“I remember him leaning in and asking why I would want to forget. ‘Memory,’ [Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel] said, ‘wasn’t just for ... survivors. The people who ask us to forget are not our friends. Memory not only honors those we lost but also gives us strength... Nothing good comes of forgetting; remember, so that my past doesn’t become your future’....”
Topics: Classrooms, Facing History Resources, Teaching Resources, Remembrance Day
In this blog post Stella Kim, one of the co-writers of “Addressing Anti-Asian Racism: A Resource for Educators” and Toronto District School Board secondary science and physics teacher, shares about the process of creating this resource and how you and your colleagues can use this resource for professional learning.
Topics: Teaching Resources, anti-racism, asian canadian
June was Indigenous History Month. Throughout the entire year, we recognize how important it is to be striving towards meaningful inclusion of Indigenous histories, knowledges, ways of being and contributions.
Topics: Teaching Resources, Indigenous History, Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy, Indigenous
As the ceasefire in Israel and Gaza continues to hold, Facing History and Ourselves mourns the loss of life and bears witness to the trauma wrought by the conflict. We recognize that addressing the recent violence will require careful preparation by both educators and students.
Topics: Teaching Resources, current events
This blog by Ontario educator, Michael Anthony, explores his journey learning and teaching about The Holodomor as part of the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity course and provides helpful resources to integrate into your classroom.
Topics: Genocide/Collective Violence, Teaching Resources, genocide, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanities Course
Dear Friend of Facing History,
Topics: Back-To-School, Facing History Resources, Teaching Resources, Community
Over the past number of years, I have developed quite a lot of love for Facing History and Ourselves. So much so that I thought this Valentine’s Day I would share my love to other educators by sharing five incredible resources, approaches and strategies that Facing History and Ourselves has to offer that I hope will be a gift to fellow teachers and to your classrooms.
Topics: Students, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Teaching Resources, Teachers, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanities Course
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As your school commemorates Orange Shirt Day this year, we hope these 5 resources and teaching ideas will equip you to teach your students (and colleagues) about Canada's Residential Schools, and inspire and empower students to create a meaningful response.
Topics: Choosing to Participate, Teaching Resources, Truth and Reconciliation, classroom lesson, Indigenous, Lesson Ideas, stolen lives, Orange Shirt Day, cross curricular teaching and learning
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
Introduction: My Residential School unit was largely based on the Residential School Lessons for the Genocide Elective set out by Cheryl Payne. I simply tweaked them a little bit to suit my classes. I taught this unit last year in April. The main areas of change were primarily how I prepared and debriefed the students to see the NFB movie We Were Children. The other change was including a summative assignment based on the questions found in Facing History and Ourselves’ book Stolen Lives. Creating this summative assignment was a great experience in professional collaboration as all of the history teachers at my school collectively designed it.
Topics: Teaching Strategies, Teaching Resources, Residential Schools, CHG, CHC, trc