Canadian Initiatives
Posted by ssinternational on May 7, 2009
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ssinternational said
PROGRESS REPORT: Canadian Initiative
IVTF Liaison: Tina Storer tina.storer@wwu.edu
Background:
At the 2008 Annual NCSS Conference, a Presidential Initiative to feature Canada was supported by Michael Yell for the Houston Conference. Tina Storer and Betsy Arntzen (both outreach coordinators for USDOE-designated National Resource Centers on Canada) obtained a Canadian Government grant to sponsor the participation of sixteen leading Canadian educators as part of an outreach effort called “Canada is Coming to NCSS!” At the conference, presentations about
Canada or by Canadians were featured in the program, and included a vital issues session that focused on innovative pedagogy and curriculum issues in Canada.
Goal:
A primary goal of the International Visitors Program is to welcome foreign visitors and to offer learning opportunities that broaden our international perspectives. Particularly in the case of special initiatives, an important goal is to network with groups of educators in order to establish permanent professional relationships. In the case of the Canadian Initiative, Canadian participants indicated clear interest in making future connections and, before leaving Houston, identified concrete ways to build upon the relationships established there.
Update:
1. There were multiple positive outcomes from the Presidential Initiative with Canada for the 2008International Visitors Program. Beyond offering opportunities for NCSS members to better understand our northern neighbor and appreciate the need to include Canada in social studies curricula, several distinct and impressive outcomes resulted from the effort:
At the vital issues session, Canadian educators proposed that they form a national social studies organization that might one day formally affiliate with NCSS. Indeed, one of the educators present–Mike Clare from Ontario–applied for a grant to establish a “Teaching History Education Network” that goes by the clever acronyms “THEN” in English and “HIER” in French. All provinces and territories of Canada are represented and the group will teleconference initially as they build their membership and mandates.
2) It became clear at the conference that more high school teachers would include Canada in their curriculum if resources detailing the history and importance of that the Canada-US relationship were available. A proposal was submitted to the NCSS Board of Directors, and approved in February 2009, that a precedent-setting set of resources and curricula would be developed and tested by teachers on both sides of the Canada-US border for use in high school classrooms in both nations. The projects will be produced by Epoch Multimedia, Inc., with half the cost undertaken by the production company and the other half divided equally between Canadian and American sponsors. Some of the funding for the joint Canada-US resource and curriculum project has already been secured but additional funding is still being sought. It is an exciting NCSS-supported effort that is being discussed in the highest circles of education in both countries. It has been suggested that the project even serve as a stepping stone for a broader national educational partnership between the US and Canada.
The project includes the following resources:
A) Two 30-minute video programs (working titles below)that illustrate the history of Canadian-American relations from the onset of the World War II to today:
i. Friends in the Nuclear Age: Canadian-American Relations 1939-1980
ii. A Continent Shared: Canadian-American Relations 1981-2009.>
B) A set of five Scrapbooks (working titles below) that examine important events in the history of Canadian-American relations and base historical inquiry on critical issues questions seen from multiple perspectives.
i. It’s 1776: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
ii. The War of 1812: Who Won?
iii. Manifest Destiny: An American Right or Reason to Fear America?
iv. The Cuban Missile Crisis: Canada and the United States in the Nuclear Age
v. Free Trade: Who Has Gained the Most – Canada or the United States?
C) A set of Teachers’ Guides that provide American and Canadian teachers with units of study that not only demonstrate ways to incorporate the video programs and the Scrapbooks into lesson plans but also include outlines, methodologies and evaluation instruments useful in secondary level classrooms. Many of the educators who attended the Houston conference will attend the 2009 Annual NCSS Conference in Atlanta as well (and without the grant support they received last year!) Their commitment to connecting with American educators is commendable. Some of the sessions that have been accepted to the program through the regular proposal process are listed below:
* Quebec101: Lessons in Citizenship and Democracy(ID 845) [G. Chenard, S. Marcotte, and
T. Storer]
* Battlefor the Continent: The Conquest’s 250th Anniversary(ID 628) [S. Marcotte and A.
Sotherden]
* Champlain and First Nations: Teaching Multiple Perspectives with a Map(ID 694) [B.
Arntzen and C. Harding]
* The URR and the North Star to Freedom(ID 250) [R. Writer and D. June]
* Canada’s Underground Railroad Connection: Then What Happened?”
* Strong Like Two People: Aboriginal Pedagogies for the Whole Class (ID 265) [B. Wile]
* Developing Dispositions to Encourage Active Citizenship(ID 365)[C. Harding]
*Large Room, Single Beds Wanted: Designing Common Curricula that Considers Unique
perspectives(ID 484) [M. Clare and B. McClean]
John Stewart (NWT), Carla Peck (AB) and Mike Clare (ON)—along with many other educators from around the globe—will participate in the vital issues session that is part of the NCSS International Visitors
Program: Turning the Tables: International Perspectives on Social Studies Education (ID 588)
The following presentations will be shared at the International Assembly roundtables on Friday, November 13.
* Developing Tools for Historical Understanding (ID 364) [C. Peck and C. Harding]
* Drawing Lines in the Snow – Stories of an Arctic Border(ID 188) [J. Stewart and B. Wile]