Social Studies Article Review

Hey Everyone,

Here's my article review that was meant to be posted over a month ago but due to technical issues was not. Here it is, better late than never.

This is a summary of my journal review, which is the past: using images to travel through time, written by Ms Caille Sugarman-Banaszak and published in the journal Teaching History March 2008 edition. I chose it because it dealt with the use of images to create historical empathy and understanding though images. For example, the author starts her grade 9 Twentieth Century World class ( British curriculum) by having students bring in pictures of what they feel represents the 20th century for them. She as well brings in pictures of her own family and past history. Students see her ancestors and are encouraged to think of theirs and see that they are but a part of a continuum of histories stretching back into the past. She also intends to use pictures in a proposed field trip to Poland to study the lives of the Polish Jews prior to World War II and the Holocaust. Her plan is to take the class to places that once had large Jewish populations Her intent is to have the students navigate by these pictures and see how much has changed, and how much of a culture, a people is now absent from them.

I feel that pictures can be used effectively in creating historical empathy and linking students with the past and I would like to attempt something similar with what she is proposing but on a smaller, local scale. My proposal would be to lead a class to the RCBM archives after discussing the plight of Chinese people in Canada in the 19th century. The class would examine images from the archives and armed with copies of some of these, we would head to China Town and try to place those images in context with modern surroundings and then discuss our findings- what is left of China Town today? What is missing? How does Victoria’s China Town compare with others that once existed across BC? I think this approach would be quite effective in making ones students aware of the history that is at their very doorsteps, and also of the historical resources that exist in their community.