Jessica McIntyre Transcript

Hi, my name is Jessica McIntyre. I'm the department head of Canadian and world studies, and social sciences at Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa, Ontario. I'm a French immersion and ESL Canadian history teacher.

Project True North was created to engage our students in primary document research and to challenge our accepted versions of Canadian history. The goal of Project True North is to change the narratives that are commonly taught in Canadian history by including a variety of voices and experiences of both remarkable and ordinary Canadians, and our goal really is for our students to see themselves in the history that's being taught to them.

So over the last three years my students have uncovered the lives of the No. 2 Construction Battalion soldiers, Canadian Nursing Sisters, in addition to Great War award recipients from a medals collection that is housed at the Canadian War Museum. And so each project a student delves into primary documents. We take a look at their military service files, we take a look at photographs and letters, and we talk to living relatives with this idea that we really want to breathe life into the memory of these ordinary and extraordinary people alike because at the end of the day we really want our students to see themselves that are being represented in the history that is being taught to them.

And ultimately this project and how it turns out is decided by our students. Our students come together and decide how they want to share that learning, and so over the last three years my students have created podcasts, online exhibits, they have interviewed renowned historians, they have shared their learning with Carlton U and Ottawa U professors, and they have also shared and also become historians in contributing to a project put on by the War Museum called the Medals Project. This project deeply mattered to my students. I had a conversation with one of my ESL students — she's a refugee from Yemen — and she was telling me that when she was uncovering the life of No. 2 Construction Battalion soldier Harry Timothy Jones she understood what he felt like when he was in moments of danger, when he left his family and left his home and everything that he loved, because she also experienced the same thing as a refugee. And what's beautiful is my student saw herself and saw her lived experience in the life of a man that lived over a hundred years ago.

It also led to really neat conversations with my female students. And I had students say to me, "you know, Madame, young girls and young women — they don't see themselves in the history that's being taught in our Canadian history classes," and so what it did is it actually served for them to see and highlight their importance not only as — you know — leaders currently, but also kind of plant that seed to become leaders in our future generations. And they used historical perspective taking to think back and go "if I was in the war I would have a role more similar to those of the nurses." And they really put themselves in their shoes, saying — you know — "this person that I'm studying — that could have been my sister; that could have been my best friend Maggie; that could have been me." And so I think one of the things that is the most important part of this project that my students realized is that their story, like the story of their nurse or their soldier, is really impactful and important in the greater context of our Canadian history.

Engaging in Project True North has really highlighted to me that there is a world of difference between simply learning history and actually doing history. I have taught this project for over three years and I have had over 200 different students engage in this project: I've had my English as a second language learner students, I've had my French immersion students, and I've actually even had teachers college students do this project and I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is always an element of magic when you start to look at military service files. And when you actually do history to learn history that's how learning and history comes alive in your classroom, and I think that there's a very important place for us to allow for that kind of magic to happen in our teaching. I firmly believe that if we want to change the way that history education is taught in Canada one of the things we need to do is to be more open to integrating the use of primary sources as a basis for all instruction in Canadian history.

Engaging in historical inquiry invites our students to take a look at the legacies of notable Canadians and I firmly believe that each one of our students wants to leave a memorable legacy. When you're taking a look at the lives of individuals you highlight moments that they are proud of and you also underscore moments that maybe bring shame and failure. And so it's an interesting conversation to ask your students — you know — what do you want your legacy to be? How do you want to be remembered and how are you going to use your life to make a sizable impact in the spaces that you occupy?

When you take a look at history what you're essentially doing is you are uncovering the collective experience of those who came before you and you're examining your positionality within the current context of our history. And then by extension you're using that positionality to imagine how you can influence our future. Studying history gives our students sufficient arms to confront the future and reminds them of their own place and their own importance in our Canadian history. Ultimately, I feel as though Project True North has really served to remind my students that their story, like all of the stories that came before them, matters in the greater context of Canadian history and that's what makes history worth studying.