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FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Tar sands, Canoes, Monuments and John A statues:
Engaging students in multiple perspectives about National Identity through the Inquiry
process
Dr. Rose Fine-Meyer
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Which statement defines Canada?
Canada is all about prosperity, freedom, work, entrepreneurship, heroism, and security.
Canada is about multiculturalism, medicare, peacekeeping, national unity, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
How do symbols and narratives of Canadian Identity affect what students
learn in history classrooms?
National War Monument in Ottawa
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
What image best defines Canada?Please work on your individual sheets and share
your results
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Current case study:Mother Canada at Vimy
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Mother Canada in Canada?
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
The “Never Forgotten National Memorial”
Globe and Mail newspaper, March 2014
“She would rise 30 metres into the air from a rocky point on the east coast of Cape Breton Island. There would be a 300-car parking lot, a souvenir shop and a restaurant. Visitors would pass through the “We See Thee Rise Observation Deck” and “The Commemorative Ring of True Patriot Love.” And there, looking across the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe, would be the main attraction: “Mother Canada,” a giant statue of a robed women with outstretched arms, beckoning toward the 114,000 Canadian soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who never came home.
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Government of Canada 2014http://www.nfnm.ca/#slide1
“The Never Forgotten National Memorial will be a place for remembrance and gratitude. It will bring forth an exciting new era of commemoration, one allowing Canadians to honour and respect Our Fallen in a manner never previously experienced or possibly even imagined. This memorial will ignite a new level of inspiration and passion within all Canadians and non-Canadians alike, through its spectacular maritime setting and the creation of the brand new iconic statue of Mother Canada, one that has been lovingly and respectfully modeled after the statue of Canada Bereft in Vimy France. Explore the history of our Canadian Armed Forces and of the Canadian Merchant Navy; the significance of the memorial site and its importance for families of Our Fallen; the impact it will have on Canadians today and for future generations to come; and how you can make a big difference and help contribute to the realization of this truly inspiring national endeavour.”
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Peter Lee and Rosalyn Ashby: This Chart demonstrates the progression in students' ideas about accounts and their relation to the past
1. The past as given2. The past as inaccessible3. The past as determining stories4. The past as reported in a more or less biased way5. The past as selected and organized from a viewpoint6. The past as (re-)constructed in answer to questions in
accordance with criteria.
Developing a process of historical knowledge building through instruction.
Article: Progression in Historical Understanding About students Ages 7-14 found in Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas and Sam Wineburg. Knowing, Teaching and Learning History. New York University Press (2000)
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Inquiry Questions:Projects like Mother Canada are:
(justify your positon with 2 points)
About educating future generations about war and its role in shaping our nation.
Part of a heritage industry in which war remembrance and battlefield tourism have become central components.
A money-maker. The focus will be on jobs; a visitor centre, parking lot, theatre, café, and a gift shop selling souvenirs and memorabilia.
Honouring Canadian war dead by providing a place for Remembrance
The Never Forgotten National Memorial “will ignite a new level of inspiration and passion within all Canadians and non-Canadians alike”
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Let’s explore a few perspectives: memorials as a reflection of the society
who built them
Sierra Club:Violation of Green Cove's wilderness zone designation and Park Canada's mandate to preserve ecological integrity.
Pheroze Unwalla: “Can also be seen as blatant politicization, an attempt to legitimize the present regime's particular brand of muscular nationalism by linking it to the less controversial and more extolled conflicts of yore. “What purpose does a Commemorative Ring of True Patriot Love, a True North Commemorative Square, and a With Glowing Hearts National Sanctuary serve other than to co-opt personal tragedy for national glory?
Heather Mallick: “Canadians don’t think of their nation as maternal. In our dark night of the soul, we call out to the north, and the north isn’t fatherly. It’s just there.”
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Roland Case (TC2.ca) describes five types of intellectual resources or “tools” for thinking:• possession of relevant background knowledge—the information about a topic that is required for thoughtful reflection• understanding of appropriate criteria for judgment— the criteria or grounds for deciding which of the alternatives is the most sensible or appropriate• possession of key critical thinking vocabulary—the range of concepts and distinctions that are helpful when thinking critically• fluency with relevant thinking strategies—the repertoire of strategies, that may be useful when thinking through a critical thinking problems• possession of essential habits of mind—the values and habits of a careful thinker.
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Projects like Mother Canada and critical thinking
Exercise: Write a letter (or make a speech or create a poster) justifying the monument. based on a criteria of what defines a significant
event, and linked to Canada’s national identityOr explore this Critical Question: What events should we commemorate for the upcoming Canada 150? based on a criteria of what defines a significant
event, and linked to Canada’s national identity
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Or justify the symbol we have given to particular battles:
Does the battle at Vimy Ridge [or Juno Beach, or Dieppe, or Ortono] deserve its national status as a symbol of Canada’s national identity?
Why are these symbols of national meaning? The maple leaf, the poppy? or the poem “In Flanders fields”
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Commemorative windows in schools, churches and public buildings in the post First World War-what symbols?(See: J. Vance, Death So Noble)
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
War Identity: Are Canadians peacekeepers or Warriors?
The Myth of a Warrior nation?
Harper’s government committed $5.3-billion more to annual defence spending than the former Liberals.
Celebrating the act of war as a nation-building experience.
The Myth of a Peaceable nation?
UN peacekeeping was largely a Canadian invention (thanks to Lester Pearson’s work during the Suez crisis) and dovetailed with Canadian values of compromise and fair play.
Celebrating peacekeeping as part of a nation built on civil discourse
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Remembrance day weekWhat about the ways we teach
war. What are the symbols and
narratives that define Canadian identity?
Fine-Meyer Nov 2015
Missing or marginalized stories“Enemy Aliens”: Internment camps during WWI in Canada included women and children
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Not everyone supports warpeace activists and anti-war
perspectives
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Agnes Campbell Macphail and Julia Grace Wales
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
en.wikipedia.org
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Julia Grace Wales: Peace Activist
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Warfare is the product of a wide range of interrelationships: political, economic and social, that exists in multiple layers.
Explore multiple and alternative narratives- Citizen anti-war activism and question state classifications of “enemy alien”
Explore more deeply the causes of war and the consequences of war and the assumptions that war is inevitable.
Allow for the complexities of war. Avoid neat summaries. Explore how wars affect societies, institutional structures Explore environmental and human destruction
Suggestions
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
LESSON PLANNING
Critical thinking question that will guide the Lesson:
What symbol, monument or narrative best defines Canadian identity?
Students need: 1. Background knowledge and content
information2. Lots of evidence from multiple and diverse
sources3. Possible field studies
4. Seek out missing and alternative voices5. Research at local archives, historic houses,
museums, oral histories, invite Elders and other experts to your classroom.
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
And then there’s the proposed memorial to victims of communism in Ottawa.
FINE-MEYER NOV 2015
Final word:The final word on the proposed monument to “Victims of Communism” goes to former NDP Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar who said,
“the government is acting in an undemocratic way by ignoring the significant opposition to the project. We’re talking about a monument to honour those who were victimized from totalitarian dictatorships and we have a government that is using their role and their power in a way that you would see [used] by governments that really don’t care what people think. The irony is pretty rich. I think this monument, if it goes ahead, will be seen as a monument to irony because of the way it was done.”
Globe and Mail, June 2015
