Final Reflection

I totally forgot about this one!  All month long I've been thinking about posting something cheeky as a one page reflection: a picture me holding a mirror in front of another mirror so it looks like there are a million different mes all reflected back at one another, or maybe a picture of me holding a mirror in front of my computer screen so that I'm literally reflecting the image of my ISU at the screen.  Alas, I'm still posting things at the last minute, so this pictorial experiment will likely never come to fruition.  The reflection piece?  You're looking at it.

The ISU itself was a hilariously fun exercise for me.  I love being able to pick my own projects, and the ability to compose what is effectively Doctor Who fanfiction for a mark was just about the best thing to happen to me all Teacher's College.  To be honest, my experience at the Faculty of Education has been a mixed one, but this class has always managed to pique my enthusiasm and creativity.  Learning through experience and experimentation has inspired me to be a more creative presence in the classroom, and I think out of all the course I've taken, this history class has been the most rewarding. 

So thank you, Dr. Epp, and thank you, class of Instruction and Curriculum in History, for giving me the opportunity to really be inspired by anything that comes my way, for placing me in a classroom before practicum, and showing me that anywhere I go and anything I do has relevance, historically and educationally speaking.

(Also, if I may reiterate: Doctor Who fiction!  For a grade!  THANK YOU!)

Cox Sure!: The Charlie Cox Musical

Prologue: Charlie Cox's death hits the newspapers.  Chorus sings and dances to a slow, somber version of, "No Other Mayor's As Talked About As Me" which reflect Charlie's sordid, intense life. The narrator appears - a young woman in 50s attire, begins the story at the close of the opening number. 

Act 1: Charlie's birth, youth, and work in Alberta culminating in his move to Port Arthur, Ontario.  The musical number is ten minutes long, has four movements, and is titled, "Port Arthur Bound!"  The main vocals are provided by the musical's narrator and Charlie in his various incarnations.  Supporting vocals are provided by Charlie's mother, father, siblings, and fellow employees. 

Act 2:  Charlie earns notoriety for his sports abilities and tap dancing.  Act begins with Charlie on stage singing and tapping to, "No Other Man's As Talked About As Me!" (a slightly altered rendition of his bigger number, "No Other Mayor's As Talked About As Me!").  The Act ends with Cox borrowing money to buy horses and work with timber in the song, "Getting Off the Stage."

Act 3:  Charlie now owns a timber business and has married Johanna Bengston. During this act, Charlie and Johanna get into a fierce argument about his work, and together they sing the duet, "This'll Be the End of Us."  After they reconcile, Charlie receives word that he has been elected mayor of Port Arthur.  When he takes to the streets as mayor, his wife and neighbours join him in a thrilling rendition of, "No Other Mayor's as Talked About As Me!"

Act 4: Cox is in his office, leaning down with the phone at his ear.  .  Eileen Flanagan, a young schoolteacher, appears in the doorway looking very distraught.  There are tears in her eyes. (Song: The Man With Two Faces).

Eileen: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor,
I don't want to interfere,
But Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor,
You've taken my fair share.

It isn't that I want to tell the board just how to act,
Or that I feel that my politics are better than that.

But Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor,
I'm a woman, don't you care?
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor,
How could you even...dare?

Charlie: (to the person on the phone) Just a minute.  (He puts his hand over the receiver.)  I'm sorry, I don't know you, but you'll have to come back some other time.

Eileen: I don't have another moment...

Charlie:  Well, you just can't take up mine. 
Please go out the way you came,
Shut the door, leave you name,
And I'll get back to you.

Eileen:  Oh, no, you won't.

Charlie:  Who are you?

Eileen (spoken): I'm a school teacher.

Charlie: (to the person on the line) I'll call you back.  (He hangs up.)  Oh, I see...
Ms. Teacher, Ms. Teacher,
Your salary has gotten meeker,
And you're eager to confront the man you think made it so meager.

But Ms. Teacher, Ms. Teacher,
Hate to make the outcome bleaker,
But you can't just seek your salary from one man alone!

It was the council and the board!
That saw fit to cause discord.
You'll need to pass a motion,
File a form, and wait your turn!

Eileen:  But this is my livelihood!

Charlie: And this, Ms. Teacher, is mine!

Eileen: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor!
You can't do this!  It's not fair!
I do every bit as much work as you.

Charlie:  And like me, you have to follow bureaucratic procedure.
(Spoken) The forms are on your way out, Ms. Teacher.

(He walks back to his desk and picks up the phone again.  Eileen stands in the door, trying her best not to cry.)

Eileen: (Mournful)  You're so...charming.

Charlie (drops the phone):  What was that?

Eileen:  You're so charming!  You're so sweet!
You've got all the world at your feet.
But of course, we're all the fools:
'Cuz you're a liar and a crook who takes money from our schools!

Charlie:  GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE!

(Eileen storms out of the office.  She can be heard singing off-stage, ruffling through items in her purse.)

Eileen:  There's two sides to you, Mr. Mayor - the one we see and the one you hide,
And I wonder if even your wife knows the monster that's inside you.
If there's one thing that will give me some closure from this occasion,
It's making that monster known that will bring me some gratification!

(Eileen marches back into the office.  There is a jar in her hand.  She throws the contents of the jar - a clear liquid - into Charlie's face.  He recoils and screams in pain.)

Eileen:  You're a man with two faces!
You've got one side that the world can see,
And that's the side you pretend to be.

But now you'll always wear that other half,
Now that's the side that the world will see.
You're a man with two faces, Mr. Mayor,
And I just set the monster face free.

(Eileen leaves Charlie wallowing in pain on stage.  The lights dim.)

Act Six: The narrator informs everyone that Charlie's disfigurement didn't hurt his popularity, but that he actually went on to several political successes. Charlie is the liberal candidate in this act.  He is debating with his opponent, Howe, with the song, "You're Nothing but an Understatement."  Cox finally recognizes that he can't win and he withdraws his nomination. 

Act Seven:  The narrator provides some information about Cox's decline in popularity and health in the coming years.  She also notes that his wife died in 1958.  The final act shows the narrator walking down the street.  She is humming the melody of, "No Other Mayor's as Talked About as Me!"  Charlie can be seen walking down the steps of a building to the basement.  He can be heard banging on a furnace, and then suddenly the banging stops.  The narrator stops by the street corner and sings a final reprise of Charlie's song.

Curtains fall. 

Coyote Columbus

I love Coyote.  There is no other figure in literary history I can appreciate more than one who enters a space just to rain all kinds of chaos down upon it.  The beauty, I think, lies in the complexity of the character's influence.  Tricksters are never evil or malicious, though they may occasionally target the high and the mighty in and attempt to provide a lesson in himility.  Their actions are always simply chaos in its purest form, never good or bad, simply cause and consequence. 

I've always wanted to teach the Trickster figure to a classroom.  I don't know if I want it to be part of a unit, a unit itself, or the subject of an entire class.  I think in any case, the trickster would be an engaging subject for students.  There are tricksters from nearly every culture: Coyote differs depending on which tribe or band is providing the story; Britain had fools and jesters to provide a chaotic element to the storytelling; in Japan, the fox or kitsune champions the lowly and challenges the powerful.  For all our love of order, I have to believe that humans attain just as much pleasure from seeing their systems, structures, and institutions torn asunder. 

I would use King's Coyote Columbus in my classroom in a heartbeat.  It provides such an excellent counterpoint to everything European creation stories teaches, and its main character, just as in King's Green Grass, Running Water, is a trickster.  It's important for students to hear about these alternate narratives to give them perspective on authorship and history.  So often we're told that history is written by the winners, but how often do we adopt that perspective when we learn history?  This story is a disruption of epic proportions, and it's going into my teaching library.

