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Building Authentic Collaborations
29 Plays28 days ago
This episode features Erin Quinn, Heather Howell, and Tara Corneau, three educators who are using partnerships and community-based learning to further their students learning.
They discuss how to build authentic collaborations with local organizations and how working beyond the classroom helps deepen historical understanding.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Teaching Canada's History, the podcast where we explore how educators are bringing the past to life in classrooms across the country. I'm your host, Brooke Campbell. In this special series, we're speaking with the finalists for the 2025 Governor-General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching, a national award that celebrates innovative and impactful approaches to teaching Canadian history.
00:00:35
Speaker
These conversations highlight how teachers and students are working together to interpret the past, connect it to the present, and share stories that matter.
Meet the Educators and Their Projects
00:00:43
Speaker
In this episode, I'm joined by Erin, Heather and Tara, three educators who are using partnerships and community-based learning to further their students' learning.
00:00:51
Speaker
We discuss how to build authentic collaborations with local organizations and how working beyond the classroom helps deepen historical understanding. Here's my conversation with these inspiring educators.
00:01:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome. I'm so glad to have the three of you here with me today. And I'm really looking forward to the conversation and to learning a little bit more about the thoughtful and community driven work that you all are doing.
Heather's Community Pathways Program
00:01:19
Speaker
Before we dive in, will you all introduce yourselves? And you can also share where you're from and what grades or classes you teach.
00:01:32
Speaker
like Go ahead, Heather. So my hello everyone my name is Heather Howell. I am from southern Ontario just on the northwest side of Lake Ontario within the Halton region and um I work at a school called M.M. Robinson my students that I worked and I you know did this project together with um these are students that are part of a special program we call the CPP program or the Community Pathways program.
00:01:59
Speaker
I have high school students with the internet intellectual exceptionalities And um we have done basically an experiential education ah project um together in a local area so that my students have a chance to be able to learn um not only kind of, you know, environmental kind of science area, which is actually a horticulture project, but we're also learning about local history together with our community partner, which is the Museums of Burlington.
00:02:27
Speaker
Wonderful. Perhaps we'll go to Erin next.
Erin's Grade 7 Project in Wetaskiwin
00:02:31
Speaker
Hi, my name is Erin Quinn and I am a teacher in Wetasquin, Alberta, which is about an hour south of Edmonton. um I teach in ah in a school board called Wetasquin Regional Public Schools and at a school called Parkdale School. And our school district is mainly in rural communities.
00:02:49
Speaker
My school is within the city of Wetaskiwin and we serve a pretty diverse population of students with about 65% identifying as Indigenous, taught grade 7 and 8 language arts and social studies.
00:03:02
Speaker
The project I'm going to talk about was with grade 7 social studies and a partnership that we made with our local museum, a task win and the District Heritage Museum. Yeah, I'm really excited to share it.
00:03:16
Speaker
And finally, Tara.
Tara's Reconciliation Focus
00:03:21
Speaker
ah Hi, I am Tara Corneau and I am from Smithers, British Columbia and I teach at Buckley Valley Christian School which is a K-12 school but I teach in the high school. I teach mostly English, musical theatre, some art but then I also teach a course called BC First Peoples and so just recently in the last couple of years it's become a requirement from the Ministry of Education that kids need to have a course that's Indigenous focused and so I teach that class.
00:03:45
Speaker
um And so the project that I did this year, my it's my second time through the course, and the project I did this year was connected to reconciliation. And kind of, and and my students had to propose ways that our community could reconcile with Indigenous peoples.
00:03:58
Speaker
And we have a number, we've got a reserve about 20 minutes down the road, and we actually have a number of Indigenous students at our school too. So it was cool to have their family members come in and and chat with the kids. So Thank you. It's so great to to have a room of of history teachers or and social teachers, because usually you're all our fellow history lovers.
Passions and Inspirations for Teaching History
00:04:20
Speaker
So to kind of ease into into some of my questions, I'd love to hear what made you fall in love with history. do you have any moments or stories you would like to share? So just in terms of what made me love, you know, kind of really get become interested in history.
00:04:34
Speaker
my My grandparents lived very close to the Joseph Brandt Museum. Joseph Brandt was the Indigenous um leader within the Haudenosaunee community um that actually ended up coming up to um our area during just after the American Revolution.
