Reflecting on “Black Women Educators’ Roundtable on Teaching and Current Events”

Posted by Natalie Steele on January 21, 2021

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”.

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

The Dish With One Spoon Wampum (Webinar 2)

Posted by Lorrie Gallant, Jasmine Wong, Erez Zobary on October 29, 2020

This video is the second part in a four part webinar series featuring Jasmine Wong in conversation with Lorrie Gallant. To access Part 1 click here.

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Topics: Universe of Obligation, Canada, Canadian History, Indigenous History, Indigenous, stolen lives, Treaty, Facing Canada, Treaties Recognition Week

Territorial and Land Acknowledgements (Webinar 1)

Posted by Lorrie Gallant, Jasmine Wong, Erez Zobary on June 5, 2020

This video is the first part in a four part webinar series featuring Jasmine Wong in conversation with Lorrie Gallant.

This series of blog posts explores stories and teachings that Lorrie Gallant shares about the purpose and importance of territorial acknowledgments and treaties. They are based on a recorded webinar from March 18 2020. Lorrie is a writer, illustrator, storyteller, visual artist, educator, Expressive Arts Practitioner, born and raised on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario.

These posts and activities have been written for students to explore as part of a virtual learning community.

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Topics: Identity, History, Canadian History, Indigenous History, Indigenous, Grade 10 History, stolen lives, Facing Canada, land acknowledgements, territorial acknowledgement

Engaging Students in Film Analysis in ELA Classrooms (and Online!!)

Posted by Claire Ahn on April 20, 2020

Claire Ahn, an Assistant Professor of Multiliteracies in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, provides a framework to engaging students in film analysis (in the classroom and online) as well as access to film units and resources.

Facing History's 'Close Viewing Protocol' is also a great resource that explores questions surrounding what the filmmaker is trying to convey, the choices the filmmaker has made, the role of images, narration, editing, and sound, and what the film’s purpose might be.

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Topics: English Language Arts, Film, Innovative Classrooms, Online Learning, Lesson Ideas, English Classroom, Tech Innovation, Facing Canada, Digital Learning, Creative

Honouring Reciprocity and Survivors of Canada’s Residential Schools

Posted by Lorrie Gallant on February 24, 2020

If you have ever travelled to Brantford Ontario Canada, you might have been excited to visit the home of Alexander Graham Bell to learn about the invention of the telephone.  You might have come for a hockey tournament and had the privilege of meeting Hockey Legend Wayne Gretzky’s father Walter, who loves hanging out at the rinks. You may have picked up brochures with beautiful pictures of the Grand River or did research about Joseph Brant, who was the negotiator between the Mohawk and British during the American Revolution. But you might not know that Brantford is the home of the first residential school in Canada; that the building still stands with the names of children carved into the bricks and that it is one of the few residential school buildings still standing in Canada.

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Topics: Art, Survivor Testimony, Residential Schools, Indigenous History, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Indigenous, Lesson Ideas, Facing Canada, Creative, Woodland Cultural Centre

Creating Meaningful Responses to Memoir and Engaging in Reciprocity

Posted by Alysha Groff on June 21, 2019

This spring, Facing History and Ourselves, in partnership with the Azrieli Foundation Holocaust Survivors Memoir Program, invited 175 students from 6 schools to layer onto their learning about the history and legacies of the Holocaust, or of Canada's Residential Schools by reading Survivor memoir. Students read Theodore Fontaine’s Memoir Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools, or excerpts of Nate Leipciger’s Memoir The Weight of Freedom, then created pieces that reflected their understanding and responses to these testimonies, which were gifted to each Survivor.

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Topics: Toronto, Holocaust, Memoir, Facing History and Ourselves, Survivor Testimony, Canada, Residential Schools, Canadian History, Student Work, project, genocide, Holocaust and Human Behaviour, reflection, Connected Learning, Grade 10 History, HSB, CHC, difficult conversations, trc, stolen lives, facing history pedagogy, Azrieli Foundation Memoirs, Decolonizing Schools, Holocaust History in Canada, Facing Canada, cross curricular teaching and learning, collaborative inquiry

Unlearning Hate: Responding to the Rise of White Nationalism

Posted by Margaret Wells on April 26, 2019

On Monday May 6, 2019 Facing History and Ourselves Canada is celebrating our tenth anniversary with a program called Unlearning Hate: A Conversation with Derek Black and Allison Gornik at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

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Topics: Antisemitism, difficult conversations, apologies, Facing Canada, white supremacy, islamophobia

Balancing the Responsibility to Disrupt and Decolonize with the Reality of my own Whiteness

Posted by Dr. Debbie Donsky on April 23, 2019

A Response to: Leading Disruption & Decolonizing Our Institutions: Facing History & Ourselves

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Topics: Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous History, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Indigenous, difficult conversations, trc, stolen lives, settler eucators, Treaty, Sacred Circle Teachings, Decolonizing Schools, Facing Canada

A Note About Facing History- From a Facing History Student

Posted by Shireen Afzal on April 9, 2019

“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.

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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

A Mindful Classroom: Establishing a Safe Space for Sensitive Topics

Posted by Heidi Crowley on March 26, 2019

A Mindful Classroom: Establishing A Safe Space for Sensitive Topics

Many of us have seen the importance of mindfulness in our classrooms and personal lives. Being present and aware are integral to truly absorbing what is around you. How mindful are we of exactly what is around us in the classroom? The physical space we build for our students is often an afterthought to efficiency and more intangible metrics of behaviour and dynamics. This year, I made it my goal to be mindful of the materials within my classroom and how well they represent the values I hope we exercise within these walls.

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Topics: Art, Student Work, Indigenous History, Social and Emotional Learning, Middle School, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, facing history pedagogy, Treaty, Facing Canada, cross curricular teaching and learning

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