Response: John Ralston Saul

No offense to John Ralston Saul, but I have to disagree with his assessment that Canada has been the longest uninterrupted democracy in the world.  It's not just because I'm a jaded youth either.  The statement is just a mess of signification, because in order to make it, one must first assume that Canada's democracy has never wavered at any time, and second, one must believe that democracy truly exists.  Again, it's not because I'm a jaded youth that I believe that.  It's because I know my Canadian history to even a marginal degree that I know how to complicate both of these very attractive assumptions: Canadian democracy was born in decidedly un-democratic company, we still consider the Queen to be our head-of-state, and democracy itself is, in practice, un-democratic.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines democracy as "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state , typically through elected representatives".  I love this definition because it is simultaneously ideological and oppressive in the same explicit instant.  Democracy is, by definition, not reflective of the whole of society but through the process of election and so-called eligible representatives.  For the sake of simplicity in this response, I'm not going to focus on pre-Confederation Canada, because it was not technically a democracy but a monarchy.  In fact, the argument could even be made that Canada is still a monarchy, because the Queen is still regarded as our head of state.  


Ralston Saul's definition of democracy differs somewhat from the OED.  He sees democracy as a system of government by the people, for the people, of the people, and the people, for him, are a great mix of ethnicities and cultures.  We are Metis, he writes, individuals of both European and Aboriginal descent.  The foundation of our country's government lies in the colonists, not the colonials, and currently, our government is varied and representation of all the people.  I can appreciate Saul's re-reading of history to include a more sympathetic view of our origins, and I also appreciate his ability to redefine power structures in society, recasting Canada as the centre of our national ideology rather than Britain.  However, I can't imagine how he thinks that Canada is a democracy, let alone an uninterrupted one. 


Canada's origins as a democracy begin, as I've stated, at Confederation (unless you believe that Confederation maintained Canada's monarchical links, in which case, stop reading here).  Yet Confederation itself was not a democracy by Saul's definition.  Everyone in the rooms of both the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences were white, upper class men of European descent or nationality.  They aren't elected officials as demanded by the OED.  They weren't even necessarily the most eligible, what with two major groups in the population - women and Aboriginals - completely left out of the proceedings.  Democracy in Canada was therefore born out of an event that was decidedly un-democratic.  


A democracy born in exclusion cannot possibly be a democracy, but let's pretend for a moment that Confederation actually did represent the birth of a democratic government in Canada.  That government spent the next century-and-three-quarters continuously oppressing the people it excluded from Confederation in the beginning.  They even started oppressing other minorities when immigrants began arriving in Canada.  Even today, the government is not representational of all the people in Canada.  


So if Ralston Saul would like to make the assertion that Canada is the longest uninterrupted non-democracy, I would like to agree; I think a lot of countries fall under that category.  But for all its fairness, for all the reasons I am proud to be a Canadian, democracy is such a loaded term that I don't think adequately describes our current political climate. 

Response: Ken Osborne's "Canadian History in Schools"

Ken Osborne, like Penney Clark, makes the assumption that there is a distinct Canadian national identity.  Unlike Clark, he sees this national identity as more varied and complicated than the current curriculum or other historians have postulated before.  I think that's a helpful stance to take on the subject of history, especially when you're arguing for a reevaluation of history in the classroom. 

Again though, there are problems with some of the improvements Osborne suggests be applied to the classroom.  Several of his new teaching methods are antiquated and archaic.  They also would be ineffective for instructing students of the digital age.  Memorization and purely knowledge based examinations need to be reassessed before they are integrated back into the new classroom.  Perhaps the reason why history is such a bore and an effort for teachers and students alike is because we keep referring back to an old system of instruction, one that we cling to idealistically because for whatever reason, we think it's an accurate measure of success.  Osborne wants what Sir Ken Robinson calls reformation, not revolution.  The history curriculum requires the latter. 

Response: Penney Clark's "Historical Context of Social Studies in English Canada"

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Penney Clark begins her article "Historical Context of Social Studies in English Canada" by stating that much of social studies in English Canada borrows, models itself after, or is subject to American models and influences.  She refers to this as receiving "scraps from under the American table", as if those who accept the current system and policies surrounding social sciences have subjugated themselves to an oppressive system.  American influence is a threat to Canadian social studies according to Clark, at least in policy.  Individual classrooms all provide radically different models for the social studies curriculum; hence, Clark chooses to focus only on the policies, textbook, and ministry document. 

I believe that Clark's analysis is an unhelpful one for two reasons.  First, Clark's critical and scathing depiction of American influences seem like pithy attempts to rage against the hegemonic powers-that-be rather than a critical examination of Canadian-American relations.  She notes that Canadian and American cultures have cross-polinated, that they bear elements of each other, no matter how slight, but she writes her article on the premise that Canada should be completely distinct and independent of American culture.  In her fervour, Clark forsakes this cross-polination and sharing of identity, as well as the ways that Canadian schools reject American systems and institutions. In this sense, I find her analysis quite narrow and shallow.

Clark's superficiality accounts for my second point as well.  Though she acknowledges that the classroom is a dynamic and independent space, she chooses instead to focus on Canadian education policies, which, while telling of American influences, are not indicative of Canada's complete embrace of American practices.  In fact, the classroom is, I would argue, a much more interesting focus of study in this regard.  Clark may safely assert that American policies and practices are borrowed heavily from the American education system and she may also harp on the frequent use of American speakers at conferences, but in the classroom, individual teachers may subvert educational practices, adopt different focuses to their research, and utilize different resources.  I would be much more interested to see how different teachers have combated American influences by picking different subject matter and sources for their classes.  I wonder, for instance, about what Clark would say about our class.  We didn't even have a textbook, and the majority of our supplementary resources were Canadian based.

Let's Talk About Sex

Now that I have your attention, let's talk about Lysistrata.

There's already been some excellent analysis done on the Moodle comparing Aristophanes's Lysistrata to The Play by Nellie McClung. I don't know what else I can contribute in that vein. Yes, they're both representative of specific times in history and both examine forms of female power. However, only The Play attempts to examines female power as being human power, free from gender and sexual differences. Lysistrata still constructs male and female power as separate and opposite to one another. 

In terms of women's right, these texts are important to note, but they lack any contemporary critical relevance.  After the publication of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter, both of which owe their existence to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, it was generally understood that it was impossible to consider the disenfranchisement of women as a unified and consistently oppressive force.  Due to the differences of class, race, age, society, culture, ability, sexuality, and gender performance, every individual's particular circumstance had to be read as independent of everyone else's, subject to a cultural context but not defined by it or representative of a whole. 

Despite Butler's influence, society still tends to construct men and women as opposites, similar to the sexual politics displayed in Lysistrata, though for the sake of political correctness, many people would try to purport McClung's belief that everyone is human rather than gendered.  Even contemporary romantic comedies use the plot of Lysistrata to create humour, with women exerting power over the one domain they have power over - their bodies - in order to take charge of men who have power over everything else.  Feminist criticism still notes the delineation between males and females in textual representation  as well, though interpretations have been complicated by the various branches of criticism that are now available. 

Lysistrata and The Play offer two avenues to female empowerment.  Neither of them are perfect.  There's even an argument to be made about whether or not they're successful.  Like everything else, it seems, both plays have to be judged on a basis of personal fulfillment.  McClung's play worked to secure women a place in forums they were previously not allowed to enter.  Lysistrata and its explicitly, unabashed use of sexual imagery, continues to entertain people through recent productions.  Female power remains a matter of individual circumstance. 

M.Ed. Thesis

Rather than comment on a M.Ed. thesis from the library, I wanted to talk about a point in the discussion about the M.Ed. thesis in the classroom.  I asked whether or not the M.Ed. thesis had any effect on the education system and was given a very vague response, one that seemed to say, no, the M.Ed. thesis, no matter how interesting the results, has little to no effect on the classroom.