00:04:50
Speaker
or during the American Revolution as loyalists. The Crown basically kind of, because they wanted to kind of make sure that they can still connect control lot of different, they stealthily kind of organized a situation where Joseph Brandt had his home in his homestead at the end of the lake, Lake Ontario. Everyone else was actually kind of, um either they ah either went along the Grand River to the Six Nations or they end up going out to um more Eastern Ontario. And so I, you know,
00:05:18
Speaker
When I was young, my grandfather and and but and my father would often talk about Indigenous history, but they would also talk about our our history within the area. um So my great-grandparents were actually celery farmers in the Burlington area, and um so I would learn about kind of like the agricultural history in our area.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so when I ended up going into teaching, I'm actually not a history teacher. um I, you know, I teach um in environmental geography, environmental sciences, and but history so important even within my subjects.
00:05:52
Speaker
So the other different kind of topics that I teach, for instance, are like natural disasters. If you don't actually kind of understand history, you can't really kind of plan for and in the next natural disaster.
00:06:02
Speaker
and so kind of history is very very important for my students because they are often kind of often in classes with we call life skills classes where they don't necessarily have the same recommendations or requirements for history that you know that other kids mainstream kind of students do they don't necessarily have that exposure to history knowing kind of like their their place is is very you know it's kind of important and so the project that that we did together was actually allowed them to not only have the skill of of horticulture, um but it also allowed them to kind of know a little bit about, you know, that the area where they're from, and also even our land where our school was built, it was on the Ireland families um here at Homestead. And so I keep on telling the kids, you know, at one point in time, our school used to be a cornfield. So
00:06:47
Speaker
So their homestead is just about a five, 10 minute walk away from our school. And our school is um named after M.M. Robinson. He was a journalist in Hamilton, but he was actually a farmer in our local area. In fact, he was actually a huge proponent of the Ontario fruit and vegetable growers of Ontario.
00:07:05
Speaker
um And he was actually the gentleman that ended up starting up the Commonwealth Games. You know, it was man, you know, both kind of journalism, sports, as well as horticulture history. So it's kind of, it's it's a neat,
00:07:16
Speaker
it's a neat place and neat history that, that we can talk about within my classes.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of history all around you. ah terra her which definitely. i was going to say Tara or Erin, do you have any, any stories about what made you first interested in history?
00:07:42
Speaker
Like Heather, my my love for history came from family too. My dad was really into history and subscribed to Beaver Magazine from when I was really little. um And then whenever we would go places, would go camping in BC or Alberta and they're fat their parents were from Ontario. So we would do road trips to Ontario all the time too.
00:08:03
Speaker
would always be stopping along the way to visit museums and see the historic sites and read the roadside plaques and do all those things. So it was hard for it not to rub off on me, I think.
00:08:13
Speaker
So that's kind of where my my initial love for history, especially Canadian history, came from. And then had some really phenomenal social studies teachers as well along the way, which really helped kind of steer me towards that as an area of focus for my teaching. So shout out to Ms. Milburn and Mr. Raitts. two really amazing social studies teachers that I think were ahead of their time. Ms. Milburn did a lot of like project-based learning, which I think really influenced me in terms of what kind of teacher I am.
00:08:43
Speaker
And Mr. Grates' passion for his subject just kind of came through in our social studies, high school social studies classes too. So the people along the way kind of steered me in that direction.
00:08:58
Speaker
That's so special. Thanks, Erin. What about you, Tara? Yeah, so I just have had a fascination of like with stuff from the past.
00:09:08
Speaker
And so I'd go through their barn and their shop and they'd lived on the same kind of place since, oh, I don't know, like I think his family had been there since like 1915 so. um maybe a little later than that and had farmed the same place. And so I go through his barn and collect all the what my grandpa called junk from it.
00:09:25
Speaker
um I hauled it across the border because they're actually American. And after they had passed away. And so that kind of kind of maybe started my love for it. But I also just loved reading historical fiction.
00:09:36
Speaker
as a kid too and so that kind of was a gateway for me into exploring the actual history not just a fictionalized version of it and then as an adult I think my maybe my true heart is for social justice and I'm really passionate about people finding justice and so that is inevitably connected to history and knowing how we got here why people are treated the way they are and what can we do moving forward to to yeah to change the world I think for for the better yeah I'm seeing lots of head nods with with all of all of you through through all of these stories and and anecdotes and and memories from your childhood and
00:10:20
Speaker
how you got here today. and I know you've all kind of already started mentioning little bits and pieces about the projects that you've designed.
Student Projects and Community Involvement
00:10:28
Speaker
So I want to give a little bit more time for you to to share what you've done. I think it just really helps paint a picture of your classrooms and will help give our listeners a sense of how you think as a teacher.
