This blog post outlines resources to use throughout Black History Month in February and beyond. This is by no means a comprehensive list (we continue to add to it as we discover new resources), but a list of resources that can be part of a professional and classroom journey that excites us to learn more, unites us in our common humanity and empowers students to champion a more equitable, compassionate, and informed tomorrow.

Topics: Canadian History, Black History, Equity in Education, anti-racism, Black History Month

This blog post is the 3rd in a multi-part series. Natalie Steele, an educator with Peel District School Board in Ontario, shares additional resources and strategies for your classroom on the topics of Black identities, humanizing stories, amplifying missing voices in the curriculum, and correcting the systemic abuses of history in schooling. This particular piece reflects on FacingToday's blog post “Black Women Educators’ Roundtable on Teaching and Current Events”.

Topics: reflection, race, Equity in Education, Facing Canada, anti-racism

Topics: Identity, Toronto, Video, Canada, Assessment, Using Technology, Equity in Education

In this post, Social Studies teacher Lindsay Hutchison and Math, Science and Careers teacher Mariam Hazhir reflect on their teaching following the murder of George Floyd last June and share how they seek to practice antiracist educator mindsets, foster reflective conversations about racial inequity as allies, encourage critical consciousness and outline five principles that teachers of all disciplines can practice.

Topics: Choosing to Participate, Canada, reflection, Equity in Education, anti-racism

As an organization, our mission is to use lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. In this blog post, we share our learning (thus far) about how we can work to be anti-racist educators in hopes that this approach, the ideas, and the resources we’ve found helpful in our learning will be helpful to you, your colleagues and the students you teach. 

Topics: Choosing to Participate, Equity in Education, anti-racism

This is part two of Amy Smith’s Blog The Road to Equity: How do you define equity? In part one she discussed her own learning journey of gaining additional knowledge about groups identified as in need of more support in schools in the equity and inclusion branch of Peel Board’s five year School Success Plan. All of her reading and learning encouraged her “to really reflect on the life I was living, and the privileges I have that I was not even aware of simply because I was born in a white, abled, cisgender body.” In part two she will cover how she took her own learning and expertise to help other educators start their journey, to start learning about who they are as people and how their privilege and bias impacts their students.

Topics: Teachers, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, big paper, Equity in Education, positionality, collaborative inquiry

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” How many of us have heard this quote or a variation of it? Sayings like these are repeated so often nowadays that they have lost meaning. People will complain, “I don’t need you to lecture me, I already know all this,” “The past is the past, leave it behind where it belongs,” or a blatant dismissal from those who are so cemented in the now, that they refuse to see the truth right in front of them.

Topics: Student Voices, Choosing to Participate, Armenian Genocide, Students, Facing History and Ourselves, Holocaust Education, Rwanda, Student Work, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanities Course, Equity in Education, Facing Canada

 When I moved away from being a classroom teacher to the role of Instructional Coach I knew my passion was in equity work. In Peel we have a five year School Success Plan with one branch of focus dedicated to equity and inclusion. Within the equity and inclusion branch of the plan there are four communities identified as a focus for teachers to gain additional knowledge about in order to better teach and support those students to learn and be successful in Peel schools. The four groups are: students who identify as a part of the LGBTQ+ community, First Nation, Metis and Inuit students, black male students, (this year the focus shifted to all black students) and students living in poverty.

Topics: Teaching Strategies, Teaching Resources, Teachers, Indigenous History, Book, difficult conversations, stolen lives, settler educators, Black History, Equity in Education, Poverty

Join us as we have a conversation with Lorrie Gallant, the Education Program Coordinator for the Woodland Cultural Centre (formerly the Mohawk Institute Residential School) about how survivors experience Orange Shirt Day, and what true engagement on this day can look like from education and beyond.  

This  interactive online video conversation is intended for Facing History and Ourselves educators to listen, to learn, and to share ideas and questions.

Date: Monday, Sep 24th.
Time: 3:30 - 4:15 PM EST

To join from your computer, tablet or phone, go to https://facinghistory.zoom.us/j/668270809 (you will need to download a Zoom app or program so give yourself 2 minutes to do so)

Or Dial in by phone:  +1 647 558 0588
Meeting ID: 668 270 809

No RSVP is required.

We hope you can all join us!

Topics: Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Community Event, Grade 10 History, CHC, trc, stolen lives, settler educators, Equity in Education, Decolonizing Schools, Orange Shirt Day

When I first found out I was teaching Families in Canada, a grade 12 Family Studies course, I immediately began to consider how I could embed Indigenous perspectives within my course. So often, as history teachers we tend to focus on significant events where Indigenous Peoples experience discrimination. What Facing History and Ourselves' pedagogy reminds me is to acknowledge the resiliency, distinctiveness and contemporary life of the many Indigenous peoples in Canada, their cultures and civilizations in my teaching. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to do both. 

Topics: Equity in Education, Decolonizing Schools, Family Studies