Penney Clark
A Conversation with Barry Lindahl
This is the fourth in a series of interviews with Canadians who are influential in the teaching of history. The first interviewee was Peter Seixas, who discussed the establishment of the Center for the Study of Historical Consciousness in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (Spring, 2001). Dr. Seixas talked about the importance of helping students view historical knowledge as a dynamic and often conflicting set of stories which must be carefully interpreted and critically examined in order to answer questions that are relevant to contemporary issues.
The second interviewee was Mark Starowicz, the Executive Producer of the CBC/Radio Canada series, Canada: A People's History, which is being used extensively in schools (Winter, 2002). Mr. Starowicz discussed the use of a narrative approach in promoting our "epic past." His aim is to draw students into the past through the power of compelling stories.
The third interviewee was Rudyard Griffiths, the Executive Director of the Dominion Institute, an organization that promotes the teaching of Canadian history in Canadian schools (Fall, 2002). Mr. Griffiths discussed the three-pronged efforts of the institute: the Memory Project, which encourages contact between war veterans and students; lobbying activities aimed at the development of national standards for school history curricula; and creation of projects which popularize Canadian history.
In this issue I interview Barry Lindahl, a secondary school social studies teacher in British Columbia and recent recipient of the Prime Minister's Award of Teaching Excellence.
You are the recipient of the Prime Minister's Award of Teaching Excellence (2000). Could you tell me what this award is?
The award, which was presented on Parliament Hill in 2001, was for recognition of teaching excellence. It can be for a body of work or as recognition of a particular year. I'm not certain that ANYONE deserves this kind of recognition. I know I have left classes since thinking THAT WAS NOT AWARD WINNING… My award came as a result of a wonderful parent, Carol Ann Jackson, who spearheaded the gathering and collation of the data necessary to prove that I was worthy of such an honour. Parents, fellow staff members, students and administrative personnel wrote recommendations and that was the "real win." Every teacher should receive a booklet like this from the people they serve. I never expected to win. I had heard that it was one teacher from a province in each year. However, in 2000, three teachers won from British Columbia. The phone call from Ottawa one morning in April made my career!
Where, and what courses do you teach?
Lately I have taught Social Studies 10, 11 and History 12. As well, I mentor new teachers of Social Studies. I find that if I give them the gems of the courses, their classes come up to speed in a very short timeframe. I was also responsible to train the school staff and run district workshops in the new technology. (Almost everyone in my department has and uses a large screen television in the classroom.) I HAVE taught Art, Reading, English, Asia Pacific Studies and Economics. I teach at West Vancouver Secondary School but I have taught the educably mentally retarded in Penticton as well as English and Social Studies in North Vancouver. As well, the federal government has offered to subsidize the costs of all Prime Minister Award of Teaching Excellence winners to talk to any school district in Canada. This is something I plan to do in the near future.
How long have you taught secondary school social studies?
I have taught for a little over 30 years and with the exception of six months in Penticton High School and six months at Balmoral in North Vancouver, it has all been at West Vancouver Secondary.
What, in your opinion, are crucial qualities for an effective history teacher?
The qualities that are crucial for a history teacher are very similar to the qualities necessary for any teacher. I was a principal of summer school for a while and in that capacity I was able to walk into the classrooms of the teachers I had hired. The commonality between the different departments was amazing! You have to love your subject. You have to be knowledgeable about your subject. You also have to like and respect students. You have to be enthusiastic about your subject. You have to want students to feel the same way about your course. Lastly, it has to be enjoyable for the teacher. If a teacher is indifferent to what he is doing, the year is very long and his career is very embittering.
In your opinion, should history be part of a social studies curriculum or a separate subject?
I teach in the best of all worlds. History 12 is a separate subject and that is great! Social studies is a combination of a number of components and it gives the students a survey of information. Both work. Not every student takes a whole history course. All students are required to take Social Studies 1-11 [in British Columbia]. This gives students who have no interest a "smattering" before other faculties whisk them away.
I fear more tampering by individuals who seemingly have little or no understanding of the courses they dismember. History 12, "Twentieth Century History," had World War One removed! What events during the twentieth century are more important? Who would remove it? By decree a teacher of twentieth century history should omit the first twenty percent of the century! I must admit that I haven't. I still teach it. Every history teacher I know still teaches it even though it is not part of the provincial curriculum. How can you understand "the world of 1919" if you don't know the circumstances that led to 1919? What historian made the decision? Will the Great Depression or World War Two be next?
