By Sean Graham All across the country, students have either returned, or are gearing up to return, to school. While there is great uncertainty about what the school year will look like and the safety measures being implemented in the midst of the pandemic’s fourth wave. For thousands of young Canadians, they will also be returning to spaces that are… Read more »
In late-October, Active History editor Thomas Peace met with Marie Battiste, Alan Corbiere, and Sarah Nickel to discuss decolonization and Indigenization in the teaching of North American history. Over the course of an hour, the conversation explored the meaning of decolonization, Indigenizing the academy, Indigenous resurgence in the Indigenizing of history, assessed specific anticolonial strategies for affecting change in the discipline, and provided… Read more »
By David Calverley As a secondary school history teacher in Ontario, I enjoyed the ActiveHistory.ca posts published in March by Samantha Cutrara and Rose Fine-Meyer. I agree that women’s history and gender issues are not well-represented in Ontario’s Grade 7 and 8 History curriculums. Lack of representation is also an issue in the Grade 10 History Curriculum. It is the… Read more »
On May 21st, Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government introduced Bill 8: The Education Amendment Act, which will remove protections introduced by the NDP government’s Bill 24: An Act to support Gay Straight Alliances. Bill 8 removes provisions that had made it illegal for teachers to out students. Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange insists that existing privacy legislation will protect… Read more »
By Thomas Peace Let’s begin with a question: without help from the internet, can you name the person who founded the city of Chicago? I suspect that for many of our readers, the answer is ‘no’. “Founders” are not terribly in vogue these days, anyways. It was, however, the man who founded Chicago that helped me make a profound shift… Read more »
By Thomas Peace It’s that time of the year again. Over the coming weekend, historians will join our colleagues in the social sciences and humanities in Regina for the annual Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, during which the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) will meet. This year, the CHA has been organized around the theme of “Gathering Diversities,” reflecting… Read more »
As part of our History curriculum series, and as a complement to December’s post on collaborative curricula, Cynthia Wallace-Casey discusses New Brunswick’s unique diverse, regional, and bilingual approach to History and Social Studies curricula. As the only officially bilingual province in Canada, New Brunswick holds a unique position regarding history education and collaborative curriculum development. In this province, it is as… Read more »
By Samantha Cutrara This academic year I’ll be writing a series of blog posts for Active History focused on history education in Canada. In these posts, I’ll be outlining the Canadian History and Social Studies curricula for each province and identifying some possible opportunities for collaboration between historians/archivists and teachers in elementary and secondary schools. As I mentioned in my… Read more »
By Samantha Cutrara What is the purpose of learning history? Are we doomed to repeat it? Do we lose grounding? Are we stranded without space or place? Does history provide us with the skills for understanding evidence or content for narrating experience? As adults, as educators, as historians, we answer these questions with a blend of cliché and seriousness, never… Read more »
By Stanley Hallman-Chong The history curriculum in Ontario is part of a larger set of curricula that embrace several other subjects and disciplines, including Social Studies, Civics, Geography, Law, Politics, and Economics. Hence when the Ontario Ministry of Education proceeded to review its history curriculum, it sought to create a common structure and an element of unity that would encompass… Read more »