00:10:42
Speaker
um So Erin, perhaps you can start by giving us you know a quick high-level summary of what your project was is and and was and what your students have done. Sure.
00:10:55
Speaker
um So grade seven social studies in Alberta, the curriculum is... It's pre and post-Confederation Canadian history. So it goes from pre-contact all the way until like the founding of the CBC.
00:11:08
Speaker
So like it's huge. And teaching that in Alberta can be really challenging because unlike Heather, those events did not happen in our backyard, right? Like it's very removed from the reality of my students.
00:11:21
Speaker
A lot of the that' the things that we have to study place in Ontario or Quebec and the Maritimes and most of my students have never been to those places. um So I was really trying to figure out how could I make this curriculum more relevant to my students.
00:11:38
Speaker
And i as I was looking at the curriculum, I found an entry point in the immigration part of the curriculum. So it was dealing with Western immigration. how ah how was the prairie How are the prairies founded?
00:11:52
Speaker
it has a bunch of bullets that talk about specific groups of people like europe Eastern European immigrants, Francophone communities, Clifton's immigration policies policies, all of those things.
00:12:04
Speaker
I wondered whether there were people who were connected with each of these groups it that moved to our community and reached out to our local museum, the Wetasquin and district here i then District Heritage Museum,
00:12:20
Speaker
and asked them, well, kind of pitched them a wild idea. I was like, I have a crazy the idea. I don't know if you want to do this with me. But I was like, do you have like resources, sources connected with these different groups of people in Wetasquin?
00:12:36
Speaker
The director of the museum, Karen Aberle, emailed me back right away. She was like, yes, I have been waiting for you. Not me, but someone like she' just she'd been trying to make connections with Wetaski in schools for a really long time and it just wasn't wasn't driving. And so I think she um we found kind of some kindred spirits in each other. um And she was like, yes, I'm in Let's do this.
00:13:01
Speaker
So the project is called Discovering Our Roots, ah Building Wetaskiwin Story Together. And um we went to the museum ah three times to work together with museum staff to learn about different people, do research using primary sources.
00:13:18
Speaker
um get behind the scenes tours, see a bunch of different artifacts, and the students work together with the with the curator and with museum staff to use these primary sources to research real people who lived in our community, connected with the different groups that our curriculum asked us to look at, and create a museum exhibit. So they created, they were the kind of the guest curators and created this museum exhibit for our local museum. So that's kind of the project in a nutshell. It was really, really amazing. don't
00:13:50
Speaker
i don't Like, I think that the students were surprised at how much trust we were giving them to this. And that that kind of idea of an authentic audience really inspired them to do their best work.
00:14:03
Speaker
And it's still there. It's there on display to this day. People can still go go visit the exhibit. And I think that really speaks to kind of the quality of the work that they did.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, how special for your students to have their work out in the public like that. Tara, will you share a little bit more about your project? Yeah, so think I kind of mentioned it was about working towards reconciliation between Indigenous people and settlers in the Berkeley Valley.
00:14:38
Speaker
So we kind of have a unique opportunity here way up north. where we have a lot of Indigenous communities right in our doorstep and within our community. And so I wanted students to kind of see and understand our local history, which is what this project's connected to, and to Indigenous local history.
00:14:57
Speaker
So our museum here has an incredible exhibit and just about when Indigenous people were asked or it sometimes forced to enfranchise, to avoid often to avoid going to residential school.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so, um but unfortunately, the people who enfranchised and moved into the Smithers area got all kind of shoved into one area and ended up being called Indian Town. And so our museum is about that group of people. And so when they worked on that exhibit, it was about they interviewed all the Yeah, I that's a question.
00:15:35
Speaker
in witsette and had a tour there with the krll anthropologist in um and he walked our students through dig the dig sites and what you can find and that and then we also um got to speak directly Oh, yeah. So a cultural anthropologist who works in our area.
00:15:53
Speaker
And so he was instrumental in in working with our museum to kind of set up the Indiantown exhibit. um And then kind of all the learning we had done. So BC is unique in that we live on an unceded territory here.
00:16:07
Speaker
And so there's like most of BC isn't treaty land. And so the question then becomes, what do we then do when there's no treaty and we're living on this land that essentially is stolen? And so what does reconciliation look like on land that isn't, there's nothing to even fix, like treaties need to happen still.
00:16:27
Speaker
And then what was the impact of the Indian Act? And so kids had to propose something that would be about education of our community because the settler community here is not well informed, unfortunately.
00:16:38
Speaker
And then also, um how do we build relationships and build bridges and and look towards hope, especially for the future? So students had to create proposals and present them to our town council.