Yes, it is difficult to understand that decision. I once asked someone from the Ministry of Education why that particular decision was made. His response was that the latest curriculum had to include events from the latter part of the twentieth century, and therefore there was no longer time to include World War One. To answer your question, it seems logical to conclude from that reasoning that, yes, indeed, the Great Depression and World War Two could be next!
How do you make history engaging for your students?
How do I make history engaging? History IS engaging. I have history to work with. It has poignant stories, colossal mistakes or wonderful irony. It is engaging! I've got John A. Macdonald or General Haig or Isaac Brock to work with. I have a man who has just lost his best friend, writing "In Flanders Fields." I've got Trudeau! It's life! If I do it right, it's magic…
The material has also been enhanced with a great number of PowerPoint presentations that go along with these vignettes. I've hunted around and found photographs and audio or video clips that tell the events as well. It's been a few thousand hours but now the whole department is using them. Teachers as far away as Australia are using the PowerPoints. They make it possible for students who could not normally take history because of its high reading and writing components to be successful in the class. Students can get a hard copy of the outline of notes - complete with pictures, from the school server. The History 12 course at West Vancouver Secondary has consistently had the highest participation rates of any history course in the province. The examination results even with the high participation rate are still well above the provincial average.
My job is to make people long-dead walk around the classroom for the period. For the 77-minute class, ideally these historic characters will visit each student and reveal a time in history. I consciously try to inject emotion into that period. That emotion can be sadness, laughter, or anything that will spark their memories to remember the time or event and its importance. I know that a class on the battle of the Somme or Vietnam has been good if a few of the students are crying as they leave the room. They are now a part of the past. They now understand and feel the past. I will use dialogues between characters, complete with horrible accents and exaggerated body movements - occasionally I put on a period costume.
You mentioned photographs and audio or video clips that you have located and incorporated into PowerPoint presentations. Do you have students examine other primary source documents?
Many of the primary source documents are embedded into the PowerPoint presentations. They include 19th and 20th century political cartoons and excerpts of documents. Other documents are simply distributed in class. My classroom is also a bit of a museum - military medals, helmets, historic posters, artillery shells and assorted historic bric-a-brac. There's even a Nazi German savings bond with unclipped certificates!
Where do authorized textbooks fit within your approach?
Authorized textbooks play an important role. We don't use a textbook in class. It is used at home. Students are expected to use secondary resources in their studying and their research.
Have you used the new CBC/Radio Canada series, Canada: A People's History?
I'm afraid my opinion of Canada: A People's History is not completely positive. I waited for months for the series to start. It was politically correct. They missed many of the best stories but those they did were always politically correct... I haven't used it. I never realized that history had to be politically correct even if events were omitted to illustrate an incorrect overview. I've worked with Roy Hayter at Shadow Films and I keep hoping that the series we've drafted will go. It involves the 49th parallel and the effect of Americans coming across the border throughout the centuries.
Could you elaborate on your comments about Canada: A People's History? How is it politically correct? What are some "of the best stories" that they missed?
There could be a number of examples but I guess I could mention Jacques Cartier. Cartier was portrayed as a hero and he was. He was a hero who was, with reason, frightened of the First Nations peoples. He had taken Verrazano's position after Verrazano was eaten by the Carib Indians. If you watch the Cartier segments his hostage taking and ultimate desertion of Jean Francois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval when he believed he found gold and diamonds was downplayed or omitted. Cartier was human and was portrayed as perfect... This was a trend that perpetuated itself throughout the series. I have not viewed the series since it appeared originally on TV. At the time I was disappointed; there were only fragments that I could use in my class. I sat my two daughters down in front of the TV sure that they would witness a masterpiece. Ken Burns had illustrated the Civil War in the United States, surely this would be even better. After three hours I would have had to use duct tape to keep my girls in a chair. That said, it is probably the best of what is out there. What is that saying? Perhaps Roy Hayter will be given a shot to add to what is available some day. It's a big responsibility to do the entire history of a country - too big.
Why is it important for students to learn about history?
