GOVERNOR GENERAL’S HISTORY AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING

Kristian Basaraba Salisbury Composite High School Sherwood Park, Alberta

Kristian Basaraba combined skateboard art with a history lesson on Indigenous culture and colonialism in an effort to raise awareness about reconciliation. Working with Indigenous educators, artists, and professional skateboarders, Basaraba’s students researched Canada’s history of colonialism and designed skateboard graphics to showcase their learning. The students also organized a public exhibition at an Edmonton skate shop to showcase their decks and to bring awareness to systemic racism against Indigenous peoples. The dialogue between community stakeholders within these venues and platforms was a testament to the power of skateboarding to be a call to action to forge a path to decolonization.

Dawn Martens Buchanan Park Public School Hamilton

To commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and to learn about the plight of Jewish children during the Holocaust, Dawn Martens guided her grades four to six students on an interdisciplinary project to study and to present, in a video performance, Hans Krása’s opera

Brundibár. The opera was originally performed by children in Theriesenstadt, a concentration camp and ghetto established in occupied Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. During the project, the students strengthened their understanding of the Holocaust and of the historical context behind the opera. The project saw students confront a challenging moment in history and empowered them to take a leadership role with their own learning.

Francis Lalande Collège Citoyen Laval, Quebec

Francis Lalande’s project “Histoire à vélo” is a dynamic, eco-responsible, and transdisciplinary project using the bicycle as a means of teaching history. In the first part of the project, the students aspired to become aware and independent citizens by preparing for a bike tour along the Lachine Canal in Montreal. To do so, they had to establish their itineraries using Google Maps to consider the important infrastructures of the canal. In order to interpret the evolution of this historic place, students then compared their observations with historical sources. In the second part of the project, the students continued their adventure and learning by working with a GoPro video produced by their teacher, who travelled by bike in the different neighbourhoods of Montreal.

Nathan Tidridge Waterdown District High School Waterdown, Ontario

Since 2014, the Souharissen Natural Area in Waterdown, Ontario, has become a foundation for land-based pedagogy that has engaged students and members of the wider community in projects built around the historicalthinking pillars. Created by Nathan Tidridge, his students, and community members, including the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, this fiftyfive-acre educational and cultural space continues to evolve as an outdoor classroom. During this time, students have developed relationships with their Treaty partners, the Mississaugas of the Credit and Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As an innovative approach to land-based learning, the Souharissen Natural Area is unlike any other space in Canada.

Dominique Laperle Pensionnat du SaintNom-de-Marie Montreal

Dominique Laperle’s project, “Dollard et Groulx” aimed to allow reflection on the instrumentalization of historical facts for political ends. Based on false news from a newspaper, Laperle’s students were asked to reflect on and to interpret editorial-style text on whether or not to conserve a statue of Dollard des Ormeaux in La Fontaine Park in Montreal. Students based their arguments on an analysis of primary sources from the New France era and secondary sources from nineteenthand twentieth-century historians. The students came to understand how ideologies can shape and skew the choices of societies. They also learned how prejudices can work to harm minority groups — and, in particular, Indigenous peoples — in Canada.

Chris Young Kelvin High School Winnipeg

Chris Young’s grade ten students explored their community’s history through a project called “Kelvin Remembers the Winnipeg General Strike.” Through primary- and secondary-source research, museum and historical site visits, and seminar discussions, students learned about the connections between their school, their city, and this historic event. By studying the strike through multiple perspectives, the students gained an appreciation for its complexities and its polarizing legacy. On the one hundredth anniversary of the first day of the strike, the students came together to host a special commemorative day at their school. The project empowered students to share their knowledge and to actively engage with commemorative acts.