Every teacher in every class I have taken this year - and I've taken ten - has urged me, along with my fellow education candidates to change the classroom when we become teachers.  They urge us to be creative and dynamic individuals, to develop new forms of assessment that address our students' individual interests and strengths, and to remake the classroom and the education system through revolution instead of reform.  So far, only one teacher has shown me what differentiated classroom actually looks like; the rest of my teachers have insisted that I keep my head down for the first few years of teaching because I will be powerless to change the system.  I asked them when I should change the system, and then couldn't give me a straight answer. 

It isn't that my teachers are wrong.  The education system is in need of something.  That something is not reform, according to Sir Ken Robinson, who states, "[Reform] [is] not enough.  Reform is no use anymore, because that's simply improving a broken model.  What we need...is not evolution but a revolution.  This [Education] has to be transformed into something else."  Robinson's revolution begins with society; he argues that as a whole, society must accept education's inability to predict success and happiness.  The education system works for some, he argues, but certainly not for all and most assuredly not for the majority.  Second, Robinson claims that we need to start respecting the creativity of our students and fostering that creativity rather than crush it.  He doesn't provide any explanation as to how we can accomplish either of these first stages of the revolution.  Three plausible explanations are as follows: 1) he assumes that his audience knows how both of these mini-revolutions are to be handled, 2) he assumes that each of these mini-revolutions are going to manifest themselves differently for each person, or 3) he has no idea how these mini-revolutions are to take place, but he certainly loves talking about them.

No matter what his response, Sir Ken's Robinson's idea of revolution is indicative of the rather slippery state revolution exists in.  In speech and in theory, revolution is a romantic ideal: men and women toppling heinous dictators and ideologies, moving society from the broken ideas of the past to the new, better ideas of the future.  In reality, revolution requires any number of things: a charismatic leader is a good place to start, one who has ties to the system they wish to change and to society as a whole; support is another, while the final two ingredients to a revolution are being in the right place at the right time.  An awful lot of luck also helps, but it's not integral.  Even with all these facets, real revolution is rarely ever as shiny and as glossy as speeches make it appear.  Revolutions are hard work and great ideas put into action, ideas that are often only great in retrospect. 

The M.Ed. theses in the library are the same as Sir Ken Robinson's speech: they're all great ideas with a lot of revolutionary potential in them, but none of them are ever given the chance to take effect on the education system.  Here is statistical evidence that the system is broken and needs improvement, but no one in the system wants to hear it or use the knowledge.  Educators are great reformers, but we have a long way to go before we're revolutionaries.  The first step would be to start taking advice from M.Ed. students and doctoral candidates and put their knowledge into action. 

Review: History Magazine

When I was sixteen, I went through an obsession with Jack the Ripper, and a friend of mine was good enough to lend me her copy of Patricia Cornwell's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed.  At the time, it was excellent.  Someone had actually solved the Ripper murders.  Of course, within a year or so I found the harsh criticism Cornwell had received for her publication, and I realized that her explanation wasn't nearly as accurate as her book made it appear.  Cornwell concludes that an artist named Walter Sickert was the Ripper, based on an interview with the artist's son from the early twentieth century. 

Obviously, I picked the History Magazine article entitled "Walter Sickert: Capturing the Darker Side of Life" for this review.  After I found out that Cornwell's novel has been so heavily criticized, I gave up researching Sickert and started reading other fictionalized narratives about the Ripper.  The article promised, based on the magazine's subtitle, that it would provide a view of Sickert from a social perspective rather than a historical one.  Sure enough, the article mentioned his connections to the Ripper case, but the focus was turned on Sickert's life and contributions to the world of art.  It focused on his place in late Victorian society, the critical reactions to his artwork at the time, and his life at home, not the possibility of his being the Ripper killer.

In terms of classroom application, I think this magazine has a lot of potential.  It focuses on untold stories from history, filling in the gaps of cultural knowledge left open by popular opinion and interest.  Best of all, unlike Canadian Military, it requires little context to know exactly what the article is discussion.  History does an excellent job of situating events within popular cultural consciousness and then extrapolating on those ideas.  Personally, I find the tone a little too informal for good, academic criticism, but it's a great starting point for a lot of discussion.  A subscription to this magazine could inspire students to think critically and broadly about historical events, to examine all the different perspectives surrounding singular events. 

Review: Canadian Military

In conjunction with its website, Canadian Military makes for an interesting classroom resource.  When describing my experiences with history in high school, I would often joke with my friends, "Every ten pages in the Canadian history textbook, we had avoided another war.  Every ten pages in the American history textbook, they had just fought in another war, sometimes with themselves."  Even for the daughter of a Canadian military history buff, a man who served on reserve for three years, my idea of the Canadian national identity never included a military, and when it did, it was always had a negative implication.  Canadian Military, as a magazine, is a reminder that the Canadian military wasn't just a collection of blunders by Sam Hughes. 

The only difficult part of integrating Canadian Military into the classroom is that it requires a fair bit of context to make it readable.  I picked the article "On Target September 7", which describes an election and chain of command that I'm completely unfamiliar with.  I think I understand what's happening, but I can't be sure without a lot of context to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.  On the one hand, this website could force teachers to work harder at developing a more well-rounded history curriculum, one that takes into consideration all of the Canadian military's hard work from throughout history, the politics that take place in the forces, and their continuing significance in society today.  Unfortunately, teachers already have so much work to do to prepare for their lessons that it's doubtful they'll have the time or energy to develop a decent historical analysis using all that Canadian Military has to offer.

Another complaint about the magazine is that so much of it is written in a conversational tone that it's difficult to tell what facts have been embellished or are clearly hearsay.  In the article I read, there was such an air of incredulity that I fear what I was reading was pure fiction.  It was like a Tom Clancy novel online.  I think that the magazine does have some advantages for teachers, but not enough to warrant full integration into the classroom.  

Review: Maclean's, Hello, Harper's

May I just please take a moment, without fear of mockery, admit my deep love of all things British, especially the fantastical narratives surrounding the royal weddings?  Yes, I understand that these narratives are ridiculous and, especially in Diana Spencer's case, brutal, because they hide the truth of the human condition, of social interaction, of real people making real connections to one another, but for some reason, I can't get enough of them.  They make me believe, at the expense of other people, that there are two human individuals created exactly for one another with the wealth and resources to make an impossibly beautiful event possible.  It's a pipe dream, I know, but for those few, blissful seconds that I pick up a copy of Hello! magazine, I can pretend, the same way I pretend when I read a Jane Austen novel or watch the latest romantic comedy, that the world is nothing but a collection of archetypes, that there's an ongoing narrative to protect me from falling into harm's way or being alone for the rest of my life, and everyone gets exactly what they deserve.

Of course, I eventually have to close the magazine.  My incredulity can only take so much in a single day, and Hello! magazine pushes the limits of my disbelief's suspension.  Hello! is Canada's answer to People and Us Weekly from the United States.  It's nothing but columns of celebrity gossip, particularly surrounding the royal family and Celine Dion.  Half of it's reported in the same bold font, capital letters, and tiny quotables; the other half is barely confirmed hear say that's meant to inspire the dreamy feelings I recount in the first paragraph.  In the classroom, there's virtually no benefit to introduce Hello! magazine unless it's as a cultural artifact.  Reading it in conjunction with other magazines like MacLean's or textbooks would elucidate the sheer fantastical quality of Hello! magazine.  You could use it in a study about reporting, about contemporary politics and interests.  Or your students could examine it privately for the sake of pure enjoyment.  There's nothing like a good story.

MacLean's and Harper's have considerably more critical clout.  The former is perhaps the most accessible for students: it takes Hello!'s inflammatory language, its clipped, decontextualized comments and blends them with some actual reporting to create an interesting article that actually has some historical relevance.  This isn't to say MacLean's is the best source, only the most accessible one.  There's still an element of the dramatic to MacLean's that I don't appreciate.  In one of the first articles we read in class, a reporter discussed where Nelson Mandela was going to be buried...before Mandela had even died.  Speculative fiction should enter a history classroom undisguised.

