note that explained the project And then we mailed it out to their former residents. If their house didn't exist anymore, we would use Google Earth to find the next closest place of residence or business. And then we would send the note with just some adjustments explaining that across the street, there used to be housing that's now a park. And in one of those houses, there's a soldier that lived there that died in the First World War and his name is on the cenotaph.
Developing a Connection to Local History
00:10:03
Speaker
And we hope that you you, you know, spend some time thinking and reflecting about his sacrifice.
00:10:10
Speaker
There's so much community connection in this project. You can really tell. That, and that was really um what I loved about it. And what I still love about it is that um I want my students to be walking down the streets of the city that they live in and, and understanding that history has happened here and being able to share that history.
00:10:37
Speaker
um You've also shared some of the the big questions that have come out of this work and that your students were grappling with. Can you speak more about how your students were able to strengthen and deepen their historical thinking throughout this work?
Incorporating Historical Thinking Concepts
00:10:54
Speaker
Absolutely. So I think when you look at the big six historical thinking concepts, they're all there in the assignment. um The ones that were really, the notes that were striking the the most, I think, are are evidence and interpretation, because this is very much based off of primary source evidence and the students being able to interpret that data and to be able to construct a narrative around what our war documents are telling us, um particularly with the digitized service file and the medical information.
00:11:26
Speaker
um There's a little bit of reading between the lines that has to happen because some of the things that our soldiers have gotten up to are are described in a pretty nuanced way. um We discovered that several of our soldiers had died of Spanish influenza, but it isn't written as plainly as that in the ah in the medical records. One of our soldiers, for example, he was 19 years old and he died the day after the armistice of heart failure.
Interpreting Medical Records and Historical Events
00:11:57
Speaker
And we were like, how does a 19 year old die of heart failure? And so this was where the help from the museum was really, really critical because they said, you know, this actually is Spanish influenza. They're not, they're not saying that that's what it is.
00:12:11
Speaker
um because at that point in time, they're really trying to not create so hysteria. So um it was a lot of interpretation has to happen. And that's where, you know, having that secondary source information really kind of help the students be able to to put things into context and to to be able to see the nuance and read between the lines and and kind of pull out the subtext there. um There was all sorts of cause and and consequence work that was being done because We had already sort of studied those main causes of the war, but now we're looking at it at a very local level and we're looking at changes that are happening in our community in response to the call to war.
00:12:51
Speaker
um So it raised questions about why we fight. And we were looking at the the housing that our soldiers lived in and we're looking at the neighborhoods in Guelph that they were coming from. um One of the areas that a lot of our soldiers on the Cenotaph came from is a place in Guelph called the Ward. um which is a well-known neighbourhood. Historically, it has been where new Canadians have come to settle when they are first arriving in city in the city, and it's considered one of the lower-income neighbourhoods in the city of Guelph.
Understanding Enlistment Patterns and Demographics
00:13:21
Speaker
So to see that we have six soldiers um from Alice Street alone on our cenotaph really begins to tell a story about the demographics of our city and some of those those push and pull factors for why our soldiers are going off to fight. ah The fact that the women are moving, almost every year tells something about the socioeconomic dynamics of our city as well. The fact that women are being named as next of kin more often than than men. So if if a soldier has both a mother and a father still living, they were often picking the mother um as next of kin, which was a really interesting um interesting thing. So looking at what would be causing that, why would they they'd be doing that when they had ah when their father was still alive? um
00:14:08
Speaker
We also were looking at, we noticed patterns in age of enlistment. So in 1914, 1915, most of the men enlisting were between 25 and 30. And then the next year, 1916, 1917, it drops. Most of the men enlisting are 18 and 19. And then by 1917, all of a sudden we're seeing 30 to 40 year olds enlisting in really large numbers. And so again, like what's causing that? And what are the consequences? Because when it's the 30 to 40-year-olds that are enlisting, these are married men with children. And now we're seeing a lot more families in our community being affected by the war, where in the earlier years, it was a lot of single men.
00:14:51
Speaker
So we are kind of hitting all of those historical thinking concepts. But at the same time, um I had been doing work with um some Indigenous educators here. In my board, we have a really fantastic principal of Indigenous education in Upper Grand District School Board named Kalinda Klein. So she brings in all sorts of elders and knowledge keepers to do PD with the staff. And so we had been um doing PD, quite a bit of PD with the Mississaugas, which is the land that my school school sits on is the Indigenous land of the Mississauga. And they've been talking and and they were talking about historical thinking concepts. And they have a problem with historical perspective and the way that it's presented. Because they're like, my worldview is not a perspective. this is This is inherent to who we are as a people.
