Ian Duncan Transcript

My name is Ian Duncan. I use he/him pronouns and I work at Garth Webb Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario. In my classroom, the motto that we use the most often is the past is the past and history is a story written about the past. And that motto has inspired us to build new narratives and empower students to take on the role of a historian, archivist, editor and curator to create an exhibit that we called the Historytellers Project.

My role was largely, hopefully, inspiration but also to guide students were asked to make their way through along an industrious inquiry map that allowed them to, you know, select tasks that made the most sense for them to play to their strengths, but also ones that would allow them to complete the work in and to expand and contract that work based on their interest. So, I'm there to guide. I spent most of my time in our project sitting at tables working with and speaking to students about what they were learning helping them to develop their skills and helping to guide them as an LGBTQ+ identifying person through a project about LGBTQ+ identifying people in Canada's history.

The students really responded so well to the work. Most of my students have not shared that they're 2LGBTQ plus people and while some have, some haven't and most maybe not identify in that part of the community. So I think that, for me, it was the curiosity they felt about others that was the biggest impact. I mean they showed genuine care and empathy and curiosity for others who are like them or for most of them not like them at all. They went out and found these stories, selected these photographs, worked tirelessly to make sure that they were almost perfect. And so the activation and engagement was absolutely astounding. When it comes to the school, I mean, the exhibits that we've created, one's a digital exhibit. It's hosted on the ArQuives website called the Historytellers Project. So there is a digital exhibit of all of the student work and those archival photographs that the work is based off of. But then we've also created beautiful panels, a living physical exhibit that stood proudly in our building.

You know, when we take up space as queer and trans people in history, that's very important to recognize. But we also got to take up space as queer and trans people in our school. And for the hundreds of queer-identifying students here at my school, it would be like a really, I think, really wonderful thing to see these big beautiful panels proudly declaring our history for the whole building to see. The community was invited to an opening event. We had some press coverage. It was really a fantastic way to sort of bring attention to typically unheard stories. You know, ultimately, I think as a history teacher, I'm really trying to empower students to be historians too. A new generation of Canadians can write historical narratives. They can write ones that didn't exist before. They can also write and rewrite ones that have already existed with new information that represent the diversity of the country and the diversity of my classroom. That's the thing I think is the most unique and maybe towards how my practice has grown in recent years.

I've always had, in my opinion, a classroom based on thinking, not just knowledge. And so I think having spent time in the foundations of historical thinking, it's really allowed me to grow up and out from there so that I see that historical thinking every single day in my classroom, but also now we've taken it to a new level of historianship and engaging with the historians' craft and trying to give students a voice in the creation and construction of our history. Young people engaging in history is really important to me and it's not just in learning the lessons and getting good grades, but it's also about becoming better Canadians.

And I think through knowledge of Canada and Canada's interactions in the world throughout the last 150 years, that our students gain a lot of insight into who we are as a country. But I also think that engaging in a history classroom allows them to have a new voice. The inquiry of my classroom asks them to decide what they think about history. So, their voice is paramount. It's the one that I want to hear the most of. I don't want them to tell me what I think. I don't want them to tell me what I know. I want them to tell me what they know and what they think. And that is really centered in my practice as an educator.