Harper's is bar far the most objective, but without the dramatic quality provided by Hello! and MacLean's, along with its relentless pretentiousness, it would be difficult to introduce Harper's to anything less than a postsecondary setting.  There's always something to be said about feeling when fostering engagement in students, even if those feelings are inspired by pure artifice.  There's a time and a place for Harper's, and that's not high school.

Review: Canada's History

History magazines have to be the greatest magazines on the planet.  I thought Google was the only place to find great lesson ideas and teaching methods.  Apparently there are actual, textual documents that I can get subscriptions to for that kind of thing.  Canada's History/The Beaver has a dual purpose: provide some pretty awesome articles and interviews pertaining to Canadian history AND suggest ways of teaching history in the classroom through differentiated instruction, lesson plans, and field trips. 

Canada's History/The Beaver website is equally accessible for teachers, including my favourite page called "Young Historians".  It can be found under the education section, and it includes a long list of articles and blogs written about and by history students from across Canada.  The reason this page struck such a chord with me was because I'd never seen anything like this in the English department.  There's no celebration of the new critics in our midst; I can't think of a good reason why.  Maybe it's that English is so varied?  Huh, history seems to be the same way as a discipline, never mind!  Anyways, this page has a list of really fascination links - including ones that are totally punny!  I really love me some puns - that are all personal accounts from history students across the country.  My favourite was Shelagh Staunton, a student at UWO, who recently published a book of letters and correspondences from World War One.  Her shock was genuine, her excitement was sincere, and her research was very interesting.

In Literary Studies, which is not the only kind of criticism I have experience with but the only branch I've ever participated in at a graduate level, critics rarely explore their own personal experiences.  That's better left to individual reviewers on the Chapters site.  From the very first essay I wrote in grade 10 to the very last essay I wrote during graduate studies, I was told that my opinion on a particular work, any emotions it elicited within me, or any observations that lacked a textual reference had to be omitted from my work.  This is kind of a shame for me, since I really started to love criticism in graduate studies.  Watching new texts excited me.  I started to see the world as a growing collection of essays that had yet to be written.  There were even some texts that I found I liked strictly because they were critically interesting.  Nevertheless, no one in academic wants me to talk about my emotions, and if I do, they have to be in one of the lesser forms of literature: blogging, for instance.

What Canada's History/The Beaver is doing is fabulous.  They're validating emotional responses of history graduate studies, all of whom, I'm sure, experience the same thrill of analysis as I do, and while they're still delineating between academic writing and personal writing by hosting blogs, it's nice to see greater circulation for critics' personal responses.  Sir Ken Robinson states that the education system is training students to think of their bodies as nothing more than transports for their brains.  Critics generally behave as if this training has worked.  The body includes feelings, sentiment, emotional reactions, all that stuff that has no place in the academia in any other capacity than transport.  By showcasing the emotional reactions of critics and encouraging students to discuss their feelings, Canada's History/The Beaver doesn't disavow the emotional capacity of critics or the pleasure that goes into the act of criticism.  They also manage to avoid compromising their discipline in the process by showing the acts of textual analysis working in tandem with the emotional reactions.  As a result, Canada's History/The Beaver offers a broader definition of what it means to be a historian, which is something all teachers and students can benefit from. 

Mask Making

It was a day that I wish I brought my camera.  There's nothing more worthy of photographs than watching friends apply strips of plaster to their face in order to create masks.  I didn't apply the plaster to my face.  My make-up, which is a point of pride for me, usually takes about forty minutes to apply in the morning, and I couldn't bear the thought of ruining all my hard work for the sake of a mask.  Well, that, and I was didn't know how I would be able to clean up the mess it made.  Make-up for me usually includes at least four colours of eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, foundation, powder, blush, and a lip colour, all of which would have melted and swam underneath the wet plaster, leaving me looking more like the Wicked Witch of the West than the tropical princess look I was going for.

(I'm pretty sure my make-up was tropical that day.  I seem to remember being a little embarrassed when I declared I wouldn't be wearing the mask as I made it when I showed up for the lab, given my obscene amount of make-up.  I think I was wearing a mix of pinks, oranges, and yellows that would have made Joseph's coat look drab.)

Anyways, mask making begins with strips of plaster from the craft store that are dipped in water and applied on the face or, in the case of women who wear too much make-up, onto a tin foil mold of the face.  I pressed a two-ply piece of tin foil on my face and pressed it into the contours, an act that succeeded in not messing up my make-up.  I then began applying strips around the eyes and nose.

One of my favourite things to do with make-up is apply it in asymmetrical styles.  I started with colours at first - applying one colour on one eye and a contrasting colour on the other eyes - but I've since started playing with shapes and styles.  Over Christmas I created a look based on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds where I painted small, black bird silhouettes flying up towards my right eye along the cheek while another flock of bird fluttered away from my left eye along the crease towards the temple.  I used that idea to form my mask: one half of the face sweeps up towards the temple, the other half curves down towards the jaw.  I also dotted the edge with small balls that I would paint later. It was suggested to me by the professor that I use the mask to perform a dramatic recitation of Sappho, but this never came to fruition.  The mask is still unpainted, and between all my other school work, I didn't have the time to memorize the poem.  It was a disappointment indeed; there's nothing I love more than being on stage nowadays. 

Mask making would be an awesome activity for any classroom.  I'm inclined to do it with my student for any project really.  English, history, cosmetology...it seems to be a good fit for just about anything.

A Little Bit About Laughter

I used to get into a lot of discussions about God, faith, and religion with my mother during my teen years.  She was the only adult I knew who wouldn't ignore my spiritual confusion or berate me for feeling atheistic.  I think she got annoyed with me, but she's my mother.  She has a high tolerance for annoyance, or at least she should after having four children, all of whom are annoying, not in the least counting myself.  Furthermore, she can't stop interacting with me just because I ask questions about the nature of existence.  Darwin agrees with me.

Anyways, I remember one conversation where I brought up prayer, and my mother told me that post-operative patients who pray experience faster recovery times.  I didn't believe her at first, but then I did the research and discovered that she wasn't just filling my head with maternal niceties: patients actually do experience faster recovery times when they are faithful to a religious denomination and pray regularly.  Apparently, the act of praying relaxes the body, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood more level.  Whether this is a placebo effect or not, I can't deny it.  The science is actually out there, all conducted by competent medical officials and published in peer-reviewed journals.  Check out PubMed and you'll see what I mean.

Prayer isn't the only act that speeds up recovery and assists in the healing process though.  As I learned in my graduate Indigenous Literature class and my Aboriginal Education courses, laughter also has healing properties similar to prayer.  Laughter and, by extension, humour causes the body to relax, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood elevated or at the very least more level.  I don't mean to suggest that the effects on the body while laughing are the same as well praying, but they are nevertheless similar.

The reason I'm writing about praying and laughing is because the one thing that really sticks in my memory from Veronica Fedor's visit to our class was her laugh.  It was a whole-body laugh, a lean-your-head-to-the-sky laugh, an open-your-mouth-and-bare-your-teeth laugh.  It was a laugh that took all her intercostal muscles, diaphragm, lungs, heart, neck, throat, larynx, jaw, and tongue to accomplish, a laugh that started somewhere in the depths of her abdomen and rose up to the ceiling of the Bora Laskin auditorium with a strength and force greater than any army or nation.  Hers was a laugh with the weight of ages, one that turned terror into something else, something manageable, something that, in retrospect, could be laughed at.

It's hard to believe her face was the same as the one in her passport.  That Veronica was much more steely and stony than the woman who sat in front of us in the Bora Laskin.  It's difficult to imagine her smiling or laughing when those old photos were taken, but I can't imagine that laugh was born overnight.  That laugh was cultivated.  It was reinforced over the years to withstand the hardships, built like a prayer to accept what cannot be changed and see the humour in it, the dumb luck, the good fortune, and the wonder.