00:16:52
Speaker
So our town council was super awesome and gracious in being willing to get involved. So our mayor came along and three council members and then a couple of our school board members as well joined in. And then we also had local members of um two different indigenous communities, um,
00:17:08
Speaker
from the Wet'suwet'en people and the Net'echen people come and sit. And our students had to present their project proposals to this group of professionals um and also indigenous people. And so I had, yeah, everything from students Saying like having walks that are connected to our museum through our town doing kind of like Fort Edmonton type idea where it was like doing a structure building a structure of what an Indian town looked like.
00:17:37
Speaker
There was projects with murals and they and all the students reached out to like local artists. They connected with the museum curators. They were calling Office of the Wet'suwet'en. They were making connections. They had to call for pricing. So they were calling like the lumber yard and looking for like how much did granite cost? How much did artists cost?
00:17:55
Speaker
um I had students propose like an art show where, um Indigenous artists teach their art to locals and you could sign up for an art camp. um Anyways, so my students, again, it's super nerve wracking. I think you said too, Erin, where it's like the pressure is there where you're like putting it on display to like these people who matter and it's not just for you.
00:18:17
Speaker
And that is a scary thing to do as a teacher because you are just like hoping and praying that the students will make you proud. And you know they will, but it's also... it's it's a lot for us too to put put it out there in the community and be like, come on, let's do this.
00:18:34
Speaker
But yeah, my students were really incredible and and our town council and as well as our local Indigenous people who contributed to this were just really thankful and we're thankful to, I think, be a part of this and we're impressed with my students and um excited for the future knowing that like these students get to be a part of reconciliation and are passionate about it.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really powerful takeaway as ah as an educator, I can imagine. um Heather, will you share more about your work and your project?
00:19:12
Speaker
Sure. I just, I'm just amazed in terms of what, you know, Aaron and Tara have been doing. Like that's, that's huge just in terms of reconciliation. um And, you know, it's, it's cool. And I'm just, I connect together with what you guys have been saying, just in terms of, you know, you've got, you know, you're kind of sharing this stuff out with the community.
00:19:30
Speaker
I guess my project kind of started when I took um another group of students up to our local museum. They, because they have It kind of a nice natural kind of grounds. And it was during the kind of the pandemic period. And we just needed to kind of get out and and see the fall colors. And um we ended up coming across Kitchen Garden um or the Heritage Garden right beside the Ireland House Museum.
00:19:53
Speaker
Kind of looked a little bit, you know, neglected kind of. I was just, you know, it kind of put in the back of my mind, um you know, maybe they needed some help. I had a horticulture class coming up in the next the next semester. And so when spring came around and a lot of my students kind of like we had tons of these kinds of plants and I'm like, where am I going to be kind of growing everything? thought. I thought, oh yeah, there they had that garden up at Arlent House. And so I called up Arlent House and got in contact with Miriam Martins. And just like you, Erin, right? i absolutely she She contacted me right away and said, yes, you know, like, you know, almost like, you know, just as you said, they were she was almost like she was waiting for me. And I said, hey, you know, notice that you guys, you know, have this like this great garden. And I know the Arlent family were huge agriculturalists within our area.
00:20:41
Speaker
um Would you like a little bit of help? I've got a whole bunch of kids that um could really benefit from having a large area and make having that kind of giving back to the community, just like the Ireland family kind of gave us the land where our school was.
00:20:55
Speaker
So we started together. together a project. My students ended up going up and we worked on this heritage garden together. um So all the students, we grew all the plants and planted everything and planned everything out.
00:21:07
Speaker
um Started, to you know, thought about just in terms of like what would the Arlen family actually be growing at the time? So things that they would actually kind of be storing, etc. So we kind of went from From there, the students, of course, were very interested in what's kind of around the Arlen family farmstead. And there's still a number of ah different artifacts around the area.
00:21:28
Speaker
um And of course, they also wanted to know who the Arlen family ah were, like, did they have kids? Right. And so you know, as our project and kind of progressed over the years, we, you know, we're kind of getting into a lot more of learning about, you know, how do we actually kind of ah preserve of our foods? Right. What would they've actually done um within Burlington, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, um when the Arlen family first started farming in the area?
00:21:55
Speaker
And, um you know, what do we do actually before our refrigerators kind of come about? And I guess you ended up mentioning about artifacts. um So I brought ahve brought my artifact in. um So the students kind of had a chance when, you know, in the museum doing hands-on workshops, learning about food preservations, looking at some of the different artifacts that they've got there. And also, um you know you know, making pickles, etc.
