Using Facing History and Ourselves Resources and Pedagogy to teach the Grade 12 Secondary School Literacy Course

Posted by Lesa Smith on March 22, 2016

Having been an LTO (Long term occasional teacher) in the TDSB (Toronto District School Board) for several years I have taught a variety of courses with little prep time available; Facing History saved me more than a few times with their resources (and of course other teachers' contributions to this very blog). I'm delighted to be able to share some of my experience using and adapting Facing History and Ourselves resources and pedagogy in my classroom.

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Topics: Film, Choosing to Participate, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, News, Identity, Facing History and Ourselves, current events, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Literature Circles, Lesson Ideas, In the news, English Classroom, Social Justice, Literature, Personal history, English

Path to Reconciliation: An Educator’s Journey

Posted by Amanda Scott on January 27, 2016

Bringing Indigenous Voices into the Classroom

In December of 2012, I visited the Woodland Cultural Centre and former Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario for the first time. This visit had a lasting impact upon my understanding of the residential school system in Canada. Subsequently I asked myself, how could I further embed Indigenous history into my courses?

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Topics: Choosing to Participate, Facing History Resources, History, Canada, Media Skills, Technology, Truth and Reconciliation, current events, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Indigenous, Lesson Ideas, In the news, Social Justice

History and Action: Education for Truth and Reconciliation

Posted by Ben Gross on January 20, 2016

The truth needs to be told. The truth needs to be taught.

-Anonymous student

This year has brought a lot of change to my classroom - for one, it’s in a new school! I started the year at Central Toronto Academy (CTA) in downtown Toronto. It has been a fantastic experience working with the staff and getting to know a whole new group of students. I was particularly excited to bring Facing History and Ourselves into a new school and see how it was picked up by students unfamiliar with the organization and it's pedagogy.

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Topics: Choosing to Participate, Human Rights, History, Canada, EdTech, Technology, Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous History, current events, Indigenous, In the news, Social Justice, reflection

"Love thy neighbour as thyself": Helping students bridge distance in their own communities and beyond

Posted by Emily Weisberg on December 13, 2015

Dictionaries define the word “neighbour” solely based on close physical proximity; we feel close to someone because we live next door, or down the hall, or across the street. But what happens when a connection is needed from someone farther away?

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Topics: Antisemitism, Choosing to Participate, Events, Facing History Resources, News, Identity, Facing History Together, Facing History and Ourselves, current events, We and They, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Lesson Ideas, In the news

Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.

Posted by Leora Schaefer on November 26, 2015

On November 26, we released Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools. This new resource brings educators new primary sources and first-person accounts about a painful period in Canadian history, when about 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and stripped of their language, culture, and traditions.

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Topics: Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Identity, Facing History and Ourselves, History, Canada, Racism, current events, We and They, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, genocide, legacy, In the news, English Classroom, Social Justice

Questions

Posted by Amy Smith on September 11, 2015

The day after a photograph of a drowned Syrian boy went viral, another image of the same child appeared below the headlines in The Toronto Star. I sat at my kitchen table reading the article shaking my head and covering my mouth with my hand.

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Topics: Choosing to Participate, In the news

Canadian Student Wins Facing History Upstander Contest!

Posted by Jasmine Wong on March 27, 2015

>This morning, Facing History and Ourselves announced the winners of the first annual Facing History Together Student & Alumni Upstander Scholarship Contest, and we had the pleasure of surprising the writer of the winning essay, Shireen Afzal, at her school—Scarborough, Ontario's Woburn Collegiate Institute.
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Topics: Facing History Together, Canada, In the news

Turning a Classroom into a Museum

Posted by Julia R on November 5, 2014

Trips to the museum are a regular part of many history or humanities classrooms. A Facing History and Ourselves teacher in Waterdown and his Grade 11 Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity course students created one in their own classroom.

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Topics: Holocaust, Facing History and Ourselves, Canada, Innovative Classrooms, Museum Studies, Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grants, In the news, Inside a Genocide Classroom

Using Digital Storytelling to Develop Student Voice

Posted by Jasmine Wong on October 14, 2014

Harbord Collegiate Institute student Imogen Bysshe reflects on her learning from Radiozilla, a student-led radio broadcast project with Facing History and Ourselves and Regent Park Focus.

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Topics: Choosing to Participate, Facing History Together, EdTech, Media Skills, Radiozilla, In the news

Happy Canada Day!! What Does it Mean to You?

Posted by Ben Gross on July 3, 2014

Last Thursday I spent the morning working with a group of educators in Hamilton, exploring a Facing History pathway through the new Ontario Grade 10 Canadian History curriculum. It was a morning full of rich conversation and learning about both Canada’s history and its present, and how they inform each other. We began the morning with an activity using poetry to discuss the first step of the Facing History and Ourselves Journey: Identity. We talked a lot about what it meant to be Canadian in the past and what it means to be Canadian today. How have we changed? How have we remained the same? Who are the individuals that make up "we"?

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Topics: Identity, History, legacy, In the news, Personal history

WELCOME

This is where Canadian Facing History and Ourselves teachers and community members meet to share reflections, scholarship and teaching practices that will inspire, challenge and improve teaching and student learning. Our stories provide a window into diverse Facing History classrooms in Canada, and invite you into the discussion.

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