The Ross Rifle

My firearm education began when I was quite young: too young, I imagine, by comtemporary standards.  Forty years ago, there wouldn't be anything strange about a six year old being taught to handle his- or herself around a gun.  Now, it seems, if something has even the slightest potential to do harm, it must be kept out of the child's reach until they're mature enough to handle it.  Of course, by that time, they're past the point of learning about safety or sense, which leads, I would argue, to greater danger in the future.

Not that all children should learn their way around guns.  Knowledge about firearms and weaponry isn't exactly necessary for children.  In my family, it certainly wasn't.  It just so happened that Dad had an interest, and he didn't want that interest to be misconstrued or engaged with irresponsibly.  Hence, the education in rifles at such a young age.  Two things happened in my household when you turned six: 1) you got a Swiss Army knife, and 2) you fired a gun for the first time.  True, it was a BB gun, but still, we handled the bigger hunting rifles when Dad was illustrating was he said were three rules of firearms.

"First," Dad said, "you always check to make sure the gun isn't loaded."  At six years old, I was barely bigger than a toddler, so checking the barrel of a hunting rifle was pretty much impossible on my own.  Nevertheless, I had the open weapon in my hands and was staring down the empty barrel a second later. The way Dad talked about checking the barrel had me paranoid that guns could somehow load themselves when you weren't looking.  Every time I stared into the barrel, I half expected to stare into darkness, the pinhole of light at the mouth of the weapon sealed up behind a bullet.  That was never the case.

The solid click of metal as the gun sealed shut still gives me shivers.  I am still scared of getting my finger caught in the interlocking metal sheaths, slicing open my skin or creasing my flesh into blood blisters.  Every time Dad and I get out the guns, I have phantom pain in my fingers, small stinging spasms like the gun barrel has nipped me.

"Second," Dad pressed his index finger on the stock, "never put your finger on the trigger till your ready to fire."  I lived in gun culture, even then, so much so that I couldn't fathom not having my finger on the trigger if I was holding a gun.  Dirty Harry never held the stock.  Han Solo never stayed a hand on his blaster.  My finger felt useless on the stock.  The feeling was foreign.  I was so inundated with weaponized heroes that not holding the trigger seemed wrong.

"Third," and this was the rule that had Dad shaking the rifle at me for emphasis, "never, ever point this at anyone.  Ever."  Even if I checked the barrel, even if my finger wasn't on the trigger, I was not supposed to take aim in anyone's general direction.  I was to point the gun at the floor if I was going to point it anywhere, and never have it trained on my feet.

This past summer, I was reacquainted with my father's firearms after a long absence, but I still remembered myself.  I checked to make sure they weren't loaded, I kept my finger off the trigger, and I didn't point them at anyone.  Dad gave me a different lesson this time though.  He told me all about his Ross Rifles.

Ask anyone in a grade 10 history class...okay, not anyone.  Ask someone who's been paying attention what the Ross Rifle is and it's pretty much guaranteed they'll tell you that the Rosses were one of the biggest problems faced by Canadian soldiers during the First World War.  The bolt would frequently jam or backfire, resulting in the injury or death for the shooter.  The fact that it was endorsed by Sam Hughes didn't help the Ross's reputation.  I, like many students, was under the impression it was a poorly made weapon, and I considered the Ross to be an indication of military mismanagement during the First World War.

Trust my father to set me straight in this matter.  No, he didn't deny that the Ross had its problems, but unlike my Grade 10 history teacher, Dad contextualized it for me.  The Ross had a special kind of bolt that automatically turned and locked into the barrel, unlike most bolts which had to be rotated in order to lock.  This made loading and reloading easier over other models from the time like the Lee Enfield.  This bolt made the gun popular for snipers during the war, a fact I didn't realize until I read Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road and had this conversation with Dad.

Unfortunately, this innovative bolt proved to be the Ross's undoing for trench warfare.  If any kind of dirt got lodged in the barrel, the bolt would jam and be nonoperational.  The bolt threads could be damaged from foreign matter in the barrel, and even when they were cleaned, the bolt would close but not lock, meaning the round could still be fired.  Wikipedia actually has a fantastic picture of the Mark II and III Ross Rifle bolts on their site, including a close-up of the threads.

Having handled rifles in the past, I was marveled by the Ross, which handled beautifully in my clean, not-at-all-trench-like basement.  I didn't get to fire it at the time, but I had a new respect for the weapon from this conversation.  I wish my Grade 10 history class could have instilled the same kind of reverence for a Canadian produced firearm.  No offence, Lee Enfields.  I'm sure you were a better alternative for the trench-bound.

Below are two pictures of my dad's Rosses.  Both have been sportized, but the shape of the weapon is still there:

Another Five Hours

Chapter by chapter, page by page, this story is just working itself towards completion and, in a way, I'm along for the ride. 

Apologies

My ISU is incomplete.  It will be incomplete for the next ten hours.  I apologize for the inconvenience and accept that this may result in a lower mark.  However, I don't want to be dishonest about how long I've spent on the project, and I love the story so much that I want to see it finished.  By the end of the weekend, it will be complete, as will my one page reflection on the subject.  My one page reflection will likely read, "Thank you so, so much Dr. Epp for letting me write Doctor Who fanfiction as a part of a history class.  Thank you for letting me explore history in my own way, for letting me explore teaching in my own way."  Somehow I'll manage to extrapolate that into a one page reflection.  For now, the sentence and the three chapters of the ISU will have to do. 

An ISU Update That's Posted in a Timely Fashion?

Yep, I am actually on a computer right now working on my ISU update.  The first few posts should be up and ready within the next two hours.

Amendment:  first post is coming along nicely.  Will be up by tonight.  Hopefully within the next little while.  

Updates: En Masse!

Thursday, January 27th: attempted to upload podcast to the internet, which resulted in a HUGE falling out between my computer and I.  We refused to speak to one another for a long while, and I sent it to sleep on the couch for the night.

Thursday, February 3rd: reconciled with computer long enough to research historical events for the story.  These events included Confederation, the Big Bang, the colonization of Canada, 1972 Canada-Russia Hockey Series, and Vimy Ridge.  Other events hat may be noted include Canada's Space Program, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lester Pearson's Nobel win, the wikileaks, and ancient history including Plato and Socrates.  Computer decided to freeze during one of these searches, resulting in yet another argument.  This time I was sleeping on the couch.  The computer took my bed.

Thursday, February 10th: Mel and I met to discuss our respective projects once again, clarifying our ideas.  Began typing chapter one.  Computer and I back on speaking terms, but things remain tenuous.

Thursday, February 17th:  I intend to finish and post at least chapter one of the story.  Have decided to use a third-person narrator instead.  Must decide on a historically insignificant name for her.

A Verifiable Orgy of Cultural Allusions, Literary References, and Theoretical Diatribes

When asked why he preferred blondes in his movies, director Alfred Hitchcock claimed, "Blondes make the best victims.  They're like virgin snow that show up the bloody footprints."  Essentially it was the contrast between the pure innocent with the extraordinarily guilty that made fairer-follicles so fascinating and attractive for Hitchcock, a disjunction he often used to play with conceptions of good and evil. 

I also feel the need to reference, rather inelegantly, the Marquis de Sade, a writer of such carnal vulgarity I almost feel guilty making reference to him and/or admitting to having read some of his works, especially in a blog dedicated to my schoolwork.  Almost.  Alas, I'm not guilty enough to abandon his name now that I've made mention of it.  No, I'm not attempting to draw any comparisons between de Sade and Hitchcock, partly because I don't feel either gentlemen would appreciate that kind of comparison, but mostly because the points of comparison are rather limited: Hitchcock was a light-hearted trickster, almost boyish really, even though his darker, more violent films would suggest otherwise.  He sought to peel back the artifice just to show that there was artifice in the world, not because he thought that artifice was necessarily evil.  Actually, I would argue he found that kind of artifice humourous, about as much as he found tarnishing the ideological purity of the blonde entertaining.  The Marquis, on the other hand, was sick, perturbed, and angry.  Exposing the powers-that-be as frauds, hypocrites, liars, and cheats wasn't enough for him; he was out for blood and sex and pain and anarchy.  I'm invoking both men to make a point about Christopher Hitchins, Mother Teresa, the Catholic Church, and symbols. 

Speaking of symbols, here's one more cultural allusion for you: in the movie V For Vendetta, the anarchist V says, "Symbols are given power by people.  A symbol in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, [a symbol] can change the world."  Thanks to the power of Google, I've just discovered that Charles Baudelaire said something similar.  "The whole universe is but a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination will give a relative place and value," he wrote, "it is a sort of pasture which the imagination must digest and transform."  I agree with M. Baudelaire: thanks to human sensory perception, the world exists as nothing more than a representation of a representation of a representation of something that never existed. 

Now, just what does all this have to do with Christopher Hitchins and Mother Teresa?  I've just illustrated above that Hitchcock, de Sade, V for Vendetta, and Charles Baudelaire have very little to do with each other, let alone anything to do with Hitchins and Mother Teresa.  And yet, there is an overlap in what occurs within the texts that I've mentioned, just as there is an overlap between Hitchins's book The Missionary Position and other literary texts I haven't mentioned above.  All of these cultural artifacts - from Hitchcock's films to de Sade's books to Alan Moore's entire corpus of graphic novels to Baudelaire's poetry to Hitchens and Mother Teresa - are concerned with stripping the gaudy veneer from ideologically revered symbols, each in varying capacities, and all of them present different ways to respond to the revelation that there is no virgin snow in society, no more than there are bloody footprints clearly visible atop it, if you'll pardon the metaphor.

My grandmother is a devout Roman Catholic, and she is a wonderful, generous person.  These two concepts - my grandmother, the Catholic, and my grandmother, the kind, wonderful person - are sometimes conflated, but I know they're independent of one another, at least in part.  Anyways, my grandmother is enamoured by Mother Teresa, as are, I believe, most Catholics.  Just this past Christmas, we - my mother and I - gave her a copy of Where There is Love, There is God, and I think it was one of the best gifts she could have ever received.  Then again, she's my wonderful, generous grandmother: she treated every gift like it's the best gift she ever received.  I have never read a book by Mother Teresa, but I can imagine the kinds of things that can be found in a book of hers given my Catholic upbringing and my knowledge of religious doctrine from throughout history.  "Love thy neighbour," the book likely reads in some capacity, "and be happy with your life for what it is.  And love God.  And don't use contraceptives."  All great teachings that, if implemented by the readers, could lead to an enriching and wonderful life.  If my grandmother is any indication, those kinds of teachings do lead to fulfillment. 

In 2006, Oprah Winfrey discovered that a supposedly autobiographical book, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, was actually a work of fiction masquerading under the heading of non-fiction.  I don't want to rehash the endless arguments about the validity (or lack thereof) with regards to Frey's claim that the book was autobiographical.  What I want to emphasize here is the main argument that Oprah and her critics engaged in about whether or not the genre of Frey's novel was important.  Was the book any more or less meaningful as a fictional text as opposed to a non-fictional text?  The answer, I think, depends on the reader, since meaning is the reader's business, not a billionaire's.  A Million Little Pieces is meaningful when someone reads it and finds it meaningful; it isn't meaningful when someone reads it and finds it lacks meaning. 

By the same token then, Mother Teresa is meaningful when someone - my grandmother, for instance - finds her work meaningful.  Whether her good work actually exists or not is irrelevant, just like it's irrelevant as to whether or not A Million Little Pieces is fiction or non-fiction.  If a book written by Mother Teresa can give someone hope, courage, and understanding, if it can make someone think twice before they're an asshole to another human being or inspire people to give money to charity, that book is meaningful, and it has done good work.  The idea of Mother Teresa is a lot like society's idea of blondes and figures of church authority.  Their very role as an idea makes them a good thing.  They can't exist in cultural consciousness or, indeed, in any consciousness - remember, consciousness is based off of sensory perception, and all sensory perception renders the world a representation of a representation of a representation of something that never existed - because consciousness doesn't have the capacity to recognize others in their full, complicated glory, especially when those objects have achieved status as symbols.  Symbols are, as Bruce Wayne says in Batman Begins, "incorruptible...everlasting."  Dom Cobb says of the projection of his wife in Inception, "I can't imagine you with all of your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection."  Symbols are uncomplicated; they're artifice, but they're uncomplicated. 

So I can agree with Christopher Hitchens about Mother Teresa.  She was corrupt, she was a hypocrite, and she wasn't the devout woman the world believed her to be.  And, as a symbol, that image can't be supported, not without a complete reevaluation of her as an artifact.  In Hitchockian terms, one is either the virgin snow or the bloody footprint.  To de Sade, it's all hell.  This doesn't make Hitchins's reading of Mother Teresa as wrong.  It doesn't make his interpretation any less meaningful, not to me anyways, but to my grandmother, Hitchins's reading would be seen as an attack because of the way Mother Teresa operates as a symbol in her mind.

None of the readings of Mother Teresa are incorrect.  Like all human beings, she was flawed, she was sinful, she was limited to a singular cultural context.  But like all symbols, she does still have a fundamentally good message to spread to the world.  People just need to be careful to live their lives in her image as a symbol and not in her image as a woman.  Or not.  If there's no meaning for you in Mother Teresa, there's probably meaning for you in something else.  I just hope that symbol preaches love and compassion, even if they don't practice it. 

Journal Response #5: History and the Social Science Teacher

Journal response to:  History and the Social Science Teacher.  (Fall 1988).

I opened the great omnibus of History and the Social Science Teacher with fear and trepidation.  The other journals I had read were of magazine size, shape, and appearance.  This was a huge hardcover text with several issues of the journal inside, and I wasn't sure where to begin.  Start from the first issue?  No, that would leave me studying the turn of the century.  At least I had been born by 1988.

Like The Social Sciences, History and the Social Science Teacher is a recognizable academic journal.  All the formal trappings are there: the white pages, the organized layout, the polysyllabic jargon, the shamelessly self-explanatory titles, the scholarly references upon scholarly references upon scholarly references.  It was unbelievable how many texts it had taken to produce five pages of a single essay.  There were sometimes more than three pages of secondary sources filed neatly into two columns per page.  Even though I'm somewhat of an academic journal connoisseur now having spent over five years at university in an English program (where if your essay doesn't have at least ten secondary sources, six from scholarly journals, you're not going to graduate.  Honestly, the only department to require more secondary source research that serious students of literature are Philosophy, which is gradually becoming English, and History), I was spoiled by Teaching History somewhat, and I was dismayed to see that I was in for another long period of silent study, pouring through pages of some dated academic writing.

There were more pictures and charts provided in History and the Social Science Teacher, and they were all as plain, simple, and formal as the writing that accompanied them.  There were also case studies, which were a pleasant surprise, no matter how dated they were.  The other two journals I examined this week didn't contain case studies, and it was nice to see some official research instead of just lesson plans that happened to provide starting points for articles.  Again though, these case studies provided more reflection that suggestion.  Most were cautionary tales for teachers, lessons to avoid or improve upon rather than to implement.  Worse, their datedness made some inappropriate for contemporary classrooms.

I do appreciate the return to academic writing; truly, I do.  The summaries and side-comments are too informal for my tastes, drawing comparisons between youth magazines instead of journals.  Nevertheless, those very side-comments assisted in my understanding of the article as a whole, meaning that I didn't have to spend precious time pouring through pages of study.  I knew what the point was, and I was prepared for it.  More importantly, as I write this response, I'm starting to confront my academic snobbery even more.  In English, I advocate that there is no such thing as high literature or capital-L Literature.  It's a matter of the reader's preference and the way they respond to the text.  But formal writing does provide a certain amount of information that informal colloquialisms can't.  It accommodates  case studies and statistics, quantifiable evidence instead of personal responses.  While emotions are important to consider in being a teacher, they do not make for a great journal overall.  Neither does something published in 1988, but I suppose that can't be helped.

