TELLING STORIES
Breton Books publisher wants to get more local content in schools
Breton Books publisher wants to get more Cape Breton content in schools.
Like any good story, it leaves you in suspense.
But Ron Caplan is keeping his fingers crossed there will eventually be a happy ending to his goal of getting more Cape Breton content in local schools.
Caplan received a grant last year to publish “Great Cape Breton Storytelling” as a Canada 150 gift for all Cape Breton classrooms.
The plan was to give each student and teacher a copy of the eBook and students would be able to learn more about Cape Breton storytelling by reading the stories any time on their computer or phone, for school or their own enjoyment. And if it really catches their fancy, every one of the 81 stories in the book ends with links connecting the story to 5,000 pages of additional information from the online version of Cape Breton’s Magazine.
But getting that content to students has taken longer than expected.
Earlier this month, the Breton Books publisher learned his book would be used throughout the Mi’kmaw family of schools in Nova Scotia, the first board to embrace it. It means the digital eBook can be downloaded free of charge by every teacher and about 2,900 students in the Mi’kmaw Family of Schools system.
It was an opportunity not to be missed, said Laurianne Sylvester, director of the First Nation Student Success Program, Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey.
“It was offered to our schools
free of charge so we took advantage of the opportunity because it has stories about some of our elders/knowledge keepers like Max Basque, Lee Cremo, and Rita Joe of course,” said Sylvester.
“This is a good way for students to learn about people who have contributed greatly to our Mi’kmaw community.”
Caplan was thrilled with the response from Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey and now he hopes other boards will show interest as well.
He’s received information that the Strait Regional School Board may be following suit and he’s hoping the Cape BretonVictoria Regional School Board may take part as well.
“I thought it would be as simple as giving it but it has not been,” said Caplan.
“For many years I’ve been trying to get our books into school libraries, no question about that, and teachers chose to use Cape Breton’s Magazine and many of our books in the classroom. “But over and over again, I have gone to teachers’ in-services and I would talk to them about Cape Breton books and the goal of having them in the schools. And again, and again, they would let me know that they felt Cape Breton students deserve Cape Breton books but that they didn’t have the control.”
Caplan says it’s important for local students to know more about Cape Breton and he wants to make sure students have the right tools to expand their knowledge of the island and its culture.
“I hope it will encourage young people to continue telling their stories and to make new stories out of their own contemporary experience. It’s a wonderful thing for Breton Books and I hope the talk about this will make teachers say to me, ‘how can we work in more of the Cape Breton stories?’”
Caplan wants to see such Breton Book classics as “Rise Again - The Story of Cape Breton Island, Books One and Two” by Robert Morgan, “In The Pit – A Cape Breton Coal Miner” by Rennie MacKenzie, and “Views From The Steel Plant: Voices and Photographs from 100 Years of Making Steel in Cape Breton Island” in the schools.
“I know our teachers want to do it — our teachers know it is an effective way to teach starting from a local connection — it’s just getting it through the system. I’m hoping the new shape of the Department of Education plan will include more local books, more Nova Scotian publishing.”
“Great Cape Breton Storytelling” is a collection of 56 stories. Besides the Mi’kmaw, the book gives examples of the diversity of Cape Breton Island. The stories are rooted in the
experiences of the island’s Polish, Croatian, Pakistani, Czech, Ukrainian, Jewish, Black and Lebanese communities, as well as the Acadian and Scottish traditions.
“The dream,” said Caplan, “is that Cape Breton teachers will want to use this book as an addition to the regular curriculum. It brings more Cape Breton stories into the classroom. And as an eBook each student can keep the book as their own, to
read it anywhere they want on their computer or phone — for schoolwork and for pleasure.”
While free to all students and teachers in the Cape Breton schools, 56 of the stories in “Great Cape Breton Storytelling” are also available in paperback, distributed throughout Cape Breton and across Canada. It is also available online at www.capebretonbooks.com.