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| My Halloween Door. |
With the arrival of November, teachers and students
began taking down all the Halloween decorations on the classroom doors and
hallways. I also recovered one of my
tables that had been used for the high school haunted house. Another Halloween had come and gone, leaving
behind memories and lots of candy.
Naturally, many students . . . and possibly teachers were on sugar
rushes during the first week of November.
In
Grade 10 Social Studies, we continued our study of the Canadian Residential School system by looking at the history of colonization in Canada and the tools
that were used to "civilize" Aboriginal children. Some of these included: forcibly separating
children from their families, sending them to schools far, far away, cutting
their hair, giving them southern uniforms to wear, and forbidding them to speak
their language and practice their culture.
My
students also reviewed and learned new terms, such as, assimilation, colonization,
Manifest Destiny, the Indian Act, and genocide.
After a short debate, we came to the conclusion that cultural genocides
were taking place within many residential schools. Thankfully, this wasn't the case in other
schools. From the locals I've spoken to,
residential school students who came from Arctic Bay were not subjected to
physical, emotional, and sexual abuses.
My
Grade 10s watched the Canadian documentary film We Were Children, that recounts the troubled experiences of two
residential school survivors: Lyna Hart and Glen Anaquod. Lyna attended Guy Hill Residential School in
Manitoba and Glen was sent to Lebret Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. The film is well-made but there are several
difficult scenes that some would find disturbing. If any teacher reading this is thinking of
showing this film to their class, make sure you watch it first and then warn
your students of what they are about to see.
With
Remembrance Day & the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WW1 fast
approaching, my Grade 11 students studied several important battles where
Canadian soldiers participated. These
included Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, and Canada's Hundred Days. We also read about the infamous Halifax Explosion of 1917. For visual aids, I
presented pictures I took at Vimy Ridge this past summer, showed several
Heritage Minute clips, and the film Passchendaele.
For
the first week of November, my Grade 12 Social Studies students worked on their
projects. They were able to get much
research, brainstorming, and writing done despite the Internet being slow. Slow Internet is one of the biggest complaints
in northern communities. I hope the
situation will improve substantially when the Arctic Fibre project is completed
in 2016.
When
I saw my drummers on the Monday after Halloween, they looked relieved, as if
huge weights had been lifted off of their shoulders. Up until a few days ago, they never performed
in front of a large audience. They
confessed to being nervous all the way through the performance. I began my debriefing by reassuring them that
feeling nervous was normal; the challenge is not to be overcome by it and to
remain focused. I also reinforced the
fact that their performance was well-received and it was not a disaster. With Halloween behind us, it was now time to
focus on new material and the Christmas concert in December. We started practicing advanced rudiments,
such as, drag paradiddles, double drags, flamacues, and ratamacues.
Parent-Teacher
interviews occurred on November 5th in the afternoon. There were only morning classes that day. Over the span of four hours, I spoke to many
parents about the academic performance and behaviour of their child. The discussions I had were insightful and
cooperative.
November
6 was the day when the sun "disappeared" from Arctic Bay. The body of the sun no longer rose above the
mountains but sunlight still illuminated the land. From then on, about twenty minutes of
sunlight would be lost each day. Polar
nights would steadily become the norm and would remain that way until February
of next year. Of course, the temperature
would steadily get colder as well. The order of the day is always dress warmly, carry a flashlight, and take some Vitamin D pills. When you're the proud owner of a vehicle (ie. skidoo, atv, etc), the colder temperatures force you to start your vehicle(s) much earlier because they now need more time to warm up. At the moment, I leave my skidoo on idle for about 5 - 8 minutes before driving to my destination. It's safe to assume that by early December, my skidoo will need at least 10 minutes to warm up.
The
school, Northern Store, and local Co-op were closed on Tuesday, November 11, for
Remembrance Day. The staff and cadets of
3045 Army Cadet Corps held a Remembrance Day ceremony at the Community Hall to
honour Canada's veterans who served and continue to serve in times of war, conflict,
and peace. A platoon of fifteen Canadian Rangers were also in attendance.
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| Remembrance Day info display. |
My role
this year was the Address and to press "play" when the program called
for the playing of a musical piece over the PA system (ex: O Canada, Last Post,
Reveille). For the Address, I had to
write & present a short speech about the history and significance of
Remembrance Day. The master of
ceremonies (MC) was Arctic Bay resident Clare Kines. He did the Address last year when I was the
MC so we basically swapped roles. We had
locals read selected Bible passages and do the Act of Remembrance. Three cadets read John McCrae's famous poem, In Flander's Fields. We recruited the services of a local
translator to assist us in translating everything from English to Inuktitut.
The
ceremony went off as planned with no significant problems. The cadets were on their best behaviour and
their uniforms looked immaculate. We had
an honour guard and flag party. Poppies
were worn by everyone who attended. When
called upon, the Rangers and cadets each laid a wreath in front of a portrait
of Queen Elizabeth II. At the conclusion
of the ceremony, the cadets posed for a corps photograph.
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