00:22:20
Speaker
um And so this year, you know, because I have one young young lady that really likes pickles, we've grown a lot of cucumber plants, pickling cucumber plants.
00:22:31
Speaker
And so the my students not only kind of learned just in terms of the horticulture history and learn about the planning, a lot of my students have or are on the autism spectrum. So, you know, it's it's great for them to act kind of work together with each other.
00:22:48
Speaker
in learning all the different skills of ah collaborating together with each other. um Plants don't talk back to you, right? So it's kind of, it's comfortable with them. I also have students with physical disabilities. And so being able to kind of ah practicing doing a lot of the different ah kind of of hands-on skills is great for, you know, great for them as well. and it's great for a community because our project, all the the vegetables that we actually grow in this heritage garden um actually ends up going back to our greater community. So it ends up going to the Burlington Food Bank.
00:23:20
Speaker
And so we have a relationship together with them. And this year extended the relationship where they don't have the ability. They have other sites where they actually also have gardens that they tend. And so my students, you know, end up growing a few more plants and we ended up sending it down to the Burlington nug Food Bank.
00:23:37
Speaker
for them to actually kind of extend their garden. So um we've been, i guess we've now had a few harvests and um bringing in, I guess, about a dozen pounds of food so far. It's been mostly the greens, but it's still good. And we also harvested basil yesterday.
00:23:53
Speaker
So it's kind of, it's a win-win-win. My students have they the skills They end up gaining academic knowledge about about history, but we're also kind of, we're making, as you you know, you guys have both mentioned, just in terms of presenting it to the community.
00:24:07
Speaker
So when community members kind of come through the Arlind House Museum, they're able to kind of see what would have a kitchen garden would actually kind of look like for the Arlind family. And we're also giving back to our community through throught food. so um And during the summertime, i also have my my students coming in as volunteers.
00:24:26
Speaker
so It's just, it's it's it's great overall. So, you know, being able to kind of do all these different things.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, like you said, win, win, win, win right? But I think that's kind of a theme in all of this work.
Importance of Community Partnerships
00:24:41
Speaker
And you're all building upon each other, talking so much about how your projects are rooted in local history. These rich community partnerships that, you know, not only grounds the work that you're all doing, but just really,
00:24:55
Speaker
enhances the student learning. Heather and Erin, I think your collaborations with with local museums, you know, really add that layer of historical context and hands-on learning. And Tara, your students thinking about public memory and policy around that, and then sharing it back with community leaders.
00:25:16
Speaker
You know, there's just, again, such rich learning taking place in all of this work. And I really want to want to talk a little bit more about that, that community element, because it's just really coming through so strongly.
00:25:26
Speaker
i know, Heather and Aaron, you've started mentioning a little bit about how these partnerships came about, but I would love to know a little bit more. And Tara, I would love to know how the partnerships came about for you as well.
00:25:37
Speaker
And then maybe as a bit of a follow up, what you think those partnerships really have added to your students experiences?
00:25:51
Speaker
i maybe I can start. think the partnership that we had with the museum was, it was the project. Like this project wouldn't have been anything without them because they were the ones who who gave us all of our resources that we used for our research, which we have like local history books, but there's not that much in them, right? Like there's a little bit. We could probably could have learned, but without the access to the museum and the archives,
00:26:20
Speaker
um that's where we got all of our primary documents. My students were kind of started the ah project with a little bit of an inquiry into the topic. So they were asking questions and we gave those questions to the museum and the museum staff used their questions to pull documents that were going to answer their questions. So they found in the archives and in the museum exhibits, they found Asian immigrants and European immigrants and um oh we I wanted to mention too that we focused a lot also on the Indigenous populations that were here and how that play how they they kind of created that story together with the immigrants that were coming.
00:27:01
Speaker
um So we made sure that we had documentation available. related to those populations as well. I think the the fact that when our students went to the museum and got to learn about what does a curator do, learn that historian is actually a career that they could choose, curator is a career that they could choose, these are things that I don't think they And i don't know, maybe that in that grade seven group, there's somebody who might...
00:27:32
Speaker
go that route when they get older. i don't know. I hope so. But just exposing them to different ways of knowing, different ways of learning, and that that this kind of like looking at primary documents and looking at artifacts is a way that we can learn. And it it's interesting.
00:27:52
Speaker
It was really cool. It was really cool for them to see that. Yeah. So i I really value that partnership. I think like Just that the museum staff was so like so willing to answer the students' questions and help them find the answers to their questions.