Why is history important? It is the communal knowledge of history that welds a country together. We as a species have refused to learn history. We watch Schindler's List and then allow a Rwanda or ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Our dual histories in Canada seem to be splitting us apart. Why is history important? I guess it all can be brought down to Bill Murray and George Santayana. Both have dealt with the same theme. Bill Murray starred in the film Groundhog Day; he was forced to repeat a single day until he got it right - perfected it. Santayana said if man didn't learn from the past, he was condemned to repeat it. History is important so that man can finally move on to day two of our Groundhog Day. We've been very slow in catching on... The teaching of history may one day allow us to move ahead. There is little more important than history.
It is important, then, for history teachers to help students make connections to present events and dilemmas?
Teaching history IS bringing up dilemmas and making connections. . . It is important for students to be put into the shoes of the past. How could a nation fall for a Hitler? How could they be so stupid? When you walk them through the time and allow them to see the time, they know that all societies have to guard against the perils of leaders given absolute power.
Historian Veronica Boix-Mansilla has cautioned against making simplistic
linkages between past and present; that is, using the past as a blueprint
for interpreting the present. Rather, we need to encourage students to develop
working hypotheses which can guide their examination of contemporary events
and issues. Comments?
Simplicity is not the answer, it is a means of observing some clarity in a sea of intricacy. Boix-Mansilla has a point in her fear of simplistic linkages. Unfortunately, without SOME of those linkages, we will have nothing to base or to weigh our future. Caution is the key to any link.
Historian J.L. Granatstein and others have argued for the inclusion of more
Canadian history in the school curriculum as a way of promoting a stronger
sense of national identity. Do you agree?
I could not agree more! We have had problems in Canada. When you ask students about our national identity, they are hard pressed to give examples. Granatstein is on the right track. The step that has to precede Granatstein's is the training of social studies teachers. Too often, social studies is seen as a course that anyone can teach. ANYONE can teach social studies or history badly. More bad history or more boring history would defeat the whole concept. Canada's history is alive. Our cast of characters is second to none. Madeline de Vercheres! Dollard des Ormeaux! Walsh! Piapot! Awcheewan! Sam Hughes! Curry! The lessons they teach are timeless. They are our lessons - a part of our national identity and heritage.
What can the universities do to better prepare teachers of history and social studies?
Hire me! The university does a great job giving the student teacher methods of instruction. They come with a whole arsenal of different ways of reaching students through shared learning. History courses at university give overviews in many cases. Have you ever fallen asleep reading a university textbook? The information doesn't improve when you transfer it into a lesson. You don't really learn what a teenager will eat up until you happen upon that beautifully visual history of some event. Pierre Berton is a teacher's saviour for that. (In fact I got a chance to thank him for his contribution to my career a few years back.) Hannon and his book The Discoverers is marvelous. Student teachers ideally would come into the schools already up to speed. Look at high school textbooks; they are worse. In their first years of working teachers may be a only a few pages ahead of the students when they teach. This is unnecessary. I've been mentoring the new members of my department. I can give them the vignettes that are powerful enough to capture students. We work at noon or after school and within weeks classes can be turned around. Give me a class of prospective social studies teachers and they would be equipped with the information they need to be successful.
There is one method that is not taught and in the past decades it has been receiving a bad name - the lecture. It is powerful. It is extremely powerful. Done poorly, students watching can quickly lose their collective wills to live. At university I can remember only a few good lecturers. The good ones were wonderful. Listen to Paul Byron at West Van High and then tell me that the lecture is boring. These are skills that can and should be taught.
We can teach students about the connections between the past and the present, but how do we encourage them to actually want to make a difference?
Hopelessness is a fantastic anchor. At West Vancouver Secondary we have been blessed recently with a student who proved the power of one. This student reaffirmed a belief that had grown rather dim in me over the years. When he was in grade 12 Simon Jackson managed to save a species (The Spirit Bear). He didn't know that what he was doing was impossible. After graduation from school, he put his life on hold to continue to save the bear. If that white bear still exists in the next century, it can thank a little boy who originally got his elementary school class to write letters to the government. This student was named by Time magazine as a "saviour of the planet." Simon still comes in to talk to our student body. We use him as an example of the power of one. Our job is to destroy the idea of "I can't." There are a thousand examples in history of those who said "I MUST." Our job is to let loose the anchor.
"Let loose the anchor." That is a striking metaphor. Perhaps, on that note, we will stop. I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, and with the readers of Canadian Social Studies.
Your questions were wonderful. I'm not certain that I've given them justice. Thanks for the experience. It was fun.
Penney Clark is an Associate Professor (Social Studies Education) in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia