The Case for Commemoration Controversies in Canadian History Education

Abstract

Commemorations are events or actions that honour and memorialize significant events, people, and groups from the past. In recent years there have been numerous contentious debates about commemorations of historical events and people in countries around the world, including Canada. In this article I argue that commemoration controversies should be an essential part of teaching and learning history in K–12 schools because they have the potential to be meaningful and relevant for students, they address civic education competencies central to history and social studies curricula in Canada, and they provide rich opportunities for advancing students’ historical consciousness and historical thinking. In the final section of the article I describe how six second-order historical thinking concepts can be used to invite students to think historically about commemorations.
 Keywords: historical commemorations, public history, history teaching and learning, citizenship education, history education, historical consciousness, historical thinking, social studies education

Walking in their footsteps: Historical empathy and experiential learning on battlefield study tours

“…For instance, conservation areas and industrial sites can serve as primary sources that reveal the histories of human impacts on the environment. As they exit the past, students may form judgments about past values, actions, and decisions within their own communities, and consider their legacies for today (Gibson, 2017(Gibson, , 2021. Students may also be encouraged to become involved in community movements and organizations to effect positive change on issues with deep historical roots.…”

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“…For instance, conservation areas and industrial sites can serve as primary sources that reveal the histories of human impacts on the environment. As they exit the past, students may form judgments about past values, actions, and decisions within their own communities, and consider their legacies for today (Gibson, 2017(Gibson, , 2021. Students may also be encouraged to become involved in community movements and organizations to effect positive change on issues with deep historical roots.…”

Autochtoniser l’enseignement de l’histoire du Québec et du Canada au secondaire et à l’université : entre volonté, obstacles épistémologiques et tensions identitaires

“…En ce sens, les personnes participantes expriment des idées qui résonnent avec les écrits en didactique de l'histoire, qui divergent quant à la possibilité pour la discipline historique (scientifique ou scolaire) de répondre au projet d'autochtonisation de l'histoire. Pour certains, la pensée historienne telle qu'elle a été formalisée par le didacticien Peter Seixas (Seixas, 2017;Seixas et Morton, 2012) peut donner des outils pour porter un regard critique sur l'histoire et présenter les savoirs, les expériences et les perspectives historiques du point de vue des Premiers Peuples (Gibson et Case, 2019;Miles, 2018;Seixas, 2012). Pour d'autres, la pensée historienne est ancrée dans une vision occidentale de la discipline et ne permet pas de rendre justice aux méthodes ni aux épistémologies autochtones (Cutrara, 2018;Marker, 2011).…”