00:15:40
Speaker
So in thinking about, well, how do i I also include Indigenous worldview into my teaching? I began doing some some research and some reflection reflection. And I thought, okay, a lot more about storytelling and the importance of storytelling as a way of sharing history and the focus on the local. The knowledge keeper from the Mississauga, Nancy Rowe, she was always saying to to to us in our PD sessions, it's like, think about the local, learn about the local.
00:16:10
Speaker
So I'm like, this assignment here is also focusing on our local history. um It's establishing connections to the place that we're from. It's strengthening the stories of our community that is the foundation for for where we are now in in in our place in history. And it's all story-based. And I feel like that's why the students really identified with the assignment is that they became part of crafting that story. And in often in a number of cases, they are the ones who know the story the best.
00:16:42
Speaker
um Because some of the relatives of of the individual on our cenotaph no longer live in our community. or they've passed on. And so the the story has been lost to time and my students through their research have been able to revive it and give it life again. and that's a that was a pretty powerful learning thing too.
00:17:02
Speaker
When you take a step back and you look at that all this work that's taken place and looking at the project as a whole, what impact do you think it's had on your students learning? And what have the outcomes been for for your community?
00:17:18
Speaker
So very early on in the work that we were doing, I noticed that the language my students were using about their soldier began to shift. And they were using like personal possessives when they were talking about their soldier. It was my soldier. This is my soldier, my person. And so they were starting to take ownership of the story and feel like a really deep connection to that person. um i had so a student that went on a trip to france in the summertime with her family and um her soldier his name is listed at paddock and and she went and found his name and took a picture of it and sent it to me um you know the names of these men and women um are not lost my so my students remember them and they they honor the memory of of those individuals they i i have students that um
00:18:12
Speaker
will come up to me and I, you know, in their grade 12 and we did this in grade 10, they're like, I still remember everything about will William Pelton. Right. And that's pretty, that's pretty special. Um, they've made this personal connection. They know a little bit about their city. Um, they can tell the story of the neighborhood that their soldiers from. They can, they, they know the story of what life was like in Guelph at the the time of the first world war. um One of the things that we've been able to do is also create a more accurate list of
Correcting Cenotaph Inaccuracies and Fostering Connections
00:18:45
Speaker
Guelph's fallen. Something we'd learned in the process of doing this is that there's a lot of inaccuracies on the cenotaph.
00:18:51
Speaker
So names were were not spelt correctly or somebody who didn't actually live in Guelph was there. But at the time where they were deciding what names to put on the cenotaph, they just sort of had a town meeting and then people would just be like, oh yeah, this person went to war and they weren't actually from Guelph. They're from another community. They're from Arthur.
00:19:11
Speaker
They're from Hustlidge. And so there's names on the Guelph Cenotaph that will be found in other communities as well. So a lot of people travel to enlist in Guelph. And so they're not actually from the community, but their name is on the Cenotaph because they enlisted from here.
00:19:26
Speaker
um So we were able to kind of get this ah more accurate data set because we were able to kind of play around with different variations of of spellings of names. So if we put a name into the database for the National Archives and it didn't come up, we looked for others, we tried other spellings of it, and we were able to actually track down that person and and get their information and and be able to craft ah a story about their life.
00:19:54
Speaker
Because we're mailing them out to the community, the community now has some local history that they didn't have before. And we've got some really wonderful feedback. Um, we've had people reach out saying like, thank you so much. I had no idea this was the history of my home. We had people asking, how did you find this information? Can, can you, you know, give me the steps so I can go and do the research myself, which was pretty amazing. Um, we had, uh,
00:20:22
Speaker
we sent a letter out to one home and that home is still in the same family. And so it was the, um the great niece of one of the soldiers in the cenotaph. She actually came down to the school and, and visited. And so um that was pretty special. We've had some invitations from some of the churches. There was a lot of um ah children of pastors that enlisted. And so um we would send, a letter to the church as well as to the home because we figured the congregation would be interested in knowing this as well. And so um some of the churches would have photos up of of the soldier. And so they've invited the students to come and have a look. So there's been this really wonderful exchange and sharing with the community too around our local history.
00:21:11
Speaker
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Erin. I've really appreciated learning more about this project. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it too.