00:28:08
Speaker
And without them, ah we couldn't have done this project. Tara or Heather, do you have anything to share about how how your partnerships came about and and what you what you think your students gained from from that rich rich learning?
Advice on Collaborations and Student Engagement
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, like I guess like Erin said, you know with that partnership together with the Burlington Museums is was so key. And I'm so glad that they were able to kind of really you know bring us in and embrace kind of our our idea of you know what we can actually kind of do. And it's kind of really helped of extend just in terms of you know beyond...
00:28:50
Speaker
Just, you know, kind of like our our project, we um just this year, some of my students actually had the chance to be able to go back to the Arlington, sorry, to the Arland House Museum to actually work as co-op students.
00:29:03
Speaker
And so they were working inside the museum, kind of helping out with kind of looking, um collecting a lot of different things that they would be using for teaching the younger kids when they come up for summer camps.
00:29:14
Speaker
um just in terms of you know also looking at you know dealing with some of the artifacts, but also kind of helping kind of get our our garden prepared ah for the season. um We've also kind of, we've been ah connecting together, i guess, Aaron, you ended up mentioning,
00:29:30
Speaker
ah just in terms of going and looking at the archives. We also, it going our archives for the it City of Burlington um are located in two different areas. its One is at the ah library as well as at the Joseph Wright Museum.
00:29:46
Speaker
And so my students last year had a chance to be able to go down to the Joseph Brandt Museum and see some of the different um hor ah horticulture related photos of the area. And so it's kind of a big surprise for them to be able to see pictures of, you know, young adults and in children actually kind of working on these different farms and looking at some of the old, you know, ah gardening catalogs, things that we actually used, but to actually kind of see what they've used in the past, as well as some of the different implements.
00:30:14
Speaker
ah Just another kind of connection that we have down, you know, within our community, we also have the Royal Botanical Gardens, and they also have a collection of historical artifacts that are connected to horticulture.
00:30:27
Speaker
um And so we've been trying to kind of get a link together with them because they have a whole huge collection of what the sea catalogs, what would people actually be um planting um I guess, like kind of 100 years ago within our community.
00:30:40
Speaker
ah There was a ton of different seed houses um in this area of Ontario, in Hamilton, and and also just up in Georgetown. And just talking to, you know, being able to kind of see all these different order artif ah sorry old photos that my students ended up looking at. So, for instance, looking at the cannery that used to exist along Lake Ontario.
00:31:02
Speaker
that a lot of the different products that were kind of grown here in the Burlington area were actually going to shipped out to Toronto, as well as the different kind of cold storage areas. Sorry, I don't know if I answered the question all out.
00:31:17
Speaker
Oh, you did. No, that's wonderful. like Again, it's it it's all these rich connections that this learning is is helping and and contributing to with these partnerships and collaborations that you're you're all talking about. Tara, how did your partnerships come about bringing together, you know, so many leaders within your community?
00:31:36
Speaker
and how do you think that helped contribute to your students' experience? Yeah, so I had, like when i initially kind of dreamed up this assignment, it was not going to be as big as it got. It kept growing in my mind and I was like, huh, okay, well let's, let's give this a shout. And I started contacting people in our community to see.
00:32:00
Speaker
So um that worked out well that our town council just is incredibly willing here to be involved in any way they can. And they're so gracious. And um yeah, so that was really, really nice. So when I just,
00:32:14
Speaker
So I emailed them and said, hey, are you willing to maybe do this? It's going to be over two days because I have so many students and so many groups. And they were like, absolutely, we'll be there.
00:32:25
Speaker
um Just let us know when. And so they were more than willing to to partner with us in that and same with our school board and then some local Indigenous people too. that One of them is a good friend of mine, actually. So that was an easy connect. And then another one is a parent of...
00:32:40
Speaker
some of our students, which was also awesome to have in. So it's a ah parent connection, a community connection, and then, of course, our town council. I was fortunate enough to take over this course from a good friend of mine, Jonathan Boone, um and he had spent years just um curating kind of connections, too, with people.
00:33:01
Speaker
And so i I'd lived out of the valley for 15 years in Alberta and had come back. So I was lucky enough to kind of ah reach out to some of his former connections. And so I took my students to Haida Gwaii for a week as well, visiting the Haida Nation.
00:33:15
Speaker
And so that was kind of part of the lead up to this. And then we got to go to Cassan and Hazleton and see... Gitsan Museum and um my husband actually teaches out there and so he knows a lot of local Gitsan people and so I got to connect through his connections with a bunch of Gitsan people um and then we learned from their museum and then we learned from our own museum from Cairo Westby who's our curator um who is pretty instrumental in creating the Indian Town exhibit and working I think on shared histories as well which is um by Dr. Tyler McCreary who also is a local person And then Rick Boudoir, who owns the, he's a cultural anthropologist in town who works very closely with Witsuitin people.
