Arctic Yearbook 2014
56
classroom. The team added a new section to the module’s second edition, which outlined concrete
options for students’ final projects. These included art, multimedia projects, a persuasive letter, or an
action project, focused on community expressions of reconciliation. Tracking the use of the
module’s second edition amongst teachers, there was progress on the comprehensive
implementation of all 12 module activities, plus students’ final project. Teachers were better able to
complete all activities. Efforts to support students’ roles in reconciliation are paying off: In 20132014, classrooms demonstrated more concrete outcomes regarding students’ civic and community
engagement. Teachers provided examples of students’ innovative final project work: these ranged
from art, students creating videos depicting historical moments, student generated program and
infrastructure proposals, to student led policy debates and mapping projects. This was a notable
improvement from the results demonstrated by the module’s first edition, where findings on civic
engagement were mixed. Some teachers noted they had not yet reached the ultimate goal of
authentically engaging the community in the students’ learning. Ongoing efforts are needed to
support teachers towards this aim. For example, students at lower literacy levels struggled with some
activities in the second edition of the module. Teachers identified this as a barrier to full
implementation of activities, a finding supported across all regions sampled.
Discussion
The territorial pilot study resulted in four key themes: empathy, student understandings of historical
significance, critical thinking and critical hope.11 This paper focuses on the latter three themes, which
link directly to fostering a critical, engaged and empowered citizenry, necessary for fostering human
capital in the Canadian North.
Historical Significance: “We Can Understand More and Pass All the Knowledge and History
to our Future Generations”
…My grandma would always talk about the stuff that she’s been through…Mostly how their
traditional lives changed, how they lost their language and stuff...I felt devastated