Remembrance Day in the Classroom

INTRODUCTION This toolkit has been created to help educate students about Remembrance Day. It introduces students to the importance of remembrance and provides guidance in planning a Remembrance Day event, whether in class or virtually. The central piece of the event is the participation of a Memory Project speaker. This toolkit encourages students and the public to reflect on what remembrance means to them, the history behind November 11, and the legacies of past wars and conflicts. It also provides educators with the opportunity to present oral history as a primary source and to incorporate firsthand accounts of these events. This kit was produced by the Memory Project and Historica Canada with generous support from the Government of Canada. Historica Canada offers programs that you can use to explore, learn, and reflect on our history and what it means to be Canadian. Find us online at HistoricaCanada.ca. An initiative of Historica Canada, the Memory Project is a volunteer speakers bureau that arranges for veterans and active members of the Canadian Armed Forces to share their stories of military service at schools and community events across the country. Memory Project speakers have reached more than 3 million Canadians since 2001. Canadians can book a speaker — and access the Memory Project Archive of more than 2,800 testimonials and 10,000 images — at www.thememoryproject.com. Due to the ongoing global pandemic, commemorating Remembrance Day will be different this year, as large in-person gatherings are currently not an option. Many organizations are opting to hold Remembrance Day ceremonies online. This resource kit was designed so that the learning activities can be completed either in the classroom or virtually, along with an in-person or virtual Remembrance Day ceremony. MESSAGE TO TEACHERS This toolkit includes classroom activities that promote research and analysis, build critical thinking and communication skills, and explore Canada’s history. This resource is designed to align with current Canadian curricula and has been produced for use in middle and high school classrooms. Teachers may wish to provide a more complete understanding of Canada’s recent military history by including topics not covered in this kit. Please be aware that the experiences of one group or a particular veteran are not representative of everyone’s, and many stories remain unexplored. The additional resources this toolkit provides, via website links, provide snapshots of the lives of veterans and servicepeople, not complete stories. We hope these resources will help you work with primary sources to teach military and oral history in your classroom, allow students to reflect on the significance of the act of remembrance, and provide a structure for you or your school to host your own Remembrance Day event. Disclaimer: Students arrive in the classroom from many different backgrounds. Be sensitive to students who have connections to those who served in military conflicts, or who are refugees or immigrants from war zones or refugee camps and who may have experienced the trauma of war firsthand. NOTE ON ACCESSIBILITY Accommodations for Special Education, ELL, and ESL students are included under the appropriate sections and identified as “Differentiation.” Certain activities in this resource kit require advanced listening comprehension skills. When viewing the video resources with ELL students, consider enabling subtitles or downloading interview transcripts from the Memory Project’s website at thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/author/the-memory-project. Remembrance Day in the Classroom A Teacher Resource Kit 1. Corinne Kernan Sévigny speaking over CKCV Radio, Quebec City (courtesy Corinne Kernan Sévigny, the Memory Project). Memory Project speaker Svend Hansen. Photo by Eric Brunt (the Memory Project).