Journal Response #4: The Social Studies

Journal review of:  The Social Studies.  101.6 (Nov/Dec 2010).

Now this is a style that I'm familiar with!  Oh, I thought I'd lost you forever, academic writing.  Not that I really missed you all that much what with Teaching History giving me all these great ideas in a new formt, but still, I needed reassurance that you still exist in the teaching profession.  Thanks to The Social Studies, I'm confident that I will survive this profession with my close reading and critical thinking skills in tact; Teaching History was so easy to ingest, I was ready for something a little more academically challenging.

The Social Studies provided good, solid, academic writing and research in its pages.  There are no diagrams or illustrations, just writing and lots of it - loads of print and secondary sources all culminating into brilliant and beautiful articles that require time and energy to ingest.  The essays covered a lot of information and were well worth the read in most cases.  The first essay alone covered Spanish history but provided descriptions of French and British history as well.  The journal also provides lesson plans and activities for implementation in the classroom, but unlike Teaching History, these were largely reflective rather than informational.  That is, they were used more as points of discussion than ideas for implementation.

Overall, I was pleased to discover that academia wasn't dead, but I have to admit, it comes as a bit of a sour loss after reading Teaching History.  I liked the creativity that went into that issue, the very creativity that The Social Studies lacks.

Journal Response #3: Teaching History

This is a response to the journal:  Teaching History.  140 (Sept. 2010).

Rather than simply read one article, I decided that my review really should constitute the entirety of the journal.  This is partly because I feel my last two posts have failed to constitute the breadth of articles contained within the entire journal, but mostly, I really enjoyed reading through Teaching History.  I found it to be a very engaging text, and I will likely sign-up for a subscription to it, regardless of what I teach.

This was not my initial reaction: not in the slightest.  The second I opened Teaching History I immediately closed it again so that I might check the title page.  Inside, I had beheld colours, shapes, diagrams and word banks.  I found colloquial summaries of whole articles on every page.  Where were the crisp, white, text-laden articles?  Where were the plain formalities of academia?  I thought I had grabbed a Scholastic Weekly by mistake, or worse, some kind of parenting journal.  The format confused me entirely, and I felt vaguely hurt by Teaching History's complete lack of pretention.  I'm a university graduate.  I don't need colourful blocks telling me the articles main points or illustrating lesson plans.  The only information I care about needs to be presented in essay format with a thesis, subtopics, and concluding statement.  It should be arranged with an Abstract at the beginning, contain only important images and figures, span at least ten pages in length, have five words I don't understand in the first paragraph alone, have a boring title, and should be authored by someone with the letters PhD accompanying their name.  Thank you very much.

Once I had confirmed I was reading the proper journal (and worked through some of my academic snobbery), I actually took the time to read the subtitle printed on the cover: Creative Thinking.  The whole issue - in fact, the entire journal - was devoted to parting with the stuffy traditions mandated by academic journals and developing new ideas not just for teaching but for communicating in general; hence, the illustrations, figures, word banks, summaries and definitions.  The journal wasn't being patronizing in the slightest.  In fact, its layout spoke to multiple intelligences, and as I began to read with an open mind, I found myself retaining more information thanks to the new, bold format Teaching History had to offer.

I was still disappointed somewhat in the language.  I do believe that academic writing should be formal, and the contributing authors in Teaching History used mostly colloquial language.  I realize that this is a part of their 'thinking creatively' mantra, but it is possible to use formal writing and be engaging with an audience.  In fact, and perhaps this is just my snobbishness speaking, I believe it takes a better writer to use formal language and still hold the audience's attention.

However, the layout grew on me.  It was rich with information, provided important context in a few short spaces rather than several paragraphs, and really helped me retain a lot more information than I would have if I were simply reading those white academic pages I had been so desperate to see.  Best of all, the magazine offered a lot of ideas for lesson plans and activities to use in the classroom, and rather than write out the lesson, the illustrations clearly explained the expectations.

The use of popular culture was also a nice touch in the journal.  I'm a huge advocate for using popular culture in the classroom, so seeing music, movies, and television series not only mentioned but employed as teachable materials was really helpful and gave me some great ideas for my second placement.  I've often lamented the Ivory Tower's disavowal of pop culture for the sake of the classics; thanks to Teaching History's emphasis on creative thinking, I no longer have to.  This was a wonderful journal, and I really enjoyed it.  It was engaging, fresh, and original, which compensated for its decided lack of academic rigor in some respects.

Notable articles:  using Bob Dylan music for lessons.  Beautiful!

First Podcast!

Loud.Mel and I recorded our first podcast together today.  I'm just going through the lengthy process of re-recording it to my computer and editing it.  If all goes well, we should be on the net by this weekend!

Teaser Post for the Ross Rifle

I recently received an e-mail from my dad informing me of two very awesome things:

1)  He's going to send me pictures of his Ross rifles.  Unfortunately, they're not in perfect condition.  Both have been sportized, a process that I don't completely understand, but I know it decreases their value and will require some explanation when I finally post the pictures on the blog.

2)  He's also planning on giving one to me, provided I learn how to fire a rifle proficiently - which will also require me to overcome my debilitating phobia of loud noises - and actually get my firearm's license this summer. 

I'm very excited the share the photos though. Not so much for the loud noises.

Journal Response 2: Ontario History

This is a response to Elizabeh Jane Errington’s article “Suitable Diversions: Women, Gentility, and Entertainment in an Imperial Outpost” from Ontario History 102.2 (Autumn 2010): p. 175-97.   In it, Errington describes the life of cultured gentlewomen in nineteenth century Upper Canada including preferred forms of entertainment and social structures. 

I was disappointed with Errington’s abstract for the article.  An abstract is supposed to summarize the entirety of the article and should include a hypothesis, research, evidence and conclusion.  Errington’s abstract reads like the summary of a historical romance novel.  Her description is vague and somewhat redundant, for anyone even remotely familiar with social practices from the nineteenth century would know that women preferred to spend time in the comforts of the domestic sphere.  The fact that they chose their friends from the same socio-economic level is equally obvious.  Errington should have provided an explanation for her paper if she couldn’t think of an argument.  Her abstract failed to answer the most important question in academic discourse: so what?  I already know how women structured their social lives around the domestic sphere with women from a similar socio-economic class.  I want some specific examples as to what women did for entertainment besides not go to taverns. 

A reader would have to read through Errington’s entire article to find out what women did for entertainment in Upper Canada, and normally, I wouldn’t complain, but Errington’s article again reads like a historical romance novel.  Publishing this article elicits the same sickened reaction from me as insisting a Phillippa Gregory novel is historically accurate.  Errington might use fact, but she presents it in such a pithy, prosaic manner that it’s boring to read.  Academic papers should be succinct and to the point.  Historical romance requires meandering.  Errington provides the latter.  

The More Delicious Part of History

When I first confirmed that I would be attending Lakehead University, my parents' first recommendation - before telling me to wear flip-flops in the shower stalls, avoid walking across campus alone at night, don't leave my drinks unattended in a bar, get lots of sleep, do my homework, or not to skip class - was to go to the Hoito and eat pancakes.  It took me three years to finally go, but once I did, I understood why the one thing my parents, two Lakehead university graduates with plenty of good advice about surviving postsecondary - thought to tell me before leaving home was that the pancakes at the Hoito were a freaking delicious, life-changing experience. 

A field trip to the Hoito would therefore be incomplete without a late lunch of pancakes.  True, I missed my opportunity to climb to the top of the Finlandia Hall, but the desire for pancakes is impossible to ignore, especially against a rickety ladder and an almost debilitating fear of heights. 

When the pancakes look this good, rickety ladders don't stand a chance.