00:33:53
Speaker
And then we also got an opportunity, don't know if you guys have heard of the film Yinta. um it came out on Netflix and it just won a big award, actually, like the Canada Screen Award, I think, for Best Documentary.
00:34:05
Speaker
um Yeah, Best Feature Length Documentary for the Canadian Screen Award. And Frida Hewson, who was on the LNG Pipeline protesting, She's been Frida Houston.
00:34:16
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Okay. She's been on the LNG pipeline protesting. She, um we ended up being able to go see a screening of that film in Whitset and get to talk to her and her ah sister and learn about all their work.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. About protesting um for their land and for Yinta. So if you haven't seen the documentary, this is a plug for it. It's on Netflix. You should go watch it. It's really, really excellent. It takes place here at home.
00:34:41
Speaker
um But yeah, so that was kind of all the pre-learning. And then students just got to say, okay, now what do we do? How do we reconcile? And then it was up to them to make their own community connections after that.
00:34:54
Speaker
And so I said, here's the number for Office of the Wet'suwet'en. Here's the number for the muralist I know in town. Here's the number for a a guy at the hospital I know who got a mural painted. Right, for a guy who I got the mural painted in our hospital.
00:35:08
Speaker
um a Yeah, so just... It's a small enough town where you kind of know enough people that you can, and which I'm sure you guys maybe know too. Sounds like you're in smaller communities. i know what Tascua is.
00:35:19
Speaker
But where you can kind of, you know enough people, enough dominoes fall that you can get to the people you want and pull enough strings. And so, yeah. So it just grew into this way bigger thing than I intended. and And then my students were amazing. So.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's very cool. And a classic tale that we hear, you know, I thought it was going to be this small project or this assignment. And then next thing you know, it's these giant projects and initiatives. I think we often, you know, hear about how important it is to get students outside of the classroom.
00:35:54
Speaker
And These are great examples of what that can look like beyond a field trip or a guest visit. And so with that in mind, what advice would you give to another teacher looking to start a meaningful collaboration like what you have done?
00:36:16
Speaker
Like I was just thinking that. i was so I was listening to these different stories and like thinking about how it really like that the common thread between all three of them really is just like taking a jump and taking a risk and knowing that there's lots of people out there who want to do that.
00:36:33
Speaker
But also thinking like good history learning and does not happen in a textbook, right? Like it's out there in the world around us. And if we want to be good teachers of history, we need to be looking for those places. So I would say like the advice that I have would be,
00:36:52
Speaker
Number one, just like open up your eyes, look around you, see what's going on out there. Where are the, like, where are the opportunities in your community? And then take a risk and ask.
00:37:03
Speaker
Like all they can say is no, right? Ask the people who are involved in these things. Reach out.
00:37:13
Speaker
Probably say yes. That would be great. And for for my students, it's really important to kind of actually be out in the community and the community gets to know them. They're, you know, they're they're important members of our, you know, of our area.
00:37:27
Speaker
And they, you know, they, it's important for them to actually kind of be able to kind of also give back to the community. um And so for my students, you know, my students are also not textbook readers.
00:37:40
Speaker
um Being able to kind of do hands-on kind of stuff is so is so important for them. um And they just, they also kind of love being able to kind of feel like they're they're doing something very important. I'm, you know, huge in terms of doing exper ah um experiential education.
00:37:55
Speaker
So just having this, having this opportunity to be able to kind of collaborate together with Burlington Museums has just been, it's been awesome um because it's, just kind of really extends beyond just kind of learning inside, you know, inside how to kind of grow a plant.
00:38:09
Speaker
But it's actually, it's the application of horticulture at, um and a larger kind of scale, but also kind of application of the history of our area at a larger scale. So, and yeah, we're just, we're just lucky that, you know, just like, as you said, you know, Aaron, you know, it's lucky that people actually kind of said yes to, you know, to our, you know, to our ideas when we reached out.
00:38:32
Speaker
yeah I think I would agree. I think just be willing to take a risk, I think, and let those, the creativity that you have, at least for me, that's the best part of teaching is being creative and in teaching creative thinking for my students too.
00:38:49
Speaker
But if we're not creative thinking on like the back end, then our students won't get there either. And so I think If we're willing to take the creative risks and the critical thinking risks, then our students are more likely to jump as well, which I think is an important thing.
