Month: July 2023

Each spring, many classrooms across Ontario work hard on their heritage fair projects. If you’ve never had the opportunity to participate in the Ontario Heritage Fair, it’s a great opportunity to have students invested in learning, researching parts of Canadian history and heritage. What I love about Heritage Fair Projects is that they are Canadian focussed and can provide a real opportunity for students to critically think about what events or people are an important part of Canada.

I remember doing a similar project when I was in grade eight history class. There was a long list of men, all British or French, who were the ‘influential founders’ of Canada. My project was on Sir Wilfrid Laurier. I think I chose him because he was on the five dollar bill and that bill was the one I saw most often at 12 years old. I can’t remember learning much more about him except that he also had a university named after him in Waterloo. Perhaps I was not as invested in the assignment as I should have been.

This year, there were so many different submissions! Noteworthy Canadians, including Viola Desmond and Terry Fox, begin to really show the changing view of what makes someone influential in Canadian culture. Twelve year old me would have been excited to see a Black woman or a teenage boy with an amputated leg as people who changed Canada for the better. These activists who were visible and worked to change a challenging system of inequality are nothing short of inspirational.

It was so fascinating to see some students chose whole organizations as responsible for changing the face of Canada. Organizations such as the Toronto Raptors or Sick Kids Hospitals that have had such influence on changing the landscape of Canada, bringing people together or providing life changing services for so many children and youth. You can imagine how personal these project submissions were for the youth who chose to highlight these organizations as a defining part of Canadian Heritage.

As I start to think more about pedagogy being culturally and historically responsive, I think about how students see themselves and other identities in Canada’s heritage. I wonder how we can encourage and develop learning opportunities that are culturally sustaining – allowing students not only to celebrate and learn about their culture, but to find joy in sharing history and a place for belonging. As the daughter of a Filipina immigrant, I wonder how I could have found my heritage represented in Canada as influential and important here. Could I have learned about my own culture and found space for it to be celebrated in school? What would I have said? What story would I have told?

I am already thinking about next year’s Heritage Fair! It’s beyond exciting to think about co-creating criteria on what makes someone influential or an organization important; to encourage students to critically think and develop their own definitions about what Canada means to them. There will be endless possibilities to plan and create the conditions for students to be invested in their learning, to be excited at seeing themselves reflected in Canadian heritage. I can’t wait to hear their voices!

** The Ontario Heritage Fairs Program (OHFA) is an educational initiative that provides an opportunity for students to explore parts of Canadian history or cultural heritage in a dynamic learning environment. Teachers, community educators, and families encourage students to use a variety of research methods to explore a topic of interest, and medium of choice, to tell their stories – about the land where they live, their personal family history, or their local community stories. For more information visit: https://ohfa.ca/about-ohfa/

Today was a beautiful day. I spent it at a school that sits on a large green field in the middle of the kind of urban vibrancy I grew up in. The expanse of grass is so wide and empty that it almost looks out-of-place compared to the wonderful density that surrounds it. The busy city streets leading to the school are lined with apartments, homes, businesses … an eclectic mix of buildings, some new, some many many decades old. Smack dab in the middle of one of the through-streets is a community garden, a jumble of interesting plants and floppy leaves that pops up out of nowhere, nestled behind a busy intersection, and which I always strain to see as I drive by. The June sun tends to warm this end of the city in a heightened way, and when a breeze blows across the grassy field as I walk up to the school, I can feel summer in its touch. 

This school, like so many I have taught in, is full of amazing students and dedicated teachers. Even in the final days before summer, when the academic year is winding down, the educators here are busily supporting students, and each other. Today, I arrived at classroom doors, taking students for end-of-year conferences and reading celebrations, and at each turn I chatted quickly with teachers, exchanging on-the-spot observations, progress and strengths, hopes for next year, plans to meet in September … all in a matter of seconds. These educators never seem to stop thinking about their students, and with the increasing demands and dwindling timeframes educators everywhere experience, being succinct and supportive is something of a necessary art these days. Teachers across our schools are exceptionally good at it.

Today was a beautiful day, full of engaged students, multilingual books, centres and math and outdoor games … and that quick collaboration between educators that helps hold it all together. It always gives me pause, that we manage to do so much when more and more resources and supports seem to slip away by the day. And I often imagine all that we could do if they were given back …

If we had class sizes that were manageable, that allowed every student an optimal learning environment …

If support programs for students with varying and wonderful and unique needs were properly funded … 

If we had time — real time — to collaborate and communicate with one another to best serve students …

Like that garden so close to the school, lovingly attended by neighbours and community members, I am continually proud of all teachers do to support their students’ growth. And I am also continually proud of our students, who bring so much knowledge and hope and joy to their classrooms, growing stronger, insights expanding throughout the year into new and glorious blooms. 

Summer is a time for dreaming, and this year my summer dreams are for all educators to rest and rejuvenate, knowing they did their absolute best for students. And for students, my dream is that every single one feels loved and celebrated, and proud of all they have accomplished, knowing that next September, their beautiful gardens will continue to grow.