Besides, I had a pair of cameras with my that day and one of my classmates was kind enough to take on up to the uppermost reaches of the Finlandia Hall and took the following pictures.

While everyone else was upstairs, Dr. Devine, Mel, and I went downstairs for some delicious, Finnish food from the Hoito restaurant. 

Dr. Devine and Mel smiling because we're in the Hoito waiting for food.

The Hoito menu.  Dr. Devine graciously indicates what he is going to order: the Mojakka.

Dr. Devine approves of this trip to the Hoito.  Mel does too.

The drinks arrive!

Dr. Devine turns the camera on me!  Fie!  A pox upon him!

Mel is not happy that I'm taking pictures of her while she's eating.  She will probably ask me to take this picture down. 

Dr. Devine is not nearly as disgruntled that I am taking pictures of him while he eats.  I blame the deliciousness of the Mojakka.

Janelle joins us for brunch!  She survived the ladders!

I realize that part of this response was supposed to centre on the Finlandia Hall.  I can say that Dr. Devine's impersonation of Walter Epp was beautiful, as was his recitation of "Fire and Ice." 

Dr. Devine and his Epp-personation.

Nevertheless, I do think that my excursion to the Hoito for a pancake brunch constitutes an engagement with history, even if it is only a personal one.  I went to a restaurant that both my parents went to when I was their age, that, had their parents gone to post-secondary school, they would have also gone too.  The Hoito has existed in Thunder Bay cultural consciousness for generations, and the fact that it is connected with the Finlandia Hall makes it a part of the same history we were discussing.  It's just the more delicious part of that history. 

Journal Response 1: Canadian Social Studies

I am responding to John Fielding’s article ‘Engaging Students in Learning History’ from the journal of Canadian Social Studies.  Unlike most articles published in academic journals, Fielding uses his personal experiences in the classroom as the basis for his claim that students must be engaged with learning history.  More importantly, history teachers must inspire students’ historical imaginations through diverse teaching practices.

Having just survived my first placement, I can relate to a lot of the issues Fielding discusses in his article.  In English, teachers have to inspire students’ literary imaginations, a task that is far easier written than implemented and/or conducted successfully.  I appreciate Fielding’s honesty and use of personal testimony in this article.  It’s comforting to know that even experienced teachers suffer from the same difficulties as I had starting out, though likely their suffering is to a lesser degree.

I also appreciate Fielding’s list of lessons, exercises, and activities to engage students with the subject matter.  He has developed a lesson plan for every kind of student interaction, including exercises that are purely objective, factual, or knowledge-based as well as activities that force the student to relate history to their own life, to personalize, in a way, events that came before.  I think this article is a helpful resource for any teacher in the arts, but I appreciate the emphasis Fielding places on history.  In English, there is plenty of space for creativity and student input.  History includes a lot of fact.  Fielding manages to synthesize fact and fun within his article, creating activities that demand students’ learn the material but give them the ability to apply it in new and interesting ways. 

A Title and a Format for my ISP!

I have, after some deliberation, decided on a title for my Independent Study story.  Charles Angoff writes, "History is a symphony of echoes heard and unheard.  It is a poem with events as verses."  I love the thought of history as some kind of sound that weaves its way through the ears of the present.  I imagine an orchestra of events playing themselves in a harmony neither perfect nor imperfect but always sublime.  My story shall therefore be titled A Great Symphony of Echoes, and barring the development of a better title, that will be the name on the project when it's submitted for grading.

Rather than post on a fiction or journal site, I've opted to keep all my projects for the class related and accessible through this username.  A Great Symphony of Echoes will therefore be another blog, and every post will be another chapter.  I will continue to update 'A Place in Time' with all my labs and responses, as well as reports of how my Independent Study project is progressing.  A Great Symphony of Echoes will strictly be my independent study project, and it will be submitted alongside this blog for grading at the end of the year.

I'm really looking forward to this project!

Independent Study

For my independent study, I will be composing a work of short fiction that is untitled as of yet.  I know that the story will follow a young Bachelor of Education student as she attempts to create a fantastic independent study project.  Out of ideas and stressed out of her mind, she sends a distress signal to all the great time travelers she can think of: the time traveller from H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, Doctor Emmett Brown from Back to the Future, Arthur Dent from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Thankfully, the good Doctor from Doctor Who responds in time.  He takes her on a tour of Canadian history, starting with Confederation and ending back at the present.  Will the education student create an original, 3+++ achieving Independent Study?  I, for one, certainly hope so.

To save on paper, this independent study project will be updated over the internet on public forum of some kind.  More details will be posted closer to the due date.  

More Like White Otter LOG CABIN!

When you're twelve years old with delusions of grandeur, the word castle inspires a pretty opulent mental image for you.  My quintessential castle at age 12 was a vast stone structure with a whole mess of towers, parapets, and great halls.  It was like the Cinderella palace on steroids: bigger and more badass than Disney, filled with everything my eccentric girlish heart desired.

So when my father announced that we were going to see White Otter Castle, my mind was filled with similar images.  No, I was not deluded enough to believe that a castle in Canada could possibly be as epic as the one in my imagination, especially not one built in Northwestern Ontario.  Quite frankly, any castle owner would have deep enough pockets and good enough sense not to construct something greater than even Walt Disney's vision in a climate and ecosystem as cold and as harsh as ours.  Nevertheless, White Otter Castle had earned the name castle for some reason, and my twelve-year-old self constructed a mental picture that was modest enough to fit in Northwestern Ontario but awesome enough to still deserve the name 'Castle'.

Boy, was I an idiot.  Not only was White Otter Castle not a castle in the faintest sense of the term, it was also just barely a house.  White Otter Castle was really White Otter Glorified-Log-Cabin, and it had eaten away four hours of my life that I would have gladly spent anywhere else.  Even now, years later, I can think of a million things I would rather do than make that trip again.  Twelve-year-old Sarah would have gladly whiled away that four hours watching grass grow and seen something considerably more interesting than White Otter Log Cabin.  She would have volunteered to undergo one of those horrific devices from the Saw movies if it meant not having to see White Otter ever in her life.

It certainly didn't help that our trek to White Otter Underwhelming-Wooden-Structure occurred during our annual drive back to Southern Ontario.  Between the ages of too-young-to-remember and fifteen, my family - father, mother, older brother, two sisters, and dog - would make the twenty-odd hour drive from Orangeville to Fort Frances.  Packed in a black Ford Windstar with a maniac behind the wheel (my father would often do the drive in one very long stretch), it was a miracle we never tried to murder one another from being in such close quarters for such an interminably long time.  It was on the return trip that my dad decided we all needed to see White Otter.  It meant that we would have to stay overnight in Thunder Bay and face another whole day of driving, but being that my father is focused and driven enough to always have things go his way (and the fact that we were going to see a CASTLE!), we turned off highway 11 into Atikokan, rented a boat, and headed off in the direction of White Otter.  Four hours later, disillusioned to the core, I clamboured back into that God-awful van and prepared myself for another twenty-four hours of not being at home.

I'm sure there's plenty of reasons to appreciate White Otter My-Father-Lied-To-Me.  Apparently, there's quite the love story surrounding its construction, a tale of heartbreak and despair wherein the strapping young male is abandoned by his beloved after constructing her a beautiful home in the woods.  Having seen said beautiful home, I can honestly say I side with the beloved on this one.  There is nothing romantic about an unfurnished log cabin several hours away from civilization and only accessible by boat.  Here's hoping she found herself a nice city boy and they bought a beautiful condo together.

My sisters still make jokes about White Otter Log Cabin.  They insist that the trip was exciting, and they'd love to go back the next time they get the chance.  Ah, the follies of youth.  Clearly they don't remember the heavily graffitied walls of one man's exercise in desperation, the lackluster exterior of a structure unworthy of the name 'castle', and the prospect of spending another full day in the vehicle on top of having all their dreams of castles destroyed.