00:39:04
Speaker
And then also for me, at least I learned like to trust my students that they're going to do good work and that they want to do good work too. um i think sometimes we get distracted by the, at least in high school, especially like the seeming apathy that they have.
00:39:20
Speaker
um And I think it's important to remember that we can engage them like their hearts and their minds um in a way that is really powerful.
00:39:30
Speaker
I would say, I would agree with what you said there, Tara. And also like. One of the, I think, important mindsets in terms of creativity is embracing ambiguity and being open. As teachers, sometimes that can be really hard to let it unfold as it needs to and not be thinking that it has to go this way or it has to go that way, but being open to like what possibilities lie within it.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, the twists and the turns and the things that they come up with. Yeah. Yeah. I know sometimes I think like I've started giving kids just the learning standards and just saying you have to meet these.
00:40:09
Speaker
figure out how you're going to like with an overarching question and I think again I've gotten stuff that I never would have gotten without trusting them to be able to just come up with something brilliant and they always do it's amazing well that's because it's student voice and choice right they have choice they can express themselves the so way that that works best for them and that gets them excited yeah exactly
00:40:50
Speaker
I love all this, they these takeaways and like, I don't know heartfelt moments you're sharing of of the aha moments that you've had.
Final Thoughts and Personal Motivations
00:40:59
Speaker
And especially for those teachers who might want to be taking on some of these larger, you know, projects or initiatives, I would say.
00:41:07
Speaker
um and so sticking with that kind of like giving advice theme, like, is there a final like piece of encouragement, I would say that you want to leave with teachers who who are listening in who might be thinking about things that they could do in their classrooms?
00:41:26
Speaker
I would say, i guess, kind of for any teacher out there, history is not just like a history course. History can be in so many different subjects. Like, you know, you can kind of, you can approach our learning about kind of, you know, who we are, how we're connected um to, you know, people before us, to the greater society beyond just eight the average, you know, the average classroom um history course. So I would kind of encourage any any teacher,
00:41:55
Speaker
to kind of think outside the box. Just in terms of also kind of getting, you know, getting your students outside beyond i'm just kind of watching videos, documentaries about history. You know, we're we're lucky.
00:42:06
Speaker
I guess I think all of us have, you know, that good connection to um or ah local our our local museums. But, you know, I'm sure there's there's definitely other sources that the teachers can actually end up reaching out to.
00:42:19
Speaker
History is alive within our communities.
00:42:23
Speaker
I think to build on that, like I said, Just look around you. Where are your topics in the world? Like they're out there. and if you read your curriculum in a more generous way, you're going to find really interesting things out there that that you can find those topics in.
00:42:39
Speaker
And that's going to bring learning alive for your students. I think like history is living. It's a living entity and it lives inside of all of us too. And so how can we connect to the people who have lived history and how can we connect to people who have a different lived history than us?
00:42:59
Speaker
And so that our community becomes shaped into we rather than becoming continuously polarized, I think that can be a really powerful way to unite a group of people um in telling story.
00:43:11
Speaker
And history is just story. Wow. That's a wonderful e summation, I think, of all of your work. Thank you so much, Tara, Erin, and Heather for being so generous with your reflections, your ideas and your advice. I think our listeners are going to walk away feeling very inspired. Before we go, i have one final question.
00:43:33
Speaker
Just for fun and, again, to bring it back to the heart of what you do, in one word or maybe one sentence, why do you teach history? That's hard.
00:43:45
Speaker
That's hard. be
00:43:52
Speaker
That's why I give you a sentence. Because the one word is hard.
00:44:00
Speaker
would say my one word is connection.
00:44:05
Speaker
connecting it all together.
00:44:09
Speaker
Maybe relationship building, like between the past and the present, but also between people.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say kind of history is kind of experience, right? um Just be able to kind of be able to kind of be embedded within the history of your local community, I think is so important for any of our students.
00:44:31
Speaker
So they like, i loved I loved both of your projects that you guys have done because it really made your students actually kind of understand their roots to their local community. So it merely make had that kind of important connections.
00:44:46
Speaker
Sorry, I used more than one word.
00:44:50
Speaker
Sorry. Wonderful. Thank you. um yeah No, that's great. it's Again, it's hard to do it in one word, which is why I try to give you a little bit more leeway. But it's a nice it's a nice way to sum everything up. And again, just think back to to what you do and why you do it.
00:45:06
Speaker
So thank you for all for trying to come up with it in one word. And thank you again for for sharing with us today. We hope you will join us again for more conversations with educators bringing Canadian history to life in their classrooms.